But Jerome stumbled, slipped on the spilled water, and fell to the ground on all fours. The deputies immediately secured him. But before they could drag Jerome to his feet, Brutus suddenly made a miraculous recovery and went for him. With a magnificent growl, he leapt onto Jerome’s right butt cheek and latched on tight with his teeth. He worried and tugged at his prey.
Jerome screamed with pain and begged the deputies to get the dog off of him.
Watching with secret delight, Maddy recalled Walter’s comments about Brutus’s Heinz heritage. In among those fifty-seven varieties was almost certainly bulldog. And Brutus was hanging on to that butt cheek with bulldog tenacity.
“Your dog, ma’am?” asked a deputy.
Maddy turned to Tom. “Maybe it’s time for some alpha—”
“Don’t say it,” said Tom. But his dimple was back in place.
“Brutus. Get off,” he ordered.
Reluctantly, Brutus let go of his quarry. But he gave Jerome one last good bite, adding another dose of doggy drool to Jerome’s torn and bloodied designer suit pants.Then he turned and trotted to Tom, nudging his head against Tom’s leg.
The judge spoke from behind Maddy’s shoulder. “Is he okay?”
Fear clutched her as she turned to answer. “You mean Jerome?” To get through all this and then have Brutus arrested for attacking his would-be murderer would be unbearable.
“No,” said the judge. “I meant the dog.” She bent down to pat Brutus. “He’s a cute little guy. I have pugs, you know.” Brutus enthusiastically licked her hand with his long pink tongue.
“So you’re not . . . ?”
“A clear case of self-defense, I would say,” said the judge. With that she strolled away, wiping her hand on her judicial robes. Maddy was too stunned to even thank her.
Leaning back against Tom’s solid chest, Brutus by her feet, she watched the deputies drag Jerome away. “I hope that’s the last we see of him.”
Tom started to tick off a list on his fingers. “Not only will he be charged with contempt of court but he’ll also have to face U.S. immigration officials, a representative from the British Consulate, and San Francisco’s finest for his accumulation of driving and parking citations.” Tom’s voice was rich with both satisfaction and vindication.
Maddy twisted back to face him. She smiled her admiration. “Wow.You did dig up some dirt.” It had been so worth him going to the office and leaving her alone all those hours in Fortress South Beach.
“And then there are his friends in the gutter press,” said Tom. “They’ll go to town on him.” He made no attempt to hide his relish.
“Tom, I’m really, really impressed. You were awesome in court.”
Boring
and
lawyer
were two words she would never again link together.
“Brutus was the star. Not only did he make a great impression on the judge but he also guaranteed Stoddard an uncomfortable flight when they deport him back to England. I imagine he will have to travel standing up.”
Maddy laughed. “Brutus had his revenge, didn’t you, little guy?”
“That he did,” said Tom, squeezing her hand. “All in all, I think we could call this day a howling success.”
Twenty-three
On Wednesday morning, audition day, Maddy was awake well before the time she’d set for her alarm.Well, it was actually Tom’s alarm clock and she was using Tom’s alarm clock because for the last four nights she’d slept in Tom’s bed. With Tom.
Now she was lying entwined with him in the warm, rumpled sheets, her head resting intimately on his shoulder. Tom didn’t stir. Maddy turned her head so she could enjoy the private luxury of watching him, unguarded in sleep.
In repose, his face lost the tense look he often wore when awake. His mouth curved in a sensual half smile, his dark lashes fanned against his cheek, and his jaw was darkened with a night’s growth of beard. There was just a hint of dimple. He seemed younger somehow, more Tom the cartoon fan than Tom the ambitious corporate lawyer who had won so resoundingly in court the other day.
Would she have him more one way than the other? No. Grim Tom and Funny Tom were just aspects of his personality—as was Amazing-Lover Tom. And Maddy knew there were more aspects to discover as she fell more and more in love with him.
It was a thought that was both exciting and frightening at the same time.
She was wondering how she could extract her leg from under his without waking him to get up and fix breakfast when the doorbell sounded.
Darn! Maddy slid her leg out from under Tom’s, slipped cautiously out of bed, threw on her filmy robe, and tiptoed down the hallway.
Through the peephole she could see it was Nora Green from next door. She tightened her robe, wishing it wasn’t so short and sheer. She jumped as she felt Tom put his arms around her from behind.
She twisted around to face him. He was wearing his thick, white toweling robe and his hair was all mussed up. Her heart missed a beat at how gorgeous just-out-of-bed Tom looked. He felt warm and strong and she wished she were back in bed with him.
“It’s Nora,” she whispered. “I don’t know why she’s here this early. I wasn’t planning to take Brutus next door until just before I left for the television station.”
Tom yawned. “Well, see what she wants.” His voice was all husky with sleep. He nuzzled up against her, his chin deliciously rough with overnight growth.
“I feel weird answering the door dressed like this. I mean, it’s pretty obvious that I’m naked underneath.”
“So?”
“She’ll know that I slept with you.”
“So you did.”Tom pulled her to him. “And I wasn’t ready for you to get out of bed yet.”
“Hmm, I can feel that,” she whispered, melting against him, wanting him again. She kissed him, loving the rough feel of his chin against hers. Loving the morning intimacy. Loving him.
The doorbell rang again. “I’ll leave this to you,” said Tom.
Reluctantly, Maddy pulled away from Tom to open the door. Nora Green twisted her hands together in agitation. “Ah, Maddy, I’m so sorry to wake you but I’m afraid something dreadful has happened. My daughter has tripped over one of the kids’ toys and badly twisted her ankle.”
“Oh,” said Maddy, “I’m so sorry for your daughter.”
Tom’s next-door neighbor looked distressed. “I’m the one who’s sorry, my dear. Because it means I’ve got to get over to help her with my grandchildren. They’re only toddlers. And of course that means I can’t dog-sit Brutus for you today.”
Can’t dog-sit Brutus.
The words sunk into Maddy’s brain like fists punching down bread dough. Today of all days. Not only her audition but Tom’s interview with the most senior of senior partners regarding his partnership.
“Oh, I understand, Nora,” she said, “of course I do.” What else could she say? That she could curse Nora’s daughter for spraining her ankle so inconveniently?
“What about Max?” This was a two-way deal; she felt she had to offer to cat-sit. Even though she was clueless about what she’d do with Brutus today, let alone another animal.
Nora pointed to her basket sitting at her feet. “Max is coming with me. The kids love him, though he’s not so sure about them. Hates being dragged along by the tail.”
“Who could blame him,” said Tom from behind her.
“Thanks so much for letting us know, Nora,” said Maddy, not daring to look at Tom. “I’m sure we’ll find some other arrangement for Brutus. I hope all goes well for your daughter.”
After the older woman had gone, Maddy leaned back against the door to brace herself against a panic attack. “Think, think, think,” she said on a rising intonation. “Who can help out with Brutus?”
“Serena?”
“She’s on a shoot today.” Maddy glanced at her watch. “Right now she would have already spent an hour modeling bikinis on a beach.” She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself in sympathy. Although it was spring, the mornings were still cool.
“What about his vet? Brutus’s vet, the radio shrink. Could we take him there?”
“Good idea,” said Maddy, racing for the telephone in the living room. She spoke to the night nurse on duty as it was too early for the regular staff. “Their boarding kennel is completely booked.” She knew her voice was rising in hysteria. “Tom, what am I going to do?”
“There’s no chance you could take him to the television studio with you?”
“No way. Not if I don’t want to blow this audition completely. It would be totally unprofessional. And there’s a hygiene thing, too.You can’t have dogs around food.”
Tom grabbed the telephone directory. “There must be other vets, other boarding kennels. Professional animal sitters even.”
Maddy started to pace up and down the living room. “The boarding kennels are out of town. I don’t have time to call around to all the vets. And, even if I knew where to look for an animal sitter, how could I get one with this kind of notice? The television studio car will be here to pick me up in an hour.”
Tom’s brow creased. “There must be someone.”
She faced him. “Tom, I’ll only be away for half the day. Surely I could leave Brutus here in the apartment? I could barricade the furniture or something.”
“And have him bark the place down? His presence would hardly be a secret then. Apart from that we shouldn’t take any risks with him so close to the end of the twenty-one days. There’s still a real threat of kidnap after all this publicity. He needs to be supervised.”
She was desperate. “Your office? Could you take—?”
Tom shook his head. “No way. Not possible. Not if I value my job. Especially after Brutus’s performance the other day in court.”
Maddy blinked down hard against tears, bit her lip to keep it from trembling. “Well, there’s only one answer, isn’t there? I’ll have to pull out of the audition.”
She felt nauseous at the thought. Competition was fierce. There wouldn’t be a second chance for the audition. She knew that. But what else could she do? “I . . . I’ll stay here and look after Brutus.”
“I?” said Tom, his dark brows drawn together in a frown. “What’s all this talk about ‘I’? Maddy, isn’t the word ‘we’ in your vocabulary?”
“We?”
“Yes, ‘we,’ ” he said, tight-lipped. “As in ‘you and me.’ ”
“You and me?”
“Maddy, haven’t the last four nights meant anything to you?” She stared at him. Wasn’t that understood? “Tom, of course they have.They’ve meant everything.”
With every kiss, every laugh, every confidence shared, she had fallen more deeply in love with him. Even allowed herself to cautiously dream about something more permanent with Tom, something more than being a mere chocolate chip in his life.
His expression became less granitelike. “We’re in this together. Don’t you understand that? The Brutus problem isn’t all yours to shoulder.”
“It . . . it isn’t?” she asked, her heart singing. She wasn’t used to this kind of support from the males in her life.
“No.”
“Thank you. That . . . that means a lot.” Because she wasn’t used to being given support, she wasn’t quite sure how to accept it. “But we’ve discussed all the options. What can you do that I couldn’t do?”
Tom clenched his hands together and held them under his chin. “I can postpone my appointment with the senior partner and stay at home with Brutus. Then you can go to your audition.”
Had he really said that? Tom was almost as incredulous as Maddy at the words that had slipped out of his mouth.
No way should he be jeopardizing his future partnership by missing this long-anticipated appointment with the most senior partner at Jackson, Jones, and Gentry. When Clive Gentry said “jump,” you jumped and asked how high on the way up.
But her disintegrating dreams were visible on Maddy’s woe-begone face and the sight moved him more than he’d thought possible.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No. I won’t let you do this. I know how important your interview is to you.”
“And your audition? How important is that to you?”
She looked somewhere in the direction of his feet. Her mouth twisted. “Very important. Once in a lifetime. You know that.”
“Yes. I do know that. That’s why I’m offering to do this.” He turned and it was his turn to do some pacing. “Maddy, I’ve never missed a meeting, hardly had a sick day since I joined the company. For once, just this once, I’m going to ask them to change an appointment to suit me because . . .”
He paused, planning to say, because for the first time I’ve found something—
someone
—that’s more important to me than my job. But somehow he just couldn’t say it. The time wasn’t right. When he talked to Maddy about how he felt, he didn’t want it to be a rush job. Instead he finished, “Because being flexible is important.”
Maddy looked up at him, her eyes huge. He noticed her face was reddened from stubble burn but didn’t dare point it out. She was freaked out enough already. Hopefully the television station had makeup to cover it for her screen test.
“If you’re absolutely sure,” she said.
“I’m absolutely sure.” And, to his own amazement, he was. He wanted to succeed at Jackson, Jones, and Gentry, but if they marked him down for missing one meeting—even if it was with the great god from the executive floor Clive Gentry—how worthwhile was the job, anyway? Besides, he was so close to bringing in that bonus.
Maddy flung her arms around his neck. “Thank you, Tom. Thank you. I can’t thank you enough.”
The look on her face was reward enough for his decision. It was so worth giving his dream a butt kicking to buy Maddy a few hours to pursue hers.
Maddy burrowed into his shoulder. He nuzzled the bright hair that smelled of lavender and, now, of him. Felt the absolute rightness of it.
He loved her.
That’s why he’d suddenly made a compromise in a life that up until now hadn’t allowed for compromise. He seriously loved her.
The realization was overwhelming. No subsection of the plan had allowed for this possibility.
You can’t explain love. You can’t analyze it.
His mother’s words echoed in his head. Now, finally, he understood them.