Chapter 2
OWEN
Heather
Have you met her yet?
Owen
Who?
Heather
The lady with the dog.
My stomach twists, and I grind my jaw. My half-sister Heather has always taken after my stepmom Britt’s side of the family more than my dad’s.
She believes she inherited psychic powers from her tarot-reading maternal grandmother Gwen, and before I moved from South Carolina, she had a dream where a woman with a dog was waiting for me in the mist like something out of Wuthering Heights.
Needless to say, I gave that the ole side-eye.
I do not believe in psychic dreams, and I’m certainly not basing a relationship on one.
I guess after my wife died, I adopted my dad’s disdain for mysticism and fairytales. Where was all that magic when she needed it?
Still, I know it’s no use arguing with them. They have an answer for everything.
Owen
Lots of ladies have dogs in LA.
Heather
You’ll know her when you meet her. She’s the one who’ll heal your heart, and who knows? You might heal hers as well!
Owen
I’m not staking my future and Maddie’s on some ghostly dream girl.
Heather
You never know, Froot Loop.
I chuckle at my dad’s old nickname for me from when I was a kid. Before I got “too cool” for it.
Owen
My favorite food for the first five years of my life!
Heather
So I’ve heard.
Owen
How’s my little girl?
Heather
Adorable as always. Missing her daddy and Ladybird.
Owen
We miss her. Tell her I’m looking at houses tomorrow. As soon as I find one, I'll send for you.
Heather
We’re packed and ready!
The moon is out, and the sky is filled with stars. It’s a beautiful, early-October night, and I’m sitting on the back porch of the bungalow with Gina, Haddy, and Gavin, while Maverick grills up our dinner.
They have a pretty place here with large twinkle lights strung from the tin roof over the wooden platform. The table is black wrought iron with matching chairs, and a side table holds all the plates, napkins, and utensils.
Ladybird is lying at my feet like a sphynx across from Spanky, who’s doing the same, and I think my exuberant bloodhound’s grooming fiasco has been forgiven. At least, I hope it has.
Gina sits across from me nursing a glass of iced tea and not glaring daggers at us—or crying, like I was afraid she might do earlier when we crashed into her workspace.
We’re not staying here long, and I don’t want to leave a bad taste in anyone’s mouth, especially not hers.
The truth is Gina Bradford hits me right in my weakness.
For starters, she’s tall. She’s slim, but athletic, and she has long, strawberry-blonde hair and bright green eyes. I don’t know when I got a taste for gingers, but her particular shade of rose-gold really does it for me.
She’s quick to laugh, and her lips are always shiny and pink—and she smells like cherries. It’s the craziest thing. I never thought I had a favorite scent, but the last few days I’ve been here, I keep catching whiffs. It makes me want to pull her close and bury my face in her neck.
Which is completely inappropriate and creepy. I hardly know the woman.
She loves dogs.
Not only that, she knows everything about them. Maverick told me she majored in cynology in college, which means she has a degree in dog breeds and behaviors. I didn’t even know that was a field of study.
Naturally, I have said none of this to my sister, or she’d be off to the races.
Gina is smart, beautiful, funny, feisty, a scientist, and I haven’t had this much trouble not thinking about a woman since Angie died seven years ago.
Seven years. Has it been that long? I guess it has, since Maddie started second grade in September. I remember all of it so clearly…
We were so happy, so ready to start our family when we found out she was pregnant. She didn’t have a hard pregnancy. In fact, she was glowing and nesting the entire time. I’d just taken up hockey, and she encouraged me to pursue it.
She’d be there at all the games wearing my jersey, growing bigger and bigger with our little girl inside her, and I thought this was my life. I thought it was only going to be rainbows and sunshine from here on out.
Even when it was time, we had no idea the risk was there, lurking like a dark shadow, waiting to destroy it all.
Cardiomyopathy. The doctors said later it was a preexisting condition she probably never even knew about. Her body had never been under the stress of pregnancy, labor, and delivery.
All that planning, all that nesting. She’d prepared everything, and in that one night, it was all over. She gave us Maddie, and then she gave her life.
I’ll never forget standing beside her coffin in the rain. A shiny mahogany box sitting on brass rails holding all my dreams for the future, for a family. I tried to be strong, but it broke me.
Dad was at my side, his hand on my shoulder. Britt was there as well, holding my infant daughter.
Heather put her small hand in mine, leaning her head on my arm and openly crying. She was only fourteen, and it was the first time she’d lost a close family member.
I’d lost my own mother when I was a little boy. I barely remember her now, but at least I have flashes of things, scents and colors, and I have pictures of her holding me.
Maddie has none of that. She’ll never know her mom or how much she loved her. She’ll never know how much it cost to give her life.
Rubbing my fingers over my eyes, I push against these dark memories. They’re still so vivid in my mind, and for so long, I’ve used them as a shield.
The years roll slowly past, and it’s still hard to believe sometimes. Maybe it always will be. I don’t know.
What I do know is I have to do all I can to keep us safe. No matter how pretty Gina Bradford might be, I can’t risk Maddie’s heart. Or mine.
“You should train her to use a crate.” Gina cuts through my musings, leaning over to scrub her fingers in Ladybird’s thick hide.
My dog perks up at her affection, lifting her nose and thumping her tail against the wooden patio.
Gavin Knight, my other teammate, sits beside me with his infant daughter asleep on his chest. I smile in spite of myself, remembering how I did the same with Maddie when she was a baby.
It was just the two of us, and I’d read all the books about skin-to-skin contact and bonding. I’d hold her every chance I got, doing my best to keep her happy and secure in my arms.
“Can you crate train a grown dog?” Their cousin Haddy walks out to join us, carrying bowls of sour cream and salsa.
She places them on the serving table along with soft tortillas and lettuce.
Maverick opens the grill, and the delicious scent of spiced meat fills the air. He’s making grilled chicken with habanero black beans, and Gavin warned me our teammate has a flair for spicy food.
Gavin and Haddy lived here before they got engaged, had a baby, and moved into the house across the street. Still, they’re here most of the time.
“You can definitely crate train her,” Gigi replies. “It might even go quicker since she’s older. Unless she had a negative experience with crates?”
She turns her green eyes on me, and for a second, I’m caught off guard.
They sparkle with interest, and they remind me of my stepmom Britt’s green eyes. Britt was always loving and encouraging to me, and Gina’s sweet gaze strangely makes me feel at home.
Clearing my throat of those thoughts, I reach down to pat the top of Ladybird’s head. She and Spanky are facing each other with their tongues hanging out, almost like they’re smiling at each other.
“I don’t know about crate training,” I answer slowly. “Isn’t that like putting her in a cage?”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Gigi says. “Spanky prefers a wire crate because it’s bigger, and he has more room to stretch out. Plastic kennels have more of a den feel, but they’re also smaller.”
“I don’t know if I like the idea of caging Ladybird.” I do my best to keep my tone easy, not confrontational. “It seems… cruel.”
“That’s a very common misconception.” Gigi’s eyebrows rise as she nods, and I get the feeling she’s had this conversation before.
“But studies show crate training is very beneficial in helping dogs cope with stress. It gives them a place to go if they’re afraid, and if she has to have medical treatments she’ll be prepared. ”
“So a cage is a good thing?” I give her a teasing wink, and her mouth falls open.
She blinks at me a moment, almost like she lost her train of thought, then she clears her throat, shaking her head.
“Yes, actually.” She shifts in her seat. “Think of it like a crib for babies, or her own room if she were a child.”
“Maddie does like to go to her room and play.” I muse.
“Lucy loves her crib,” Gavin adds, his large hand practically covering his little girl’s entire body.
“You can put a memory-foam cushion and Ladybird’s favorite things in it,” Gina continues. “And it can be her safe space.”
“Patsy has slept in a kennel since we got her,” Haddy adds. “It keeps her safe from Maverick.”
“Hey!” her cousin calls from where he’s working at the grill. “Just standing here making your dinner… And that only happened one time.”
“Once was enough,” Haddy snarks.
“You wouldn’t have even known about it if I hadn’t told you,” he argues.
My brow furrows, and I look from him to her and back again. “Is somebody going to tell me what happened? The suspense is killing me.”
“Maverick thought he sat on Peepee.” Gavin snorts, causing his little girl to stir. “One of Spanky’s chew toys was on the couch, and when he flopped on it, it let out a loud squeak.”
“I almost shat my pants!” Maverick yells over his shoulder.
Gigi presses her lips together hard, her eyes wide as she fights laughter. I bite the inside of my cheek because Haddy’s eyes are narrowed on all of us.
Sitting forward, it’s my turn to clear my throat.
“Those chew toys can make you hurt yourself,” I say, trying to help my new friend. “I stepped on one in the dark the other night, and I nearly broke my neck.”