“What will you do?”
Her turn to shake her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to think about something else.”
“You should stay in the K-9 business.”
She gave him a sour face.
“Not here. And not training. Take your skills on the road. There isn’t a business involving K-9s anywhere in the world that wouldn’t jump at the chance to hire Yardley Summers. You’ve spent your life preparing other K-9 teams for their jobs. Go out and practice what you’ve been preaching.”
“I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Start with a vacation. I hear Hawaii’s nice this time of year.”
She gave him a half smile. “Don’t you dare make any calls. If I think you’ve so much as breathed in Kye’s direction, I’ll head for Russia instead.”
He held her gaze with a slight smile. “Don’t be a hard-ass, Yard. Go get your man.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Kye pored over the spreadsheet on the monitor before him. It was April, tax time. “Bad news. We had our best year so far. Going to have to pay our taxes quarterly from now on.”
“Ta. Cheery thought. The wankers!”
Oliver hated taxes. He hated government and regulation and laws and anything else that interfered with “my God-given right to go to bloody hell any way I like.” He said it was every Aussie’s duty to hate regulation. But he did it in such a cheerful fashion, it never became an issue. They had a you-pay-while-I-play arrangement.
Oliver was in Hawaii soaking up some rays while he and Kye planned the next business quarter. But mostly he was running through the local population of beautiful women. Right now he was slumped in a wicker chair on Kye’s parents’ patio, drinking his protein-shake breakfast at half past noon.
“Up for some fun with the Sheilas? Met a couple, maybe it was three, in a bar last night. Said I’d catch them beachside. Too many for me. Come with?”
Kye gave his partner a sour look. “Taxes?”
Oliver grinned. “Do a sickie. Do you a world of good.”
Kye didn’t doubt his friend was serious about the women waiting for him. Oliver was a ripped, six-foot-four of hard body with shoulder-length sun-streaked hair that was, at the moment, pulled back in a messy man-bun. The look wouldn’t have worked on a man an ounce less masculine. But the dude was blessed with Chris Hemsworth baby blues and a scruff of red-blond beard scrupulously maintained to keep his look this side of sexiest homeless man alive.
Kye shook his head. Hawaiian women might never be the same.
“Oh yeah. I forgot.”
Kye looked up again over his computer. Oliver never forgot anything.
“We’ve got a new recruit coming in today.” Oliver sat up. “Stateside female. Has some experience with dogs. Trainer.”
Kye’s mouth thinned. “Do we need another trainer?”
“A good one, yeah. You might like this one. I hear she’s got legs for days. And she’s a ginger.”
“A redhead?”
“I know you’re partial to gingers. Pick her up at the airport. Do you good to get your head out of the numbers.”
“Pass. I’m off redheads.”
“That’s your problem. You come off a bad experience, you need to replace it with good ones.”
“It wasn’t a bad experience. It was a favor for a friend.”
“That lost you the girl and got your nose flattened for the effort.”
Kye reached up automatically to touch his healed nose.
“Vain, that’s what you are. It healed so perfectly you can’t even show off your manly scars. Surgery for an owee. What’s this world coming to?”
“I couldn’t breathe right.”
“You lost the woman, mate. Time to find another. Your trouble is, you want the whole package. Now me, I’m a connoisseur. A pretty face. A gorgeous ass. A nice pair of tits. They don’t all have to come on the same chassis. I enjoy each wherever I find it.”
“Yeah. Yeah. I get it. You’re a man whore.”
“Jealous. That’s what you are. Go pick up the Sheila.”
Kye sighed. He was enjoying having his partner in Honolulu for a few days. He just wished he hadn’t chosen tax week. Or his grandmother’s birthday week. “We’ve got a luau tonight that I have to help prepare for.”
“Roasting a pig for your granny? Saw the beast go in the ground this morning. Admit it. You have no excuse.”
Kye ignored him.
“You’re ruining my holiday with all this business. Makes Oliver a sour boy. And no one likes a sour Oliver. Say, that would make a good name for a beach drink. The Sour Oliver.”
Kye glared from beneath his brows. “Out. Now.”
Oliver stood up. “No worries. See you at the luau. Unless the ginger develops a thing for me on the way in.”
“If she does I won’t hire her.”
“I’m a partner. I can hire her.”
“We settled that four years ago. If you did the hiring our SAR teams would look like Miss World runner-ups with dogs as accessories.”