Love at First Bark Page 14

  But having to wear gloves was a small price to pay for his successful summit of Everest. Several fellow climbers this year had paid steeper prices, a few far steeper. Two climbers he’d met at base camp later lost their lives on the descent, and a Sherpa had come down with high-altitude cerebral edema and would never be able to climb above base camp again.

  Once in his loft, Ben checked in via phone with the six-person staff who’d helped him take his small firm from an underdog to a serious player on the St. Louis scene, then showered, ate a quick breakfast, and assembled the crate he’d bought yesterday.

  He’d not had a dog in several years, but the reality of dog ownership was sliding back in. Ben would either have to kennel the animal almost as soon as he was picked up, or he’d need to take him to work and into a client meeting this afternoon. Neither scenario was ideal. He’d decide based on how the dog was acting when he picked him up. If it seemed like the dog could handle an office environment, Ben could send his assistant out for a bed and some chew toys.

  He wasn’t leaving himself open to the thought that there was any way the animal wouldn’t be waiting and ready at ten when he went back. He was confident that this mode of thinking was how he’d made it up—and down—a few of the world’s trickiest peaks: not leaving himself open to any possibility other than returning safely to base camp, whether it meant abandoning an attempt at a peak when storm clouds began to build on the horizon or forcing himself to trudge along, one step after another, when his strength was diminished and countless pains were nearly unbearable.

  Keeping his head down and focusing on the end goal was the one lesson he was proud to have learned from his father; they’d just had very different goals.

  On the surface, his father had had everything, from a luxury car, a condo in Vail, and a beachside duplex in the Keys. He’d also had a string of four wives over his lifetime and had been a man of insatiable wants and needs.

  He’d met Ben’s mom, his third wife, in Cairo, where she’d been performing as a belly dancer on a cruise ship. His father had been wrapping up a divorce from his second wife when he’d traveled there on business and had been captivated by her dancing and her exotic Lebanese beauty. He courted her long distance for nearly a year before he won her over and she agreed to marry him and come to America.

  Ben only had one memory of her that he could recall with any clarity. He’d been young, less than three, and she’d been rocking him in a chair as she sang. He could remember his fingers tangling in her long silky hair, and he couldn’t recall the song, but her voice had been sweet and thick like honey.

  Whether it was Ben’s self-absorbed father or America or motherhood, the life she’d entered wasn’t right for her. She left his father—left him—and returned to her childhood home in Lebanon shortly after Ben turned three, taking nothing aside from the clothes on her back, even though the prenup she’d signed entitled her to far more.

  He never saw her again, and when he was sixteen, he got word that she’d passed away unexpectedly.

  If it hadn’t been for Brad’s friendship back then, Ben probably would’ve ended up in serious trouble. Brad’s dad was almost as much of an asshole as his had been, and Brad had related to being the child of a father who always wanted more but who could never connect. At sixteen, he and Brad had hung out, drinking and smoking pot when they could get their hands on it, watching movies, and listening to music.

  Ben finally led them out of the funk they’d fallen into by convincing Brad to join him on a hockey team, which put an end to most of their drinking and smoking, and was an entirely better outlet for Ben’s anger. In his late teens, when he wasn’t climbing, which was sporadic then, the only things that kept him from sliding into a dark place were hockey and the stupid shit he did with Brad.

  Finally, in college, the anger finally began to recede and Ben stopped allowing his parents’ actions to define him. He found an outlet in architecture, an enticing mix of design and method, and he remembered that there were things he loved about the world.

  Then a week or so before graduation, he got out of class early and headed to Brad’s campus in Webster Groves for no reason other than wanting to get the weekend started early. He’d sat in the sprawling lecture hall, identifying the kids who’d be giving speeches by their level of fidgetiness. He’d noticed Mia right off. She’d been sorting through her cards way too fast to read them, and her brows had been knotted in a look of intense ferocity.

  Then she got up and talked—unscripted—about how her life had been defined by the father she’d never known and the mother who’d left for something better, and how there were moments in every day where she was both a person and a shell of a person, and Ben had felt as if she was talking right to him. There’d been a moment when he was pretty sure she was. She’d paused as if struggling for words for the first time since the speech started, and her eyes had locked on his. He was pretty sure he’d nodded in encouragement, even though he’d been transfixed by her gaze.

  He’d wanted to connect with her more than he’d ever wanted to connect with anyone. He’d been frozen with indecision when the class ended. Her speech had been raw and real, and he could probably live his lifetime again and not be as moved by someone as he’d been by her in the five minutes of her speech.

  After a speech like that one, he’d suspected she’d want to retreat, but he hadn’t counted on her ducking out a side door and vanishing down one of the corridors before he could reach her.

  He couldn’t blame anyone but himself for enlisting Brad’s help a few days later to find her but not being honest as to how much meeting her would mean to him. How could Brad have known when he’d been the king of indifference for so long? That fact seemed to have been cemented when Ben hadn’t shown up at the coffeehouse to “accidentally” run in to them. His father had had a heart attack that morning, and when Ben had finally gotten to a phone, he’d learned that Brad had hooked up with Mia himself, assuming Ben had lost interest in her.

  He couldn’t hate Brad for fate having stepped in—at least not until learning he’d cheated on her last year. And so soon after Brad and Mia started dating, Ollie had come into the world, and Ben had loved him with a protective, white-hot heat that had surprised him.

  After Ollie was born, there’d been nothing to do but wait. Ben couldn’t quell his feelings for Mia, and he couldn’t find the strength to walk away completely. So he’d waited, climbing when he could, and pouring every other ounce of energy into his firm.

  But it was different now. Last night, Mia had climbed onto his lap. He’d felt her desire in her kiss, and nothing was ever going to be the same.

  * * *

  Taye was glowing, so much so that Ben kept chuckling every time he looked his way. The grin Taye had pasted from ear to ear hadn’t faltered in half an hour. The same could be said for Turbo’s energy. The dog had been chasing a tennis ball—and the occasional pigeon—nonstop across the wide expanse of roof above Ben’s loft, and he’d hardly stopped to pant. Ben didn’t want him wearing the pads of his feet raw, but he’d not yet been able to call him in with treats.

  After he’d gotten a good glimpse of the dog’s speed and nimbleness, Taye had come up with the name, and Ben suspected it would stick. Although he hoped some of the young dog’s inexhaustible energy level was due to his confinement over the last three days, Ben was willing to bet it’d be years before this guy was as calm as Sadie. Even her pup had more controlled energy than him.

  Ben had arrived at animal control at quarter to ten and had breathed a sigh of relief when the doors were unlocked soon after by Bernie, who’d given him a wink and told him that Turbo was up for adoption. After the fees were paid and the paperwork was finished, Ben hadn’t had the heart to lock the nervous guy in a crate for the next several hours.

  As he’d suspected, it’d been close to impossible to get much accomplished at the office. He made it through two meetings, a
pologizing to clients even though they didn’t seem to mind. He spent another hour wrapping up the designs on the green home and emailed over the preliminary drawings. He’d kept the leash on Turbo, who refused to lie down or do much else aside from sit on his haunches and stare Ben down and whine when Ben looked in his direction.

  He’d cut out as soon as he could, then called Taye’s mom and gotten permission to pick him up after school. The look on Taye’s face when Ben picked him up in the Jeep with Turbo in the back was one Ben wouldn’t forget.

  And while Ben didn’t want to dampen Taye’s mood, it was also important he keep the young teen grounded in their current reality. Not only was Taye’s mom working two jobs, she had four kids to raise and money was tight. And Ben had known her long enough to be certain she wouldn’t accept handouts. He intended to be respectful of this, but he also knew how much Taye needed a dog. It had been the only thing the hopeful kid had put on his Christmas list for the last three years running.

  “Look, Taye, when you go home tonight, you need to remember your mom is going to need some time to think this over. Any dog with this amount of energy is going to be a huge responsibility, and your mom already has her share of that.”

  “Yeah, man, I know.”

  “In the meantime, I’ll hire a trainer, and we can figure out what makes him tick. I could also use a dog walker a couple days a week. I won’t be able to get home at lunch every day, and I suspect it’ll be awhile before I can trust him out of a crate. Next week, I’ll try taking him in with me again, but if it’s anything like this afternoon, it’ll be next to impossible to get anything done. Your little brother’s helping to babysit your younger sisters after school now too, right?”

  “Yeah, when I have practice or if my mom lets me hang with friends.”

  “Let’s see how she feels about you taking an Uber here a couple times a week after school. That way you can still get your time with him.”

  “That’d be dope, man, but can you ask her when you take me home?”

  Ben agreed and, when he couldn’t draw Turbo’s attention to the bag of treats, tossed him another ball. Unlike a retriever, Turbo had no natural interest in returning the balls. Instead, he dashed after them and herded them around, nudging them with his nose until he lost interest. Then he’d run the length of the roof again just for the joy of running.

  Taye’s school was three miles from Ben’s loft. While the streets surrounding the loft weren’t an ideal place for a teen to hang out alone late in the evening or at night, Ben was comfortable letting Taye come and go alone after school and get Turbo outside for some exercise even in winter when it was dark early.

  The five-story building had been the first warehouse-conversion project Ben had taken on not long out of college. Seven years ago, the then-dilapidated building had been in a run-down few blocks of mostly abandoned warehouses, but it had also been in the right trajectory with the city’s growth and restoration, and by the time the lofts were rentable, the city reclamation efforts had reached it.

  Ben had kept his favorite of the sixteen lofts that had been completed in the building. It was on the fifth floor, just below them. He’d since overseen the design and restoration of three other downtown buildings, most of which were more upscale and had fewer imperfections than this one, but he hadn’t had the inclination to move.

  His loft was airy and unassuming and had a decent view of the Arch and the Old Courthouse. It had also been a dream realized. He’d been told by his career-prejudiced father that he needed to go into law since before kindergarten. Growing up, his father’s at-times ferocious intensity and drive had felt inescapable. This place had proven he’d gotten out from under his father’s thumb.

  Ironically, despite his father’s displeasure over Ben’s choice of major, he’d also been the biggest player in enabling Ben to get this building’s initial loan and make his dreams of building restoration a reality. After recovering from a heart attack and triple bypass, he’d gifted Ben with a hundred-thousand-dollar line of credit for graduation that Ben had paid back and then refinanced under his own name. His father’s brush with mortality had softened but not transformed him for the last six years of his life.

  Ben suspected he’d also received the unfair lion’s portion of his father’s estate over his half sister and half brother from his father’s first marriage because Ben had needed and wanted it the least of the three of them. Even though he’d been told emphatically that his career choice would leave him deprived of his father’s estate, Ben suspected his dad’s change of mind was his final attempt to assert control over his domain.

  Having given up hope that Turbo would start to fetch, Taye jogged around the roof, collecting the abandoned balls. Ben watched as the teen tried a different approach to connect with the dog. Taye plopped down cross-legged onto the concrete roof and picked a ball to bounce in front of himself.

  It worked. Soon Turbo was captivated. He circled around Taye, his tail wagging and his high-pitched bark adding enthusiasm to the air. Taye laughed and bounced the ball just out of Turbo’s reach. Rather than being deterred, the excitable dog lunged close and inundated Taye with slobbery licks.

  Taye laughed harder, a deep, rolling belly laugh Ben couldn’t remember hearing from him before. Smiling, he pulled out his phone and snapped a few pictures. He texted them to Mia and asked her to share them with Ollie.

  Two minutes later, she sent a picture of Ollie. He was on the couch sandwiched between Sadie and Sam, his thumbs raised in a double thumbs-up. A few seconds later, the picture was followed by a text.

  Woo-hoo! What an awesome thing you’re doing. Tell Taye we’re super happy for him. And Ollie’s asking if dogs can have playdates.

  Chuckling, Ben did a quick internet search. He came up with a picture of a motley crew of dogs wearing bandannas for bibs and seated at a picnic table with giant dog treats in front of them. He took a screen shot, sent it, and added:

  Tell him heck yeah.

  Great. It’s a date then…er…playdate. You, me, Taye, Ollie, the dogs. And I’ll leave the wine at home.

  Her reply had relief sweeping over him. So she definitely remembered. Ben tapped the side of his thumb on his screen a second, deciding how to respond.

  Perfect. And sans wine is good with me. Then if you want to pick up where we left off, I’ll know it’s not the alcohol talking.

  He sent it and waited, the beat of his pulse tapping out the seconds. Close to a minute passed, and she hadn’t responded. Taye was standing up and dragging his sleeve over his cheek to wipe off Turbo’s slobber. Ben was slipping his phone back into his pocket when it vibrated again.

  Um…okay.

  Um…okay. It wasn’t exactly a yes, but it wasn’t a no either. With a shrug, Ben put his phone away. That was good enough. For now.

  Chapter 16

  Mia stared from the imperfectly organized list in her hand to the items in the bags she’d just loaded into the car, doing her best to give everything one final thorough check. Showing up at Ollie’s school to lead the craft-making for his class holiday party without essential supplies wouldn’t be the win she was hoping for today.

  She’d signed on as craft lead at the start of the year, without any hint of how complicated her life had been about to get, proving she had absolutely none of her mom’s ESP. She counted everything a third time, after getting lost partway through each of the first two.

  There was no getting past it. Her thoughts were elsewhere.

  It wasn’t the easiest thing, tabling action until she’d had a few days to process everything that had happened the night of Ugly Sweater/Cute Mutt contest. But somehow she was managing it. Mostly.

  The whirlwind of indecision inside her wasn’t making it any easier. But the fact that she wanted to give Ollie the best Christmas possible was the kick in the butt she needed. It was the final push before the holidays and Ollie’s last day of school
, and she needed to focus on making it a successful one.

  For the most part, all this was easier said than done in the once-almost-too-quiet home that had turned into a bit of a zoo overnight. Lynn, as usual, brought with her color and light and delicious smells from the exotic dishes she cooked. Adding to that were Sadie and Sam and their wildly loud barks and occasional messes and constant desire to be in the thick of things. Not that Mia minded. They were a happy and welcome distraction. Their continuous antics spread laughter along with the chaos.

  All in all, considering the less-than-ideal environment they’d come from, they were surprisingly well behaved. The biggest areas in which they needed focused training were house-breaking—something even Sadie hadn’t mastered—and constant vigilance to prevent Sam from gnawing through Mia and Ollie’s things, from toys to furniture to pillows.

  But even with these distractions, two things were always in the back of Mia’s mind. The first was Ben and the bring-me-to-my-knees kiss they’d shared. And those texts. Dear God, she’d probably faint when she had to face him in person again.

  It didn’t help that she distinctly remembered grinding her hips against him. A copious amount of wine can’t make you grind your hips, can it? No, whatever she might wish to think, that was all her.

  And there was no kidding herself. Ben knew it too.

  Embarrassing as it might be, every time she thought of those few minutes, she was no better than an insatiably hungry little bird who’d been given a minuscule bite of dinner from its mom. More, please. Lots and lots more.

  The second thing she couldn’t stop thinking about was the fact that somewhere in the city, there was a baby who shared half of Ollie’s DNA. This awareness was wrapped up inside the memory of that baby’s remarkable blue eyes and the full-body grunting he’d done as he reached for the cats. And even if she decided the positives of welcoming that baby into her and Ollie’s lives outweighed the negatives, it would mean publicly acknowledging Brad’s infidelity, and that wasn’t something she was eager to do.