The Lucky Dog Matchmaking Service (2 page)

Chapter 2

Lara could smell vanilla and lemon as soon as she stepped into the house. Two steps later, she could sense turmoil brewing, too.

She braced herself for the wildly enthusiastic canine greeting committee, but the hallway remained empty. Her boyfriend, Evan, had bought this house last year, but Lara had moved in only a few weeks ago, and the place retained the bare-walled, sparsely furnished feel of a stereotypical bachelor pad. Lara had been no help in adding a homey “woman’s touch” to the place—her interior decorating contributions began and ended with setting up a doggie wading pool on the back patio and pulling all the potentially poisonous shrubbery out of the landscaping.

Oh, and the piles of her boxed-up belongings helped to balance out the lack of furniture.

“Hello?” The sound of her flip-flops echoed off the tile floor as she headed toward the kitchen. “Where is everyone?”

“In lockup.” Evan stood in the middle of the breakfast area, his hair wet, his light blue shirt unbuttoned, and his expression grim as he scrubbed the counter with a damp dish towel. Tall and lanky, with reddish brown hair and a head full of brilliant business sense, Evan had intrigued Lara from the day they first met. He taught economics in a prestigious MBA program, but at home he always looked like he was a pair of Converses and a few swipes of a razor away from playing ultimate Frisbee on the quad. He wasn’t into status symbols, but he’d worked hard for everything he had and he took good care of his investments—including his house.

“Uh-oh.” Lara put her bag down on a wrought-iron chair and approached him with a conciliatory smile. “Should I even ask what their crime was this time?”

Evan leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “My afternoon meeting got canceled, so I came home early to bake a cake for your birthday tomorrow. While it was cooling, I ran upstairs for a two-minute shower, and your dogs—”

She went up on tiptoe and gave him a kiss. “
Our
dogs, darling. Remember?”

“—ate the entire thing.”

Lara’s eyes widened with alarm. “It wasn’t chocolate cake, was it?”

“No, it was banana sour cream, and those bastards ate every crumb. I made lemon icing, too. We’re going to have to stick a candle in that and eat it with spoons.”

She exhaled and relaxed. “That’s good. I mean, it’s not
good
, but if the dogs ate a chocolate cake, the theobromine could cause serious heart problems.”

“I made that cake from scratch.” He thumped the cookbook next to the sink. “With actual flour and eggs and butter.”

“And I appreciate every granule of sugar you put into it. I’m sure it was delicious.”

“They also ate the flowers I bought you.” Evan pointed to a shard of glass by the patio door. “Watch your step. I’m still cleaning up the vase.”

“That must’ve been Zsa Zsa. She has a bizarre craving for greenery.” Lara grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him down for another kiss. “Flowers and cake? A girl could get used to this.”

He frowned. “Well?”

“Well, what?” She took off her jacket and got the broom out of the pantry.

He nodded toward the door of what used to be a spare bedroom and was now known as “the dog room.” “Aren’t you going to punish them?”

“No.”

“Why the hell not? They’re a bunch of conniving cake thieves.”

Lara shooed him away from the counter and got to work sweeping up the broken glass. “First of all, discipline has to be immediate to be effective. If I correct them now, they’ll have no clue what I’m correcting them for.”

“They ate my banana sour cream cake. They must pay.”

“Second of all, they’re not conniving. You’re giving them way too much credit. They saw a cake within striking distance, so they struck. Maverick was probably the ringleader. We’re working on his counter-surfing tendencies, but if you leave a cake out and don’t crate him . . .”

Evan grabbed an apple out of the refrigerator and took a big, angry bite. “So you’re saying it’s my fault for leaving the cake on my kitchen counter instead of in a bank vault? That’s bullshit. It’s
my
counter in
my
house, and he should—” He saw her expression change and hurriedly corrected himself. “I mean,
our
counter in
our
house.”

Lara stopped sweeping and took a long, analytical look at her boyfriend. He was usually calm and levelheaded to a fault. “I’ve never seen you so angry. Are you mad at the dogs or at me?”

He made her wait through another bite of apple before he responded. “You’re a dog trainer, right? So shouldn’t your dogs be, I don’t know,
trained
?”

Her grip on the broom handle tightened. “I’m a trainer who takes on dogs after other people have instilled a lifetime of bad habits in them. It’s not magic. It takes time and patience. And I’ve got news for you: If you want a houseful of well-behaved dogs, you need to help out with the training. They’re adjusting to the new living situation, too, and they need structure and consistency from both of us.”

He muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “And a shock collar.”

Lara’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m sorry—what was that?”

Evan set his jaw and returned her stubborn stare.

“What exactly do you want me to do here?” she demanded. “Do you want me to move out?”

His expression went from irritated to stunned. “Who said anything about moving out?”

Lara looked away.

“Why is leaving always your first line of defense?” He nodded toward the mountain of boxes in the living room. “I’m still trying to get you to actually move in. You’ve been here over a month and you haven’t unpacked.”

“I don’t want to get settled until I’m sure you can handle the reality of living with me. I mean, if a counter-surfed cake is going to upset you this much . . .”

“I’m allowed to be upset that they ate your birthday cake,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Lara brightened, hoping this would wrap up the argument.

But then Evan asked the question that could never be unasked: “But do you love me more than the dogs?”

Lara got a wineglass out of the cabinet, poured herself a splash of Shiraz, and took a long, deliberate sip before answering. “Must I remind you of our contract? The contract that you yourself drew up and signed on the night you asked me to move in?” She glanced over at the cocktail napkin stuck to the refrigerator door with a magnet. Scribbled in pen on the napkin was Evan’s solemn vow:
I, Evan Walker, do hereby promise to become a “dog person” and never complain about shedding or slobbering, so help me God.

“This is life with rescue dogs.” A note of defiance crept into her voice. “Things get messy. Things get eaten. You’re going to get to know the vet on a first-name basis.”

From the dog room, they heard barking and the scrabble of claws against the wooden door.

“They’ve scratched the hell out of the drywall.” Evan rubbed his forehead.

“I’ll call a contractor and have it repaired,” Lara offered. “That’s what I want for my birthday—new drywall.”

“No, no, I’ll take care of it.” He blew out a breath. “It’s my house, and besides, you already spent how much at the vet this month?”

“About twenty-three hundred dollars.” Lara paused. “And it’s
our
house. Right?”

He opened his arms to her, and as he held her, she could feel both of their bodies relax. “Our house.” He rested his chin on the top of her head. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . all these dogs . . . I don’t understand why you feel the need to take on other people’s problems.”

Lara pressed her cheek into the warmth of his chest, willing him to understand. “They’re not ‘problems.’ Each of these dogs has a purpose. They’re not just pets; they’re lifelines. I’ve seen it, Evan. I’ve lived it.”

* * *

Lara had been sixteen when she first fell in love with a rescue dog. She’d come home from high school on the Friday before spring break, waterlogged from the rainstorm outside and frazzled from a week of studying for midterms and trying to blend in with the other students in her class. Not
fit
in—she knew she would never feel at ease with the kids at the exclusive private school her mother insisted she attend. She just wanted to
blend
in, render herself invisible so that no one would notice all her flaws and insecurities.

But she could never escape her mother’s notice.

“Honestly, Lara, just look at those nails,” was her mother’s greeting when she walked through the door. As the work-obsessed owner of a chain of local salons, Justine usually didn’t come home until well after dinnertime, but apparently she’d decided it was her maternal duty to say good-bye before Lara headed off for vacation. “So sloppy and trashy.”

Lara opened her mouth, tempted to retort that if Justine hadn’t practically forced her to get a manicure over the weekend, chipped polish wouldn’t be a problem. But all she said was, “I must’ve peeled it off during my pre-calc exam. I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”

Justine sighed as she slipped off her light tan Burberry raincoat and hung it in the hall closet. “What am I going to do with you?”

Lara bit the inside of her cheek, forced herself to silently count to ten, then glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes before her father arrived to take her camping up in the northern Arizona mountains. She had to endure fifteen more minutes of criticism, and then she would have a whole week of freedom, far away from her mother’s demands and disapproval. She could wear sweatpants, forgo washing her hair, and spend all day with mud lodged under her fingernails. Most of the girls in her class were jetting off to exotic locales—surfing in Hawaii, skiing in Aspen—but Lara wasn’t envious. Any break from the pressure of prep school and Justine’s impossible standards was a dream vacation.

She turned her back on her mother and clicked on the TV to derail the conversation. “I’m all packed.”

Justine stepped out of her high-heeled pumps and carefully wiped the raindrops off the Italian leather shoes. “Good. I’ll expect you back by six o’clock on Sunday. Do you have any homework you need to get done for next week?”

Lara ignored her and turned up the TV. Thirteen more minutes, twelve more minutes . . .

The phone rang in the kitchen, and her mother answered on the second ring. Justine’s voice dropped immediately after she said hello, and Lara grabbed the remote and turned the TV way down so she could eavesdrop.

“You cannot keep doing this, Gil. She’s counting on you. . . . I’m well aware she’s not a little kid anymore. She’s sixteen, and adolescence is a very tough stage. . . . No, absolutely not . . .”

Careful not to rustle the cushions, Lara got up off the couch and tiptoed over to the kitchen door. She held her breath.

Justine’s tone went glacial. “Well, I guess you have to do what you have to do, but you’re going to tell her yourself. . . . I am sick and tired of always being the bad cop. . . . No,
you
tell her.”

Lara sprang away from the doorway and tried to look innocent as Justine charged into the family room, brandishing the cordless phone at arm’s length as if it were a handgun.

“Your father would like a word with you.”

Lara knew what she was about to hear, but she kept her tone upbeat as she pressed the phone to her ear. “Hi, Daddy. What’s up?”

All she heard in response was a dial tone.

She put the phone down. “He’s not coming.”

Justine sank down on the sofa. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine.” Lara forced a smile. “He must’ve . . . Something must’ve come up, right?”

“That’s what he said.” Justine patted the cushion next to her, but Lara refused to sit down. During the silence that followed, she avoided her mother’s pitying gaze and focused instead on the sound of cars splashing by in the puddles outside.

“You don’t want to go camping, anyway,” Justine said. “It’s supposed to rain all week. You would have been miserable.”

Lara finally snapped and lashed out at her mother. “No,
you
would be miserable.
You’re
the one who hates camping. You’re the one who’s, like, physically incapable of having fun.”

Her mother sat back, tilting her chin up. “Here we go. Your dad gets to be the fun parent, and I’m stuck being the evil disciplinarian, right? The witch who pays your tuition and buys all your clothes and makes sure you have a roof over your head.”

“Oh, so now I’m the reason you’re a buzzkill ice queen? I didn’t ask to be born!”

“Lara Madigan, you lower your voice this instant. If you’re angry at your father, yell at him. Don’t yell at me.”

But Lara couldn’t yell at her father; he wouldn’t even stay on the phone long enough to tell her he was bailing on spring break. So she kept glaring at her mother, so glossy and remote in designer clothes and sleekly styled hair. She had never been able to reconcile this version of Justine with the giggling, windswept bride she’d glimpsed in a snapshot of her parents’ wedding day. With every year, Justine became more guarded, more tightly wound. “You and Dad used to have fun together, right?”

Justine didn’t reply, but her expression flickered for an instant.

Lara persisted. “You weren’t always like this.”

Her mother’s lips were a hard white line. “Like what?”

“Like nothing’s ever good enough for you.” Lara’s heart ached and she wanted to make her mother share some of that pain. “You used to be different. You wouldn’t have married Dad if you hadn’t thought he was your soul mate.”

Justine let out a dry little laugh. “Don’t be naive. Soul mates don’t exist.”

“Then why did you marry him?”

“I was nineteen and I thought I knew everything.” Justine’s voice dripped with contempt for her younger self. “I was ‘in love.’ And now I’m older and wiser, and I’m here to tell you: Love doesn’t solve your problems. You have to take care of yourself. I don’t want you to ever depend on a man, Lara. That’s why I’m busting my ass to give you the best education, the best opportunities.”

Lara started picking at her nail polish again.