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She smiled at him. A flirty smile. While he could recognize when someone was flirting with him, it always put him on edge and he never knew how to respond.
That kind of jokey flirting might be innocent, but in his experience, it was the kind used to ridicule him if he ever responded positively.
So he crossed his arms over his chest, standing at attention minus the salute. “No.”
“Right. Well. Suit yourself.” She gave a little wave and turned to go. It was only because he saw the loaner dog kit that he even remembered why she’d come in the first place.
“Cara?”
“Yeah?”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
She furrowed her brow, patting her pockets.
“Sweetness.”
“Oh, right.” She slapped a palm to her forehead comically. “She’s what I came for. Not to hound you into giving me a job.”
She seemed almost embarrassed. Of course, she didn’t stutter, and she didn’t stop smiling. “Guess I got distracted,” she said easily, sauntering over to pick up the loaner kit.
Yeah, she might get embarrassed, maybe, but she certainly wasn’t a basket case like him and the every-other-day reminder would do him a world of good.
* * *
CARA DUG THROUGH the loaner kit on her passenger side floorboard, pulling out a leash and attaching it to Sweetness’s collar.
“Home, sweet home, Sweet,” she said to the white ball of fur as she maneuvered them out of the car. “Well, temporary home.” She walked the dog along the patch of grass next to her apartment building until Sweetness did her business.
Even with the dog in tow, loneliness washed over her. She hated living alone. It gave her too much time to think, live in her own head, come up short.
Boo.
But Mia had moved out and none of her friends could up and move in. Cara’s only other choice was moving home with Mom and Dad, and with Anna headed off to college in the fall, Cara would rather be alone for years.
“Come on, girl.” She climbed the stairs to her front door and balanced the bin against it as she worked to get the key into the finicky, ancient lock. It made her think about Wes dropping the bin earlier.
He didn’t limp or look as though he had injuries that continued to be painful, but he had scars and had dropped something light. So, he was injured, and it was probably permanent.
And she was the jerk crying over a failed pie interview. Ugh.
Once inside, she knelt down and unclipped Sweetness’s leash. “You’re probably hungry and thirsty, aren’t you, girl?” She gathered the bin and went to the kitchen to fill up the dog bowls.
Man, Wes had thought of everything. She didn’t know how anyone could be that organized in some things and so disorganized in others.
She flipped the tap on and began filling the first bowl with water. Above the sink she had all Grandma’s pie tins displayed. Some days it was a comfort to have pieces of Grandma right there in plain sight.
On not-so-great days, it reminded her of the hole in her life since Grandma passed away.
She ran her finger over the edge of the starburst pie tin. Regret and failure lumped together in her stomach. “Sorry I suck so bad, Grandma.”
She cringed. She didn’t need a ghost to knock her over the head to know Grandma would not approve of Cara being so down on herself.
Whereas her sisters and parents beat around the bush of her failures, pretending she could overcome it, Grandma had refused to see it. Had given Cara a lot of crap anytime she dared pity herself.
Something about that reminded Cara of Wes.
“I have a bad feeling about your daddy,” she told the dog curled up on her couch. “He’s going to cause me trouble.” Which was something she normally thrived on, but something about Wes...
The gruffness, the scars, the blushing and stuttering. The way he hadn’t pitied her or made the crying worse when she’d first arrived. Just explained Phantom was a therapy dog.
For him. The last thing she needed was to get wrapped up in a guy who needed therapy. She was barely holding on herself.
She put the now-full bowls on the tile by the door, then settled on the couch. Sweetness sniffed the bowls, then hopped up next to her.
She felt broody. About everything. And, well, brooding was not her norm. Usually she went out to drink or laugh away any brooding, but today she was tired. Tired because she’d gotten up so dang early for the market, tired because she’d imploded at her interview and tired because everyone seemed to be a couple. Mia, her friends.
She hadn’t been on more than two dates with the same guy since Kevin. Oh, that one still burned a little bit. She had no qualms about casual relationships or even casual sex, but she had some serious qualms about being the girl a guy used to get back at his girlfriend.
Now fiancée.
Grr.
Sweetness crawled into her lap, and Cara scratched behind her ears. “Are you going to be my therapy dog, girl?” Sweetness licked her chin, and she couldn’t deny the fact that she might need it.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_9c0130ac-9f77-5654-ae63-77ae3eccb817)
“KNOCK, KNOCK!”
Wes tensed. Okay, he’d already been tense. He’d carried that tension around all morning, knowing Cara was going to show up today and invade.
He’d tended to the animals, worked out, showered and eaten breakfast, knowing that she would be all up in his space not just today, but three days a week, every week, for as long as she wanted or as long as he could stand it.
Her references had been mostly glowing. Cara was good at customer service. She was organized and dependable as long as she wasn’t tasked with too stressful of a project.
Those were the things he needed, and he didn’t have stressful projects because he refused to let stress into his business. The fact she interacted so well with his dogs helped. That, and you’d like to see her naked.
He snorted at his own inner monologue. Not gonna happen, buddy.
So, two weeks and a few phone calls after she’d offered herself up for the job, here she was. His assistant.
Without a response from him, Cara appeared in his office with Sweetness on a leash. A sparkly purple leash. Definitely not the one he’d packed in the loaner kit.
Then he saw the scarf.
“What the hell is that?” he demanded, pointing at the offensive swath of fabric.
Cara blinked and looked down at Sweetness. The scarf bandana thing around Sweetness’s neck was also purple, with pink-and-green flowers on it.
“Isn’t it cute?”
“No. It’s ridiculous. She’s a dog.”
“She loves it. Don’t you, girl?” Cara crouched, scratching Sweetness behind the ears. And, yeah, Sweetness seemed to like that, but he wasn’t sold on the scarf thing.
She popped back up to her feet. She was wearing skintight jeans and some oversize purple sweater thing that had big holes in it, but she seemed to be wearing a black tank top under it, so the holes didn’t show off anything important.
Seriously, there had been moments in time when he thought this would be a good idea?
“Thanks for letting me keep her the extra week.”
“Look, you can keep her. Period.”
Cara wrinkled her nose. “You can’t just give me your dog.”
“You bought her sparkly shit, and she clearly likes you better than me. Besides, you can bring her with you on workdays. It’s not like I don’t have enough dogs to keep me company, and she’s only mine because someone knew I didn’t turn away strays.”
“Wes.”
He already didn’t like the way she said his name. It gave him feelings he’d rather not diagnose at the moment. It was one of the great things about the army. Everyone said Stone or his rank in the same harsh bark. No emotion to discern in that environment. Just do your job right and no one gave you a hard time for being poor or shy or anxious or helpful or nice, either.
They needed to get on that professional, detached playing field. He gave orders. She followed them. The end. “Are you ready to work?”
“Oh! I almost forgot.” She shoved some papers out of the way and put her bag down on the spot she’d cleared. Carefully, she pulled out a big plastic container.
“I made you a pie.” She unclipped the clasps on the lid. “It’s kind of my version of a personality test.”
“Pie as personality test?”
She nodded, her lips a brightly painted pink smile. She lifted the lid with a flourish. “I give you octo-pie.”
Wes stared at the bizarre-looking pie. It was indeed an octo-pie in that the top of the piecrust had been fashioned to look like an octopus. A big lump of pie dough made up the body, while strips made up the eight legs. It even had eyes and a mouth cut into the crust. The pie filling looked like cherry and made his mouth water.
It was ridiculous and hilarious. He actually found himself laughing. Which somehow only made Cara grin wider.
“You pass,” she said happily. “You do have a personality under all that gruff I’m-so-tough beardy flannel.”
Any humor faded. He didn’t particularly want her to see him having a personality. This would be so much easier if he could be the silent soldier and she could...go about her business organizing him. His papers. Not him. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“I would.” Sweetness hopped up on the desk chair and began sniffing around the pie, so Cara put the lid back on. “Are you sure about me keeping her?”
“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
“You have no idea how much I like that about you.” She said it kind of under her breath, but he caught it and was all too pleased by it.
“So, where do we start?” she asked, all sunny good cheer while Sweetness panted happily up at her despite her taking away the pie.
Yeah, the damn dog definitely belonged with Cara.
“Wherever you want. I have work to do in the kitchen. Find a way to organize all this in a way that works for you and that you can explain to a mess like me, answer the phones, and we’re set.”
Cara looked wide-eyed around the room. “That’s it?”
“You have carte blanche. And I have carte blanche to tell you it sucks.”
Instead of frowning or arguing like he would have expected, she grinned. “This might be the best job I ever had.”
“I wouldn’t say that yet,” he grumbled. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you have any questions.” And he would stay in the kitchen, because being around her was bad news. Being pleased by anything she said was a terrible recipe for a replay of his teenage life, and nope, he wasn’t going to do that again.
He left her in his office, Sweetness not even looking his way. Which was fine. At least Phantom...
He glanced back to where the dog hovered in between the doorway of the office and the hallway to the kitchen. “Another traitor,” Wes muttered, trying not to feel too bent out of shape about it.
If he were a dog, he’d be panting in Cara’s lap, too.
Irritated with himself for, well, everything, he took a deep breath and went about setting up for work. He had things to do. Things that did not involve his new assistant.
Besides, there was always the chance she’d make a mistake and he could fire her. Because, of course, you have the balls for that.
He had been isolated for too long. Talking to the dogs was one thing. Talking to himself this much? He still remembered his fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Purdue, telling him that talking to himself was a sign of insanity.
She might not be that far off.
He gathered his ingredients, flipping on the radio to drown out some of his inner monologue. All he wanted to think about was the correct ratio of sweet potatoes to whole wheat flour.
He lost himself in the routine, even managing to forget Cara was in the next room most of the time. He had the batter made and the molds filled before she interrupted the peace he’d found by entering the kitchen.
“Hey, um...” Her nervous energy filled the room. Obviously she’d run across something she had a question about, something that made her uncomfortable. His shoulders that had finally relaxed tensed.
“Um, someone from Dr. Pedelmann’s office called to see if they could reschedule your appointment tomorrow.”
Well. Yeah, he could see why that’d make her uncomfortable. And damn him for not having a personal phone line so he could handle these things without the chance of her...getting wind of it. Too late now. “Super.”
“They asked if the sixth at two-thirty would work.”
“Okay.”
She didn’t move. He didn’t bother to look at her, but he could still hear her breathing, didn’t hear any footsteps retreating.
“You’re not, like, dying, are you?”
The question shocked an almost laugh out of him. “No, not dying.” Any lingering desire to laugh died. “Just malfunctioning.”
She stood there, hovering. Not asking any more questions but not leaving, either.
“Look.” He glared at the molds filled with batter. As much as he loved what he did, it so often struck him as ridiculous. Making dog treats so idiot people like Pipsqueak’s owner could pretend their dogs were children. All because he was too damaged to do what he really wanted to do.
But there were good customers, too. Non-ridiculous people who wanted to feed their dogs decent food. Which was the whole reason he’d even thought of this business when all other options had been destroyed.
