Caleb watched through the peephole in the door until Riley disappeared into her grandmother’s apartment, the gold-plated 6 in 206 rocking when the door swung open. Riley Carson was a woman, a beautiful woman, and because he’d opened his stupid mouth and said that thing about firing her, she didn’t like him. Not much anyway and rightly so. Sometimes he could hear his father’s words coming out of his mouth, and he couldn’t stop himself.
Business was business, but he had the feeling Riley Carson was a lot more than business. He couldn’t decide if it was cute or delusional that she thought her grandmother owned the building. Definitely leaning toward cute. Too bad she was going to straight up hate him when the condo conversion notices went out. He pushed down the sense of loss, pushed the image of dark eyes—both hers and her dog’s—out of his mind, and turned to check out his new future.
It wasn’t easy. He kept thinking of Riley’s downright pleased smirk when she’d put him to work mopping floors, the flex of capable muscles under that ragged T-shirt while she worked alongside him. And all those shoes outside her door. If he were a neighbor, public shoe storage would be an outrage. Worse, he found it adorably quirky, like her sweet poodle, and that was more troubling than her willfully ignoring the line between private and public space. Equally troubling was how hard he found it to focus on the business at hand. Inspect the apartment. Take notes. Plan for the future. He strode toward the small kitchen, the heart of the home and the perfect place to start his analysis.
Twenty minutes. That’s how long it takes for a dream to die. Caleb ended his tour of the one-bedroom in the living room. If all thirty-two studios and one-bedroom units were as run-down as this one, it was going to take more money than Grandpa William was willing to loan him to upgrade the place. Galley kitchens, tiny bathrooms, broken tiles. He was no architect or engineer to evaluate the sturdiness of the building itself, but the basic construction seemed sound enough. Cosmetic repairs alone, however, were already totaling tens of thousands in his head for this one unit.
Maybe it wasn’t so bad. Riley Carson wasn’t the complete screwup he’d imagined at first, and maybe with an influx of cash from the renters buying into the condo conversion and some skilled management… Oh, who was he kidding? The renters would most likely not be able to afford to buy into the conversion, at least based on his study of the median income in the neighborhood, so he’d be kicking out Riley’s grandmother and all her friends.
On paper, it’d made sense to go for a higher-end market, and he hadn’t thought much about the renters who’d be displaced. If they’d found this rental, they’d find another, he’d reasoned. Now he wondered how long Patty had lived here and where she and her walker would go once the renovations started.
Robert Donovan would never feel the guilt gnawing at Caleb’s gut—he’d do what had to be done to make the place profitable. And that was what Caleb needed to do, too, for his grandfather and his brothers. If he could get his brothers to play ball. Grandpa William’s stipulation circled in his head, a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve. He took some pictures with his iPad, hoping something would pop out as the missing piece that he could present to his brothers.
Maybe he’d figure out something else for Patty and the other renters. He could already hear his father’s laughter. “Why bother?” he’d say. “It’s only a bunch of old people.” But his father hadn’t met Patty, hadn’t seen her wobbly walk and wobblier hands. Caleb couldn’t simply kick her out, but maybe she’d be better off in an assisted-living facility. Yeah, that was what he’d do. He’d find more accommodating accommodations for the fifty-five-plus residents. They’d be happier in their new homes where their needs were better met.
How he’d do that, he had no idea, and he knew for sure his father’s legal team would advise against it. But they were gone now, as soon as the last check was cashed, and Caleb would make his own decisions. He was building his own company, not his father’s. Well, not quite his. That damn stipulation of Grandpa William’s needed to be addressed, and he needed his uncooperative half brothers to do it.
“Call Lance.” Caleb bit the words out tersely, and soon the phone was ringing. Once, twice, voicemail. Just like the last five times. “Dammit, I know you’re screening me. Call me back.” The same message he’d left yesterday. “It’s about Grandpa William. Seriously, you need to call.”
It wasn’t a lie. Grandpa William was the reason he was trying to reach his brother—both his brothers, actually—but Lance was closest, still in the Miami area, and if Caleb could get him at least to offer some advice or do a minor job on the project, maybe Grandpa William would bend on the stricter stipulations of his business proposal. Give him props for good-faith effort. Maybe cough up some more cash.
Caleb hoped so because Knox, the oldest of Robert Donovan’s three sons, was not an easy man to track down. Getting him to agree to Grandpa William’s conditions would be tricky. Knox was career military and had never shown an ounce of interest in the family hotel business. The business their father, Robert Donovan, bankrupted and destroyed but that Grandpa William was sure a helping of family togetherness could put right.
Family togetherness? The last time he’d seen Knox was when he left for basic training sixteen years ago. And Lance? Caleb had sat in the back row at Lance’s wedding and had a few too many manhattans at the reception. Lance was divorced now, must be over three years ago. Sure, the three of them had different mothers, but they were still brothers. How could so much time have passed without any contact?
Honestly, he didn’t blame Lance for not calling him back. If the tables were turned, he’d want nothing to do with the brother who’d stuck by Dad’s side, even stupidly defended his actions in court, either. Knox and Lance had seen their father for who he really was early on, but Caleb had held out hope that their father had a larger plan, that somehow it would work out, and he’d let his father’s fight with his brothers become his own.
Stupidly, he was as guilty of pushing them away as his father had been. He could only hope that his brothers would eventually hear him out and maybe even forgive him. Grandpa William wouldn’t sign the deed over to Caleb alone. All three brothers needed to be in business together. Caleb didn’t like having his hands tied, but a deal is a deal, as Grandpa William liked to say, and Grandpa William had been adamant that without all three brothers, there was no deal.
Even more pressing, though, was his need to find out how their lives away from Robert Donovan had turned out. Without their father pulling their strings, what kind of men had they become? And could they help him figure out how to keep the best of being a Donovan while leaving the worst behind?
Pacing the boxed-in living room—really, had no one thought to knock out the kitchen wall and open the place up?—he made one more call to the most recent number he had for Knox, even though it rang and rang and never went to voicemail. He stopped at the entrance to the kitchen, fingers gliding over the pencil marks on the doorframe. Someone grew up here, someone long gone now, but their progress from three feet, two inches to five foot ten remained behind, like a crab leaving its shell when it grows too small. He knew it wasn’t Riley’s life marked out on the wall, but he pictured her anyway, growing from year to year, her Grams marking time and keeping her close all these years.
Caleb tried to imagine his father—always on the phone brokering some deal or another—taking the time to measure him at the beginning and end of every school year. The picture was even more ridiculous than trying to envision his mother with a pencil and measuring tape in hand instead of the tiny Pomeranian whose paws rarely touched the ground. Perhaps one of his nannies would’ve done it if he’d asked, but none of them ever lasted an entire school year.
Midday sun blazed through the back-facing window, and Caleb slumped to the floor, heedless of the dirt and dust, and sat cross-legged on the chipped pine. Elbows propped on his knees, he rolled his neck and took a few deep breaths. This project wasn’t about his parents or his brothers or the past. He was supposed to build the Donovan future, and although he’d worked for his father’s company since graduating from Duke with his business degree eight years ago, he’d never singled-handedly headed a project of this type before. Conversion? He gazed up at the lopsided ceiling fan with the cracked blade. It’d be easier to raze the building to the ground and start from scratch, just like he was having to do with the business.
He pushed aside the memories of the day the feds came to the office and took his father away in cuffs, of the endless days spent in the courthouse while the trial dragged on, the slam of the gavel after the guilty verdict was delivered. His mother’s useless tears; the lawyer’s even-more-useless assurances that the business was protected. All that was in the past, and if he wanted to move forward, then he had to make this condo conversion work. Maybe his father’s less-than-legal business practices cost the family everything, but that didn’t mean Caleb hadn’t learned a useful thing or two from his old man. People liked new; they liked shiny, sleek, modern. And Caleb would deliver.
“LouLou!”
The familiar shout shook Caleb out of his reverie. He walked to the window that looked out over the back lot, an overgrown plot of land that, according to the blueprints Grandpa William had shown him, was technically part of the property but had never been developed. An aging chain-link fence enclosed the land, and a handful of people congregated in one corner while half a dozen dogs of many shapes and sizes roamed the grass. A German shepherd and a black Lab raced the perimeter, and a Chihuahua barked from the top of a tree stump every time they ran by. What had Riley called it? A dog park?
“LouLou!” she shouted again.
He leaned into the window, craning to see her. There she was, T-shirt showing a tantalizing flash of belly when she raised her arm. LouLou danced on her hind legs, catching Riley’s shorts. Caleb held his breath, wondering if he was about to get an eyeful, but all he could make out was a flash of hot pink, just like her toenails. Riley laughed, brushed the dog away, and hitched the denim back over her hips.
“LouLou, fetch!” she yelled and used some sort of catapult contraption to fling the ball. The poodle ran toward the far fence before the ball even left the catapult. Soon, she was flying back toward Riley, bright-pink ball in her mouth. Though Riley threw the ball again and again, LouLou never seemed to lose interest or energy, always back in a flash and ready to go again. Age and incontinence weren’t slowing that dog down one bit.
Caleb couldn’t help himself. He locked up Unit 207 with the master key Grandpa William’d given him, took the elevator down, and ambled toward the back lot. LouLou saw him coming before Riley did and, with an excited yip, ran toward him. He crouched down on one side of the chain-link fence while the poodle tried to lick him through the diamond-shaped holes.
“I see you, girl.” He scratched behind her ears, and she leaned against the fence, curls pushing through to his side.
“You found the dog park.” Riley leaned against the fence, too, arms raised above her head to hang onto the chain-link. He didn’t look at how her breasts strained against her T-shirt. He didn’t.
The lot was filled with patchy grass and a few tree stumps. “Not much of a dog park, is it?”
She laughed and scooped up LouLou. “It’s not the dirt that makes a dog park. It’s the dogs. Come on in, and I’ll introduce you.”
Caleb had done his research. He knew the zoning regulations and where the nearest schools were, but her offer would give him something he couldn’t find in county records or on the internet—a real feel for how the community would react to the proposal he’d submitted to the city.
“Hang on.” Caleb located a gap in the fence that looked well used as an entry point, chain-link bent back so the pointy bits didn’t point at him. He saw another opening across the lot, two poles leaning away from each other to create an odd door—an upside-down triangle through which a middle-aged man in a business suit was trying to coax a reluctant Yorkie. Caleb pushed the broken chain-link a few inches more to the side, careful of the sharp ends where someone had clearly cut the chain. Vandalism. Was there no end to the problems with this property?
“Watch your step.” She offered her hand as if he’d need help squeezing through. He wasn’t an old lady to need assistance crossing the street, but considering what a butthead he’d been—You’re fired, indeed—he felt lucky to be offered this olive branch. He placed his fingers against her soft palm. And discovered a different problem. He didn’t want to let go.
Her cheeks were bright with color, and a dimple flashed in each one. Every muscle in his body tensed. Not in the oh-crap-what-has-Dad-done-now way of the past year, but more like an oh-crap-she-is-so-damn-beautiful fashion. Their eyes locked, and with a gentle tug, she guided him through and let go of his hand. He tightened his muscles to keep from clenching her fingers in his and pulling her back against him. Her long body would fit snugly against his, he could tell, her head high enough that all that curly hair would tickle his nose.
Riley bent her knees, placed her dog carefully in the grass and, if he wasn’t mistaken, took a steadying breath. Lord knows he needed one, too. He dragged air into his lungs. Pushed it out. Reminded himself they’d just met, and he’d bungled asking her to dinner to such a degree that trying again would be an idiotic choice.
Riley’s dark eyes studied him from under darker lashes. Her berry lips softened the severity of her angular cheekbones and aquiline nose. At this angle, strawberry highlights streaked her hair to almost the same shade as her apricot poodle. A matched set.
Really, he needed to stop thinking ridiculous things about her hair and contribute to this conversation. Something real. And businessy. So she’d know he didn’t usually stand around in dilapidated lobbies fondling other people’s pets. All he could think of, though, were her wide lips and the memory of her bare toes. Luckily, she didn’t need him to keep a conversation going.
“Lady.” She tilted her head, for all the world reminding him of her poodle again, and he had to fight the urge to reach out and push a few of her escaped curls behind her ear.
“What?”
Her lips twitched like she was about to smile, but she reined it in and pointed beside him. “Meet Lady.”
When he dropped his gaze, a black dog that must weigh in at seventy pounds or more sat on its haunches, one paw gracefully extended like royalty expecting an air kiss above the knuckles.
He obliged, bowing his head over Lady’s paw. “It’s an honor, my Lady.”
“Oh, she’ll like that. Thinks she’s the Ambassador of Dog Park, greeting everyone who enters,” a voice said behind him. He turned, and an older woman only a foot or so taller than Lady placed a loving hand on the big dog’s head. “She’s never met a stranger, but that’s how Labs are, of course. Mostly anyway.”
“Mostly? She’s not friendly?” Caleb didn’t see anything about the dog that seemed aggressive, but he took a cautious step back just in case.
“Goodness no. Kindness and people-pleasing are breed traits. I meant Lady’s a little bit of this, little bit of that, and a whole lot of Lab. A mostly Lab, if you will. That’s the fun of a rescue, isn’t it? Never knowing exactly what you’ve got on your hands?” The woman cackled and tugged on Lady’s ear, a move that sent the dog into ecstatic leg thumping. “New around here, are you? Which dog is yours?”
“Oh, I don’t—”
“He was checking out the empty apartment.” Riley jerked her chin toward the Dorothy, and the older woman’s eyes narrowed.
“Thought about moving in a time or two myself.” Her eyes traveled from his recently cut hair to the shine on his shoes. “But I’d have to give up my house”—she pointed her chin east—“because it’s really too much for one person, you know?”
“You’re not missing much.” He tried his charm-’em smile on her, but it only made her squint more. “Until you look out the back windows.” His gesture encompassed the dogs frolicking in the middle of the lot as well as the ones lounging near where their owners chatted with one another under the shade of a mature mango tree. If he wasn’t mistaken, a few were looking their way.
“Neighborhood loves its dogs.” The woman’s hand slid from Lady’s ears down her thick neck. “Riley’ll tell you. This dog park is the beating heart of our neighborhood, no doubt about it. Right, Riley?”
“Right.” Riley pushed humidity-frizzed curls behind her ear. “Mostly apartments and small lots around here, so it’s good to have a spot where the dogs can get in a nice run. We’re lucky to have this place.”
Caleb chewed the inside of his cheek, thinking how he and Grandpa William had discussed that this lot was ideal for a parking structure. “Can’t build anything on the Beach these days without including a parking plan,” Grandpa William had groused. Without parking, the conversion would never succeed. High-end clients do not park on the street. Still, it was fun to watch LouLou engage Lady in a game of chase with an enticing play bow and a yip. Lady wagged her thick tail, and they were off. Even more enjoyable was the smile on Riley’s face as she watched her pet dash through patches of grass.
“What about the No Trespassing signs? This isn’t part of the Dorothy, is it?” Caleb was fishing, and he felt a twinge of guilt for playing dumb. But fishing was all part of the research. One of the biggest hurdles for any developer was community acceptance. How big of an obstacle was this unofficial dog park going to be? Was Riley going to claim her grandmother owned this lot, too?
“Oh, no one minds,” Riley said breezily, waving away his question like a mosquito. She tightened her ponytail, and he caught another glimpse of her smooth belly, skin a few shades lighter than her arms and legs. His gut clenched, knowing his next words were going to make it so she never reached out that soft hand to help him again. But they had to be said. Rip off the Band-Aid, if you will, and let go of the stupid fantasy he was building in his mind about how Riley would taste when he kissed her. Sweet like the sound of her voice? Strawberries like the highlights in her hair? Whatever it was, he was never going to find out, because he was the big, bad landlord about to evict her grandmother. Even if he found every resident the poshest retirement home in Miami, there’d be no coming back from that.
“I think someone does, or at least will, mind.” Caleb crossed his arms over his chest. “When he builds a parking structure on this lot, you’ll have to find another dog park.”
“There’s nowhere else in the neighborhood.” Riley took a step backward, tripping over a Chihuahua running by. She landed on her butt but pretended not to see his hand when he extended it to help her up.
Caleb tucked his rejected helping hand into his pocket. “I’m sure you’ll find somewhere else.” He knew he sounded like an ass. Like his dad. She was going to hate him—hate him more, he corrected—and he didn’t blame her. He kind of hated himself right now. “Your days of taking advantage of an absentee owner are over.”
“Why would you say that?” She cocked her chin at him, the picture of defiance. “I told you my grandmother owns the place.”
“That can’t possibly be true.” He’d seen the paperwork himself. How did he gently break it to her that her grandmother was indulging in a senile fantasy?
“Well, it is true.” Riley crossed her arms and leveled a glare at him hot enough to make sweat pop on his forehead. The neighborhood, or at least this neighbor in particular, seemed to believe this lot was theirs. Her quick defensiveness proved they weren’t just going to pack up their dog toys and go home when the bulldozers rolled in.
Matching hot-pink accents or not, Riley was trouble. He had to get his head back in the game and remember why he was here. “Honey, I am the owner, signed deeds and all, and I have big plans for this property.”
Hand to heart, Riley stared at him with those wide eyes.
“Oh, this one’s special indeed.” Lady’s owner cackled and placed a wrinkled hand on his shoulder. “That’s nice, dear. You go on and make your plans. You know what they say about the best-laid ones, don’t you?” She shuffled off to the group of people at the mango tree, leaving him with Riley. Planning a coup, no doubt. Lady was a lady, but he could tell by the way the dog owners checked him out after a few words that Lady’s owner was the designated dog park gossip. Caleb suddenly had a bad feeling, the kind usually saved for reports that the foundation was compromised or a Cat 4 hurricane was barreling its way toward one of their hotels during the height of tourist season.
“Wait a minute, Caleb Donovan.” Riley’s fingers fluttered on her chest. “Are you telling me you swindled my Grams out of her property?”
“You know who I am?” He couldn’t help the flick of pride that she’d heard of him. Maybe she’d read about the timeshares down in the Keys or the resort in the Bahamas.
“Of course.” More heat flashed in her eyes, and the flick of pride died an even quicker death. She knew the headlines. Knew about his dad. The worst of his family obliterated any good he’d ever accomplished.
He should know her. He saw it on her face, the careful way she watched him. How could he have forgotten a woman like this? He couldn’t place her, and it killed him to have to ask, “We’ve met before?”
Her curls shook with her denial. “Why would you recognize any of the thousands of employees whose careers you ended?”
He sucked in a breath. It was true he’d ordered the terminations days before the assets were seized. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“You made a lot of choices.”
LouLou jumped at Riley’s hip, the bounce-bounce of pick-me-up, but Riley ignored the dog to glare at him some more.
LouLou turned her attention to him. Bounce-bounce. Caleb scooped up the dog, a move that sent the poodle into a licking spasm. Soon, the underside of his chin was thoroughly dog-slobbered. She was a godsend, this tiny tornado of tongue, lick by lick elevating his mood from the bleak thoughts Riley’s accusations triggered.
He didn’t like to remember the dark days right after the trial, when everything was up in the air and no matter how he crunched the numbers, there was no way to save his family’s business. No way to save the hotels or the jobs. He’d liquidated assets and cashed in stock options, and none of it had mattered in the end. His father had thoroughly screwed the company, and Caleb was glad for the hefty prison sentence the judge proclaimed with a smack of her gavel.
What he hadn’t anticipated was that as the one left behind, he’d be facing the consequences of his father’s actions in the real world. It didn’t seem fair that Robert Donovan got to hide out in a prison cell while Caleb dealt with the fallout. That was what he deserved, he supposed, for believing that while his father occasionally lied to get his way, he would never lie to his own son.
By now, LouLou was sniffing his ear, and if he didn’t put a stop to it, he suspected a thorough ear-cleaning was coming his way. He tilted his head away from the dog, which only inspired her to cover his neck in doggy kisses.
“What a little love,” he cooed, stroking the dog’s back while supporting her hind legs on his forearm. She agreed with more vigorous licking.
“Traitor,” Riley mumbled at her dog. She took custody of LouLou, holding her in a loose grip under her arm. “First pee, then slobber. I’m sorry to inflict so much doggily fluid on you in one day, but this one is a nonstop supervisory nightmare. Aren’t you?” She punctuated the lighthearted scold with a kiss on the top of LouLou’s poofy head.
No doubt about it, he was jealous. Of a dog.
LouLou squirmed in Riley’s arms, wiggling around until she could butt Riley’s chin with the top of her head. He’d never thought much of Mr. Pom-Pom, but now he realized he missed having a dog around.
“It’s okay,” he found himself saying, wishing he was still holding the dog so he could at least get Riley to look at him.
“Dogs will be dogs.” Riley hugged LouLou to her side. “It’s not like I had a choice.”
Caleb winced. “I’m sorry, too. If it helps any, that was the worst time of my life.”
Riley considered him, head tilted, cataloging him from head to toe. “It kind of does. Were you miserable?”
No one had ever asked him how he felt about the whole thing. No one had noticed if he was miserable or not. The words crowded into his throat, but all that came out was, “Yeah.”
“Good.” Riley’s fingers covered those soft-looking lips, the pink tips pressing into her cupid’s bow. “You really think you’re the owner? I don’t understand how that could be.”
He nodded because he was practically the owner. Once Lance finally called him back and they somehow got Knox involved or Grandpa William to change his mind, he’d own every square inch of this run-down money pit.
“That doesn’t even make sense. Why would you want this place? The neighborhood is residential. You can’t build a hotel here.” Riley tugged at the fabric of her scooped neck, righting the havoc LouLou’s wiggling was doing to her neckline, and revealed another flash of hot-pink underneath. Sighing, she bent down to let LouLou run wild again, and the swells of her breasts pushed against the material in a drool-inducing way. Down boy, he told his inner hound. Hot pink wasn’t even his favorite color, and he for sure should be keeping his eyes above her neck.
“Zoning ordinances can be changed.” He was definitely looking at her eyes. Her big, brown eyes that were none too happy with him. “But I’m thinking more of a condo conversion.”
“You’ve been here all of two seconds, and you want to completely change the neighborhood?” She planted her hands on her hips and notched her chin up. LouLou scooted closer to his leg and nosed the back of his knee. “Are you kidding right now?”
He squatted and soothed a hand down the dog’s back. “It’s just business, honey.”
“Well, honey,” Riley sniffed and tugged LouLou toward her. She eyed him up and down like he was something she wouldn’t touch with a doggy bag. “I hope you have a backup plan. No one’s touching Grams’ place.”
Riley stomped off, LouLou watching him over her shoulder like she’d never see him again. Thunder rumbled and a few large splats of rain quickly turned into a torrent. In seconds, Riley and her dog were out of sight, and he was soaked to the skin.