“I know you didn’t grow up with dogs the way I did, but let me tell you, I think this is a good one. Aren’t you boy?” She ruffled the dog’s fur and got no reaction. “Hmph.” She crossed her arms over her chest, gold bangles jangling. “Looks like he’s only got eyes for you.”
The dog looked up at us and barked once, as if in agreement. I could have sworn his eyes were laughing.
Chapter 2
“What am I gonna do with you, huh?” I plopped the grocery bags full of dog food, toys and paraphernalia that Barb and Patty had insisted on buying for me down on my kitchen counter, and turned to face Shadow who was sitting quietly, watching me. He had already made a short tour of the downstairs section of the house, but he appeared to prefer to be with me than scouting around.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” I continued. “You’re a nice guy, but I never expected to be a dog owner, let alone speak dog.” Though Patty had baby-talked him all the way home, it just seemed wrong to me somehow. Shadow had his head cocked just as though he was listening to me and there was no one there to see me carry on an adult conversation with a dog.
“I tell you what,” I picked up the sheaf of blank adoption forms along with the free certificate for neutering that had come with the dog and shook them at him for emphasis. “We’ll give it the weekend and see how it goes. You’d better be very good or we’ll have to call it quits, understand?”
Shadow whined and came forward, nudging the hand with the papers.
“Oh, all right.” I put down the papers and scratched behind his ears, making him close his eyes in ecstasy again. It was a little disconcerting to suddenly own such a large animal; his head came up to my waist easily and if he stood on his hind paws he would almost be taller than me. It’s just a trial, I reminded myself, scratching behind the sharply pointed black ears.
“What about some dinner?” I asked him.
He barked once, as if to say, ‘took you long enough.’
“All right.” I took out the brand new double doggie bowl and put it down on the kitchen floor. I opened the ridiculously expensive bag of gourmet dog food Patty had insisted on buying (though Shadow continued to ignore her she was in love with him) and poured some in. Adding water to the other side of the bowl, I dusted my hands and said, “There.”
Shadow looked at me, then at the food, then back at me again. He walked over to the bowl, sniffed and took a few delicate nibbles then sat down to watch me.
“You sure don’t eat much for such a big guy,” I remarked, washing my hands to start my own dinner. Maybe he had eaten right before we picked him out. I turned to my brushed steel, top-of-the-line refrigerator and pulled open the door to see what was available.
Douglas had insisted on remodeling the entire kitchen when we first moved into my Grandma’s old house. Cooking was another one of his hobbies and he only wanted the best equipment and appliances. I went along with it although I missed the mellow gleam of polished oak, and thought the cold, brushed steel and black marble that replaced it was a poor substitute for the sunny kitchen I had loved as a little girl. Now that Douglas was gone I was stuck with a high-tech kitchen and no one to use it. Most nights nuking a Lean Cuisine was as gourmet as I got.
Tonight was special though. It was Friday night and I had no date, but at least I had a warm body to share the house with. Dog or not, at least Shadow was another living, breathing being I could talk to, even if he did only answer in barks and whines. I pulled out a bottle of red wine and all the fixings for a really nice field-greens salad—
goat cheese, pine nuts and a light balsamic vinaigrette.
Patty had me hooked on this particular salad, although being the artistic one in our group she made it more elaborate. Grape tomatoes, sliced Fuji apples, candied walnuts, what ever suited her fancy at the time—it was never the same salad twice. I liked to stick to the basics as my creativity came out in different ways. Or it had, anyway.
I sighed as I realized I hadn’t even tried to write anything in over a year. Ever since my marriage started to fold I’d had writer’s block in the worst way and it didn’t help that my ex-husband had thought my literary efforts were laughable.
I tossed the salad and put it in a blue glazed terra cotta bowl decorated with Aztec symbols around the edge. A souvenir of our honeymoon in Mexico. Damn. It’s been six months, already, just let it go, I told myself, but it wasn’t easy advice to follow.
“You know why you’re here?” I turned to face Shadow who was still watching me with his head cocked to one side. “You’re here because my husband dumped me. Not just for another woman either, no—it was another man,” I told him.
I picked up my salad and the glass of red wine and moved to the breakfast nook. I took a long swallow of wine and continued. “I mean, I should have seen it, right? He loved to garden, he was a gourmet chef, he re-decorated this whole damn place on his own. Not that a straight man couldn’t do all that—I’m not talking about a stereotype per se here,” I told the dog.
I plopped down at the small round table and took another big sip of wine. “But I should have figured out a little bit earlier why his favorite TV show was Queer as Folk. Well written plot my ass. Hell, the fact that we only had sex once a month could have given me a clue.” I picked at the salad morosely. “I guess I just didn’t want to know,” I said in a low voice.
Shadow padded over to me and laid his huge head on my knee with a low whine. I fondled his fuzzy ears and let my tears fall. Six months and it still hadn’t quite sunk in that Douglas was gone forever. I kept expecting him to call me up or come over and say that it was all a big mistake. He’d say, “So sorry Angie, I’m not gay after all.” I knew in my heart it was never going to happen, but the pain was still too fresh to let go. My ex-husband was such a jerk, why did I still let him affect me so much?
“Sorry, boy, I’m a mess,” I mumbled. “Maybe I should just go to bed. Shame about the salad.” I had barely touched it.
I took the blue Aztec bowl over to the sink to scrape the remains of my meal down the disposal but Shadow got between me and the black marble and butted me with his head, whining.
“What?” I asked, annoyed. He sat on his haunches and raised his front paws in the air. Clearly he was begging.
“Look, Shadow, I know it’s in a big blue bowl just like yours but there’s nothing in here you want, Okay? Here, see for yourself.” I set the bowl on the ceramic tiles and let him have a sniff. “No sausage, no bacon, no…” I stopped. The dog was eating the salad like it was going out of style. He was (and you should pardon the pun) absolutely wolfing it down.
In a matter of minutes he polished it off, licking the bowl clean with a few delicate swipes of his long pink tongue. He sat back on his haunches and barked once, as though telling me he was finished.
I shook my head. “A dog that likes salad, go figure. All right, so you’re unique.” I set the bowl in the sink and finished the wine in my glass then thought, what the hell, why not drink it all? I’m not usually much of a drinker but I was feeling depressed and reckless. I decided I would take a bath and finish the bottle of wine before hitting the sack. There aren’t many sensual pleasures left for the single gal—a hot bath and a bottle of wine were two of them. If only I had some chocolate my night would be complete.
“C’mon, boy, time for you to go out for the night.” I walked to the door that led out to the walled in back yard and yanked it open. “Go on, Shadow. Good boy,” I encouraged.
The dog looked at the door and back to me but didn’t budge an inch. He whined appealingly. The message was clear: he didn’t want to go out for the night.
I sighed. “Oh, what the hell. The shelter lady did say you were house-trained.” I re-locked the back door and grabbed a folded copy of the paper just in case. “C’mon, boy.” I motioned towards the stairs and this time the dog came at once.
The master bedroom had been my Grandma’s and it was the only room I’d absolutely refused to let Douglas redecorate. Now that
he was gone, I was very, very glad I had put my foot down. The bedroom was the one place I could relax, a sanctuary of mellow hardwood floors and furniture, polished to a muted shine by years of beeswax polish and TLC from Grandma. The big old four-poster bed was spread with one of her handmade quilts, a pattern of yellow butterflies and pale pink tulips. Douglas had sneered at her old-fashioned work, but I liked the bright, cheerful fabric.
Shadow padded into the room at my heels. His massive wolf-like head swinging from side to side as he regarded everything. Before I flicked on the lamp beside the bed, I saw that moonlight was pouring in through the wide windows on either side. The moon wasn’t full yet but it soon would be. I wondered if Shadow would howl like the wolf he resembled, but he sat silently in the shadows until the golden warmth from the low-watt bulb lit the room.
“Okay, boy, here’s the deal,” I told him. I put the half-empty bottle of wine down on the nightstand and began to spread the paper out sheet over sheet on the far side of the bed. “I’m going to let you stay here tonight provided any ‘accidents’ stay on the paper.” I pointed meaningfully at the sheets of newsprint covering the hardwood floor. I knew it was more of a puppy thing but having never owned a dog before, I didn’t want to take any chances that Shadow might not be completely house-trained.
The dog walked over to the papers, toenails clicking on the floor, sniffed them and gave me a look that I would have sworn was offended.
“Fine,” I said. “Then I guess we understand each other. Now I…” I began to unbutton my shirt. “…am going to take a long, hot bath and kill the rest of this bottle of wine. It’s been a long damn day and I deserve it. I don’t usually drink, you know.” I stripped off the shirt and my skirt as well, wondering why I felt the need to explain myself to a dog. “But tonight’s a special occasion. It’s not every day you’ve been divorced for six whole months.”
I turned and stripped off my bra and panties, wincing as I noticed the slight red marks the too-tight bra had left on my shoulders. Barb was always telling me I should look into reduction but Patty always countered that I should keep my generous breasts because men loved breasts. This argument of appearance versus comfort summed up my two best friends to a tee. Personally, I liked my breasts, despite the problem finding bras that didn’t leave marks. An ‘over the shoulder boulder holder’, that’s what we had called a bra for someone with boobs my size in high school.
I turned back around, thumbs hooked in the waistband of my silky blue bikini panties, all ready to pull them down when a look at my new dog stopped me. He hadn’t moved any closer but he had his head cocked to one side and he was staring at me intently. Feeling uncomfortable for no reason I could really define, I grabbed the bottle of wine and headed for the bathroom. Shadow started to follow but I made an imperative motion.
“No—you stay here. I’m a private bathroom person and I don’t know you well enough to let you watch me take a bath.” I felt ridiculous as soon as the words left my mouth. He was just a dog, after all. Maybe he was lonely and unsure of himself in a new, big house with a new master he barely knew.
Shadow whined appealingly and gave me the big brown puppy dog eyes.
“No,” I said firmly. I went into the bathroom, shut the door in his doggy face and started a tub of water running.
The bathtub was another antique left over from Grandma’s days—a free-standing, claw footed monstrosity big enough to really wallow in. I turned out the lights, lit a cinnamon scented candle and used my best foaming bath oil.
There’s nothing like a good hot soak after a stressful day. I unpinned my hair and let it fall around my shoulders in a silky mass before stepping into the foaming bubbles. I sighed deeply as I relaxed into the water that was just this side of too hot. Grabbing the bottle of wine from the tiled floor beside the tub I took a big swig directly from the bottle. Not very lady-like, I supposed—Douglas would be horrified. Not that I gave a damn.
As I sank into the bubbles, letting the tension of the day melt away, I wondered if I would have my dream again that night. It was funny because my Grandmother used to claim that when you had the same dream over and over again it meant your life was going to change. It was a gift, she said, from our Navajo ancestry—she had been half Cherokee herself but to look at me with my blond hair and dark green eyes, you would never guess that a drop of Navajo blood ran in my veins. The Danish blood from my Father’s side completely overwhelmed it.
I had loved my Grandmother dearly, but to be honest I didn’t believe that I had any kind of a ‘dream gift’. I was more likely that I had been without sex so long my subconscious was trying to make up for it. Didn’t take a Freud to figure that one out.
The dream I had been having lately was different from any other dream I’ve ever had before. It wasn’t frightening or a nightmare but there was a darker flavor to it. I took another swig of wine. “Darker, hell,” I said to myself. “Erotic is more like it, Angelina. Why not admit it?” I know I’m starting to get drunk when I start talking out loud to myself. Out side the bathroom door Shadow whined softly and I told him to hush. Maybe it was time to lay off the wine.
I put down the bottle and sank lower in the tub, not caring that the bubbles were getting into my hair. Maybe if I just closed my eyes for a moment the dream would come to me … I was almost ashamed to admit that I had begun to look forward to it. Barb had attributed it to one too many viewings of Last of the Mohicans but I didn’t think so. Certainly the man in my dreams didn’t look like any of the characters. But then again, he was an Indian, or Native American, I supposed, was the more PC term.
Regardless of the terminology, it didn’t seem terribly likely that I was going to be swept off my feet any time soon by a sexy savage. That kind of thing just didn’t happen outside a romance book, did it? No, I told myself. This was no life changing event, it was just a dream.
I sank down until the bubbles were just under my chin, thinking that the water was getting cool and I would have to run some more in just a moment But first I would just rest my eyes a little…
Chapter 3
The next thing I knew someone was lifting me out of the tub. I must have fallen asleep because the water was ice-cold and I was shivering. I was slippery from the bath oil and all my limbs felt loose and disjointed from the wine so he was having a hard time getting hold of me.
“Who…” I tried to ask as he finally draped me over one broad shoulder and hauled me out that way.
“Never mind. You wouldn’t remember if I told you now anyway.” The voice that answered my question was low and firm and the arms that were holding me felt exceptionally strong.
He sat me on the edge of the tub and grabbed a towel, rubbing the rough terrycloth over my dripping limbs carefully. I shivered convulsively, realizing how cold I was and my skin broke out in a rash of goosebumps. The AC in this part of the house was turned on full-blast, the better to combat the heat of the day and sitting in the chilly air after being pulled from the icy water was most unpleasant.
You would have thought that the sudden chill and the drop in my body temperature would have cleared my head somewhat, but the large amounts of wine I had consumed were still working on me and I felt half asleep despite, or maybe because of, my lowered body temperature.
It seemed like I ought to be afraid of this strange man who was suddenly in my house. There had been some disturbing reports in the news lately. A serial rapist was loose in my area code. Somehow, though, I just couldn’t make myself panic the way I knew I should. Maybe because it didn’t seem likely that a prospective rapist would take the time to dry me off before getting on with his intended crime.
“Must’ve fallen asleep in the bath,” I muttered.
“Mmhm,” he agreed. “If you’d stayed in there much longer you probably woulda frozen to death. I tried to get you to come out earlier but you told me to shut up.”
“Huh?” I wanted to state that I had never seen him before in my life and in fact, I wasn’t seeing very much of
him now. He was just a large shape in the cinnamon-scented gloom of my bathroom. My brain was too muddled by the wine to process this thought, however, and so the inarticulate ‘huh’ was all that came out.
“Never mind,” he said again and sighed. He finished drying me and lifted me gently into his arms. “Guess we’ll just have to write tonight off.”
I wanted to ask what he meant but something even less intelligent than ‘huh’ might have come out so I kept my mouth shut. I was still terribly cold but being held in his arms was like being close to a portable furnace. He was warm to touch and I pressed my icy cheek against the bare, muscular chest and breathed in a scent like dry sand and warm fur and musk.
He shouldered the door of the bathroom open, carrying me like I weighed no more than a doll (which is certainly not the case) and laid me gently on the bed. Someone had already turned down the covers and he slid me beneath the cool cotton sheets and pulling my Grandma’s colorful quilt up to my chin, tucking me in snugly.
It occurred to me again that I ought to be concerned that a strange man was in my bedroom and putting me to bed but the amount of wine I had consumed kept me from getting too excited. My eyes wanted to close but I forced them to stay open, trying to study him in the darkness of the bedroom.
Someone had turned out the lamp but the light of the nearly-full moon shone through my windows showing a face with high cheekbones, dark eyes that I thought might be brown, and strong, hawk-like features. For some reason he looked vaguely familiar. Long straight hair the color of midnight fell down to bare, broad shoulders. My eyes continued down a muscular torso and lean hips and I realized uneasily that my bathtub savior was as naked as I was. Naked and very well endowed if the sizable shadow between his legs was any indication.
“You … you’re naked,” I muttered, gesturing vaguely at his lower body which was mostly hidden in the shadows.