Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
To Do:
- New dog toys
- Throw together fundraising for shelter—gala?
- Caterer quotes for Brad
“I can explain.” Claire dumped shopping bags in the foyer. A new dog bed and a handful of toys tumbled onto the tile. Rosie skittered into the kitchen, Winston a couple of steps behind.
Claire approached Luke slowly, a bag of lo mein dangling from one wrist like a peace offering. Her stomach tightened into a ball. He couldn’t be that mad. It was a blind pug, for Pete’s sake, not a tiger.
“Who’s this?” There was curiosity but also a hint of exasperation in Luke’s voice. He ducked down to offer a hand to Winston.
The dog sniffed him apprehensively, then sat on his butt. His head cocked to one side, and he allowed some head pats.
Claire took a deep breath. Might as well rip it off like a Band-Aid. “This is Winston. I kind of adopted him today.”
Luke raised his eyebrows, then his mouth hardened into a line. “Claire, we talked about this. You can’t buy a dog every time you have a bad day.”
She narrowed her eyes. It was one time, and she had never actually gone to Wisconsin to get Rosie’s biological cousin. “That’s not it, I promise. I may be responsible for Tender Hearts Animal Rescue getting shut down.”
He raked a hand over his face, then leaned against the kitchen island, arms folded over his broad chest. Winston, apparently annoyed that the attention had stopped, rolled over onto his back and exposed his belly, tongue hanging out the side of his mouth.
“And how exactly did you manage to do that? Did you sleepwalk there and steal all the dogs? Are there more outside?”
She raised her hands in front of her. “Just Winston, I promise. I talked to Gloria today when I was dropping off the food, and she said they have to shut down next month. Their benefactor is no longer supporting them. They’re out of money.”
“Well, that’s bullshit. Who was their benefactor?”
“I’ll give you a hint. He stabbed me last year.”
Luke swore. “You’re telling me that homicidal asshole funded a bunch of disabled pets? I’m not buying it.”
She shrugged. “Apparently it was an engagement gift for Victoria. I guess his assets are frozen because of the investigation. Which means it’s all my fault that these dogs are destined for a catch-all shelter where they’ll inevitably be euthanized to make room for pets with the correct number of legs.”
She turned away from Luke and sniffled. Her eyes watered, but she refused to cry. Barney was responsible for too many of her tears already. He had pretty much gotten away with stabbing her, but she was not going to allow him to send these pets to their doom.
Something tapped impatiently on the tile behind her. The wheels were already turning in Luke’s brain. “How much do they need to stay open? I have some money put away that I was planning on using for a vacation for us.”
She swiped a hand under each eye and turned back to face him. “I can’t even imagine you on vacation.”
“Right back at you. You’d be leading the tours by the end of the trip.”
She ignored him. “I’ve decided to put together a charity event to benefit the rescue.” She drew her arms tightly across her chest and turned to glance out the windows. The sun was setting. Shadows crept over freshly mowed grass. Winston got up and followed her, nearly bumping into the bar stool until Rosie nudged him in the correct direction. He sat on Claire’s foot and panted happily.
Another sniffle escaped. There was so much on her plate, and so little time to do it. The hearing. Brad’s proposal. Growing the business. And now the charity event. There were so many moving pieces, and if any of them failed, everything was going to collapse like a house of cards. There wasn’t much time. She needed to get it together.
Luke tugged on her wrist and turned her around. She crumpled into him. “It’s not your fault,” he whispered against her hair.
“It kind of is,” she said, voice muffled against the fabric of his T-shirt. The dread edged an inch away.
His fingers wound through her hair. “What kind of charity event are you thinking about?”
“Some combination of black tie, auction, and adoption event. If we could just train the dogs to serve hors d’oeuvres, we’d be in amazing shape. Do you think they make dog butler costumes?” She pulled back from the embrace and reached for her phone.
“I’m sure someone does. Is he blind?” Luke asked, eyeing Winston who was pawing at the coat rack.
Claire bit her lip. “Yeah. Most of the dogs at Tender Hearts are special needs. I’m sorry. I should have asked you if it was okay for me to bring him home.” She sidled up next to him and put her hand on his arm. Did impulsively adopting a special needs dog count toward her mindfulness homework?
“I’ll allow it. Once.” He pulled her close and pressed himself to her. She yielded, opening her mouth as he kissed her deeply.
Crash. Something fell behind them, and they sprang apart. Claire grabbed the bag of Chinese and drew it over her shoulder like a shot put. If ESA had come to take her, they were about to be surprised by a face full of sweet and sour sauce. A quick sweep of the room revealed nothing amiss. She ducked around the corner of the island. A broom lay on its side. Winston huddled under the breakfast nook. A soft whimper escaped.
“Poor little guy,” Luke said, picking him up. “Let me do some research. He’ll be comfortable here in no time.”
“I appreciate you.” Claire snuck back in for another hug. Winston licked her cheek. Rosie whined at Claire’s heels until she picked her up.
Luke grunted and kissed her again, more softly this time.
Warmth ran up and down her like she was neck-deep in a hot tub. Shit. That was only one of the bombshells she needed to drop this evening. Maybe she should have led with the other one.
“There’s something else I have to tell you.”
“For fuck’s sake. What now?”
“So Mindy and I went to the bank today. For Happily Ever Afters,” she explained, turning away from him and walking to the fridge.
“Okay,” he said slowly.
“And we took out a loan. For the business. To help with expanding out west.”
There was silence. She pulled a bottle of wine out of the fridge and set it on the counter. Maybe some C?tes du Rh?ne could soften the blow. The storm in Luke’s eyes had grown. Winston licked his chin.
“If you needed money, why didn’t you just ask me?” There was danger in the growl of his voice.
She pulled two glasses out of the cabinet and poured the wine. “I didn’t want to mix business up with this.” She gestured between the two of them. “What if you dump me for a famous actress, and then I owe you a ton of money? Or what if I missed a payment and you started to resent me? And then you got some ideas from your true crime obsession and you started slipping cyanide in my wine?”
He glowered.
“I just needed this to be separate from us,” she said hurriedly. “My own thing. Does that make sense?”
He drummed his fingers on the countertop. Winston panted happily on his lap. “How much did you borrow?”
Claire slid the full glass down the bar to him. “A hundred thousand dollars.” She mumbled as softly and quickly as the words would escape her lips.
“How much?”
Damn it. “A hundred thousand dollars,” she repeated. Her shoulders tensed, bracing for an explosion.
There was silence for another minute. Luke took a sip of wine. Claire took a sip of wine. Rosie whined. Was that the sound of blood rushing through her veins?
Luke cleared his throat. “I think it’s a good idea. I’ve told you before you should think about expanding. But you should have asked me first.”
Her grip on the wineglass tightened. “I don’t need your permission to borrow money for my business.”
He held up one hand. His posture was relaxed, not at all like he was going to throw a suitcase at her and send her packing. “Not like that. I just mean I could have helped. Fewer stipulations than a bank. Zero percent APR if you make Roy’s empanadas recipe this week.”
“Mindy said the same thing, only she suggested blowjobs as leverage.”
“Mindy might be a business genius,” Luke pondered.
Claire smiled. If he could joke about her stepfather’s empanadas, surely he wasn’t that mad. Thank god. “Thank you for understanding. I’m sorry for not telling you about it before. I’m going to make a conscious effort to be a better communicator.” Dr. Goulding had been on her about it, anyway.
“How was your day?” she asked. “You seem grumpier than usual.”
He sighed. “I really need to get out to LA. I had a conference with Streamster today and they’re full steam ahead with setting up animators and someone to do the score. Someone’s coming out here for photography at the end of the week.”
“Holy crap.” She pulled the containers of Chinese food out and arranged them on the bar. “How do you feel about having all these other hands in the pot?”
He leaned back and his eyebrows scrunched together. “I don’t like other people having a say in how I do things. Every frame of Suburban Hustle was mine. And the stakes are so much higher with this doc. I’m worried they’re going to try to push for more Barney and less of the victims.”
Claire crossed the kitchen and laid a hand on his arm. “Don’t let them. You’re the boss. This is your baby. And if you need me to scare them, you know I will.”
“Are you going to pull an Alice and show up with a purse full of voodoo dolls and tarot cards?”
Claire’s mother was a self-proclaimed psychic with her own television show and had been known to dabble in all elements of the psychic realm.
“You can’t deny it’s an effective tactic.” She popped containers open and shoved her fork into some General Tso’s.
They ate in silence, shoulders hunched and stewing in the mire of the day. Ready or not, Claire and Luke would both be in California in two weeks facing the biggest projects of their careers. Would this proposal propel her business to new heights, or would it be a disaster that would destroy everything she’d built in the last five years?