chapter one
Where did you come from, cutie? Where’s your person?”
It wasn’t a complete shock to discover an adorable white boxer in my parking lot, given I ran the only dog training school in town, but it wasn’t exactly normal to have a student try to register for class solo. I scanned the dark lot behind my building, hoping to see someone ready to claim the dog, but the only car left was mine.
“Well, that’s not good.” He wagged his tail at me. “Let’s be friends. C’mere.” I smiled as I reached for the dog but he danced a few steps backward, ducking out of my strike zone like he was well versed in sneaky grabs.
I mentally applauded the runaway for opting to swing by a business with an owner who usually worked ten-hour days and always had treats stashed on her. I reached into my back pocket. “Hey, look what I’ve got.”
I held out the chunk of dry biscuit and cursed the fact that it wasn’t something meatier. But if the dog was hungry—and it was canon that boxers werealwayshungry—it would do. I squatted and the dog moved closer but then froze, eyes trainedon something just beyond me. Then I heard it. Myrtle, the tiger-striped feral parking-lot cat, meowing, daring the dog to come closer like a bewhiskered siren. She loved taunting my canine students on their way into class and had given more than a few curious pups a bloody scratch to the nose.
“Bad idea. She means business. Don’t do it.”
I was relieved to see that the pup was wearing a collar and I reached for it while the cat sang an off-key aria. My fingers were inches from the black leather strap when the dog rocketed away, intent on getting a mouthful of Myrtle.
“No!”
It wasn’t a surprise that the dog didn’t even pause when I screamed, but whatwasa shock was that Myrtle opted to run across the empty parking lot instead of retreating into the shadows along the building. Feral cats have to be clever to survive the streets, which made ancient Myrtle a certified genius. So why would she make herself vulnerable by heading into open space?
“Hey! Leave her alone!” I yelled at the dog as I took off after them. “Stop!”
Myrtle finally darted up a twig that passed for a tree and the dog managed to launch himself halfway up the trunk, making a high-pitched yodeling noise. The dog didn’t even seem to notice me as I got closer and barely even turned back to look at me when I finally managed to snag his collar.
“Sorry, no cat snacks for you,” I said as I pulled the dog away.
He continued to strain toward Myrtle as we started back to my building, him running triple time in place and me hunched over and awkwardly holding on to his collar. It was late and since the shelter was closed my only option was to call thepolice nonemergency line and hope that they’d be willing to hold him for the night. It wasn’t like I could bring him to my place, since my geriatric mutt, Birdie, wasn’t a fan of teens without manners.
“I have to send you to jail, buddy,” I said to the dog, who was acting like I wasn’t even there.
He suddenly switched directions, charging back across the parking lot as if Myrtle was no longer a potential appetizer. I was more focused on keeping hold of the thin collar, cantilevering myself backward against his weight, and didn’t notice the huge form that seemed to materialize out of the darkness and was lumbering right for us.
My fight-or-flight switch toggled until I remembered that I was in Wismer, Pennsylvania, where the crime blotter was filled with heinous acts like stolen lawn ornaments and public intoxication. Didn’t matter that it was after ten o’clock and I was alone in the dark parking lot, the only thing I needed to watch out for were the raccoons that raided the dumpster after hours.
The dog was practically levitating at the sight of the man. The giant form was backlit by the lights on the building, giving him the perfect horror movie silhouette. But if the runaway boxer belonged to the guy, he couldn’t be all bad, right? And if hewasbad maybe the dog would defend me, and we’d make the front page of theWismer Register?
I leaned over to grip his collar tighter now that he’d kicked into overdrive, and in the split second that I looked down I didn’t see the edge of the asphalt, the obnoxious lump of black that ringed the lot that I kept complaining about to my landlord. I wasn’t the first person to trip on it, but Iwasthe first to swan dive because of it, scraping my knees then landing on mystomach with a muffled “oof” that didn’t let on how absolutely agonizing the fall was.
The dog never even paused to check on me as he took off for the guy.
“Shit, are you okay?”
The voice carried over to me as I tried to pinpoint which part of my body hurt the most. My knees were screaming, my palms felt like they were embedded with shards of glass, and my chest and stomach were going concave, but mywrist? No words.
Worst of all, I was mortified that someone else had witnessed it. I sat up slowly.
“Looks like that really hurt.”
The guy had jogged over and was kneeling next to me while what was unmistakably his dog jumped in circles around us.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
It was a lie and we both knew it. When I finally found the nerve to look at his face I froze.
“You.”
“Hey, Chels.”
Up until that moment it had been an unseasonably warm September night but a chill rolled through me as I tried to process why Andrew Gibson was squatting next to me in my parking lot.
