07 It Had to Be You Read online

  “Hey. Hey, slow down, I was just—”

  “I know.” She shook her head. “I just thought that given how this place was left to you by your father, it’d mean something to you.”

  “We’ve been over that,” he said tightly.

  “Right. You didn’t like Richard. You don’t care about this place.”

  “I care about how much it’s worth. Which is nothing if we don’t have guests in here. I care about keeping all of your jobs available to you, even after I’m no longer here. I care about a hell of a lot, Callie, so don’t tell me what I feel.”

  “Fine.” Angry, frustrated, hurt—and not really understanding why—she moved down the stairs. She was so full of conflicting emotions it took her a moment to realize the decibel level of barking.

  She followed the barking around the back of the house to the basement entrance. It wasn’t Shep barking, though he stood there.

  Or sat anyway, because Shep was twelve and he never stood when he could sit, and never sat when he could lie down. Tongue hanging out, he happily panted at the mud-colored brown dog next to him, which Callie had never seen before.

  She was a good-sized dog, too, despite being so malnourished. Still, it wasn’t her size that stopped Callie from going into the basement, but the bared teeth and menacing growl she let out between ear-splitting barks, now aimed right at Callie herself.

  5

  Jake stood on the porch for a long moment after Callie walked away from him, staring blindly out into the yard. He heard a dog going crazy but it didn’t penetrate his other more pressing thought—that Callie wanted this place to mean something to him, wanted him to understand how much it meant to her, to all of them working here.

  “But how can I?” he said to the morning air, to his father’s ghost, to no one. Maybe if Richard hadn’t been so ornery and stubborn, maybe if he’d been willing to meet Jake halfway, maybe, maybe, maybe.

  It was far too late for maybes with the man dead and buried.

  But why had Richard left him this godforsaken ranch in the first place? It was nothing more than a money pit for him. Maybe it’d been a cruel reminder that Jake had never been the son he wanted. Maybe it’d been a joke. Or, maybe it’d simply been a way to reach the son he’d never tried all that hard to reach in life. And how pathetic was it that Jake wished for the latter.

  He didn’t belong here in the land of Oz, where these people all had each other and looked at him like he was an alien. That had been made painfully clear to him when he’d questioned everyone about Sierra. They’d all stuck together with genuine care and affection, Eddie covering for his brother’s hangover, Stone covering for Tucker’s temper, and Tucker covering for Eddie being alone in the barn.

  And each of them had vouched for Amy as well, a young woman they knew even less than they did Jake. He didn’t have to wonder if any of them would have done the same for him. They wouldn’t have.

  And damn if he didn’t feel lonely as hell.

  He also felt stupid for letting it all get to him. He should have left this morning. He still could, and he pulled out his cell phone to call Joe to tell him he was coming back as soon as he could get on a plane.

  But Joe had left him two text messages: “Playgirl called again, offered a firefighter calendar. Mr. July…can I have your autograph?”

  And then the second: “Just heard from the chief…brace yourself for a nasty lawsuit.”

  He also had a message from his attorney. Just an ominous: Call me today.

  Rubbing his aching shoulder, Jake sighed. He would have to get up-to-date on the proceedings, and also pay for the nuisance. With what, he had no idea.

  In any case, going home didn’t seem like a viable option, not yet.

  The wild barking finally penetrated his thoughts, and shrugging off his own problems, he followed the noise around the back of the house. Callie stood in front of the basement entrance, facing off with a mangy old mutt who looked as if she hadn’t eaten in a week.

  “Hey, there,” she murmured to the dog, reaching out her hand.

  Teeth bared, the mutt growled, and Callie hastily pulled back.

  Jake moved in and put himself in front of her. “You want to lose a few fingers to go with those bumps and bruises? Back up.”

  “You never give up with the hero thing, do you?”

  He could have argued that point. He sure as hell didn’t feel like a hero out here in the middle of nowhere, being needed by exactly no one. “Just move.” Hunkering down to the dog’s eye level, he smiled. “Whatcha doing, pretty lady?”

  Callie let out a rough laugh. “That voice might work on the females of my race, but a dog isn’t going to”—she broke off with a frown when the dog relaxed her stance enough to sit—“fall for it.”

  “So whatcha doing all the way out here in the middle of nowhere? You lost? Poor thing, you look hungry.” He held up his hand for her to sniff.

  “What do you think she’s all up in arms about?” Callie tried to step beyond the dog to see past the open basement door, but the dog growled again.

  Jake put his left hand out in front of Callie to hold her back from getting bitten, and ignored her irritated huff of breath. “You sure look like you’ve had a rough time of it.” At the sound of his voice, the dog stopped growling again. “Maybe if we fed you, you’d be happier. What do you think?”

  The dog let out a long whine.

  The sound was oddly heartbreaking. Jake tried to decide what could be disturbing her, but couldn’t see into the dark basement. “So what are you guarding?”

  “We don’t use that space for much,” Callie said. “She could have cornered anything in there.”

  Jake continued to hold out his hand to the dog, and took it as a good sign when she didn’t resume her growling. He let her sniff him again, then stroked her down her thin, scruffy back.

  Her tail let out one weak wag. Permission granted, Jake moved around her and to the door, but when Callie tried to follow him, the dog once again bared her teeth.

  “Wait here,” Jake said.

  “But—”

  Ignoring her, he pulled the door the rest of the way open, and poked his head inside. There was a landing there, and then a set of stairs that went down about five feet, then turned ninety degrees and went down another five feet. It wasn’t the stairs that drew his attention, but the second landing.

  In the far dusty corner he found what the poor dog was trying so desperately to protect, and even as he looked, she pressed her cold nose under his arm to see as well, making him see double when she jarred his shoulder.

  “Jake?”

  Hearing Callie’s voice behind them, the dog growled low in her throat.

  “Hang on,” he called back. “She’s got—”

  “Puppies,” Callie guessed, sounding resigned.

  As his eyes adjusted to the dark and he started counting the softly mewling puppies, the momma again nudged his arm with her wet nose, sending shots of fire down his bicep all the way to his fingers. “Yeah, I see your babies.” With his left hand, he patted her as they looked them over. “Five?”

  The dog walked down the steps to the landing and whined softly, plaintively. Jake moved in, then peered down the crack between the landing and the wall. He heard the rustling in the dark. Reaching down there was a whole new kind of pain, and he gritted his teeth as he paused to take a deep breath. “One’s slipped down between the landing and the wall. I’ll get it.” It cost him. By the time he set the puppy in the midst of its siblings and next to the mother who finally allowed herself to relax now that her last baby was back, Jake was a sweaty, shaky mess. His shoulder was leaping with each heartbeat, pulsing with pain, and he felt light-headed. The weakness was humiliating.

  “Jake?”

  “I think you can come in now. She’s calmer.” He stayed where he was, on his knees in front of the dog and her puppies, waiting for his world to stop spinning.

  Callie had run somewhere for a flashlight. When she scooted in behi