Blame It On The Dog

Blame It On The Dog
Amy Frazier

Enjoy the dreams, explore the emotions, experience the relationships.New puppy… After Selena Milano adopts sixty pounds of rambunctious dog, her disorganised household starts to fly apart at the seams. Her twelve-year-old son, Drew, worships the carpet Axel chews on, but their neighbours threaten to get them evicted if their four-legged menace isn’t brought under control. New family! Enter Jack Quinn, the animal behaviourist charged with bringing discipline to their bohemian existence. He trains their dog and he charms Drew. Then the headstrong single mother gets an out-of-character urge to invite the handsome Quinn into her home for dinner and maybe a little more.Could this be the end of her precious independence?

That embrace. Protective. Tender.

Too seductive in its tenderness. And now she felt herself drowning in his kiss. This wasn’t a get-the-girl-in-bed kiss. She’d handled those in the past. No, this kiss was a litmus test to prove if they fitted together. At a most elemental level. And, damn, did they fit.

So much so, it frightened her.

She pushed away. “I… I need…space.” He didn’t apologise. Or step in to convince her otherwise. He didn’t leave in a huff. He didn’t move. He let her have the space she claimed she wanted.

“I’m not saying I didn’t see that coming,” she said, feeling a rush of words begin to tumble out. Oh, please, don’t let her sound like a hysteric.

“And I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it. I did. Who wouldn’t? But…but let’s just blame it on the moonlight. And the music. And my most excellent cioppino.

“I know we’re two adults, and a kiss is just a kiss. But if you thought I was sending out signals, I wasn’t. Some women might find you attractive but I can’t afford to.”

Dear Reader,

Blame It on the Dog was the most fun I’ve ever had writing! Not only did I get to brainstorm with four extremely talented writers as we created the SINGLES…WITH KIDS series, but I got to “go to work” every day in San Francisco, a city where anything is possible.

As creative and free-spirited as Selena is, I knew she’d need a hero who would not be deterred either by her staunch independence or her emotional intensity. I’ve always been drawn to the strong, silent type, so Jack was never far from my subconscious. He has his work cut out for him, what with Selena, her adolescent son, Drew, and their overly exuberant mutt Axel, and, even as I wrote the last sentence, I was never thoroughly certain who tamed whom. I hope you enjoy reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it!

All my best,

Amy

PS As a result of writing Blame It on the Dog, I adopted a dog from our community shelter. When Ozzie first arrived in our home, he was every bit as lovable as Axel – and every bit as undisciplined! As my husband and I walked him to establish pack leadership, we rekindled our own relationship. So romance begets romance!

Blame It on the Dog

AMY FRAZIER

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

An appreciative fan deserves a little fanfare. Betty Ann D, this book is for you! I hope it meets your expectations.

CHAPTER ONE

THE CRASH RATTLED the light fixtures in Selena Milano’s loft apartment and made the CD player skip. Earthquake? Twelve-year-old son? Or dog? Betting dog, she turned from the end of the apartment that served as her studio and took a step toward the ruckus. It wouldn’t be the first time she had to recycle the remnants of an Axel accident into one of her pieces.

“Drew! Are you okay?”

The response from the area of the loft partitioned to create her son’s sleeping quarters wasn’t good. Barking. Laughter. And a scraping noise that sounded as if someone was dragging a barge across the hardwood floor.

“Drew!”

“Chill, Mom, we’re okay.”

She didn’t believe that for a minute.

Fortunately, their oversized apartment in a rehabbed city block in the Mission District had once housed a small garment factory. Delicate it wasn’t, which was good because her family of three seemed to require industrial strength.

“I’m almost finished here!” she shouted above the persistent noise. “Why don’t you get Axel on his leash? Take him downstairs and wait on the sidewalk, but don’t get near Sam’s produce.” Sam was the greengrocer in one of the storefronts under the apartment, and Axel’s nonstop tail always came perilously close to destroying the perfect pyramids of fruit and vegetables Sam erected on his outdoor display counters every morning. Although the Chronicle had reported nearly one half of San Francisco voters were dog owners, Selena seemed to have drawn the one block that had little tolerance for the critters.

Axel himself, one hundred pounds of sheer canine energy, burst out of Drew’s sleeping area and charged the length of the apartment, his leash whipping behind him, clearing the landscape like a bulldozer carving a new suburban subdivision. Several feet away from her, he reared up to plant his front paws on her shoulder. Turning her head to avoid his kiss, she smelled the grape jelly before she saw it on his hairy right foot.

Drew appeared seconds later. “Are you ready?”

Longing for the quiet retreat that was Margo’s Bistro, Selena pushed Axel toward Drew. “Wash his feet in the work sink. I’ll meet you outside after I’ve tried to rescue this top.” Examining the purple smear on her shoulder, she headed for the lavatory. “And don’t let go of the leash.”

That dog. Rescuing him had seemed like such a good idea when Margo had found him half-starved and rummaging in the garbage behind her café. Kindhearted Margo would have taken him in, but she had enough on her plate at the time. So she’d offered him to Selena, who’d been having trouble with Drew and his emerging adolescent angst. Margo thought caring for a pet would help draw him out of his self-involvement. Boy and dog had bonded beautifully. One could call it a growing relationship. The vet had laughed at Selena when she’d brought what she’d thought was a small, but fully grown dog for the necessary shots. Seems Axel was a very large, but emaciated, puppy at the time. Now, ten months and several tons of dog food later, he was a gigantic specimen of overgrown-pup exuberance.

Drew wanted her to do a portrait of his beloved pet. But what materials would convey his size and extraordinary coat? Two-by-fours, an old beer keg and a bale of pine needles?

Unable to eliminate the jelly stain, Selena changed into a clean but worn sweatshirt—why did she never seem to be able to keep clothes new and pretty?—threw on a jacket, grabbed an umbrella, then dashed outside to meet her son. Drew kicked a Hacky Sack on the crowded sidewalk as Axel, tied by his leash to a bike rack, cavorted about, barking loudly and threatening to overturn the rack and a half-dozen bikes. Sam stood outside his shop and eyed both boy and dog uneasily.

“Come on.” Untying Axel, Selena urged her son away from the store.

The dog lunged ahead, dragging Selena and narrowly missing a couple heading into the tattoo parlor. Constantly chasing after this mutt, why wasn’t she a size two?

Although the rain hadn’t started yet, February clouds loomed ominously. It would be quicker to take BART, the underground transit system, but it only allowed service dogs. Her arm pulled nearly out of its socket, Selena harrumphed at the thought of Axel serving anyone but his own dogged interests, which consisted of eating, sleeping and running and jumping, followed by more running and jumping. Drew wanted to take him to the annual Blessing of the Animals on the Feast of St. Francis, but Axel was so ill-behaved Selena despaired of ever making that date. Sadly, their pet would try the patience of even a dead and sainted animal advocate.

Blocks later, the only reason Axel stopped in front of Margo’s Bistro was that he knew Margo or Robert or one of their kids would have a biscuit for him if he stood still and looked pathetic.

“Do you want me to get you something?” Selena asked, handing Drew the leash. After one afternoon of busing tables—before the customers had had a chance to eat the food themselves—Axel was doggie-non-grata inside Margo’s during business hours.

“A ginger-peach smoothie. And, Mom, do you know you have toilet paper stuck to your shoe?”

She looked down at her feet to see a long, white streamer trailing from one heel. Not surprised, but exasperated nonetheless, she bent to remove the offending accessory, then tossed it in the trash can. “Hold on to Axel. I’m going in.”

Too late. The café door opened, and a customer came out. The scrabble of claws on the pavement warned Selena that Drew didn’t have control of his dog. When did he ever? Before she could sound the alarm, the overgrown mutt knocked the man aside, then burst through the doorway, shedding hair and shaking drool and looking for the biscuit that was his due.

A teenager at the counter screamed. Robert stepped protectively in front of the girl as Margo reached for a broom. Axel took the move as an invitation to play and, grabbing the bristles, proceeded to drag Margo for a turn around the café. Selena tried to grab Axel’s collar, but the dog, delighted that everyone found this game as much fun as he did, spun around and planted his front paws on Selena’s shoulders for the second time that day.

“Hey, you two,” Robert called out, trying not to laugh. “We’re only a café. We don’t have a permit for dancing.”

Her son managed to pull his dog to a sitting position.

Margo shook her broom at Drew. “Your mother doesn’t give you an allowance big enough to buy this monster a leash?”

Drew held up the broken end of the now useless restraint. “The third one this week.”

“Oh, no,” Selena moaned. “Now how are you going to take him to the park?”

“I’ll use my belt.”

He might as well. The thing never seemed to hold up his pants.