Looking back, James wasn’t sure exactly what had come over him. Maybe it was triggered by the look he’d seen in Constance’s eyes when she’d told him about losing her pet Labrador. Or maybe it was because he remembered the way she’d seemed to light up when she was petting Stanley.
Or he could just be helping Eli decrease the number of puppies he had to care for.
The last was the only excuse he felt he could deal with. Because Eli was the only person he admitted to himself that he did care about.
He watched the puppies step all over one another, trying to get his attention. Trying more to make a break for freedom. But the sides of the cardboard box were too high. There were five in all and he had to admit that they were pretty cute. Stanley had looked like that when James had taken him home. Except that Stanley had been the runt of the litter.
James shoved his hands into his back pockets to keep from picking one up. He’d leave the choice up to Eli. “I can take one off your hands.”
Eli looked at him in surprise at the phrasing. “You want another dog?”
James shook his head. “No, Stanley’s enough for me right now.” He had no desire for more than one animal running loose in his apartment. As it was, he felt sorry for the dog being confined that way. “He’d be jealous if I brought in one of his half brothers or sisters.”
“Then who’s the dog for?” he asked before a light came into his gray eyes. “Hey, is this for Constance?”
James frowned slightly. “You ask too many questions, old man.”
“Hey, it’s not like you give up anything easily.” Eli scratched the puppy under her chin. She wiggled against him in pure ecstasy. “They got action figures that talk more than you do. How am I going to know what’s going on in your life if I don’t ask?”
“Nothing’s going on in my life, Eli.” He didn’t bother denying that the dog would be for Constance. Eli would just grill him until he came clean. “The woman just mentioned that she loved dogs and she’d lost hers recently. I thought that since you had extras and she had none—”
“Done.” Eli joyfully declared. He transferred the puppy from his chest to James’s.
James had no choice but to grab the puppy to keep her from tumbling to the floor. He looked down at the wiggly ball of fur in his arms. He shouldn’t have said anything. “Doesn’t have to be tonight.”
“Oh yeah, it does,” Eli assured him. “One less mouth to feed,” he explained when James eyed him suspiciously. The old man chuckled as he watched the puppy’s hind legs scrambling along James’s chest, trying to get a foothold. “Wait, I’ll get you a box. You don’t want Felicia messing up your car.”
James winced as a nail scraped against his chest. This wasn’t turning out to be one of his better ideas. “You named them already?”
Eli was rummaging through possible boxes in his storeroom. “Sure I named them,” he called out. “Makes things easier.” After settling on a box that had the name of a popular breakfast food slapped across the sides, Eli put it on the counter, took Felicia from James and placed the puppy inside. “There. Ready to travel.” His gray eyes crinkled. “Tell Constance I said hello. And bring her around sometime.”
James sighed. He liked Eli, but the man firmly believed that people should go through life in pairs. Although, to his credit, Eli had been dubious about his marriage to Janice, but he’d kept his own council until Janice had split for the West Coast with Dana.
As he petted the puppy, it latched onto his finger. The sensation of tiny little pinpricks danced all along the length of his finger. He pulled his hand away.
“You’re really blowing this way out of proportion, old man.”
“Hey, I can dream, can’t I?” Eli patted James’s hand warmly. “I want the best for you, Jimmy. And the best is a good woman. My Sophie, may she rest in peace, made my life exciting, gave me a reason to get up every morning, even when we were fighting. Because I knew if we were fighting, we’d be making up. And oh, that making up.” He rolled his eyes comically heavenward.
James would have been lying if he didn’t admit to envying Eli what he’d had with his wife. If it hadn’t been for the couple and what he’d been privileged to witness firsthand he would have thought that all marriages were comprised of two people yelling at one another.
“They don’t make women like Sophie anymore, Eli,” he said quietly.
Eli inclined his head in agreement. “No, but maybe they come close. The point is, keep an open mind.” James began to pick up the box with the puppy with one hand while juggling his grocery bag with the other. “Oh, wait. She’ll want some dog food for her.”
Moving quickly for a man approaching the midpoint of his eighth decade, Eli hurried over to the dog-food shelves and scooped up several cans. He deposited them into another bag. It was clearly more than James could manage in one trip.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Eli offered.
But James shook his head. He placed the grocery bag he was holding back on the counter. “It’s still ninety degrees outside. Stay here where it’s cool. I’ll make two trips.”
Eli just gave him a withering look. “When I’m dead, you can boss me around.” Taking both bags, he followed James out to his car.
It only occurred to James once he was en route. He didn’t know where she lived. He made a quick pit stop home to take care of Stanley’s needs, drop off his groceries and try to find Constance’s address. Felicia remained in her box, which he temporarily brought into the apartment. Stanley growled his disapproval.
“Now you growl,” he upbraided the dog.
It was easier to find Constance than he’d thought.
Though prepared to tap into the DMV records, Constance turned out to be listed in the first place he looked—the phone book. He would have thought someone of her background wouldn’t be, would want her privacy.
But there she was, right in the middle of the page, and it didn’t make sense. But then he was beginning to think that she wasn’t as easy to figure out as he’d thought.
Not that he was planning on figuring her out. There was absolutely no point to that. It would be a waste of his time, seeing as how he was never going to see her again after tonight. He was just going to give her the dog and go.
End of story.
He quickly discovered the story came with an epilogue.
Constance wasn’t the kind of woman you could just give something to and then leave. The trouble was, he found this out too late.
She lived in the more exclusive part of the city, in a skyscraper that came with a formidable doorman, who looked as if he’d once played linebacker with one of the pro ball teams. The man obviously would not allow James to go through without some kind of clearance from a tenant.
Without wasting time, James held up his detective’s shield and tersely informed him that the puppy in the box was a surprise for Ms. Beaulieu. The harsh, lined face softened instantly. It was apparent that Constance was one of the doorman’s favorites. It figured.
“She’s going to love it,” the big man assured him. His tone and manner implied camaraderie, as if they both cared about the woman under discussion. And that gave them some kind of bond. “She’s been pretty broken up since Whiskey died. That and with her mom passing on made life pretty tough for her. That no-good fiancé of hers took a powder around that time, too.”
The man peered down into the box one last time before holding a door open for an exiting tenant. Looking over the woman’s head at James, he winked. “I’d say this is just what she needs.”
James shifted the box. The puppy had created a dampened area on one end and he was anxious about being able to put the box down somewhere—soon. “Thanks for the vote of approval.”
He realized that the doorman didn’t know he was being sarcastic. Instead, the man cheerfully replied, “You’re welcome. She’s in the penthouse apartment,” the doorman called after him as he walked into an enormous foyer.
The chandelier alone looked as if it would have set him back two years’ pay—with overtime. He was definitely outclassed. James pressed for the elevator, and a sleek, mirrored car arrived almost immediately. As he stepped inside, the puppy started to whine. That made two of them, he thought, tapping the bottom of the box lightly.
Being outclassed had never bothered him before because he’d never particularly wanted to be part of any class to begin with. He told himself that things hadn’t changed.
The ride to the top floor in the express elevator was quick and painless. And certainly faster his own building’s elevator.
After getting off on the top floor, he didn’t have to look around to find her apartment. Her apartment was the top floor. He rang the bell. Felicia misstepped and tumbled inside the box. He was about to ring the bell a second time when Constance opened the door.
And James came close to swallowing his tongue.
She stood in the doorway barefoot, wearing white shorts that needed an inch or two in length to qualify as cutoffs. A tight hot-pink halter top completed the outfit, if it could actually be referred to as complete. A large amount of material seemed to be missing. She made up for it in curves.
The cameo was still securely fastened around her neck. James was aware of a great deal of creamy-white skin on display.
He was also aware that he had stopped breathing for a critical amount of time. With effort, he dragged air back into his lungs before he began wheezing and embarrassed himself.
Constance was speechless.
Ordinarily, the doorbell didn’t ring without the doorman first alerting her unless it was one of the neighbors dropping by. So when she opened the door to find James standing there, holding a box with a leaping German shepherd puppy, all she could do for a moment was stare.
Coming to, she looked down at the puppy, who seemed desperate to clear the sides of her confinement or die in the effort. An animal with spunk. It was love at first sight.
“May I?” she asked, indicating the puppy.
“Knock yourself out,” James muttered, for the first time wishing he knew how to string more than two words together.
She laughed as the fur ball wiggled against her. A warmth sprang up everywhere the puppy touched. “Are you selling puppies door to door?”
“Yeah.” Try as he might to keep a straight face, amusement curved a small portion of his mouth. “You’re the last one.”
He had no idea what made him say something like that. Had no idea really why he’d come or why he was still standing there like some department-store dummy. Outside of the requirements of his job, James didn’t put himself out for people, had as little to do with them as possible. He was acting completely against type and that really bothered him.
“Stanley’s mother had another litter,” he tacked on belatedly.
Constance smiled at the news. “Sounds like Stanley’s mother has a very active social life.”
He shrugged the observation away. “Yeah, whatever. You said you missed having a dog and these were being given away free, so I thought…” His voice trailed off as he hoped she’d jump in and finish the sentence for him. It would have been the merciful thing to do.
“That I’d like one?” she finally guessed when James didn’t go on. Her eyes lit up. All her plans about not getting attached to another animal flew right out the window. She was a sucker for a ball of fur and a pink tongue. “Yes, oh yes. I’d love one.”
She held the puppy up at arm’s length to get a better look at her new companion. The dog wiggled in the air, eager to get something beneath her feet again. Constance remembered James’s story about Stanley.
“Does this one come with a name, too?”
“Felicia.”
“Felicia,” Constance repeated, then nodded her head. “I like it.” Cuddling the dog against herself again, she looked at him, a different kind of warmth than before spreading through her. It was a kind thing for him to do. “Thank you.”
Thanks made him uneasy, as did the look in her eyes. “Okay, then—” he started to back away, then remembered the bag of provisions at his feet. “Oh, he sent over a bag of dog food for her. In case you didn’t have any,” James added, feeling awkward as hell as he tripped over his own tongue.
Damn, she had him talking as if English were his second language. What the hell was going on with him, anyway? This wasn’t like him. He was always in control of everything, most of all himself.
Pressing her lips together in order not to giggle as Felicia licked her ear, she tried to focus on what James was saying. “He?”
“My friend. The dog owner.” Why was she asking so many questions? Why couldn’t she just say thanks and close the door? It was what he would have done in her place.
“Right.” That would be the man who had given him Stanley. A host of questions popped into her head, questions about his friend, about the dog. About him and why he was doing something so kind. But as James set the bag down inside the door, she saw he was already backing out again.
“You’re not leaving, are you?”
He took another step back. One less step required to reach the elevator. And freedom. “Yeah, well, I’ve got things to see to.”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth, looking at him hopefully. “Couldn’t they wait for a few minutes?”
The moment he looked into her eyes, he knew he had lost the battle.
“Okay,” he relented with a sigh, “a few minutes.” Picking up the bag again, he walked into the penthouse apartment. It was then that he noticed that her rugs were white. A pristine white. White rugs and puppies didn’t exactly mix.
“Maybe I should have brought some carpet cleaner along,” he muttered.
The sound of her soft delighted laugh passed through him like smoke through burlap. It left a mark, and he wasn’t happy about that.
“They’re pretty much stain resistant,” she told him. “And whatever happens can be taken care of.” She stroked the puppy’s head with such affection that it made James’s gut tighten. “It’ll be well worth it.”
Constance gazed at him, silently wondering about this enigma in jeans and a T-shirt. Why had he done this when good deeds clearly made him ill at ease? She had no answer, she only knew that she was glad he had.
“I don’t know how to thank you, James. That’s twice now you’ve done something wonderful for me.”
He didn’t want her gratitude. He didn’t even know what he was doing here. Maybe there was a full moon out tonight and he was a budding werewolf. That wouldn’t have been as out of character for him as bringing a puppy to a woman he barely knew. “No, I—”
Still holding the puppy to herself, she placed one finger against his lips. He felt as if he’d just been branded. “Why is it so hard for you to admit that you’re a nice person, James?”
He firmly moved her hand aside, away from himself. “It’s not hard. But you’re blowing this out of proportion.” It occurred to him that he had already uttered the exact same words this evening. To Eli. “You and Eli have a lot in common.”
“Eli?” The way she said it brought up visions of cotton gins and long, languid summer nights beneath a Carolina moon.
“The owner of the dog who had the litter.” There he was again, he thought in disgust, volunteering more information. For a man normally as closemouthed as he was, it was hard to accept.
He watched in fascination as she pressed her cheek against the top of the puppy’s head. “I’d like to meet him sometime.”
He didn’t see that happening. “He owns Eli’s Deli on Eighth and Fifty-third. Not exactly your neighborhood.”
She glanced at him, detecting a note of superiority in his voice. People from impoverished roots wrapped themselves up in pride like that. “Do you think I’m a snob, James?”
“I think that rich girls don’t go to mom-and-pop stores.”
Amusement curved her mouth as she continued to stroke the puppy and hold it to herself. “Where do we ‘rich girls’ go?”
“Shopping,” he retorted. “In fancy boutiques with overpriced things.”
Rather than take offense, she merely nodded her head, taking in his words. “Have me pretty well figured out, do you?”
James shrugged in response, wishing he was in a traffic jam on the expressway. Anywhere but here, making a fool of himself for no known earthly reason.
She indicated the shorts and halter. “I bought this outfit at Old Navy the day I took my class on a field trip to show them the value of money, specifically, how to look for bargains.”
He’d forgotten that she was a teacher. The fact that she taught when she could have spent days partying changed things somewhat. “They teach that kind of thing these days?”
“I don’t know if ‘they’ do, but I do.” She put the puppy down into the box for a moment. “You have to be practical. Life goes by at such a fast pace, you’ve got be able to jump into it with both feet and keep on running.”
He wished she was still holding the dog. He felt safer with something between them. Something that would keep him from touching her the way he wanted to. “Sounds like a working-class philosophy.”
“Best class there is,” she said with a toss of her head. Bending over to pick up the box, giving him a very pleasant view of her hips and the way they swayed when she moved, she made her way into the living room. Her manner indicated that she wanted him to follow.
He did, never taking his eyes off her hips. His palms itched. Other parts of him grew restless. He should be heading out the door, not deeper into her lair.
She turned to face him. He had to concentrate to look into her eyes rather than at the cameo and what lay directly beneath.
Constance placed the box on the coffee table and took out the puppy again, holding it to herself. “We weren’t always well off, James. My daddy got lucky when I was a little girl. But I can remember another life. My mother sitting at the table, cutting out coupons every Sunday, deciding what we could get and what we could do without until the following week. I like all this,” she said, gesturing to her surroundings. “But it’s not who I am.”
He heard himself asking, “And who are you?”
“Just a little girl from Virginia. Oh,” she laughed as the puppy began licking her face.
There was nothing little about her. Not her heart and certainly not her attributes. “Here, I’ll take her,” he offered, reaching for the dog. But Constance laughed and moved out of reach. She was clearly delighted with her new pet.
“I don’t mind a little genuine affection, James.” The dog wiggled against her, trying to use her breast for leverage in an attempt to climb up to her shoulder. For the moment, because she wanted to talk to James, she deposited Felicia back into the box. “I’m going to have to try to figure out where to let you sleep for the night.” She looked at James. “I take it that she’s not housebroken?”
He shook his head. “I can take her back,” he offered again.
“Don’t you dare,” she cried, her hand immediately going toward the box protectively. “I can train her, I just wanted to know what was on my plate, that’s all.”
A hell of a lot more than you probably bargained for if I don’t get out of here, he thought.
“Okay, well, I’d better be going. Stanley’s waiting,” he added. The second he said it, he was annoyed with himself. He never offered excuses. That wasn’t his way. She was turning him inside out and yet he couldn’t point to a single manipulative thing she had done. He was the one behaving strangely.
Rather than try to argue him out of it, she sensed that he needed to leave in order to collect himself. “I’ll walk you to the door.”
The woman hooked her arm through his as she made the offer. He brushed against her breast and felt a shaft of heat travel up his arm hot enough to singe his flesh.
“James, since you turned up again like a knight in shining armor, I was wondering if I could ask you for a big favor.”
Alarms sounded in his head. He’d learned a long time ago never to agree to anything without first knowing the terms. Eli was the only exception to his rule. “Depends on what it is.”
“Fair enough. I’ve got Career Day coming up on Friday. My speaker called just before you rang my bell and canceled on me. Airline pilot,” she added. “I was wondering if you could see your way to filling in.”
“I’m not an airline pilot,” he pointed out dourly.
“I meant as a police detective,” she clarified with a smile that got to him faster than a speeding bullet. “It would only be a ten-minute talk. Shorter if you wanted. They’re just fourth graders, so it doesn’t have to be anything elaborate, just something that would give them a taste of what you do. I don’t think it’s ever too early to introduce them to the solid choices they have before them. The more choices they have, the less likely they are to do drugs.”
The sad fact of life was that there were drugs available everywhere, in both the affluent and poorer sections of the city. Suspicion nudged him. “Just where is this school?”
Constance gave him the location—not his first choice for safety. He was more than familiar with the area. “What are you doing, teaching there?”
When she looked at him, he felt something stir inside. He banked it down as she replied, “A good job, I hope.”