Mrs. Porter shot an anxious look up at the road. A red station wagon was parked outside. Maddy could see Coco in the backseat scrabbling against the window, hear the little black poodle’s frantic whimpering.
“I’m moving to Vegas. I can’t take the puppies.”
“Mrs. Porter, slow down. I—”
The poodle lady smiled a smile that transformed her anxious face. “I’m getting back with my ex. But he’s got dogs, too. Rottweilers. I can’t take these puppies there.”
So that was it. Mrs. Poodle had morphed into Mrs. Rottweiler.
Coco was starting to howl, a piteous, heartrending sound that set Maddy on edge. “But what about Coco?”
“I’m into Rottweilers now. Coco’s got a pedigree as long as my arm. I have a buyer for her.”
“But what about her babies? Aren’t they still very little?”
“They’re nearly weaned. I’ve tucked some care instructions into the basket for you.”
Coco’s frantic howling became louder. Two of the puppies started whimpering hysterically in return. Desperately Maddy tried to jig the basket in a soothing, rocking rhythm, but the puppies would not be consoled.
Maddy thought back to the last time she’d seen Coco, her puppies snuggling contentedly next to her. The poodle was a wonderful mother. And Brutus a proud father. Okay, so maybe she was guilty of humanizing the animals. But the distress she heard in Coco’s howl seemed very real.
“Poor puppies. Poor Coco. She sounds heartbroken.”
“She’s just a dog, Ms. Cartwright. She’ll get over it.”
“Mrs. Porter, can I buy Coco from you?”
What had Tom said about the dollar signs in Mrs. Porter’s eyes? “As I said, I already have a buyer but—” She named what seemed a very high price.
Maddy’s initial reaction was to try to bargain her down. But it was Brutus’s money. Would he haggle over the purchase price of the dog he loved? “I’ll pay it,” she said.
“Okay. She’s no use to me now. I want to make a fresh start with my ex. He reckons my obsession with poodles is what made him move out in the first place. I can’t understand that, but there it is.”
“So it’s a deal?” Maddy tried to shake hands but found it impossible over the bundle of puppies. Mrs. Porter ended up shaking a little black paw instead.
“It’s a deal,” said Coco’s old owner. “I’ll send my new address to Mr. O’Brien’s office, you can send the check to me there.”
The new incarnation of Mrs. Poodle turned and walked back up the path to her car. She snapped on Coco’s leash and headed back down to the apartment with the black miniature poodle.
Coco headed straight for Maddy, sniffing and whimpering and anxiously jumping up on her legs. “It’s okay, little mom, your babies are safe,” Maddy said, putting the basket of puppies down on the floor.
Immediately Coco nudged each one as if counting them and then settled down to a thorough licking. The puppies clambered joyfully all over their mother.
Mrs. Porter handed Maddy a snazzy red cosmetics bag. “Inside are Coco’s hair ribbons, her diamanté collars, and her custom-dyed leashes. I won’t be needing them for the Rottweilers.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Porter. I appreciate this. Coco will be in good hands.”
“I know that or I wouldn’t be leaving her with you.”
Maddy shook Mrs. Porter’s hand, properly this time. “Good luck with your ex.”
“Thanks. And good luck with Tom O’Brien. He seems a good man.”
“Oh. No.We’re just . . . just friends.”
Mrs. Porter gave her a sly wink. “Don’t give me that. I’m a dog breeder. If there’s one thing I’m an expert on, it’s animal attraction. You two are crazy about each other. I could tell that when you came around to my house.”
“Well . . .” Maddy shrugged halfheartedly. She might be crazy about Tom but there hadn’t been too many indications he felt the same way about her.
Mrs. Poodle-now-Rottweiler seemed so callous. But she leaned down to give Coco a long farewell hug.Then she was gone.
Maddy sat down on her pretty blue print sofa and tried to think how on earth she would manage with six dogs. Seven, counting Brutus when he came home. And no Tom to help her with them.
Right up until the minute he knocked on Maddy’s door Tom wasn’t sure whether he was going to be tough and uncompromising with her or grovel abjectly at her feet.
She didn’t give him a chance to do either. “Oh, Tom, thank heaven you’re here,” she said, grabbing his arm and hauling him into her apartment. “If I ever needed an alpha male, it’s right now.”
It was hardly the welcome he had imagined. After last night he’d feared she might want nothing to do with him ever again. Before he had a chance to recover, Brutus set up a frantic barking and pulled so hard on his leash that Tom let it go.
Brutus ran round in circles for a moment, then headed for another little dog that scampered forward to meet him.Yapping deliriously, both dogs stood up on their back legs, jumping excitedly around each other as if they were dancing. They did the doggy sniff-each-other’s-bottom thing.
“Isn’t that Coco?” Tom asked. He couldn’t help feeling envious at the ecstatic reception Brutus was getting from the little poodle. “Coco of the litigious owner Mrs. Pood . . . uh, Porter?”
“Yes. I’ve bought her. Or actually Brutus has bought her. But he didn’t have to pay for the puppies. Not any extra, anyway.”
“Puppies?” Tom felt like he’d been transported into some parallel reality. Not an uncommon feeling when he found himself around Maddy.
“Coco’s puppies. His puppies. Oh, Tom, they’re adorable but they’re running around everywhere and they won’t do a thing I tell them and—”
Tom threw up his hands. “Whoa! Maddy, can you please start at the beginning?”
Maddy was flushed pink, her hair all mussed, and there was a streak of flour across her cheek just like the day he’d first met her.
How could he ever have thought he could be tough with her? Last night after they’d parted he’d spent the most miserable hours of his life. He didn’t care to experience any more like them.
Words spilled from her as Maddy regaled him with the story of Mrs. Porter’s visit. And her remarkable transformation. “So what could I do? I couldn’t break up the happy little family, could I?”
He could barely bring himself to think of the inherent im practicalities of the situation. “Of course not, but I wonder if—”
“Oh,Tom, look.”
Tom followed her gaze. Brutus and Coco were lying together on the floor near the puppy’s basket. It didn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to think that the two little dogs were cuddling. Three of the puppies were clambering onto their parents, tumbling all over them in unmitigated joy.
“How sweet,” Maddy breathed. “Like Romeo and Juliet reunited.”
“Romeo and Juliet with triplets,” said Tom.
“Triplets? But there are—Ohmigod, where are the other two?” Maddy wailed. She turned and dashed for the kitchen.
The delicious smell of baking intensified as Tom followed her. Peanuts? Chocolate? His mouth started watering. Both?
How he missed Maddy’s sinful, cholesterol-laden concoctions. She was doing such a wonderful job feeding him the low-fat, nourishing stuff, but it just wasn’t the same. And now, if he didn’t say the right thing, the future of his access to Maddy’s cooking—low fat or otherwise—and Maddy herself was in jeopardy.
One little black-and-tan creature sat proudly near a puddle on the floor, obviously of its own making. Its black sibling had gotten hold of a set of plastic measuring spoons and was mauling them to pieces.
“Oh no! I’ve had those spoons since college,” Maddy cried. “You naughty little—”
Tom was rather more concerned about the puddle. But he addressed the puppy chewing on the spoons. “No! Drop them.” The puppy instantly let go of the spoons and looked up at Tom, wagging its tiny tail so vigorously it nearly fell over. “Good puppy,” said Tom.
Gingerly Tom picked up the spoons, bent now and liberally embellished with puppy drool, and handed them to Maddy.
She looked up at him, head tilted to one side. “How did you do that?”
“You just have to be firm with dogs. Let them know who is boss.”
Maddy quickly cleaned up the puppy puddle with paper towels. “No, it’s not that. I tried firm and they ignored me. It’s the alpha-male thing.You’re obviously the alpha male to Brutus’s entire little pack.”
Tom closed his eyes. Please. This couldn’t be happening to him. But when he opened his eyes, the puppies were still there. So was Maddy. And although there was a smile dancing around her mouth, her eyes were wary.
He cleared his throat. “So, if I’m the alpha male to them, what does that make me to you?” His voice was gruff with the emotion he was finding it almost impossible to mask.
She chewed on her lip before answering in a voice that wasn’t quite steady. “You’re my alpha male, too, and . . . and I missed you terribly last night.”
“I missed you, too,” he said, relieved beyond measure at her words and the yearning expression that accompanied them.
He kissed her, deeply, possessively—breathing in her warm, familiar scent, tasting the tang of lime and the richness of coconut, exulting in her feminine curves pressed close to him. The misery of the last hours was eclipsed—eclipsed but not entirely forgotten.
“Maddy,” he said, breaking the kiss. “Last night, I’m so sorry. It was unforgivable . . . I want—”
She touched a finger to his mouth. “No, I’m the one who should be apologizing. I overreacted and—”
“I should have told you about the bonus.”
“Maybe. But I shouldn’t have made such a big deal of it. I didn’t even congratulate you on your partnership.”
“You did, you waved across the table.”
“That wasn’t a proper congratulation. I wanted to give you a big hug.”
“It’s not too late to give me a hug right now.”
She wrapped him in as big a bear hug that a five-six woman could give a six-two man. She nestled her head against his shoulder. It felt so good to have her there. So right.
“Congratulations, Tom,” she said. “Jackson, Jones, and Gentry are very lucky to have you as their newest partner.”
Tom kissed the top of her head. “Thank you. Your best wishes are worth more than the rest of them put together.”
She moved away to face him again. “I believe you really mean that.”
“I’m not in the habit of saying things I don’t mean. I think you know that by now.”
“I guess so,” she said, still sounding a tad uncertain. She glanced at the clock on the wall. “But talking of the partners, shouldn’t you be at work right now?”
“It was more important to come here. Anyway, I’m meeting with my important client, one Brutus Stoddard.”
“Who is currently getting reacquainted with his lady love.”
“He was miserable last night without you. So was I.”
“I didn’t sleep a wink.”
“Same. Of course it didn’t help to have Brutus snoring away on the bed.”
“You’re kidding me.” Her eyebrows rose. “You let Brutus on the bed with you?”
“Yeah. I told him I shouldn’t but that, as I missed you, too, I understood how he was feeling. So I let him stay on the condition he slept right down at the end.”
Only when the last word was out of his mouth did Tom realize what a disastrous admission he had made.
Maddy stared at Tom for a long, incredulous moment. “Say that again, will you please?”
“Sure, I—”
“Tom, you talked to Brutus. Talked to him like a person. Did you seriously expect him to answer you?” she said, mimicking his own somewhat pompous tones when he’d asked her a similar question.
She expected him to be defensive, argumentative even. Instead he grinned, a big, dimple-revealing grin, and threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, I admit it. Guilty as charged. I’ve caught it from the Cartwrights. I talked to a dog. Yes, like I expected him to answer me. And do you know what? He did.”
“Answer you? Brutus has got the gift of speech now?” This was too big a turnaround for her to easily cope with.
“I’m serious. I think Brutus knows exactly what is going on most of the time. He’s not as dopey as he seems. It’s animal instinct and if you’re on the right wavelength you can tune in to it.”
“Like my mother used to say, it’s the tone of the voice rather than what you say.”
“I don’t think your mother’s theory is entirely correct,” said Tom. “Too many variables.”
Maddy shook her head. “Huh? Tom, I’m clueless as to what you’re talking about.”
“That’s obvious. And it proves my point.The—”
“Wait,” she said. She’d been watching the dogs from the corner of her eye. “The puppies have gone into the living room. I think we’d better follow them.”
“Good idea. Though you do realize that wiping up puppy puddles is not part of the alpha male’s responsibilities?”
She looked at him, deadpan. “So why doesn’t that surprise me? But is eating peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies on the alpha-male menu?”
“Right at the very top.”
Maddy followed Tom into the living room and sat down next to him on the sofa. There wasn’t much room so she was forced to snuggle up next to him as they nibbled on the cookies.
“So, what’s this about my mother’s theory?” she finally asked.
Tom looked very serious and lawyerlike. “The whole misunderstanding about the bonus debunks her theory.”
“Explain.”
“The truth is, I didn’t tell you about the bonus because I was so caught up in protecting you and Brutus from that evil Stoddard that I simply didn’t think about it.”
“Yes. I can see that. Now.”
“But you thought I was just doing it for the money. If ‘cashing in on the millionaire mutt’ means what I think it means.”
Maddy pulled a remorseful face. “Sorry about that.”