Home Is Where Your Bark Is

Chapter 34

Jake had been driving so long his eyes were playing tricks on him. He blinked hard and looked again. It wasn’t a trick of the eyes. Ahead of him, off to the left, two figures were walking in the dark along the sidewalk, and not any two figures, a woman and a dog, side by side, no leash linking them. Maybe he was the luckiest person on earth because he’d be damned if it wasn’t his dog and his woman, as much claim as he might be able to lay to either of them.

Not wanting to scare Seven off, he closed in the distance to them slowly. They turned at the same time, and Jake pressed the brake, coming to a slow stop in the middle of the street. He’d be damned, too, if hot tears weren’t flooding his eyes. He slipped the Jeep into Park and opened his door. After skittering off several feet further from the street, Seven circled and faced him again.

“Hey, Seven, it’s me, bud.” His voice cracked wildly as he stepped out. He’d be damned even more if he wasn’t about to start blubbering like a little kid. Tears streamed down his face, and he made no move to stop them, even before Seven barked and bounded toward him.

Jake sank onto the backs of his heels as Seven dashed out into the otherwise empty street, pressing in close and dousing Jake’s face in licks as sobs raked Jake’s lungs, his chest heaving. There was a dreamlike quality to the whole thing that peaked when Seven didn’t pull away as Jake draped his arms around his neck and buried his face in his soaked fur, his hands brushing against the soaked green bandanna still around his neck.

When Seven’s warm tongue eventually found Jake’s ear instead of his cheek, Jake pulled back a bit, laughing as the tears continued to flow. “I was so afraid I’d never see you again, bud. I’m so sorry I let go of that leash.” He dragged the back of one hand over his face. “Thank God you’ve got more lives than the average cat. Thank God you found your way home.”

Jenna had stepped into the street but was giving them some space. When Jake glanced her way, she was wiping tears from her face too. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had seen him cry, just like he couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried with this much gusto. “Look at me, blubbering like a baby.”

“Don’t say it like that. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, the connection you two have.”

“Where’d you find him?” he asked because he’d never pull himself together if he responded to that remark. He dragged his sleeve over his face as he stood up and cleared his throat. Sticking close, Seven trotted around him in a circle. Later, when Jake could say it without falling apart, he’d find a way to tell Jenna that, judging by the way the two of them had been walking side by side like that without a leash, Jake wasn’t the only one Seven shared a connection with.

“He was headed down Rockwell. Toward my place after he didn’t find a way in at yours.”

“Oh yeah?” Jake looked down at Seven, noticing the exhaustion lining his features. He was soaked and shivering and favoring one front paw. Jake motioned toward the Jeep. “Want to get in, Seven?” He headed for the rear passenger door and pulled it open, and Seven wasted no time clambering in, although he was spent enough that Jake needed to give his back legs a boost.

After he closed the door, Jenna smiled encouragingly. “He’s worn out, but he’s okay. That’s all that matters.”

Jake pulled her into a tight hug, fresh tears stinging his eyes. He wanted to thank her, but the words stuck in his throat under threat of more tears.

“It’s over now.”

“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “Come on, let’s get him home.”

The final block to Jake’s building and around to the parking lot in back was a quiet one, with nothing more than the sound of Seven’s exhausted panting filling the car. It was an odd feeling, opening the back passenger door after parking and letting Seven hop down without a leash, but as soon as he was out, the exhausted dog beelined for the back door, making Jake’s eyes sting with tears all over again.

They trudged up the stairs, Seven in the lead, and Jake waved Jenna on ahead of him. Once inside, Seven went straight for the water bowl and took a long drink, then collapsed in the middle of the floor, sprawling out on his side. He even let Jake cut away the bandanna without so much as flinching.

“If that’s not the face of exhaustion, I don’t know what is,” Jenna said as she tugged out of her own boots.

“Twenty miles. Through the snow. It’s hard to believe.”

Jake pulled a space heater from the bottom of his closet, plugged it in, and aimed it in Seven’s direction before grabbing a towel to dry him off. Seven was soundly asleep even before the water in the kettle began to boil.

“I don’t know about you, but this time I’m going for decaf,” Jenna said with a laugh.

A smile tugged at Jake’s lips. “Me too.” He stood over Seven a minute or two, towel still in hand, watching him as if he might disappear if he looked away.

“It’s over now,” Jenna repeated.

Nodding, Jake walked over to his kitchen counter and leaned against it. His sinuses and throat felt swollen and raw. How foolish he’d been to think tears were something he’d left behind with his childhood. His body could produce them as readily as ever; he’d just kept at bay the one thing that brought them to the surface—love. Tears stung his eyes again, and he blinked them away. “If he hadn’t come back… If we hadn’t found him…”

“But he did.” Jenna strode over and wrapped her arms tightly around him. “Jake, it was my fault you were there today. And I distracted you with all that kissing.” This part tumbled out with a choked laugh. “But you aren’t blaming me, and no one is blaming you. He’s here. He’s safe. He wants to be here. We know that now. We didn’t know it before.”

“You’re right. I know. It’s just…terrifying.” Leaning his forehead against the top of hers, he closed his eyes and took a few intentional slow breaths. “I didn’t tell you earlier, but I called the shelter. I told Alice this thing I was doing with him is over.” Just as Jenna pulled back and her eyes went wide in alarm, he smiled. “I’m adopting him.”

“Oh Jake, thank God. You two are meant for each other.”

“The irony is, I don’t know who I’m adopting him from, your sister or the shelter, but it doesn’t matter. I’m in it for the long haul with him. He isn’t going anywhere. Neither am I.” His lips brushed hers, softly at first, then harder. She shifted in his arms, and their bodies pulled together like magnets. “And I’m really hoping neither are you.”

Jenna pulled back just a touch and traced a finger over the ridge of his jaw. “Tonight, or more generally speaking?” she asked, a smile playing on her lips.

“Both. Everything.”

“Everything?”

She was smiling now, but he wasn’t. “All that talk earlier—the joking and the not joking—about me wanting to take it slow? On my part, that was fear talking. And right now, I’m coming off a night of feeling more fear than I’ve felt in a long time. While I was driving around, it hit me that most of the time fear is exactly the thing that’s holding me back.”

“I’ve been there too.”

“Maybe clarity follows on the heels of terror, but I know what I want now.”

Jenna looked over at Seven. “Something tells me he knows it now too.”

“I’m hoping you do too.”

Jenna met his gaze again and nodded slowly, her smile returning. “I know what I want, and it’s pretty much right here in this room too.”

“That’s good, because I want it all, Jenna. No holding back anymore. With him. With you. I want it all with you. All your everythings.”

Jenna’s mouth fell open an inch. “I’m pretty sure that’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Oh yeah? That’s good because it’s darn sure the most romantic thing I’ve ever said to anyone. I can promise you that.”

Jenna bit her lip, but a laugh tumbled out anyway. “So, where do we go from here?” Seven jerked awake and lifted his head off the floor to look their way, his ears pricking forward. As if whatever he saw satisfied him, he dropped his head again and began drifting off once more.

Jake hooked a finger over the top of her jeans above the belly button. “The shower, I’m hoping. After you finish your tea and I text Alyssa that he’s been found so she can let everyone who’s watching out for him know he’s safe.”

Her mouth fell open an inch, and Jake had just enough time before she replied to wonder if he should’ve kissed her again before bringing up the shower. After glancing over at a sleeping Seven, she looked at Jake, and a smile tugged at her lips. “You should definitely shoot off that text, but maybe we can save the tea for later.”

And Jake hoped that, where Jenna was concerned, he had a lot more surprises coming his way.

***

At some point, it had transitioned from very late to very early, and Jenna was still awake, curled in bed next to Jake, a smile playing on her lips even with her eyes closed. Every time she began to drift off, her thoughts stirred up again, and there was nothing to do but lie awake appreciating the sensation of his solid form next to hers, the steady rise and fall of his chest, the nearly inaudible sound of his breathing as he dozed, and his smooth sheets against her skin, the scent of his detergent pleasantly foreign to her nose. His hand, resting over her hip, twitched in his sleep, and Jenna made a wish that the city would be all but shut down tomorrow. How wonderful would it be to have another whole day to get to know one another in this way?

It hadn’t surprised her that they were compatible physically. The promise of that had been there these last few weeks, building until the moment was right. He’d told her he wanted all her everythings, and later, this most recent time he’d been inside her, he’d told her he loved her. Crazy as it was for them to be spoken so early, the words had tumbled out of Jenna right back, and there was no denying they rang with a deeper truth than she’d felt in a long time.

Soon after, Jake had dozed off, leaving Jenna to savor the experience of lying next to him as he slept. She did her best not to wake him and lifted onto her elbow to look out the side window on the opposite side of the bed. It was still snowing, but it was hardly more than a dusting now, and the flakes were no longer in such a hurry to reach the ground.

A sound down the hall caught Jenna’s attention. Seven was awake. She was debating getting up to check on him when he ambled down the hall and stood in the doorway, eyeing them in the darkness. Something was hanging out of his mouth that gave Jenna a start until she got a closer look and realized it was Michelangelo, his still-favorite toy more than a week after its discovery.

Jenna was wondering if he needed to go to the bathroom after all the water he’d drunk upon coming in, when he surprised her with a running jump onto the bed.

He stood at the foot of it, eyeing them in the darkness for several seconds, Michelangelo dangling out of his mouth from one foot. “Good boy, Seven,” Jenna whispered.

After dropping Michelangelo nearby, Seven circled and circled in place, then curled up between her and Jake’s feet, draping his head over Jake’s ankles and his tail over Jenna’s. As he drifted back to sleep, his body heat radiated through the blankets and sheet, warming her feet and ankles. It was unprecedented, Jenna was almost certain, him wanting this level of connection with people, which meant each of the three of them had entered new territory.

As far as Jenna was concerned, this was perfectly fine with her. They’d figure it out together.