His Pretend Fiancee

But did the warning have any effect on the 120-pound, tawny-coated, black-faced bull mastiff who had forced her to take him onto the streets of New York’s East Village at midnight? No, it didn’t. After one bark and Josie’s warning, Pip barked again. And this time they were even closer to the tiny basement apartment directly beneath that of the landlord.

“I mean it, Pip! Be quiet,” she begged the animal she’d adopted four months ago when she’d come across the skeletal pet scrounging for food in the trash cans on her way to work.

But again the big dog barked. Three times this round.

“Shh! I mean it!”

There was a no-pets clause in the lease and Josie had already passed the deadline the landlord had given her to get rid of the dog or move out. Waking Mr. Bartholomew now couldn’t lead to anything good. Especially not when she hadn’t yet found a place she could afford that allowed animals.

Pip seemed to have taken heed because he kept quiet as he crossed what remained of the distance with his nose to the sidewalk, as if he’d picked up the scent of something interesting.

Until he hit the top of the stairs that led down to the apartment.

Then he started to bark with a vengeance. And not the friendly bark. The warning bark he reserved for strangers.

On the other end of the leash, Josie reached the top of the steps behind her dog and finally realized that Pip hadn’t merely been barking to hear his own voice. Down below, in the shadows of the unlit stairwell, there was a man standing at her door.

She stopped short just as a light went on in the landlord’s apartment and pinch-faced Mr. Bartholomew lunged through the curtains. Then up flew the window so he could shout, “That’s it! I want you and that damn dog out of here!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Bartholomew, but there’s a man—”

“I don’t care! I need sleep!”

Pip ignored the landlord and continued to bark as Josie thought that if the man in the stairwell was dangerous she wasn’t likely to get much help from her irate landlord. But still she said, “But, Mr. Bartholomew, there’s some guy—”

“No buts. Either the two of you are gone by tomorrow or I’ll get the police to kick the whole lot of you out!”

“It’s just me, Josie,” her late-night visitor interjected as if he’d been trying to find the opportunity to get a word in edgewise.

She recognized the voice even before she looked from her landlord down the stairs again, and it was enough for her pulse to race and her mind to go blank. But not out of fear.

Pip continued to bark. Mr. Bartholomew went on ranting. But Josie merely stood there at the top of the steps, dumbfounded.

“It’s okay, boy, I’m harmless,” her midnight visitor said to Pip in a warm, friendly tone as he started up the steps.

Pip must have believed him because the bull mastiff stopped barking, tilted his big square head to one side, and quirked up an ear to stare curiously at him.

The landlord used the sudden silence to shout louder himself. “Do you hear me? I want you out!”

“Yes, Mr. Bartholomew. I heard you,” Josie finally managed to say.

“Tomorrow! Or the other three go, too!”

Josie’s visitor was halfway up the stairs and he held out a hand for the dog to sniff. A big hand with long, thick fingers. A big, adept hand. A talented hand that she’d felt all over her body…

Pip allowed their visitor to join them on the landing, sniffing him raptly as the man aimed his gaze up at the landlord and said, “This is my fault. The dog was barking at me. Don’t punish them for that.”

“They’re out,” the landlord insisted stubbornly. “She was supposed to be gone a week ago and I’ll make sure she goes now. One way or another.”

Down went the window with a slam and the landlord disappeared behind the curtains.

“Nice. Real nice,” the midnight visitor called after him.

Josie knew she’d have to try persuading the landlord not to enforce his edicts in the morning but since there was nothing she could do about that now, her attention was all on the man who stood only a few inches away, petting her dog.

“Michael Dunnigan,” she said as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.

“That’s me,” he responded. “I’m sorry for this—I didn’t come here to cause you trouble.”

“And yet here you are,” Josie said in a questioning tone she hoped might inspire an explanation.

“And yet here I am,” he countered instead.

“Not the answer I was looking for.”

“The answer to what?” he asked.

She thought he was only playing innocent and opted not to let him get away with it by bluntly demanding, “What are you doing here?”

Michael Dunnigan shrugged mile-wide shoulders negligently and smiled a small smile. “I had sort of a crazy thought tonight and acted on impulse.”

“Ah.” Josie didn’t know what else to say to that and so merely waited for more information.

But rather than getting it, Michael Dunnigan pointed a thumb at the window the landlord had abandoned. “But I don’t think we should talk out here.”

Josie glanced up at Mr. Bartholomew’s window again, as if she expected to find him glaring at them still.

“That is your place downstairs, isn’t it?” Michael Dunnigan said then. “I knocked but no one answered.”

“It’s Saturday night. All of my roommates are gone,” Josie responded before she realized she’d just negated her best excuse not to ask him in.

He proved the point by saying, “Then can we go inside?”

She was a little worried that this was nothing but a booty call. After all, she’d done something she’d never done in her life when she’d met him—two weeks ago she’d spent the entire Labor Day weekend with him. In bed.

She still couldn’t believe she’d done it. And she’d regretted it ever since. Certainly she had no intention of repeating it. If that’s why he was here.

But since she was fresh out of reasons not to let him into the apartment, she had to agree.

“I guess we can go in,” she said with a complete lack of enthusiasm. “To talk,” she added pointedly.

Apparently he got the message because he held up both hands, palms outward as if in surrender, and said, “Absolutely. Just to talk.”

Josie led the way down the stairs, with Pip right beside her and Michael Dunnigan bringing up the rear.

“We have to get that bulb changed,” she muttered to herself as she unlocked the door, referring to the light just above the doorway that offered no illumination because the bulb had burned out and not been replaced.

Then she opened the door.