“Don’t you like me?”
“You’re fine, but…” She shook her head. “My life is complicated enough.”
“No complications, Ayla.” And, God, he liked the idea. Liked it a little more than he should. “You’re only here for a month, right? And I might not make it that long. I won’t leave before John’s wedding, but after that, I could get an offer anytime.”
She searched his face like she might actually be considering it. “I think we can tell them no, not interested.”
“Clearly, you have never been on the receiving end of a relentless Greek grandmother and her scheming Irish sidekick.”
“No, but I had a sweet Southern nana who could take you down with one good ‘bless your heart.’ I can stand the pressure.”
But could he?
“Thanks for looking out for me,” she said. “But I’m going to keep my life simple for now.”
“S’okay. Your call. But for the record? I’d have totally gone with the fake.” And loved every minute of it.
Chapter Eight
Clementine stopped crying around four in the morning. It wasn’t until then that Ayla really got any sleep. So when the dog pounced on her at seven thirty, barking, wagging, and begging to go out, all Ayla wanted to do was hide under her pillow and sleep in.
But she could hear more barking outside her open window. And chickens clucking. And a goat…no, that was Marie singing.
“I live on a ranch now,” she acknowledged as she pushed herself up and rubbed Clem’s pretty face. “So I guess we rise and shine.”
Clementine barely gave Ayla time to brush her teeth and pull on a pair of jeans she’d borrowed yesterday before she pawed at the door in desperation. Ayla opened it, and the dog launched out, barking as she ran toward the screen door.
“Okay, okay.” As she reached for the handle, she froze and stared at a black Honda coupe out in the drive. Oh, that explained the dog’s behavior.
“No wonder you’re a wild beast. Your boyfriend is here.” She gave a soft laugh and remembered their conversation. “And mine, if I wanted to play his game.”
For the four hundredth time since last night, she thought about the offer to pretend to be matched. Right. Like it would be pretend for very long. She’d been two seconds from planting a kiss on his lips.
She pushed the door open, and Clementine bolted, running toward the car and jumping against the side of it.
“Whoa, don’t scratch the paint.” Ayla walked over to retrieve the dog, glancing in the empty car that she’d also noticed in the driveway of Waterford Farm last night. Only then, it had been a disaster of discarded trash from Theo’s road trip with Clem. Sometime between then and now, he’d cleaned out the car, and it looked like he’d just driven it off the lot.
A Navy man would be like that, she mused. She pulled Clementine back as well as she could, but the dog was already in a frenzy looking for Theo.
“Come on, let’s go find him.” She guided Clementine around the house, but couldn’t hold on as the dog broke free and ran past the long coop on the side, ignoring the dozen or so chickens pecking about. She darted along a huge raised garden bed, showing no interest in the vegetables growing there, and blew right by Marie, who was in one of the dog kennels pouring out food.
Marie looked up, surprised by the blur.
“She’s on a hunt for her man,” Ayla called with a laugh. “The only thing that could make her walk past a bag of dog chow.”
Marie stood and straightened the bag, looking at the dog who tore all the way to where the goats were and barked at them, separated by a fairly dilapidated metal fence.
“Theo was there earlier, checking out the fence because he’s going to fix it for me.”
“How long has he been here? It’s not even eight o’clock.”
“He came by to borrow my truck,” she said. “He told me he was on a mission to get something very important. And while he was here, he looked at the fence.”
The dog barked, turned in a circle, then peed, looking left and right in case she’d missed him. Finally, she moseyed back to the other good smell she’d picked up—food.
Marie made her a bowl and set it up separate from the other two dogs who were eating now, too. Hoss, a sweet brown pittie, and Little Joe, a dog of many breeds, with one ear up and one ear down, didn’t even look up at Ayla while they enjoyed their breakfast.
“River got tired and went back to bed after we got the eggs.” She pointed to the doggy door at the back of the house, then eyed Ayla critically. “You might think about doin’ the same, sleepy kitten.”
She touched her face and unbrushed hair. “That bad, huh?” She pointed at Clem. “Blame the beast who wept for her beloved until the wee hours. I kept her in bed with me, and trust me, all she thought about was him.” And that was Ayla’s excuse for not being able to get those oxidized-copper eyes and that sexy smile out of her brain. “But I finally realized she was dying to be under something, so I let her crawl under the bed, and wham, she conked. I think it has to do with that picnic table she was apparently chained to.”
“Oh, that picnic table!” Marie grunted. “I can’t stop thinking about it, either. I told Theo I wanted to know exactly where it was in Arkansas so I can go back and kill the man with my bare hands. He refused, but only because he knew I wasn’t kidding.”
Ayla shook her head, almost wishing she didn’t see some of the things that Clementine had. To erase the images, she took a minute to really appreciate the beauty of the small ranch, which sat on a remarkable piece of the land.
“It’s no Waterford Farm,” Marie said, coming up next to her. “But it’s home.”
“I love it,” she said, giving Marie a hug. “Waterford is amazing in its own way, but this is sweet and small and cozy.”
“This used to be part of Waterford at one time. Finnie’s husband, Seamus, built the original house as the home for their foreman, back when Waterford was an actual working farm in the sixties. Seamus and Finnie eventually sold the land and house, then Daniel and Annie bought it back, and now they’ve sold it to me.” She looked around, uncharacteristic stress pulling at her features.
“It’s perfect,” Ayla assured her.
“Far from it, which is why I’m a little bit of a nervous wreck this morning.”
“You are? What’s wrong, Marie?”
“Oh, that’s right.” She snapped her fingers. “You were off with Theo during this conversation yesterday, and then we took off and got so wrapped up in getting that dog out of there and all her crying, we got distracted.”
Ayla shook her head, not quite able to laugh at the memory of Clem clawing at the truck windows and crying. And Theo looking downright gutted, and about to change his mind.
“You’d have thought we were taking her off to the dog dungeons of hell,” she said, frowning as she tried to remember what happened before that. “What conversation did I miss?”
“Rescue Party. Do you know the show?”
She had to think for a minute. “On the Animal Network? The one where the guy goes all over the country visiting rescue shelters and featuring dogs and the people who take care of them?” Her eyes widened. “Are they coming here?”