Chapter Thirteen
“There’s our star journalist hard at work.”
Jessie looked up from the notes she was jotting down to see Dr. Kilcannon standing in Garrett’s office door, his Irish setter close on his heels. “Good morning,” she said, setting aside her papers to greet him with a quick hug. “We’re finally getting this interview started. Hello, Rusty,” she said, giving the dog a scratch.
“I heard the interview started last night,” he said with a chuckle in his voice.
She lifted her brows, uncertain what to say.
“Garrett rarely misses a Wednesday night dinner. It’s a Waterford tradition, you know.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. And, yes, we did a little work on the profile over dinner.”
The older man grinned at her, a glimmer in his eyes. “You won’t get an argument from me, young lady. I couldn’t be happier if you and Garrett take a night on the town together. He’s a workaholic and needs someone like you to distract him.”
“Well, I don’t…” She gave a nervous laugh. “It was just, you know…” She wanted to say work, but that would have been a lie. “Fun,” she finished.
“That’s exactly what I want to hear.”
Except he hadn’t encouraged this interview for fun. “We’re really getting down to the nuts and bolts today, so I’m afraid I’ll have him tied up for a few hours. Were you looking for him?”
“I was looking for Shane, actually, who is not in his office, and I thought he might be here with Garrett.”
“I left Garrett in the kennels after I visited with Lola for a while,” Jessie said. “He said he was going to stop and get coffee and meet me here. I haven’t seen Shane, though. Isn’t he out of town?”
“I’m right here. Got back last night,” a male voice boomed from outside the door, and a second later, Shane came in behind Dr. K. Rusty got up, barked, and sniffed the new arrival’s shoes.
Shane Kilcannon had hardly changed at all, Jessie thought.
He’d always been tall and broad, with thick hair cut short, somewhere right between rich brown and burnished gold. He had arresting hazel eyes that Annie Kilcannon had brought to the gene pool, but sinfully dark lashes and a strong jaw proved that he was as much Daniel’s son as he was Annie’s.
“I heard you were back, Whippet Legs.”
Dr. K gave a soft hoot.
“Thanks for that legacy,” she teased Dr. K as she reached out to give Shane a hug. “Nice to see you again, Shane. You look great.”
He broke away and gave her a friendly once-over. “Not as great as you. Yes, this explains the pressed shirt and pricey shave balm on my brother.”
“I see nothing’s changed with the Kilcannons,” she mused.
“Including family-night dinners,” Dr. K said. “You missed last night, but will you join us on Sunday? It’ll be like old times having Whippet Legs at the table.”
“Of course.” The very idea made her smile. “Oh, I’d love that, thank you.”
“So how’s the project going?” Shane asked. “You’re not making Garrett feel like a miserable witness on the stand, are you?”
“I’m not cross-examining him,” she told Shane. “This process is supposed to be fun.”
“Be sure you can spell boring, because he is,” Shane joked. “Now, if you want fascinating, hilarious, and great-looking, I’m right here.”
“Actually, I would like to talk to you to add color and depth to the story. And you, Dr. K,” she added. “I understand that this whole dog training and rescue facility was your idea.”
“Just the germ of an idea,” he said, as humble as his son. His middle son. “This whole place was built on the brains and sweat of my kids. And I’m damn proud of that. I’d love to talk about it for your article. Maybe we can sit down on Sunday?”
“Perfect, thank you.” She beamed at both of them. “It’s so good to be back in the Kilcannon house.”
“And it’s good to have you here,” Dr. K said, putting a warm hand on her shoulder. “Now you take your time and get everything you need from Garrett. Don’t let him hold back.”
“Unless he wants to,” Shane added. “Speaking as his lawyer, that is.”
Why would his lawyer give a warning like that? “Any subjects I should avoid?” she asked.
“Which will be exactly where you’ll go.”
She sighed, used to the distrust of the media, but wishing she could get the benefit of being a family insider. At least with Garrett and, now, Shane. “Not if you ask me not to,” she assured him.
“Jessie is a good kid,” Dr. K said, making her feel about ten years old. “She’s always been a good kid. And she still is a good kid.” Maybe eight years old.
Shane gave her enough of a skeptical smile to make her think he didn’t think she was good or a kid. “I’m sure she’ll be fair and not let the world know that Garrett Kilcannon is a mere shadow of his older brother.”
“Clear out, older brother.” Garrett marched in with two cups of coffee and a scowl on his face as he looked from his father to Shane. “Unless you guys want to do this for me, because I have work to do.”
Shane grinned at Jessie. “Have fun, kids,” he said, slipping out.
“I’m sure you two will do just fine,” Dr. K added, signaling Rusty to leave with him. “And don’t stay stuck in here all day. Go sit by the lake for a while.”
“We’ll walk Lola later,” Garrett assured him, ushering his father out. “Thank you. Goodbye. Torture is done in private.”
“Torture?” Jessie laughed when he closed the door with a solid thud. “You’re going to talk about yourself for a while. How is that torture?”
He turned, his expression softening as he handed her a coffee. “You heard my brother. I’m not that interesting.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” She lifted the cup in a mock toast. “Now, Garrett Kilcannon, sit down in that chair and tell me how it is possible that a man who kisses like you do and has a heart of gold has never been in love.”
He froze. “That’s it? That’s where we’re starting? Love?”
“You have a better place?”
He blew out a breath and walked around his desk, even though she wanted him comfortable on the leather couch next to her. “Let me tell you about the day we reached ten million images shared on PetPic instead.”
So that was how it was going to be. He wanted to control this interview. Fine. “Okay, start there.”
But it wouldn’t be where they ended.
* * *
By the time they got outside with Lola, Garrett was inexplicably wiped. Hungry, restless, sick of his own voice, and tired of fielding questions, no matter how pretty his inquisitor.
Every fact he gave her—about his college years, how he came up with the PetPic concept, how the company grew, what it was like to build it—all countered with…How did that make you feel? and What moment crystallizes in your mind? and How did you celebrate the day you sold your company?
He managed not to go into too much detail on that last one. Because merely the mention of a trip to Las Vegas would have opened up a can of worms he wanted to keep buried.
All morning, he danced and evaded and avoided and skimmed the surface of every form of a “why” question that she asked. By early afternoon, he could tell she was a little frustrated and probably as hungry and over this as he was.
Not that talking about the history of starting a company and growing it to the point of being able to sell it for millions of dollars was exhausting, but the story was laden with land mines. One land mine. The Claudia Cargill land mine.
Well, she wasn’t Cargill anymore, which was why that particular mine could blow up.
“I’m famished,” he said, snagging two lunch boxes set up on a picnic table for employees and guests to grab.
“Don’t the dogs go sniffing at all these boxes?” Jessie asked, keeping an eye on Lola.
“Not if they’re trained. And the untrained ones aren’t allowed over here. Lola has obviously been trained.”
“And then left at a rest stop.” Bitterness darkened her voice, then she caught herself and put a hand over her mouth. “You think she understands English?”
“Dogs understand people, if not the exact words,” he replied.
“Oh, Lola, my love.” She stopped, dropped, and wrapped both arms around the dog’s neck. “I’m sorry for any injustice ever done to you.”
Lola took a good long lick of Jessie’s cheek.
“I asked for that.” She stood, wiping her face with the back of her hand.
He laughed for the first time in hours. Not that his story was so serious, but he had to be so careful, and getting comfortable and laughing wasn’t a good idea.
They took the same trail as the other day, but went farther now, since Lola was so much more energetic. Spring lingered in the air, as if it knew its days were numbered and the heat and humidity of a North Carolina summer would press down on Bitter Bark. But today was cool, dry, sunny, and so much better out here than in there that Garrett could have dropped his head back and howled with relief.
“So do you go through all these seven levels of hell for every single interview you do?”
She elbowed him playfully. “Hate to break the news to you, but that was the first level.”
“God help me.”
She linked her arm through his and gave a sympathetic squeeze. “Let’s take a break.”
“A legit break?”
“Absolutely, one hundred percent off the record, you have my word.” She tightened her grip a little, clinging to him enough that he believed her. “I really want to talk about Lola.”
“Okay.” Relief washed over him. “I’m with you.” He studied the dog, who trotted next to her, head high, eyes alert. A happy, healthy, well-loved dog. “She’s doing so great with you. I saw her with the trainers during the kennel cleaning this morning, and she’s really adjusting better.”
“But something’s bothering me,” she said. “I was thinking about her all night.”
While he’d been thinking about Jessie. “And?”
“Look, I don’t know what you know about dogs, obviously. But I do know about people and…motivations.” She hesitated for a minute, gathering her thoughts. “Leaving the dog like the guy in the truck did? It doesn’t fit. What if he wasn’t her owner? What if there really is another owner looking like crazy for her dog?”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking that, too.” He woke up thinking it, in fact, but after kennel duty, every moment had been consumed by the interview.
He guided her to where a thicket of trees had been cleared around this part of Crescent Creek, leaving about six or seven feet of clear swimming in the spring and summer. Next to it, there was a grassy area where they could sit and Lola could spread out in the sun.
“If someone loved Lola that much, they wouldn’t leave her in a situation like that,” she continued, folding onto the grass. “It simply doesn’t make any sense.”
He joined her, giving her one of the box lunches. “No, it doesn’t make sense.”
“Someone might still be out there pining for Lola the way she’s pining.”
Lola wasn’t pining for anything at the moment. She was on her side between them, her snout tucked against Jessie’s thigh. Good place to be, come to think of it.
Opening his lunch, he pulled out a sandwich on Irish soda bread that had Gramma Finnie’s signature all over it. “Leaving a dog at an interstate rest stop isn’t consistent with a person who loved and trained that dog,” he said.
“That’s what I think. So what if Lola was stolen? Or lost, and this guy who left her found her and realized he couldn’t keep her? Doesn’t that make more sense?”
“Infinitely.” He took a bite and chewed, his mind already flipping through what he planned to do as soon as he had a moment. “I have a network of people who work in shelters and vet offices and even breeders all over the country. I’ll tap into the folks in Rhode Island to see if anyone has reported a missing border collie-Aussie shepherd mix.”
“Is that all you can do?”
He shrugged. “Social media would be next. I can contact someone at FriendGroup to do a scan of missing-dog postings.” He swallowed a little hard, knowing that he’d lost a lot of friends when he left the company, so it wasn’t like he had a huge list of possible people to ask.
One who would definitely help him, though. One who promised they’d always be friends.
“You could do that?” she asked, her expression brightening. “Don’t you want to?”
Contact Claudia? Not in the least. “Sure,” he said. “But let me start with my Rhode Island database. Now that we have a state, it will be one simple email and could get an answer immediately.”
She smiled at that, nuzzling her face against Lola’s ear. “You hear that, sweetheart?”
Eating his sandwich, he watched the two of them for a minute, appreciating the bond that was building, one Jessie probably wasn’t even aware of. And if their theory proved true?
“Careful, Jessie,” he warned softly. “If we succeed in finding Lola’s loving owner, you’ll have to say goodbye.”
She melted more into the dog. “But she’d be happier.”
“I don’t know if she could be any happier,” he said, giving the dog a pat. “Look at that smile.”
Jessie sat up, her own smile broad as she reached for a phone in her jeans pocket. “I have to get a picture of that.”
“There,” he said, snapping his fingers and pointing to the phone. “That’s what I tried to put into words for half an hour this morning. The urge to capture—and share—a millisecond of a dog’s expression is universal. It’s primal. It’s irresistible.”
Just like watching Jessie take the picture of a dog she was falling in love with.
She tapped her screen a few times before Lola shifted her position and the moment was gone. But not before it was shot and would be shared, an action that had made Garrett’s business so successful. Then she thumbed furiously. “Are you sending it to someone?”
“No, I’m writing down that quote. It’s perfect. It captures what matters to you and what makes you so interesting.”
He shook his head and let out a grunt. “You promised we were done.”
“Then quit saying pithy things like that.” She put down the phone and opened a bag of chips, popping one into her mouth. “And I can handle it.”
“Pithy quotes?”
“Saying goodbye to Lola,” she said. “Although…” She glanced longingly at the dog. “It would be nice to be her…what did you call me? Her person.”
“All dogs need a person,” he said.
“All people need a person,” she replied softly.
Her confessions from the night before came tumbling back. Along with the memory of how good it felt to kiss her. “I’m sure you’ll find your person, Jessie.”
She looked up from Lola’s well-petted fur to meet his eyes. “I’ve got lots of people. Friends and family. Not that Stephanie is the sister of the year, but…why are you looking at me that way?”
“What way?”
“Like you don’t believe me.”
“I believe you.” He reached over Lola to touch Jessie’s chin, more for the pleasure of touching her than to get her attention, which he had. “What I don’t believe is that some guy hasn’t scooped you up and taken the job of being your person very seriously.”
She almost smiled, but it faded. “Not my fate to be anyone’s…number one.”
As if to underscore that, Lola stood up and took a few steps away to sniff some grass. And Garrett moved right in and got closer to Jessie. “What does that mean?”
She tried to shrug off the question, shifting her attention to Lola, then glancing around. “You want to play fetch, sweetie? I’ll find a—”
“Jessie.” He put his hand over hers. “Don’t change the subject. It’s my turn to ask probing questions.”
“How you started your business isn’t probing. Hate to tell you this, honey, but there was no real probing this morning.” She turned her hand and threaded their fingers. “I was warming up for the real game. But not until you kick up that search in Rhode Island.”
“I was wrong.”
“About Rhode Island?”
“About you and Lola. If you’re ready to put the Rhode Island search above another hour of questions, then you’ve already fallen for her.”
She let out a sigh. “Yeah, maybe.”
He studied her for a moment, lost in eyes the same color as the grass behind her, inexplicably drawn to her, feeling something he hadn’t felt for a long, long time. Not your garden-variety attraction, but something deeper. A connection. A connection that made him want to open up to her and get even closer. Which made him wonder…was it her extraordinary skill or her extraordinary self that made him feel that way?
“Garrett?”
“How are you doing this?”
She lifted a brow. “Not really doing anything…yet.”
He slid his fingers through her silky locks, enjoying the feel more than he’d enjoyed anything in a long time. There was something about her. Something.
Something he wanted.
Their lips met in the middle, a mutual kiss started by both and instantly deeper.
Falling on the grass was easy. Tucking her under him was perfect. And letting their bodies mold against each other was as natural as breathing.
She purred contentedly as he broke the kiss to trail his lips down her neck, arching enough to give him access to the sweet, warm skin of her throat.
Blood pulsed in his head as his hands traveled up and down her sides, her T-shirt slipping up enough that his fingers grazed her skin. And more blood rushed, building heat with each kiss, making him ache to press harder against her.
“Garrett, what are we doing?”
He laughed into the next kiss. “Reenacting that night in the kennels?”
“Oh.” Her hips rocked slightly, enough to give him no choice but to move against her in the same way. “You almost made it all day without mentioning that.”
“Because I can’t forget it.” He stroked her side, touching her possessively.
“You were a good kisser all the way back then. I remember.”
“Do you remember”—he inched his hand higher up her warm skin—“this?”
“That’s how I got myself into this predicament.”
Lifting his head, he narrowed his eyes at her, not following.
“My boss asked how well I knew you, and I said you were the first man to touch my boobs.”
He felt his lips kick up in a satisfied smirk. “I was?”
“Hey, I was barely sixteen. The image of inexperience.”
“And you told your boss that?”
“He asked how well I knew you. He wasn’t overly impressed, by the way.”
“Then he’s stupid.” He slid his hand over the bare skin of her stomach, letting out a soft grunt at how good it felt. “Because this is impressive.”
“This is…crazy.”
He looked at her, waiting and sinking a little deeper into an attraction he didn’t really want to feel…but didn’t want to fight, either.
“I like you,” she whispered.
He started to respond, but she put a finger over his mouth.
“I really like you,” she repeated. “I want to kiss you…a lot. I want to lie in the sun and make out for hours. I probably don’t want to stop at kissing, either.” She pressed her finger harder to keep him from saying anything. “This is probably—no, wait, no probably about it—this is unprofessional, questionable, and maybe not the brightest move on my part. Still, I can’t stop thinking about it. Wanting it. Wanting you. I get the impression you might be feeling the same thing.”
“I am,” he whispered. “Exactly the same.”
“But I’m supposed to be interviewing you, writing a profile, doing my job.”
“Yeah, well, I’m supposed to be avoiding you, spending as little time as possible with you.”
She frowned at him. “You are?”
“That was my evil plan for at least a week.” He gestured to the picnic and their closely lined up bodies. “Fail.”
“You better fail with that plan. My boss did not send me down here to play Manhunt, and if I screw this up because…because I like you, then I’m going to be sorry when I get back to New York.”
He considered that, nodding, seeking out a solution to the problem the way his mind always did. “We need boundaries,” he said. “A place where we do your interview, and everywhere else is…safe.”
“Safe.” She breathed the word as if it felt foreign and wonderful and right to her.
But was it? Could he trust her? He closed his eyes and pulled her into him, putting a kiss on her forehead as if that sealed the deal.
If he didn’t take a chance and trust her, then Claudia won. Betrayal won. Love didn’t have a chance.
Love?
It was the first time he’d thought of that concept in a long time, and it felt so damn good.
“Safe,” he repeated, tipping her chin up. “Let’s try it.”
Her answer was to kiss him softly on the mouth, angling her head and bowing her back to offer him her body.
Which he would have taken, but Lola started barking furiously, making them both turn as a group of dog training students came marching down the path single file, each with a dog.
Lola darted toward them, making Jessie leap up to get her, killing the intimate moment but not his hope that a woman—this woman—could be safe for him.
Once she got hold of Lola, she turned, beckoning him. “Back to the torture chamber, Garrett. We’re not done.”
Oh no, they were not done. Not even close.