CHAPTER Five
Jack had no memory of closing the door to Isabella’s room. No memory of striding toward Annalise. No memory of backing her against the wall. But from the instant his mouth found hers, it was like a recorder flicked on, burning every tantalizing moment into the pathways of his brain.
He was overwhelmed by the distinctive fragrance of her skin and driven insane by the low, soft moan that reverberated in her throat. The heat of her hands and lips and flesh burned like wildfire, sweeping straight through to the frozen core of him and melting away walls of ice that he’d believed too tall and thick to ever be breached.
“I’ve tried, Annalise,” he said between quick, biting kisses. “I’ve tried to keep my hands off you. How many times have I promised I would? And yet …”
A husky laugh exploded from her, and she leaned her head back against the wall, exposing her throat. “Somehow it doesn’t quite work out that way.”
“You don’t understand. I always keep my word. Always. It’s a point of honor with me. But with you—” Frustration tore through him. “It’s like my body and brain are out of sync, or speaking different languages.”
“No communication?”
“None.” His hand drifted along the golden length of her neck. Then the urge to taste her consumed him and his mouth followed the same pathway his hand had taken. “Well, except for one single urge. On that point, all of the various parts of me are in total agreement.”
A line from the movie they’d just watched played through his head: Resistance is futile. It described his predicament precisely. Temptation beckoned again and he fought it for all of ten seconds before he tumbled. Unable to help himself, he cupped her breast and traced the rigid peak through the thin cotton of her tank top. The breath exploded from her lungs and her sooty lashes fluttered toward her cheeks in clear surrender.
He used his knee to part her legs and settled into the cradle of her hips, sliding against a body that combined a lean, tensile strength with a sensual softness. He wanted her in his bed, wanted those endless legs wrapped around him. Wanted to sink into her warmth until the last vestige of ice had been driven from his body.
Everything about her propelled him toward a place he’d never been before, never even knew existed. A gentle place. A place of solace. A place of beautiful urgency and endless possibilities. A place where he could safely lose himself in arms that would never let him go, while he basked in the warmth and light of her embrace.
He reached beneath her tank top and found a hint of what that sweet place would hold, and he lingered there while the heat built. Her breasts slipped into his hands, filling them with their silken weight. Her nipples were two hot buds of desire against his palms. He rocked his hips into place between her legs, setting a slow, torturous rhythm that ripped a moan from her throat.
“Sleep with me tonight,” he urged.
He watched the struggle play out across her face, a fierce battle waged between common sense and desire. He was intimately familiar with that particular battle. For a brief instant he thought she’d capitulate. But something held her back, something that caused a glimmer of panic to break across the planes of her face and an intense vulnerability to tarnish her eyes. It would seem he wasn’t the only one with painful memories.
“I can’t. We,” she corrected, “we can’t. Isabella has to come first. And if we do this, we’ll be torn between responsibility and desire.”
“I’ll always put Isabella first.”
“Then you won’t fight me about this. Because having sex with you isn’t putting Isabella first.”
She didn’t give him room to argue. Besides, she was right. They couldn’t afford to be distracted right now. He couldn’t afford it. He still needed her help. Somehow, someway, he had to find a way to convince Annalise to marry him. And that pathway led through her attachment to Isabella, not through his bedroom door.
As much as he wanted this woman, he couldn’t have her. He reluctantly slid his hands from beneath her top and forced himself to abandon the warmth and softness he’d found for far too brief a time. He took a deliberate step backward. And then another. The want remained in her eyes, along with a hopeless resignation. If she’d uttered a single sound of regret, he’d have swept her into his arms and taken her then and there. But she remained silent. And he gave himself up to duty and responsibility. The familiar cold returned, sweeping into his veins and taking root. How many years had it been his companion? He couldn’t remember anymore. Not that it mattered. He’d learned long ago to accept the inevitability of it.
Without a word, he turned and walked away.
Jack jerked awake at the sound of his bedroom door banging open.
“Is Isabella in here?” Annalise demanded. “Is she with you?”
He came off the bed like a shot. “She’s missing?”
Annalise nodded rapidly, her breath escaping her lungs in frantic gasps. “When I went in to get her this morning she wasn’t there. I thought she was hiding in the tree house. I practically took the thing apart looking for her. I’ve searched the entire house. She’s not here.” Undisguised fear glittered in her eyes, shredding her usual control. “I can’t find her anywhere.”
“Have you checked outside?”
“Oh, God, Jack.” She turned a panicked gaze in the direction of the front door. “The ocean.”
They both raced for the door. It wasn’t locked and he could distinctly remember double-checking it last night to make certain it was. He ripped the door open and erupted onto the front porch. He drew in a deep breath, preparing to shout his niece’s name, when suddenly he saw her. She sat halfway between the house and the water, half-buried beneath the largest dog Jack had ever seen.
Behind him, Annalise stumbled against his back. She inhaled sharply and he whipped around and caught hold of her. Sensing the scream building in her lungs, he covered her mouth with his hand.
“Quiet,” he ordered in a voice barely above a whisper. “Don’t startle them.”
At her nod of understanding, he released her. “Jack,” she whimpered. “That thing could kill her.”
“Don’t say it. Don’t even think it. Right now, I want you to go back in the house and find my cell. Punch in 911, but don’t hit Send until I tell you.” She continued to stare at him with glazed, terror-stricken eyes and he gave her a quick shake. “Do you understand?”
She recovered a small semblance of control and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I understand. Dial 911. Don’t hit Send until you give the word.”
“Then I want you to grab the steaks that are in the fridge and bring them out here to me. Slow and easy, got it? No fast or sudden moves. No loud noises.”
“I understand.”
Without another word, she slipped back into the house. Jack forced himself to move forward and sit on the porch steps. Then he whistled, low and gentle. Both dog and child jerked to attention, their heads swiveling in unison toward him. To his horror, the dog bristled, emitting a low growl. Even worse, Isabella reached up to pat the animal on the muzzle, her tiny hand inches from a set of lethally bared teeth. He knew Annalise had returned by her soft gasp of reaction at how much more dangerous the situation had become.
“Here.” She slipped the raw slabs of meat into his hand. Her fingers trembled against his and her breath warmed the back of his neck in rapid-fire bursts. She was inches from losing it, and yet she spoke with a calmness that washed over him like a gentle balm. “It’s going to be all right, Jack. I have my hand on the Send button. Say the word, and I’ll place the call.”
“Go back inside,” he instructed in an undertone. He wouldn’t risk her welfare, too. “Be ready to open the door on my signal.”
He sensed her silent retreat into the house and fixed his full attention on his niece and the huge animal hovering above her. He didn’t dare whistle again. He could only hope that one or the other of them would come to him. Sure enough, Isabella released a gleeful laugh and clambered out from beneath the dog. To Jack’s relief, the animal allowed it, though she—at least, he thought it was a female—continued to regard Jack with open suspicion bordering on hostility.
He needed to get the dog away from his niece, and fast. Hoping he wasn’t making a hideous mistake, he held up the first steak. “Here you go, girl!”
It was as though someone had thrown a light switch. The hair along the dog’s back slicked down and her ears perked up. A huge flirtatious grin spread across her giant square mug. After treating Isabella to a maternal lick of farewell from a tongue big enough to clean his niece’s face with one swipe, she galloped toward Jack at top speed. Unfortunately, Isabella released a squeal of annoyance at having their play interrupted and gave chase. The instant the dog reached him, Jack tossed the first of the steaks. It disappeared in one less-than-feminine gulp.
“Sit,” he ordered.
To his amazement, the dog sat. She checked him out—particularly the second steak he still held—while he did the same to her, a cautious how-beasty-are-you and who’s-the-top-dog exchange of looks. She didn’t appear to be in too bad a shape, though her ribs protruded more than he liked. After she’d given him the once-over, she regarded him with a look of unadulterated hope and sweetness. To his relief, he saw that she wore a collar. He didn’t see a name tag, but at least there was a shiny new rabies tag dangling from it.
His plan was to toss the second steak as far as he could, snatch up his niece and hightail it into the house. Before he could, Isabella skidded to a halt alongside the dog. He nearly lost it when she wound her twig-thin arms around the animal’s massive neck and pressed her face into the short, brindled coat. One miscalculation and the dog would go from chewing on steak to chewing on his niece.
He forced himself to take a calming breath before speaking. “Isabella, go into the house and find Annalise. After you wash your hands, you can show her your new friend. You’ll have to do it through the window until I’ve finished feeding her.”
She hesitated, obviously torn between staying with the dog and the pleasure of showing her off to Annalise. He used a tone that didn’t brook any argument, one he had never been able to bring himself to use with her. Until today. “Now, miss.”
To his intense relief, she obeyed and climbed the steps onto the porch. The door flew open behind him and Annalise snatched her inside. With a whimper of protest, the dog charged forward and mowed all two hundred plus pounds right over top of him, snagging the steak out of his hands as she steamrolled past. Before Annalise could get the door closed, the dog slammed through it and erupted into the house.
Jack lay spread-eagled on his back, struggling just to draw air into his lungs. Getting hit by a Mack truck couldn’t have been any more painful. He looked down at himself, half-expecting to discover paw craters denting his body. To his immense relief, he didn’t find any. As far as he could tell, all his most vital parts appeared intact and in place.
He rolled over onto his hands and knees. It took three attempts to stand. He staggered through the door to find the dog squatting at Isabella’s heels. Even sitting, the animal dwarfed the petite five-year-old, though there was no mistaking the adoration in the dog’s brown eyes as she peered down at his niece. Isabella had her arms thrown around the animal’s massive neck again. She beamed up at Jack with such undisguised joy it nearly broke his heart.
He closed his eyes with a groan. He knew that look. “We’re not keeping her,” he stated categorically. “She belongs to somebody and that somebody isn’t us.”
To his surprise, Isabella didn’t throw the expected temper tantrum. She just continued to stare at him with those dewy green eyes and that wide, brilliant grin. Her dimple gave a saucy wink.
“We don’t know who owns her, Isabella,” Annalise added. “The poor thing is probably lost.”
“The ‘poor thing’ probably got dumped when she grew to the size of a baby elephant and started eating the owners out of house and home,” Jack muttered.
It was precisely the wrong thing to say. Annalise turned on him with a horrified expression. “Dumped? You think she’s been abandoned? Someone left her deliberately?”
Isabella tightened her arms around the dog who responded with a pathetic little whine that rattled every window in the bungalow. God help them if the beast ever cut loose with an actual bark. They’d end up with the roof caving in around their ears.
He spared his niece an uneasy look. “Then again, maybe someone is desperately trying to find her. I’ll call Mrs. Westcott and find out if she knows anything about who the owners might be.”
“Mrs. Westcott?” Annalise asked.
“Taye’s housekeeper.” Time to take control of the situation before this went any further. Jack fixed his niece with a steely gaze. “Give it up, sweetheart. We’re not keeping the dog. She’s wearing a rabies tag, which means she belongs to someone. I’m sure the owners are desperate to get her back.”
Annalise intervened by resting a restraining hand on his arm. “She’s a gorgeous animal,” she commented in a blatant non sequitur. No doubt, it was her way of diffusing the standoff between uncle and niece. “I like all the stripes. She sort of reminds me of a faded tiger.”
“It’s called a brindle coat,” he grudgingly explained.
Annalise continued to eye the dog, no longer betraying any sign of fear. Not good. “I wonder what her name is.” She squatted next to Isabella. “Maybe if she doesn’t have any owners we can name her.”
Isabella nodded eagerly and the dog put her sly seal of approval on it by licking first his niece and then his nanny/soon-to-be-strangled-wife-to-be.
“No naming the dog!” he protested.
He might as well have saved his breath. Everyone ignored him. Instead, the three females began a timeless bonding ritual that involved the dog positioned on the floor like a sphinx, while Isabella and Annalise petted her from tongue-lolling head to thumping tail. She whimpered in pathetic gratitude at all the attention while rolling her eyes in his direction. He could have sworn he saw smug laughter lurking there. Oh, yeah. Definitely a sly one. Knew just how to tug at the heartstrings.
“You’d think the guy paying the bills would be the one deserving a petting,” he muttered. “But hell, no. I get to play bad cop. I know how this story ends—with me in the doghouse, while the dog gets all the attention and affection. Well, not this time, bubba. No way, no how.”
“What kind of dog is she?” Annalise asked. “Other than big?”
No one was listening to him, or, at least, they’d developed selective hearing. Caving to the inevitable, he examined the animal with a critical eye. “Definitely Great Dane. And judging by the breadth and shape of her, not to mention the droopy ears, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had some mastiff mixed in there somewhere.”
“Well, whatever she is, she’s a beauty,” Annalise replied, rocking back onto her heels.
He bent down and retrieved his cell phone from Annalise and punched in the number to the main house. Mrs. Westcott answered on the first ring. “We have a visitor,” he explained after they’d exchanged pleasantries. “She’s four-legged, about the size of a Humvee. And half-starved.”
“You’ve seen her? Well, thank goodness for that. Animal Control has been trying to catch her for the past week. She’s a clever minx, that one is.”
He eyed the ecstatic dog who’d rolled onto her back, enjoying a tummy rub, dinner-plate-sized paws pinwheeling in the air. “Well, your clever minx is currently splayed out in the middle of Taye’s bungalow living room floor.”
“Oh, Mr. Mason. Aren’t you sweet to take her in.”
“No! No, I’m not—”
“I’ve been so worried about her. I was just coming to work when I saw her get dumped. A bunch of college kids tossed her out of the car like so much garbage, poor critter. Thank goodness she’ll have a good home.”
He gritted his teeth. “Only if someone is insane enough to adopt her. Can you call Animal Control for us?” At the question, three pairs of outraged eyes pinned him to the wall. Mrs. Westcott weighed in with a disapproving tsking sound. “What?” he asked, a shade defensively.
In response, Isabella threw herself on top of the dog as though to prevent anyone from dragging the animal away. He didn’t bother to explain that it would take a crane and bulldozer to move the beast if she turned uncooperative.
Annalise moistened her lips, lips he’d taken great delight in kissing only the night before. If she hadn’t chosen such an underhanded distraction, his brain cells would have stayed where they belonged instead of draining out of his ears and puddling on the floor.
“Maybe we should discuss this first, before you make any rash decisions.” She didn’t phrase it like a suggestion. In fact, it sounded suspiciously like a demand. “I don’t see why we can’t keep her until you track down the owners.”
“Is that your new nanny?” Mrs. Westcott asked. “She sounds like a sensible woman.”
With the female-to-male ratio running three-to-one against him—he eyed the dog—no, make that four-to-one—the odds were definitely not in his favor. “I never make rash decisions,” he announced in a no-nonsense tone of voice. “And considering I’m the one in charge around here, I believe that makes me best qualified to decide whether or not it’s appropriate to call Animal Control.”
Mrs. Westcott snorted.
“It would only be for a day,” Annalise stated, sounding far too authoritative for an employee. “Two, at most.”
“There’s a simple way to resolve this,” Jack said.
He thanked the housekeeper for her assistance and snapped the phone closed with a decisive click before approaching the dog and examining the rabies tag. Sure enough, it listed the address and phone number of the clinic where the shot had been administered. He placed the call and within minutes was handed off to the veterinarian.
“I know the dog you mean. Dane/mastiff mix,” the vet said, confirming Jack’s guess. “That’s Madam. She is—or perhaps more accurately based on what you’re telling me—was the mascot for a college fraternity. They weren’t supposed to have her and were told not to bring her back. Apparently, they played several rounds of beer pong in order to determine who’d be the one taking her home. The boy who lost is the one who brought her in. I gather his parents insisted before she moved in.”
“I don’t suppose you have a name or phone number?”
“I do, for all the good it’ll do you. How does the last name ‘Zur,’ first name ‘Lou,’ strike you?”
“Lou Zur?” Jack groaned. “Loser?”
“Hmm. Clever lads, these college boys. It gives me such hope for the future of our country. You can check the home number he gave, but it’s probably a local bar or strip joint. My guess is that when the boy showed up at home with Madam his parents changed their mind about keeping her. Dumping the dog must have been his brilliant solution to the problem. I wish I could claim his behavior was the exception, but if you visited an animal shelter, you’d see it isn’t.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me?” Jack asked.
The sound of rustling papers drifted through the receiver. “I can tell you that Madam is approximately two and a half years old, in excellent health and all her shots are up-to-date.”
“Thank you. I appreciate your assistance.”
“If you plan on adopting her, I can fax you her medical records.”
“I’ll let you know.” He disconnected the call and swore beneath his breath. Now what? He turned and faced Annalise and Isabella, wincing at the undisguised hope gleaming in their eyes. They must have guessed from what little they’d heard that all had not gone well. Or rather, it had gone extremely well … for them.
“The dog’s name is Madam,” he stalled.
“What about the owner?” Annalise asked. “Did the vet have any contact information?”
He didn’t have a choice. He gave her the facts in short, terse sentences and then handed down his final edict. It was the only logical choice and he made his decision crystal-clear and without exceptions or loopholes, question or qualification. And he used his most intimidating tone of voice, the one that left his employees trembling. The tone that had his various vice presidents and board members scrambling to obey. The tone that no one had dared to openly defy in the decade he’d spent building his empire.
“We are going to turn this dog over to the shelter,” he pronounced. “End of discussion.”
Annalise didn’t so much as quiver, let alone tremble. And there wasn’t the slightest inkling of a scramble. Instead she shot a pointed look in Isabella’s direction before folding her arms across her chest in open defiance. “I think we should consider keeping Madam. She might help with certain adjustment issues.”
Didn’t she get it? He didn’t argue with employees. He spoke; they obeyed. “Help in what way?” he argued. “By eating us out of house and home? By scaring my neighbors? What if that animal drives off Sara and Brett? I can barely keep a nanny as it is. Now you want to deprive me of my housekeeper and handyman, too?”
“I’m sure they’ll both fall in love with Madam.” Beside her, Isabella nodded eagerly. “Plus, helping to take care of a dog will teach your niece responsibility.” Annalise lowered her voice, knocking the final nail into his coffin with a husky plea. “And maybe it’ll help with her grief.”
“You … I …” He ground his teeth together. “This isn’t a conversation to have in front of Isabella and you damn well know it,” he informed Annalise.
“Language.”
“Oh, you’re going to hear some language, just as soon as I get you alone.”
“I don’t think it’s wise to leave Madam unattended with Isabella,” Annalise objected, the wicked twinkle in her eye at direct odds with the demureness of her expression. “Not until we know that it’s safe.”
“Exactly.” He seized on the excuse. He pointed toward Madam. “That animal is too big. She could accidently injure Isabella.”
“So far she’s been very gentle. Not to mention protective. And if she was raised at a dorm, she’s accustomed to being around young people.”
“We don’t know if the mutt is housebroken. Look at the size of her. In case you’re unaware of it, there’s a distinct correlation between the size of an animal and the size of its steaming piles of sh—” He broke off at Annalise’s warning look. “Chunks of chocolate, not to mention the lakes of pi— Son of a bi—” It was all he could do not to rip his hair out by the roots. “Geysers of ginger ale. Who’s going to clean that up?”
Honey-gold eyes brimmed with laughter. “We’ll make sure Madam gets frequent walks until we’re certain she won’t accidently leave any chocolate treats or ginger-ale geysers around the house.”
“And that’s another thing,” he was quick to point out. “Who’s going to walk her? We’ll need a private trucking service to pick up all she dumps along the way.”
“That’s the purpose of pooper scoopers. We’ll manage.”
“Not only that, but she’s a lot of dog to control. We live in the city. If she gets away from you she might break a car or knock over a power pole or mistake a policeman for a chew toy. Or … or eat some tourists—not that that would be so bad.”
Isabella began to giggle, the sound the most delicious thing he’d ever heard in his entire life. “She won’t fit in the Jag,” he added weakly, struggling to steel himself against that sweet, sweet laugh. “She’ll knock over the furniture. The house is full of priceless antiques, you know. She’ll probably dig holes straight through to China in my backyard, holes Isabella could fall into. Isabella doesn’t speak Chinese.”
“She doesn’t speak at all,” Annalise reminded him. “Maybe Madam can help change that.”
He couldn’t allow the forlorn hope to sway him. “And the barking. Do you know how much it’ll cost to replace the windows the creature’s barking will break?”
“I have it on excellent authority that you can afford it.” She gazed up at him with eyes capable of melting even his heart of stone. “Please, Jack. Please, can we keep her?”
His niece deserted the dog and flung herself against him, wrapping her arms around his legs and squeezing for all she was worth. “Aw, hell,” he muttered.
“I take it we have a dog?” Annalise asked.
“That isn’t a dog.”
“Elephant … dog … chocolate-and-ginger-ale factory …” She shrugged. “Is she ours?”
He blew out a sigh. “I don’t see that I have a choice. Looks like we’ve just adopted a Madam.”