Man's Best Friend (2 page)

Rand sighed.

In the morning—after he'd had some sleep—he'd kill Ned, even if the man
was
his best friend, cousin, and business partner. Then he'd set about finding a foreign country in need of a pint-sized terminator.

The animal had to go.

He needed a puppy about as much as he needed a woman.

He took the final step leading to the second floor, his need to sleep lulling him, tugging at the past, old memories.

Andrea....

He shut down her image with the ease of hitting the delete key on his laptop. One thing was certain. Getting rid of a dog was cheaper—and a hell of a lot less painful—than getting rid of a woman. A dog might nip your thumb. A woman preferred large chunks of your wallet—and your heart.

Worse yet, half your soul.

* * *

Tessa Darwin ran across the field behind the tiny cottage she shared with her mom and sister, her long hair flying out behind her. "Millie, you fool dog, come back here. You're not going to catch that rabbit and you know it." She stopped, remembered the certificate on her wall. "Millie," she shouted. "Come!"

The dog skidded to a stop, stared in the direction of her jet-propelled quarry. Quarry that wasted no time in skittering under the fence and disappearing into the blackberry bushes all but covering it.

Tessa stood in the field of wild grass and waited. In seconds Millie was all over her. Tessa laughed, scrunched the fur around the German shepherd's neck, offered her chin for a lick, then sat in the grass.

"Millie, you're a naughty girl. I'm now a certified dog trainer, don't forget." She ruffled the shepherd's ears and nuzzled her forehead. "Which means you're supposed to obey me instantly."

Tessa stood and brushed at her jeans. "Now come on, let's go. I'm supposed to meet Ned Coleman at the house." She stroked Millie's ear, and smiled when the dog fell into step beside her. "It might be more business. And that could mean my helping with Annie's college costs. Maybe buy Mom a dishwasher."

Hopes high, Tessa headed home. She liked Ned, liked him a lot, but she was glad he'd stopped asking her out. She couldn't see herself riding around in that red Jaguar of his, couldn't see it at all.

"Hey, Tessa." Ned stood in her front yard, leaning against her crooked gate post.

"Hey back." She waved and smiled. "What's happening? Got a new friend for me to train?"

He grimaced. "Are you kidding? Two's company, three's a dog team. Besides, I'm too busy being trained by Pam and Lansky."

She laughed. "I'll bet. So what can I do for you?" Millie came up and sat beside her, protective as usual.

Ned's gaze met hers. "You could let me buy you breakfast," he said.

Tessa swore her heart skipped a beat. "I don't think..." She stopped. She didn't want to insult him, but—she stole a glance at that come-hither red Jaguar blazing behind him—as a twosome they weren't a possibility.

"Forget it. I get the picture." He lifted a hand palm up. "You're telling me I can't put your name in my little black book."

"As a dog trainer? As manager of Dawg's Inn Kennels? Definitely. As Tessa Darwin, Saturday night diversion?" She scrunched her face up and shook her head.

He put his hand on his heart. "I'm a broken man, of course, but I'll try to live with it."

She grinned at him. "And I'll bet you'll succeed." She started toward her old Chevy, noticing how its dents and rust made it the perfect centerpiece for the unpaved driveway. She opened the rear door and Millie jumped in. When Ned made no move to go, she gave him a questioning look.

"I did have another reason for coming this morning. I've got a job for you—" he hesitated, "—it'll be lucrative, although, money aside, I'm not sure I'm doing you a favor. I have a friend, Rand Fielding..."

* * *

Had Rand checked into the nearest roach-ridden motel, complete with bad plumbing, thin walls, and a team of sex-crazed gymnasts in the next room, he couldn't have had a worse night's sleep.

First he'd put the puppy in his closet. But in minutes the beast had flipped the basket and started scratching the door, howling as if it were being de-clawed without anesthetic. Then, figuring a smaller space would be more comforting, he'd put it in one of his sock drawers. When it had the last of his socks scattered across the floor, it started again, baying like a wounded wolf. Astounding that something so small could create so much noise—so incessantly.

Around four, Rand remembered young pups were sometimes calmed by having a clock in their bed, something about tick-tock sounding like the beat of the mother's heart. But where the hell he was going to find a clock like that in the middle of the damn night, he had no idea.

Desperate, he'd taken the creature into his bed and held it to his chest. It snuggled its soft head on his shoulder and fell asleep instantly. And—finally—so had he.

Now it was past seven, and he'd slept in for the first time in years. Carefully, he shifted the pup away from him and got up.

His furry bedmate stretched, yawned, and curled himself into a ball, looking as if he'd doze the day away. Shaking his head, Rand strode to his shower, phone in hand. He turned on the water, stood back, and hit a memory code on the phone pad.

His office picked up immediately.

"Charlotte, if Cullen Macy calls, give him this number. I'll be working from home for a couple of hours. Anyone else, take messages. I'll deal with them when I get in. What have you got so far?"

For five minutes his secretary ran through a series of messages. Rand took no notes, made no comments. He'd remember them all. He issued a series of instructions then said, "Forward the Tokyo e-mail here, and give me Ned, will you, please?"

"Mr. Coleman isn't here, Mr. Fielding. He left a note saying he knew you'd be late today and that he'd be by your house to see you and—" he heard paper shuffling, "—your new little pal sometime before nine. He asked that you wait for him."

Rand scowled hard enough to scar his forehead. "Okay, thanks." He clicked off and stepped into the shower, thoroughly annoyed at being stuck with his furry gift until Ned decided to show up.

After his shower, naked, he walked back to his room. Tousling his thick hair with a lush terry, he stood at the side of the bed and looked down. The terminator slept on.

The color of a football and not a hell of a lot bigger, the little guy looked quite at home in Rand's king-sized bed. He reached down to stroke the pup's head.

"Don't get used to it, pal. There's only room for one of us in that bed, and I got there first."

Rand went back to towel-drying his hair. He'd never had a dog as a kid. He'd wanted one once, but his father, Boyd Fielding, hated pets and his brother Griff had some kind of allergy.

He stopped toweling, studied the bundle of brown fur in his bed. Maybe he could...

He shook his head and strode toward his bathroom. Kid stuff. He didn't do kid stuff. He had a business to run.

* * *

"Are you sure about this, Ned?" Tessa rubbed her hands along her denim-clad thighs, certain her palms were sweating.

"I'm sure," he answered.

Good thing someone was.

Tessa looked out the Jag's window, then up to the turret room on the third floor of Rand Fielding's stone mansion, and swallowed. The place was huge, the lawn endless, all of it hidden behind tall, sheltering evergreens. Acres of them. A forest, less than an hour from the city.

What kind of man lived in a place like this? Did she want to know? But Ned hadn't taken no for an answer, so here she was, parked in front of a grand house that seemed to belong in the English countryside, not North Seattle.

What kind of man...?

"He's perfect," Ned said. "Handsome as they come, smart, and cocky as hell. He's going to steal your heart."

"Who?" Tessa asked vacantly, so intimidated by the sheer size of the Fielding estate, she forgot what they were talking about.

"The pup, Tessa." Ned turned off the car engine and glanced across at her. "If I thought for a second its new owner was capable of any heart stealing, I wouldn't have brought you here."

She didn't know what to say to that, so she said nothing.

She rubbed the top of her thighs again, glanced down and grimaced at her worn jeans and torn T-shirt, a casualty of some rough play with a Rottweiler at the kennel she managed. Not the most appropriate attire for a place like this. Not that she'd know what was.

Ned studied her for a moment. "Don't be nervous. It's only a house."

"Only a house? Yeah... Like the Star of India is only a sapphire. But I'm not nervous exactly. More like thoroughly awed."

"That I doubt." He touched her arm reassuringly. "Come on." He looked at the double windowless oak doors and took a deep breath. "Let's get this over with."

Ned's anxious expression told Tessa she wasn't the only nervous one. While she thought about that, Ned got out of the car, walked around it, and opened her door.

He offered his hand, and she, worn jeans and torn T-shirt and all, stepped out of his Jag like the princess she wasn't. If this was a good job possibility, she'd better forget about being intimidated and concentrate, because she needed the extra money. Rand Fielding's dog certainly wouldn't care what she wore.

Before they reached the doors, one of them swung open. A man, sixtyish or so, with white hair and sharp eyes, opened it.

"Well, well, Neddy." The man gestured with one hand to the entry hall behind him. "Himself has been waiting for you." He raised an eyebrow. "And not at all patiently, I must say."

"When is he ever patient, Milt?"

"True, so true. But you've done it this time, I'm afraid." The older man stepped back from the door to let them pass and closed it behind them. "He's in the kitchen with his canine guest who, since his delivery in the dead of night, has urinated copiously on both his lordship's bedroom Aubusson and his prized nineteenth century Tabriz. You might have considered a side gift of shredded newspapers. A truckload ought to be enough."

"I didn't think of it."

"Of course you didn't," Milton said with equanimity, before turning to face Tessa and broadening his smile. "And your lovely companion is?"

"Tessa Darwin, manager of Dawg's Inn Kennel, and the best dog trainer in the state of Washington. Tessa, this is Milton." Ned waved in an effort to encompass the grand house. "He runs this mausoleum."

Tessa, who'd blanched at Ned's exaggeration of her credentials, shook Milton's outstretched hand. She'd only been training for six months, so she doubted she was the best. But she did, as she'd so often been told, have a special way with dogs. No mystery there. She adored them and they sensed it.

Milton was about to speak when a baritone voice boomed from somewhere beyond his shoulder. "I hope that's you, Ned, because this beast is one piss away from being locked up at the nearest pound."

Chapter 2

A man followed his voice into the hall, his strides long, his expression thunderous. Tessa's gaze shifted to him, and stayed there.

Her breath skipped, then stalled.

She figured the oxygen in the room had given way to the force that was Rand Fielding. Even glowering, he was incredibly handsome, hair so dark it seemed blue-black under the light streaming in from the windows above the doors. He was a bit pale, though, as if he didn't spend much time outdoors. But wicked eyebrows! Dark as sin and straight as wings in flight.

His gaze flicked over her, going from cool indifference to annoyed curiosity in the time it took her to drag in a fortifying breath. The man did not look happy. He looked exhausted, which somehow made him more appealing.

For a second or two, their eyes met—and held.

An uneasy mixture of fear and anticipation skidded along her nerves. She tried to ignore it, reminding herself she was here about a job, nothing more.

He nodded at her impatiently but kept his eyes on Ned. "And who is this?" he demanded.

Tessa's forced smile slipped from her face at greyhound speed. The guy might excite her feminine instincts and have sexy eyebrows, but hey, rude was rude.