Hot Winter Nights (Heartbreaker Bay #6)(87)

Oh wait, there was something else she knew as well; that the two of them didn’t like each other. She wasn’t even sure how it’d started. They had a lot of mutual friends, which often landed them at the pub together. She couldn’t explain it, but there was an energy between the two of them she didn’t understand. At best it made her uncomfortable. At worst, it sometimes kept her up at night.

Her best friend Ivy, who ran the taco truck parked outside the building, said it was unrequited animalistic lust.

But Ivy was wrong.

It wasn’t lust, because Sadie no longer gave into lust, animalistic or otherwise. Personally, she thought the supposed mystery was far easier to explain. It was simply that she and Suits didn’t like each other and never had.

But what was he doing all hunkered down like that in the rain? Was he hurt? Driven by curiosity and the inability she had of letting anything go, she unlocked and opened the front door of the day spa and stuck her head out. “Hey.”

Staring at the brick wall, Caleb didn’t react. He didn’t turn her way or glance over. He simply said “shh.”

Uh, no. No, he did not just shush her. Clearly, he was asking for a blast of her temper and she stepped out the door to give it to him.

He held up a hand in her direction, silently ordering her to stop where she was.

No, really, what the actual hell?

Then he reached out towards the wall and she realized through the wind and rain she could hear him talking quietly to something.

Something that was growling at him fiercely.

“Don’t be scared,” he said softly. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.”

The growling got a little louder, but Caleb didn’t back away, he just held eye contact with what sounded like a huge dog that she couldn’t see in the dark shadows.

“Okay,” Caleb said. “Come here. Slowly.”

Sadie realized with a start that he was talking to her. “What? No way. What is it?”

“Come closer and you’ll see.”

Dammit. She stepped out from beneath the spa’s overhang and immediately got wind and rain in her face. She pulled out her cellphone and accessed her flashlight app, which she aimed at the wall.

“Don’t—” Caleb said and reaching up, wrapped his hand around her wrist, bringing the phone down to her side. “You’ll scare it.”

“I’d rather that than being eaten,” she said, shrugging off his warm hand but going stock still when the growling upped a notch.

“I need you to check for injuries,” Suits said. “I think it’s hurt.”

“Are you crazy—” she started but then stopped as the matted, drenched shadow scooted away from the wall. She could see now that it wasn’t nearly as large as she’d thought. Not a young puppy, but not a grown dog either, it had a too skinny tan colored body and a black face with black eyes. “Looks like an oversized pug,” she said.

“Too big for that. It’s got some bullmastiff in it though,” Suits said.

A teenaged bullmastiff with three legs, Sadie realized as it shifted closer, and her entire heart melted. “Oh my God.” Moving toward it now without hesitation, she got only a few steps before the thing backed away from her and took a leap in Suits’ direction.

With a surprised grunt, Caleb fell to his ass on the wet cobblestones. “Okay,” he said, holding up his hands at the dog as if suddenly terrified of it. “Okay, see? You’re safe now, right? Stay.” He gestured with his still raised hands. “Stay and sit.”

The dog didn’t stay. Or sit, for that matter. Instead, it took a few uneven steps on its one front and two back legs, and then wound its way around Caleb’s body, brushing up against him, leaving dirty, beige fur sticking to his wet suit.

He sucked in a breath and seemed to hold it. “Listen,” he said. “I’d really like be your person, but I can’t.”

The dog looked up at him and gave a single bark, like you’re totally my person . . .

“No, you don’t understand,” Caleb said. “I literally can’t.”

The dog, undeterred by this news, continued to rub up against him. His new human shifted back, trying to avoid contact, but the dog went with him.

Caleb lifted his head and looked at Sadie. “Help.”

Fascinated by this unexpected show of weakness in the man who always came off as invincible, she shook her head. “I think it thinks you’re its mama.”

He glanced around the courtyard as if to see who the dog might belong to, but there was no one. In the meantime, the dog gave another loud “ruff” and sat on his foot.

“I hear you,” Caleb said. “And we’re going to help you, I promise.”

“We?” Sadie shook her head. “We are most definitely not a we.”

Caleb slid her an unreadable look and got to his feet. Ignoring her now, he lifted his hands at the dog, giving the universal gesture for Wait Here, but the minute he raised his hands, the dog squeaked and leapt back as if Caleb had propelled him with a push.

The poor thing, off balance with only three legs, fell to its back, exposing its underbelly and the fact that it wasn’t an it, but a she.

In Sadie’s experience, getting attached was hard and took a long time but in a blink of an eye, she fell in love. Not partially in love, but all the way in love because neglected and mistreated meant they were soul mates. “I’m going to kill her owner,” she murmured, absolutely swiping a drop of rain and not a tear away.