All I Am

His frustration simmered, his headache drummed. He’d get Sweetness loaded up with Cara, then he’d do some work. The methodical process of making dog treats, even when his arm sucked, was soothing. Possible. Not frustrating.

He’d learned in the army that having a precise way of doing things eased his anxiety and stress. Which helped him deal with people and life.

Cara stepped out of an old beige Toyota Camry. She wore black pants and high heels and a silky-looking green top under a black sweater.

Had he really offered a loaner dog to someone he’d met twice?

Yes, because she’s hot, and you’re very, very dumb.

Well, and Sweetness liked her. Which wasn’t all that unusual. Sweetness preferred women, though she’d gotten used to him after a family had left her with him because she hadn’t taken to their new baby.

“Hey,” Cara greeted him, picking across the yard on her high heels, getting stuck once or twice in the thawing, moist mud of his yard.

“Hey.”

Sweetness leaped off the porch, yapping the whole way to Cara. Before he could get half the stop command out of his mouth, Sweetness’s front paws were muddying up Cara’s pants.

He crossed to where Cara had knelt, right in the mud. “I’m sorry. She’s usually better at obeying.” He refused to see that as some kind of omen.

“It’s okay.” She held up her arms, showing off some patches of white dust and yellowish crusty stuff across the elbows and forearms of her black sweater. “I’m already a bit dirty.”

“I thought you had an interview?”

“Pie-baking interview.”

“That’s a thing?”

“Well, it was supposed to be a thing. Turned into a fiery ball of super fail instead.” She buried her nose in Sweetness’s fur. Phantom approached and rested his head on Cara’s shoulder.

Aw, crap.

Cara sniffled, but her head remained buried in Sweetness’s fur even as one arm curled around Phantom’s neck.

He had half a mind to tell her he was having his own meltdown, and he didn’t need hers to add to it, but this moment seemed so incongruous. He’d only spoken to her twice, but it had been obvious Cara was generally fun and happy, and the few times he’d heard her name bandied about town, those were the words used to describe her. Now she was crying all over his dogs. Hell if he knew what to do about it.

She cleared her throat, slowly released the two dogs and wiped her face with her sleeves before she turned to him. “Sorry about that,” she mumbled. “Bad day.”

“He’s a therapy dog.”

She swiped at her nose, watery bluish green eyes meeting his. “Huh?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “I just mean, don’t feel bad for crying. Phantom is a therapy dog. That’s why he came over. Trained to offer comfort. Sometimes it makes you cry.”

She cocked her head, that kind of concentrated study he hated almost as much as the avoided glances. The avoided glances were I don’t want to deal with whatever is wrong with you. The cocked-head study was it doesn’t look like something is wrong with you. Are you mental?

“So, you need comfort?” she asked.

He swallowed down the “none of your damn business” and turned on a heel instead. “Let me get Sweetness’s stuff.”

Inside the kitchen, he hefted the plastic bin of food and treats and other dog paraphernalia. When he turned to walk back outside, Cara was stepping over the threshold.

Of his house. Someone else was in his house. A human being.

Phantom had followed her, resting his head against her thigh when she stopped. Traitor. Sweetness danced at her feet once she saw the plastic bin. The dog knew what was coming.

He wished he had some inkling, because he didn’t know what to do about Cara being in his house, even if it was only a few steps into the kitchen.

“This is a great place,” she said, looking around with avid interest. He looked, too. He liked it, of course, but he wasn’t sure what was that great about it.

“Is this where you make your stuff?” She pointed to his equipment and setup tables. Yes, he tended to spend more time in his kitchen making dog treats than food for himself. That was probably not normal. His hand went numb, which, while welcome over the pins and needles, was not convenient when he was holding something. His headache picked up again, and he struggled to use his good hip to balance the small bin.

Small. Light. Shouldn’t be a struggle.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” He gripped tighter with his good hand, but the bin was sliding, and his hip wasn’t moving quite the way it needed to in order to balance the container. So it upended and fell.

He bent down to retrieve the scattered crap, doing his best not to shove her hands out of the way when she tried to help.

“Sure you’re okay?”

“I’ve got it under control.”

“Right. Yeah.” She stopped helping and pushed into a standing position. He didn’t look up; he knew too well the kind of expression he would see. Curiosity or discomfort or both.

She didn’t make a big deal about it, but once he’d refilled the bin with Sweetness’s things, she bent over and picked it up before he could.

He tried to come up with words to get her to leave immediately, but when he stood, she was already walking farther into his house.

Carrying the plastic bin as if it were nothing.

Dark feelings twisted in his stomach. Bitterness. Jealousy. Anger. Fear. Worst of all, fear that he’d never be okay.

She needed to go.

Cara let out a low whistle, angling her head into his office. “What happened in there?”

The rest of the house was, well, a mess. His organizational skills were lacking at best. His tidying skills were also problematic, except in the kitchen. If he had a process, a structure, an outcome, like he did with making the dog food or he’d had in the army, he could be very clean and meticulous. But a space all to himself to keep things put away? He struggled.

Cara didn’t pause, didn’t hesitate. She stepped right into the fray. As if she’d been invited. As if she were welcome.

He scowled and shoved his hands into his pockets to stop the urge to yank her away from his stuff. “Do you always barge into homes and places of business uninvited like this?”

She chuckled, and he thought she didn’t look quite so beat down, like she had earlier. She was smiling and laughing, and this was the Cara he expected from town gossip and what little he knew about her. A smile. A joke.

“All those manners and things never really stuck with me, sorry.”

He grunted. It wasn’t so much about manners as... What? Normalcy. “I’m looking for an assistant to help with filing and organizing and stuff. I haven’t had any luck yet.” Why was he telling her that? What did he care if she thought he was a slob?

“Yeah? Why not?”

“People are annoying.”

Again, she laughed. She dropped the bin of dog supplies onto a cluttered chair. She walked through his office, touching his desk of teetering piles as though this was normal.

Usually he dropped the loaner dogs off at the person’s house, and this was precisely why. Probably also why he hadn’t hired any of the three people he’d worked up to interviewing.

He didn’t like sharing. He didn’t like someone trying to look underneath everything. But Cara already was.

For the first time since his return to civilian life, he didn’t know how to stop it.

CHAPTER FOUR

WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Cara hardly noticed her brain asking that question. It asked her that about ten times a day. On a good day.

This wasn’t really a good day.

So, perhaps that answered her question. She was poking through Wes’s things, Wes’s life, because it sure beat dissecting her own.

She’d gone into the interview expecting to talk. Sam had asked her to bake an impromptu pie. Somehow she’d added too much salt to the piecrust. The edges had come out burnt. She’d self-destructed.

Typical Cara.

Even when she expected failure, there was always some sliver of hope she could turn things around this time. Not flunk the test or freeze in an interview. Find some way to make someone proud.

Mia would not be proud that she’d screwed up, even less proud that she’d given Sam the impression she didn’t care. That it was all a joke. But what else were you supposed to do when every time you tried to do something “more,” it blew up in your face?

Maybe Wes had the right idea. Hermit cabin in the woods. Surround yourself with animals who couldn’t express their hope or disappointment in your abilities. No one could intimidate her with their expectation.

Wes didn’t intimidate her, and she was good at organizing someone else’s business. The idea took root easily enough. “Do you think I’m annoying?”

“You’re pawing through my stuff, so you’re not exactly not annoying.”

She laughed at his gruff honesty. “But too annoying to be your assistant?”

His eyes widened, and she couldn’t hide a smile. Surprising people always gave her a thrill. “I have references,” she added. “I’m the receptionist at a salon in Millertown. I organize the appointments, answer emails, phone, all that.” She looked around his mess of an office. “I could have this worked out in a couple weeks, tops.”

“I’m only looking for someone to work part-time.”

So, in theory, she could ask Sam for a second chance. She could possibly redeem herself in his, and in Mia’s, eyes. She could take the reins of this little disaster of her own making and turn it around.

Though her instincts recoiled at the idea, she was starting to outgrow the stage of life where she could be funny, careless Cara. Pretty soon she’d be irresponsible, deadbeat Cara.

Her whole stomach roiled at the idea of asking for a second chance, the even bigger pressure. But she looked around Wes’s cluttered, isolated house. The guy needed some help, and it was as if this opportunity was being dropped in her lap.

Could she really ignore it? “I actually might only need part-time if I can work something out.”

“I don’t think that’d be a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not a people person. I don’t like to talk or be friends. I get angry easily, and I’m rarely nice.”

“You have no idea how much I like not nice.” When he gave her a quizzical glare, she shrugged. “Seriously. Niceness carries with it a certain level of...” She couldn’t believe she was about to be so honest with the guy, but if she couldn’t be honest with the dog-whispering super hermit, who could she be honest with?

“Expectation. I prefer it when people are mean. No pressure to live up to anything. I’d take a good screaming fit over disappointment.” Okay, she could probably stop talking any minute. “Anyway, believe it or not, you don’t scare me in the slightest.” Maybe a slight exaggeration. Something about the guy made her...she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Restless, maybe, but surely that was just her life and not Wes.

“I...” His eyes moved around the room as if taking in the enormity of the mess, then his gaze returned to her. She didn’t think she imagined the perusal, though it was quick.

“On second thought, maybe it’d be a great idea.”

“Really?” She wasn’t sure if his sudden turnabout was normal or not, but she did thrive on spontaneity.

“Yeah, but I want the references before we agree on anything. And no negotiating wages or hours. I pick those.”

“No problem.”

“And there are rules.” He crossed his arms over his chest, scowling. Somehow the dude with the long beard and unkempt hair was cute when he got all gruff.

“Rules? Like what? I’m not always super great at following rules.” She never meant to break them, exactly; it just always turned out that way.

“I...I’m not sure what they are yet, but you’ll have to follow them.”

“Aye, aye, captain.”

“I’m not a captain.”

“Would you prefer sir?” She didn’t mean to make that sir come out all sultry and suggestive. The words had a mind of their own. A dirty mind, at that.

“I j-just... Call me Wes. My name is Wes, a-and that’s what you should call me.”

Cara cocked her head. He was a strange guy. One minute he was standoffish, but the minute she did anything remotely flirtatious he got stuttery. Nervous. The two things didn’t jibe. She found herself a little too curious as to why.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea if she was going to be tempted to flirt with him. There was one line she’d yet to cross in the dating department, and that was the boss/employee line.

Of course, her bosses had always been women before, making it rather easy.

“It makes business sense to hire someone better with people than I am. If you actually think you can tackle this and follow my rules, maybe it could work. Maybe. I could fire you any time I wanted. If I hire you.”

“Okay, well, do you have a pen and paper? I can write my references down for you. You can call everyone and get back to me with your rules, and we’ll go from there.” She looked around the stacks of paper, mail and God knew what else. “Or maybe you have a phone or laptop I could type it into, so you don’t lose it.”

He grumbled, then flipped open a laptop on his desk.

Cara cleared the chair off and settled herself in. Which, she knew very well, meant he would have to reach over her to type in his password. She told herself she didn’t do it on purpose.

He grunted, then reached for the keyboard. On the back of his right hand there were a few small scars. Obviously something was wrong with his arm or he wouldn’t have dropped Sweetness’s bin, but she hadn’t noticed the white marks before.

“It’s a scar.”

Busted. “I know.”

“Rule number one. Don’t stare at my scars. Rule number two, don’t ask about them.”

Well, poop. Now she was really curious. “Not a problem. Your scars. Your business.” Maybe she could look it up. Surely the local paper had done a story on him when he came back.

He pulled up an empty document, and she typed in her references, reminding herself multiple times not to stare at his scars. Not to wonder about this strange man with his strange energy.

This so wasn’t going to be easy, and challenges weren’t her strong suit, but it wasn’t as if failing here would be a big deal. All in all, what did she have to lose?

Not a whole lot.

* * *

EVERYTHING ABOUT HIRING Cara screamed bad idea. Bad, tempting idea.

No, the bad idea would be keeping her in that space of his life that would allow this little crush or whatever it was...to linger. Grow. Want.

Sure, if she worked with him she’d be around more than if he just ran into her at the market all season, but hiring her made her off-limits. Wes was very good at following the limits he set for himself. Following rules. That was where he thrived.

As much as he could thrive with a faulty body.

Besides, he’d never had any trouble repelling a woman before. Occasionally, they thought the blushing and stuttering was cute. At first. That never lasted past the whole kissing meltdown part.

So, it was better to have her around. Remind himself what happened around women. Not kid himself into thinking he’d grown out of his hang-ups.

She typed fast, one point in her favor. Long fingers whirring over the keyboard, her nails a flash of purple.

“There we go.”

She pushed her hair behind her ear, a little glimpse of blue catching his attention. A tattoo behind her ear. A bird? It was hard to tell with strands of her light brown hair covering parts of it.

He wasn’t sure why he was trying to tell. It was colorful like the rest of her. What more did he need to know? But it was like a beacon. He couldn’t look away—

“It’s a bluebird.”

“Huh?”

She turned in the chair to meet his gaze. “My tattoo you’re staring at. It’s a bluebird.”

“Oh, um.” Could he be any more of an idiot? Stuttering and um-ing all over the place.

She grinned. “For what it’s worth, I don’t have any rules. So, you can look at it. You can even ask about it if you want.”

“I was trying to figure out what it was. You’ve told me now. A bluebird. Okay.”

“All right. Anything else you want to ask me?”

“Anything else?”

“You know, what I consider my biggest weakness, what’s one word that best describes me, my hobbies. How I feel about interoffice dating.”

She smiled at him. A flirty smile. While he could recognize when someone was flirting with him, it always put him on edge and he never knew how to respond.

That kind of jokey flirting might be innocent, but in his experience, it was the kind used to ridicule him if he ever responded positively.

So he crossed his arms over his chest, standing at attention minus the salute. “No.”

“Right. Well. Suit yourself.” She gave a little wave and turned to go. It was only because he saw the loaner dog kit that he even remembered why she’d come in the first place.

“Cara?”

“Yeah?”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

She furrowed her brow, patting her pockets.

“Sweetness.”

“Oh, right.” She slapped a palm to her forehead comically. “She’s what I came for. Not to hound you into giving me a job.”

She seemed almost embarrassed. Of course, she didn’t stutter, and she didn’t stop smiling. “Guess I got distracted,” she said easily, sauntering over to pick up the loaner kit.

Yeah, she might get embarrassed, maybe, but she certainly wasn’t a basket case like him and the every-other-day reminder would do him a world of good.

* * *

CARA DUG THROUGH the loaner kit on her passenger side floorboard, pulling out a leash and attaching it to Sweetness’s collar.

“Home, sweet home, Sweet,” she said to the white ball of fur as she maneuvered them out of the car. “Well, temporary home.” She walked the dog along the patch of grass next to her apartment building until Sweetness did her business.

Even with the dog in tow, loneliness washed over her. She hated living alone. It gave her too much time to think, live in her own head, come up short.

Boo.

But Mia had moved out and none of her friends could up and move in. Cara’s only other choice was moving home with Mom and Dad, and with Anna headed off to college in the fall, Cara would rather be alone for years.

“Come on, girl.” She climbed the stairs to her front door and balanced the bin against it as she worked to get the key into the finicky, ancient lock. It made her think about Wes dropping the bin earlier.

He didn’t limp or look as though he had injuries that continued to be painful, but he had scars and had dropped something light. So, he was injured, and it was probably permanent.

And she was the jerk crying over a failed pie interview. Ugh.

Once inside, she knelt down and unclipped Sweetness’s leash. “You’re probably hungry and thirsty, aren’t you, girl?” She gathered the bin and went to the kitchen to fill up the dog bowls.

Man, Wes had thought of everything. She didn’t know how anyone could be that organized in some things and so disorganized in others.

She flipped the tap on and began filling the first bowl with water. Above the sink she had all Grandma’s pie tins displayed. Some days it was a comfort to have pieces of Grandma right there in plain sight.

On not-so-great days, it reminded her of the hole in her life since Grandma passed away.

She ran her finger over the edge of the starburst pie tin. Regret and failure lumped together in her stomach. “Sorry I suck so bad, Grandma.”

She cringed. She didn’t need a ghost to knock her over the head to know Grandma would not approve of Cara being so down on herself.

Whereas her sisters and parents beat around the bush of her failures, pretending she could overcome it, Grandma had refused to see it. Had given Cara a lot of crap anytime she dared pity herself.

Something about that reminded Cara of Wes.

“I have a bad feeling about your daddy,” she told the dog curled up on her couch. “He’s going to cause me trouble.” Which was something she normally thrived on, but something about Wes...

The gruffness, the scars, the blushing and stuttering. The way he hadn’t pitied her or made the crying worse when she’d first arrived. Just explained Phantom was a therapy dog.

For him. The last thing she needed was to get wrapped up in a guy who needed therapy. She was barely holding on herself.

She put the now-full bowls on the tile by the door, then settled on the couch. Sweetness sniffed the bowls, then hopped up next to her.

She felt broody. About everything. And, well, brooding was not her norm. Usually she went out to drink or laugh away any brooding, but today she was tired. Tired because she’d gotten up so dang early for the market, tired because she’d imploded at her interview and tired because everyone seemed to be a couple. Mia, her friends.

She hadn’t been on more than two dates with the same guy since Kevin. Oh, that one still burned a little bit. She had no qualms about casual relationships or even casual sex, but she had some serious qualms about being the girl a guy used to get back at his girlfriend.

Now fiancée.

Grr.

Sweetness crawled into her lap, and Cara scratched behind her ears. “Are you going to be my therapy dog, girl?” Sweetness licked her chin, and she couldn’t deny the fact that she might need it.

CHAPTER FIVE

“KNOCK, KNOCK!”

Wes tensed. Okay, he’d already been tense. He’d carried that tension around all morning, knowing Cara was going to show up today and invade.

He’d tended to the animals, worked out, showered and eaten breakfast, knowing that she would be all up in his space not just today, but three days a week, every week, for as long as she wanted or as long as he could stand it.

Her references had been mostly glowing. Cara was good at customer service. She was organized and dependable as long as she wasn’t tasked with too stressful of a project.

Those were the things he needed, and he didn’t have stressful projects because he refused to let stress into his business. The fact she interacted so well with his dogs helped. That, and you’d like to see her naked.

He snorted at his own inner monologue. Not gonna happen, buddy.

So, two weeks and a few phone calls after she’d offered herself up for the job, here she was. His assistant.

Without a response from him, Cara appeared in his office with Sweetness on a leash. A sparkly purple leash. Definitely not the one he’d packed in the loaner kit.

Then he saw the scarf.

“What the hell is that?” he demanded, pointing at the offensive swath of fabric.

Cara blinked and looked down at Sweetness. The scarf bandana thing around Sweetness’s neck was also purple, with pink-and-green flowers on it.

“Isn’t it cute?”

“No. It’s ridiculous. She’s a dog.”

“She loves it. Don’t you, girl?” Cara crouched, scratching Sweetness behind the ears. And, yeah, Sweetness seemed to like that, but he wasn’t sold on the scarf thing.

She popped back up to her feet. She was wearing skintight jeans and some oversize purple sweater thing that had big holes in it, but she seemed to be wearing a black tank top under it, so the holes didn’t show off anything important.

Seriously, there had been moments in time when he thought this would be a good idea?

“Thanks for letting me keep her the extra week.”

“Look, you can keep her. Period.”

Cara wrinkled her nose. “You can’t just give me your dog.”

“You bought her sparkly shit, and she clearly likes you better than me. Besides, you can bring her with you on workdays. It’s not like I don’t have enough dogs to keep me company, and she’s only mine because someone knew I didn’t turn away strays.”

“Wes.”

He already didn’t like the way she said his name. It gave him feelings he’d rather not diagnose at the moment. It was one of the great things about the army. Everyone said Stone or his rank in the same harsh bark. No emotion to discern in that environment. Just do your job right and no one gave you a hard time for being poor or shy or anxious or helpful or nice, either.