For the Love of Nick

Sadie stopped panting and looked at Danielle with her heart in her eyes. As if Danielle was her hero.

“Stop that.” She glared out the windshield. “I’m not a hero.” Her gut twisted. If she had been, she’d have been smart enough to see this coming. Strong enough to protect Sadie.

She’d almost been too late. As it was the poor dog had been underfed in the time Ted had kept them separated. And given the heart-wrenching way Sadie was hanging on Danielle’s every movement, she’d been neglected entirely. It was a crime, as Sadie was just a baby, really, albeit a one-hundred-fifty-pound one.

Okay, more like a brick of brawn than a baby, with a broad, well-padded head set on a thirty-four-inch neck sturdy as oak. But she was adorable, and she was Danielle’s. Well, half, anyway.

She had no idea how she could even put a roof over their heads, now that Ted had changed the locks on the house, stolen her car and emptied her checking account.

The police hadn’t had time for the case. First of all, the house was Ted’s, leaving her with little legal recourse. Second, Ted had bought her the car he’d taken back.

The money though, that had been all hers, hard earned from her job as a professional dog handler. Not that she had legal recourse there, either, as she’d actually given Ted the PIN number for her bank card.

Danielle could handle her stupidity in letting herself get ripped off, but living with the fact she’d nearly lost Sadie to a man who could, and would, hurt her had been untenable.

Sadie, restricted by the seat belt across her body, leaned on Danielle. Hard. Her hug.

The lump in Danielle’s throat was more from lingering stress than anything, but comfort was comfort. “Thank you,” she said, smiling when Sadie licked her from chin to cheekbone.

But even the superfluous slobber of a lovable bullmastiff couldn’t mask the facts. She was truly on the run. She, a woman who followed the rules and was honest to a T, reduced to common criminal status with nothing more than approximately forty-nine dollars in her backpack, her laptop and a tank of gas in the car she’d borrowed from her friend Emma. “But I couldn’t have done anything different,” she murmured to Sadie. Not when Ted’s sudden and terrifying temper against the dog had become so clear.

How had she been so blind for so long?

But she knew the answer to that. Ted had been wealthy, intelligent, gorgeous…and interested in her, Danielle Douglass, a nobody from the wrong side of the tracks, with no father and a distant-hearted mother who’d had little to give her daughter.

In comparison, Ted had paid attention to her, he’d made her his world.

God, that hurt, that she’d been shallow enough to fall for a few good lines and a pretty smile. Only the smile hadn’t lasted, as Ted gradually had reeled her in, absorbing her life into his, leaving her uncertain, unbalanced, and more alone than she’d ever been, despite the fact she’d been alone a lot.

His rage against Sadie had been the last straw.

Danielle knew he was reacting to the fact she loved the dog more than him, that his pride was hurt, and maybe also the fact Sadie had lost her last dog show, but it didn’t matter.

She was out of his life. And God help her, so was Sadie.

She was so tired. The result of sleeping in the borrowed car for a week, using a friend’s shower when she dared, biding her time until she could steal her own dog back.

Not that the law would see it that way, as Ted held all of Sadie’s papers in his safe. With time and money, Danielle figured she could try to prove otherwise, that while they had shared physical custody of the dog, it had been her to provide the love and comfort.

But she had neither time nor money on her side. Ted wouldn’t take lightly to her stealing Sadie from beneath his nose—never mind that he’d done the same thing first. Disappearing, and fast, was her best plan. If she only had a good professional photo of Sadie, she could go to Donald Wutherspoon, a reputable art director she’d been introduced to at a show a few months ago, and hopefully get Sadie a commercial endorsement.

That would mean money. Which would mean security. Stability. Two things Danielle most definitely needed in her life.

Determined, she got off the highway. First up, she bought two Big Macs, one for Sadie, one for her. Fortified, they found a phone, and two photograph studios listed in the Yellow Pages for Providence. Garnering some hope, she closed her eyes and blindly pointed to one.

“Wish me luck,” she said to Sadie, and dialed.

1

THE PHONE RANG. And rang and rang. But as he was sprawled in a hammock soaking up the rays, with a drink nicely balanced on his belly, Nick Cooper pretended not to hear it.

It wasn’t his fault his sisters had jumped ship and deserted their photography studio to chase after the men in their lives.

Okay, so they hadn’t jumped ship. Kim had gotten married and deserved her honeymoon. Her twin Kate deserved a break, too, which was why she was at this very moment far away from Rhode Island, all the way in Hollywood with her new stuntman boyfriend.

And after all, they had asked if he minded. He just hadn’t known how to tell those four melting, pleading, expressive eyes no.

The phone kept ringing.

“I’m not an answering service,” he said into the delicious spring air, loath to move even an inch.

But he was an answering service. He’d looked into his sisters’ hopeful gazes and had caved like a cheap suitcase, promising to take messages and set appointments and make nice with whomever called.

Even if making nice was not his specialty.

“Okay, yeah, yeah. I’m coming.” Hey, he was on vacation, too. Extended leave, actually, from his job as a news journalist. He had a great job, a Pulitzer prize and the freedom with which to travel the world over as he pleased.

Oh, and a monster case of burnout.

He supposed being called home to the States, to Rhode Island in particular, back to the so-called normal life to attend Kim’s wedding had been a blessing in disguise. Somehow.

At least the relaxing part wasn’t half bad.

“Hello,” he said into the phone. “Providence Photography.” He let out a silent sigh as he switched to work mode. “Can I help you?”

NOT TOO MUCH LATER, Nick heard the front door of the studio open. Hard to miss it with the ridiculously noisy wind chimes someone had attached to the thing. Probably Kim, who had a notion for such things.

Damn it, she was early. Whoever she was, the woman who’d called, sounding harassed and harried, asking for a dog portrait.

Who the hell would waste good money on a dog portrait, of all things?

Coming off his recent trip reporting from South America, with some of the poorest regions in the world, such an extravagance seriously annoyed Nick.

But it wasn’t his place to wonder about the woman and her strange request. He’d offered to set up an appointment for when his sisters returned. They were the experts, he was just answering phones like a good older brother.

And napping. Lots of napping.

But the woman had sounded panicked and desperate. She’d even, when he’d tried to get rid of her, resorted to begging. Hell, that had done him in but good; her soft, honeyed voice pleading as if her very life depended on it.

Nick’s family had often accused him of having a save-the-world complex, and maybe that was partly true. But mostly, he figured, he had a woman complex.

He couldn’t seem to resist them.

Seeing as that was the case, it was handy to be back, as he had dates coming out his ears for the remainder of his stay. He deserved a little casual, mutually satisfying playtime after all he’d seen and done in the name of journalism over the past years.

“Hello?” A woman’s voice rang out.

Oh yeah. Definitely the woman from the phone, with the voice that could melt the Arctic. Damn, he was such a sucker.