Finder's Keeper (26 page)

“Are you going to keep it at your brother’s house? Nice yard.”

“The new owners might object.”

“New owners?”

“I put it on the market today.”

“You did?” That was huge. Mia felt something lurch heavily in her chest. “Chase…”

He shrugged, his gaze drifting around the room aimlessly, refusing to meet hers. “It seemed like time.”

She couldn’t think of what to say. To tell him she was proud of him seemed unbearably patronizing. To congratulate him would be inconsiderate of what he was giving up. She’d never been good with words, so Mia didn’t bother with them. She just reached out and awkwardly squeezed his arm.

Miraculously, this seemed the right thing to do. His eyes suddenly met hers and something shifted in his tight smile. Something soft and lovely that made her chest feel like it was slowly being warmed from the inside out.

Then the towel gave a little yip and the connection was broken.

She frowned at the bundle of rag and dog. “Is it one of those yappy dogs?”

“No. It’s a Miniature Australian Shepherd. Apparently they don’t bark much. Already housebroken, I promise. The breeder said they’re smart and highly trainable. Energetic, but they love to please and they form strong attachments with people. I thought you could use someone to teach you how that works.”

“I don’t want a dog.” She’d never had one. She wouldn’t know what to do with it.

“How do you know that if you’ve never had one?”

Damn the man for reading her mind. “It’s messy. I can’t ignore it at home when I stay overnight at the lab. It isn’t practical.”

“So you take him to the lab with you. It’s not like you have chemicals lying around he can get into.”

“It’ll be a nuisance.”

“You love him. Say,
Thank you, Chase, I love him
.”

Then the towel shifted and the wriggling, squirming, theoretical puppy became a pair of big brown eyes framed with long, curved puppy- lashes.

“It’s a him?”

“How is it you always seem to be able to talk me into the most impractical things?”

“I’m tenacious.” Chase watched the white and red puppy scramble over his stretched-out legs and pounce on the squeaky toy. When it squealed, the pup yelped in surprise, flipping all the way over the ball and twisting up from his back to renew his attack.

Mia didn’t smile, intent on the dog.

He’d been right about this. He didn’t care to examine why it had been so important to him that she accept the dog, why it had felt like such a risk, showing up with the puppy, asking her to accept the pair of them, but she’d barely argued and once the puppy clapped his big gooey eyes on her, she was done.

Chase had brought in the puppy supplies he’d stashed in the car, the toy among them, and they’d spent their “date” acclimating young Occam to his new home. It was getting late, already past eleven, but inertia kept Chase in place, unable to say good night or make a move toward the bedroom. Mia lay on her stomach on the living room carpet, watching the puppy with frowning fixation.

“If you don’t want him, I can always take him home with me—”

“No,” she snapped, shooting him a death glare. “No stealing my dog, you bastard.”

Chase couldn’t help but smile at the way she’d nearly ripped his head off. Already he was
her
dog. “So ‘Occam’? I take it that’s a science thing.”

Mia nodded without taking her eyes off the dog. “Occam’s Razor. All other factors being equal, the simplest explanation is the correct one. It’s imprecise—largely to establish prevailing beliefs in the scientific community, but without those prevailing beliefs we would have nothing to refute and argue about, so a necessary simplification.”

“Are you saying you see your dog as a necessary simplification?”

He’d been trying to goad her, but Mia’s smile was sly as her eyes flicked sideways to him. “Occam’s Razor cuts through all the bullshit that doesn’t matter and gets to the heart of things.”

The puppy rolled onto his back and twisted his neck to look at them upside down, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. Chase snorted, irrationally flattered by the name choice. “All hail, the mighty Bullshit Avenger.”

“Would you really take him home? Even though your lease says you can’t have pets?”

“Do you honestly think I can’t talk my super into letting me keep a dog?”

She shrugged, her expression darkening. “I haven’t met your super. Maybe he possesses superhuman powers of bullshit-resistance.”

There was an edge to her sarcasm. He studied her as she was occupied by dissecting the dog’s behavior with her eyes. Was she really bothered that he hadn’t taken her to his place yet?

“It’s not that great an apartment, Mia. You aren’t missing much.”

She looked daggers at him. “You’re presuming that I’m upset about that. I’m not.”

Oh, she was pissed all right. “It’s not a home or anything. Just a place to store my boards when I’m not surfing. Does the fact that I’ve seen your house really mean anything to you?”

“You’ve seen my lab.”

And her lab was her real home. “Good point. I’ll show you my place anytime you want, but if you want to do the emotional bonding thing, we should probably go to the beach. That’s more my home than any other place.”

“I don’t like the beach.”

“Everyone likes the beach.”

“Well, I don’t.”

Chase tipped his head to the side, mimicking Occam. “Are you trying to pick a fight with me?”

Her lips closed tight, making him itch to tease them open. “I just think it behooves us to acknowledge our long-term incompatibility.”

“Because you don’t like the beach.” Skepticism saturated every word.

“Because we’re too different in too many ways.”

“So when you say compatible, you mean identical.”

“Shared values are the cornerstone of lasting relationships.”

“Did Peter teach you that?”

“You wouldn’t feel the need to bring Peter up all the time if you weren’t threatened by his superior compatibility with me.” She snatched up the ball and began rolling it toward the dog, who yipped and pounced, sending it spinning back to her.

“I’m not threatened because the last thing you need is your clone in bed with you. People with opposite perspectives bring out the best in us.”

“And have the most ability to cause us pain for things we can’t change about ourselves. Just look at my family.”

“All the more reason to find someone who could bridge the gap.”

“You mean side with them. No, thank you.”

“So you’d rather have sterile safety than someone who makes your heart race?”

“Racing hearts are fine in the short term. In the long term, you should consult a physician because something is seriously wrong.”

“I’d rather take that risk than be bored to death.”

She snorted and glowered at him. “You? You don’t like risking your heart any more than I do. We’re both masters of avoiding romantic entanglements.”

“There. See? We have something in common. Compatibility achieved.”

She grabbed Occam’s ball and threw it at Chase’s face. The puppy darted after it in a frenzy at the idea of fetch. “I don’t know why I talk to you,” she grumbled.

Chase caught the ball one-handed and then rolled it across the floor so the pup could leap after it. “You talk to me because I’m the only one who doesn’t let you be right all the time.”

“Your arguments are illogical.”

“And it keeps you on your toes.”

“It’s annoying.” But there was no heat to lend credibility to the words.

Chase eyed Mia, sprawled as she was across the floor. Her jeans were snug, but ridiculously unflattering. Mom jeans. Clearly bought in a hurry at a bargain bin rather than by a woman who appreciated shopping. Her hair was tugged back tight and unrelenting and her glasses were jammed back on her nose—he’d never seen her poke or fuss at them, as if they were too intimidated by her potential ire to dare slide out of place.

Mia was no sultry, sloe-eyed goddess. She was rigid and wound tight as a spring, disdainful of non-intellectual pursuits and baffled by the softer sides of humanity, but all of that was what made her Mia, which made her somehow sexier than any easy, obvious sexpot.

She was perfect for a fling. She’d never demand more of him than he could emotionally give because she had so little to give herself. But it wasn’t only the safety that appealed to him. It was Mia.

He adjusted the fit of his pants and cleared his throat roughly, wondering how she’d react if she knew how much her intent frowns and glowers turned him on.

“I guess we’ll just have to wait until we find the watch to confirm that I’m your One True Love,” he joked, needing the lightness of the words.

Mia groaned and flopped face down. “If we ever find it,” she moaned, her words muffled by the carpet. They’d tried earlier in the evening and all he’d gotten was the usual mimosa flood—weighted heavily with guilt about credit-card theft and broken legs, from what he’d pieced together.

“We’ll find it. We have a few more days before the party and you can turn it over to the next in line with no one the wiser.”

“I wish I had your idiotic optimism.”

Chase snorted. “Thank you.”

She waved a dismissive hand, not raising her head. “You know what I mean. You’re a believer. I don’t do that.”

“No?” Occam darted into the kitchen and Chase rolled to his feet to collect him and bring him back to the living room, sitting back down within touching distance of Mia. She’d twisted around to sit on the floor with her back against the couch. His arm brushed her as he stretched his legs out beside hers. “You didn’t try to pass off another watch as The Watch when you could have.”

“That doesn’t signify,” she protested. “Someone might have recognized the fake.”

“You kept it in your safe. Not in some random drawer or the bottom of a dumpster. So clearly you believe in that mumbo jumbo on some level.”

“It’s an antique.”

“You thought it might have caused your sister’s infertility problems.”

“Low blow.”

“But true. You can admit it has value, Mia. It’s obvious you believe it does, even if its power is a bit harder to buy into.”

“I don’t see that it matters, now that it’s missing.” She burrowed her fingers into the scruff of Occam’s neck and the puppy sighed blissfully, collapsing into her lap to be adored. “Fat lot of good keeping it in the safe did.”

“You haven’t thought of anyone else who could have gotten it out of there? Anyone else who had access? It couldn’t have just evaporated. Maybe a family member borrowed it?”

“No one has the combination.”

“No one you gave it to, for any reason?”

“What reason could there be?” She yawned and slumped down lower, her head dropping naturally onto his shoulder. With one hand, she continued to stroke the soft fur of the puppy, even though he had fallen into the instant sleep of the young. “The only things I keep in there are flash drive back-ups of my research.”

Chase picked up her free hand, tangling their fingers together. “Want me to try to find it one more time?”

“Sure.” Her voice was lazy and warm—and didn’t hold even a shred of hope that this time it would work. “Maybe we should try it with you distracting me, since concentrating isn’t working. Like hypnosis. Tell me again about surfing…”

He’d try anything. Chase began a soft, soothing litany about the perfect set—the flash of the sun off the water, the strain of his muscles as he paddled to catch the right wave, the way his body knew exactly what to do, exactly where to find that perfect balance as he snapped up to stand and instinct took over.

He kept the words calm and constant, opening up the link.

For a brief flash of a moment he saw the watch, more crisply than he’d ever felt it through her, but before the cord could snap taut with its familiar metallic twang, the image grew fuzzy, blurring with warmth and a soft contentment, swamped by the intangibles again, but this time without the angst and stress and longing that usually tinged them. Tonight it was happiness bleeding through her skin into his. A soul-deep desire for this moment to stretch out—savoring the firm swell of his shoulder muscle beneath her ear, the silk of fur under her fingers, and the sense that there was no experiment to rush off to, no work that couldn’t wait, just this moment, this feeling, and the two of them.

Chase opened his eyes as he dropped the link, his chest tight with something hot and not entirely comfortable.

“Any luck?” Mia asked, blinking sleepily.

“Not tonight.”

They lapsed into silence. Restlessness jumped in his bones. Time stretched as Mia snuggled against his side, on the verge of falling asleep herself. So trusting. So dependent. He jittered his legs, suddenly needing to go home more than he needed to get Mia into bed. “I should go. You’re beat.”

She made a vaguely affirmative humming noise, clearly barely hanging onto consciousness with her head still pillowed on his shoulder. “Thank you for Occam,” she murmured.

He cleared his throat roughly. “No problem. I thought you’d be a dog person.”

“Peter liked cats, but they smell terrible,” she mumbled. There was a long silence then a resigned sigh. “We’ll tell Gina. She’ll find it.”

Chase wasn’t going to try to figure out that sequence of logic. She was out. He twisted awkwardly until he could lift Mia without disturbing her and settled her onto the couch, tucking the puppy into her arms and pulling a threadbare fleece over the pair of them. He carefully removed her glasses, setting them on the end table. She frowned in her sleep, but didn’t open her eyes. “G’night, Mia.”

She grumbled something that might have been a reply and burrowed deeper into the couch. Chase knew he should just walk away, but he brushed a hand across her brow, needing to touch her one more time before he could leave. He swallowed around something heavy swelling in his throat and turned away to let himself out.
Escape
. That’s what it felt like when the door closed behind him. A near miss. But what he was missing, he didn’t want to know.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Dr. Strangelove

Mia ignored the scans on her computer, distracted by the tiny growls coming from her feet where Occam was taking out his puppy vengeance on a rawhide chew. She was supposed to be studying the brain scans, looking for signs of love in the neural mapping in front of her, but she hadn’t been able to focus all day—a fact that should have irritated her but somehow failed to.