Kitabı oku: «Miami Attraction», sayfa 3

Chapter 5

Over the next two weeks, try as she might, Mikayla could not seem to shake off her most recent conversation with Kandi. She found Dusty Warren intruding on her thoughts more and more. It had been a long time since she’d been so attracted to a man, but there was just something about him. Those compassionate eyes, his smile, even the gentle way he handled Angel after she’d caused such chaos in his clinic. And the way he looked at her, there was no denying his interest. But was she ready for that?

So much had changed over the past five years and yet so much had stayed the same. For instance, during those two weeks Angel was with Dusty, Mikayla hardly slept. The days were lonely but bearable, but at night the same creaking, cracking noises that she heard every night since she’d moved into the house a year ago suddenly took on ominous tones. Every time a car would drive down the street and the light would shine into her bedroom window she would awaken with a start.

She’d known living without Angel would be hard company wise. After all, Angel had been her constant companion for the past five years, but she had not anticipated the return of the fear.

The same fear she’d experienced when she first arrived in Miami from Atlantic City and settled into their first home. Although she never told Kandi, a small part of Mikayla had always believed the man who attacked her, Vega, would hunt her down and finish the job after his trial ended in a hung jury. Her only comfort had been the knowledge that he would have to go through Angel to do it. After their first encounter, Mikayla was certain Vega would not want to tango with Angel again.

But without the sound of Angel’s claws clacking against the vinyl floor in the kitchen as she patrolled from room to room every night, that comfort no longer existed. The fear had returned.

She lay wake at night listening to the sounds of the dark, and praying she was alone. And after just two weeks, she wasn’t sure she could live like that for six more days, let alone six more weeks. Whether Dusty had been successful in retraining her or not, Mikayla was strongly considering bringing her pet home.

Which was why Mikayla doubted she was ready to return Dusty’s obvious interest, or any other man’s for that matter. Just look at the way she’d reacted when he took her to meet his dogs. As soon as he turned that cart in the direction of his house the fear had crept into her being. She’d managed to conquer it, as she had to so often. But still, to her embarrassment, he’d gotten a brief glimpse of her terror.

How was she to have any kind of a relationship with a man when every time he touched her she froze up?

No, despite whatever attraction she had for the good doctor, what she told Kandi was right. The only thing she wanted from Dusty Warren was a well-managed pet.

On her first visitation day Mikayla awoke with the excitement of a child on Christmas morning. Not only was she going to get to see Angel today, but before that she had a seminar in Fort Lauderdale she was really looking forward to.

She dressed in a dark suit and put her hair up in a French roll. She tried to cover the bags under her eyes with makeup but there was only so much Cover Girl bronzer could do.

As she applied the makeup in the bathroom mirror, she stopped for a moment and just examined her reflection. She’d come so far from the girl she once was. Her face was thinner, her hair shorter, and much lighter than before…how different she looked now. She wondered if her friends back in her old neighborhood in New Jersey would even recognize her?

She thought about those friends and wondered where they were today. The group of girls she’d hung out with, they’d all had so little, and hungered for so much. It was hard being poor in a place like Atlantic City. Watching the high rollers come and go in their expensive cars and expensive clothes, and there they were, just some poor locals craving a taste of that life.

Mikayla briefly wondered about her mother; it was not with the love of a child for a parent, but more idle curiosity. It had been a long time since Mikayla had loved her mother. Back before Mikayla came into puberty and the full extent of her future beauty began to shine through.

Instead of taking pride in her beautiful child, Regina Wilson had seen her daughter as a future rival for the male attention she enjoyed, and treated her only child as such. Even going so far as attempting to sell fifteen-year-old Mikayla to what she thought was a pimp and who turned out to be an undercover cop.

Mikayla knew nothing of her mother’s plan until the cops came to take her into protective services. Three ounces of cocaine. That’s what her mother valued her life at.

Mikayla was turned over to a foster care family that was already overloaded with the eight other foster children living in the home. But this arrangement worked out well for Mikayla because it allowed her to come and go as she pleased.

Even the memories felt like she was looking at someone else’s life. She applied a thin coat of lipstick, straightened up the house a little, and taking her attaché, headed out to the car. She was due in Fort Lauderdale in less than an hour.

When her friend, Nisha, told her how much she could make stripping at the Godiva club where she worked, Mikayla had not believed it. But when Nisha later that year bought a sixty-thousand-dollar car at age eighteen, Mikayla was convinced.

She took the stage name Tangie after the nickname a former boyfriend had given her. He’d claimed she was just the right combination of sugar and salt. Before long Tangie found it was not just the money she enjoyed, but the addictive feeling of power her beauty gave her over men. It didn’t take her long to realize that with a smile and the promise of more, there was little she could not have.

Nisha had also given her a piece of advice that Mikayla had brushed off and would later regret not heeding. Make sure they know you’re teasing.

Nisha had warned that as long as the patrons understood it was just a game of cat and mouse everybody went home happy. But when the men that came to the club began to believe the dancers liked them, things could get complicated. When one of the club’s regulars brought her a pair of four-carat diamond earrings, Mikayla had let that bit of advice go in one ear and out the other.

His name was Vega, or at least that’s what he told the girls to call him, and when he started coming to the club it was once or twice a week until it was almost every night.

He would sit at the bar and watch Tangie with an obsessive intensity. An intensity so fierce the bouncer, T.J., had warned her to steer clear, because he sensed the guy was dangerous.

But Tangie’s jewelry collection was growing by the week and all with just the promise that one day she’d let him sleep with her. But Vega became impatient and more aggressive until he was banned from the club.

She had a small apartment a few blocks from the club, so most nights she just walked, because even though the club had security, theft still occurred and she did not want to put her uninsured Lexus on the lot.

The first week after he was banned, Tangie was careful, watching around her as she walked home, knowing Vega might try something. But when almost a month went by without incident she let her guard down.

And that’s when he attacked.

Even five years later, Mikayla could still feel the pain as he shoved a knife into her ribs and beat her in the face with his fist. She could still feel the intense fear as she believed her life was about to end. She could still feel the terror as he forced her to the ground and tried to rape her.

Then there were these sounds around her as Vega fell back off her. Through her swollen eyes she could not make out what was happening, but the sounds eventually became distinguishable. There was the snarling and growling of a dog, chaos and commotion as the man and dog fought. Vega’s shouts of pain as the dog bit into his legs, his arms any part of the man she could reach. A heartbreaking yelp of pain as Vega managed to slice the dog with the knife. The sounds of Vega trying to get away. Mikayla thought the dog would follow and finish him off, but instead she stayed with Mikayla, barking her displeasure at the man’s retreating back. And then the silence.

Mikayla could hear the dog’s claws against the concrete as she paced. Her furry head nudged Mikayla until she moved. Seeming satisfied she was still alive, the dog continued her pacing, and Mikayla struggled to hold on to consciousness.

Later she would be told the attack lasted a few minutes, but to Mikayla those moments seemed an eternity. It may have been a few minutes but it was long enough to change her whole life.

While they waited for help, the dog would pace a while, then sit with her a while, and then pace some more. Mikayla thought this beast that came to her rescue would be the last thing she saw so she shared her soul’s confession.

Mikayla talked to her about how she resented her parents and her entire childhood. She told her about the warning Nisha had given her and how she wished she would’ve listened. She told her about how stripping had started out as fun, but somewhere she’d lost control of the game. And she told her about her dreams. Of how she’d always loved writing and if she managed to get out of this situation she would write. She even promised the mutt a home.

The nervous dog seemed to almost listen at times, but most of her attention was focused on the street, watching and waiting. When she thought she could not hold on any longer Mikayla surrendered to the heavy weight of a deep sleep.

It was almost three months before she became conscious of anything around her. Not awake exactly, it was more like a waking dream.

She heard the nurses discussing her situation right over her bed as if she were not there. They spoke of how she’d been downgraded from hospital to hospice because it was believed she had a short while to live.

The nurse spoke of a dog that had started hanging around outside the small hospice, much to the staff’s concern because she had blood caked in her fur. At first, Mikayla could not believe it was the same dog, but when she heard her familiar whimpering outside her first-floor window she knew it was.

Then something changed. She wasn’t sure if it were her concern for the dog that awakened her or the natural healing process. She only knew she was frightened of what would become of her protector.

She tried to tell the nurses how the dog had rescued her, but they showed little sympathy and attempted to have the dog picked up by animal control more than once. But the animal was smarter than they gave her credit for, disappearing before the truck arrived and returning when the coast was clear.

Meanwhile, Mikayla found out while she’d been hospitalized for three months, she’d lost her apartment and all her belongings and her Lexus had been repossessed.

Mikayla felt hopeless and helpless to do anything about the situation. Sensing her anxiety a volunteer had suggested she start a journal. Within a few days she’d filled several journal notebooks, spilling out all her thoughts and feelings and finding the process to be cathartic.

By the time she’d finished her journals she was looking at the eviction as a chance to start over. After all, the apartment and everything in it had belonged to Tangie, and Tangie no longer existed.

Mikayla began feeling better by the day. Her only sadness being she had no way to protect the animal that had fought so hard to protect her. The dog would disappear, sometimes for days at a time, but she always returned, and Mikayla was certain the animal control people would catch her and possibly euthanize her if they felt she was dangerous.

After rereading her journals several times, Mikayla got an idea. When she was healthy enough to walk, she began using the hospice library computer to organize her journals into a book. It took her almost a month, but finally it was ready to send off.

She found a literary agency in Florida and used the only return address she had, the hospice. Even as she asked a nurse to postmark it for her, Mikayla had decided the outcome didn’t matter. Regardless of whether it was published or not, just the sense of accomplishment was enough.

She was startled when an agent from the firm, Kandi Martin, showed up at the hospice unannounced. The woman had been intrigued by not only the book itself, but the return address of the writer. She’d come expecting to find someone on their deathbed, and instead found a woman on the road to recovery.

Mikayla had labeled the story fiction, but Kandi had known the moment she read it that it was based on real experiences and no matter how she tried to talk Mikayla into changing the category, she refused.

But she did open up to Kandi and explain the circumstances that had brought her to this place in her life, including the dog that rescued her. The two women came to a sort of strange agreement, one that included Kandi taking custody of the dog until Mikayla could get up on her feet.

Six months from the day of her attack, Mikayla purchased a new car. A small Chevy sedan and a far cry from her Lexus. And a week later, she had packed what few possessions she owned, her scruffy companion she’d christened “Angel,” and headed for Miami where Kandi lived, never looking back.

Over the past five years, she’d built a good life for herself, but had found there were side effects of the attack. She became more and more of a recluse until she’d cut off all contact with the outside world, except for Kandi.

That was when Kandi suggested the seminars. Reluctantly, Mikayla agreed to do one, and stumbled into her calling when she looked out over the faces of that first group of women, knowing each of those lives contained stories of pain and broken hearts. Somehow her book had brought them together, and now they were looking to her for words of healing. In that moment, she understood why everything had happened. It was so that the arrogant, selfish young woman she’d started out as could become the woman she was today.

As she pulled up in front of the conference center in Fort Lauderdale forty minutes later, Mikayla felt emotionally drained. She tried not to think back to that time in her life often, because even now the pain was too sharp. But she understood that sometimes looking back was necessary to see how far you’d come. And she had come so far.

Mikayla was very proud of the way she’d recovered from her attack, and turned her life around. The exotic dancer known as Tangie was dead. Mikayla had killed her the same night Vega had tried to take her life. That night, she’d been reborn into Mikayla Shroeder, Christian inspirational author and motivational speaker.

So much had changed in her life since that fateful night. The girl she once was would not even recognize the woman she’d become. That girl was careless, arrogant and selfish and it had cost her more than she ever dreamed possible.

But over the years, she’d become stronger, tougher than she ever imagined she could be. She grabbed her attaché and hopped out of the car. Seeing Dusty’s face before her once more, she shook away the image. It had been a long time since she’d been vulnerable to anyone, and she wasn’t about to start now.

Chapter 6

Dusty stood across the play yard from his nemesis—and over the past two weeks she had indeed become his nemesis. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you?”

She looked back with bright eyes and a wagging tail.

“You don’t even have opposable thumbs.”

Angel didn’t seem the slightest bit put off by the rebuke. Her tail continued to wag. She seemed content to play another round of their little game called try-to-put-a-leash-on-me.

Dusty sighed in frustration. Mikayla was scheduled to arrive any minute and he had nothing to show for the past two weeks of training. Angel had resisted his reconditioning at every turn.

Not only had she resisted retraining, she’d begun to be a nuisance throughout the entire ranch. Almost every day she found a new way out of the play pen and he would get reports from the hospital that she was inciting the other animals, or from the stables, where she could chase the horses.

The reason he did not keep her locked up inside was that he’d told Mikayla he wouldn’t. Since the first day when she’d so peacefully allowed them to leash her collar, not a single trainer including Dusty had been able to get the leash on her again.

With most of the trainers, save Sam, she was outright aggressive. But she saved her special tricks for Dusty.

It started early in the morning on her second day on the ranch. Dusty had come to pick her up to begin her training. When he moved toward her kennel, she simply watched him, and when he opened the door of her pen she made no attempt to exit.

Taking it as a good sign, Dusty bent inside the pen to hook the leash onto her collar, and that’s when he heard it. A low, deep rumble coming from her chest.

Dusty backed out of the pen. After a lifetime of working with dogs he knew a warning growl when he heard it. But as he looked at her face, nothing had changed in her expression. She was still watching him.

He thought maybe he’d imagined the growl until he moved toward her and heard it again. Dusty sat back on his heels and looked at the dog. There was nothing about her demeanor indicating threatening behavior, except the growl.

He glanced up at Sam, the trainer he’d assigned to help him with Angel. The man was standing right beside him. “Did you hear that?”

Sam frowned. “Hear what?”

“She growled at me.”

Sam looked at the dog and then at Dusty with a strange expression. “No, I didn’t hear anything.”

Dusty moved toward her again, and all was fine until he reached up to put the leash on her collar and the low, rumbling growl reverberated through her body and the small pen.

Dusty backed up and got to his feet. He looked at Angel, who was still sitting, waiting. Then she wagged her tail and gave a loud, happy bark.

“You okay, Dusty?” Sam asked, seeing the expression on his face.

“I keep hearing a deep-throated growl whenever I get close to her.” He handed the leash to Sam. “Here, you try it.”

Sam shrugged and kneeled before the pen. Dusty watched, annoyed as Sam hooked the leash onto the dog’s collar without so much as a murmur from the dog.

Dusty frowned as he watched Sam lead Angel out of her pen. “Has she been experiencing any pain lately?”

Sam glanced at him with a confused expression. “No, as a matter of fact, I expected some anxiety from her being here on her first night. But instead, she slept like a baby.”

“Hmm.” Dusty moved toward the dog when, without warning, she snapped at him.

Dusty jumped back and Sam’s eyes widened in surprise. “Wow, I’ve never seen anything like that be fore,” Sam said, tightening his hold on the leash.

Dusty knew exactly what he was talking about. It was the fact that nothing in Angel’s stance or attitude had indicated her displeasure. Most dogs—in fact, every dog he’d ever interacted with—gave warning signs in their demeanor. Dusty was a firm believer that anyone who was ever attacked by a dog and expressed surprise at the attack was someone who just wasn’t paying attention.

Dusty’s eyes narrowed. “I wonder, does she have a history of aggressive behavior?”

“Did you ask the owner?”

Dusty ignored the question. He was too embarrassed to mention he was so caught up in Mikayla Shroeder’s perfect-fitting jeans that he’d asked very few questions. And thanks to Angel’s stunt of running off with Hannah’s dress, the paperwork had not even been completed. Dusty had planned to ask Mikayla to finish it today.

Dusty glanced at the dog and was once again amazed to see nothing in her body language that indicated anger or aggression. She sat on the floor with her tongue lolling to the side, looking up at him.

He’d never seen a dog who gave no indication of its emotional state before an attack. It was almost as if he was dealing with two different dogs—both of which were dangerous.

He decided to let Sam work with her most of the day until he could better understand why she was okay with him one day and different the next.

The next morning the same thing happened, but instead of letting Sam take her, Dusty decided to try to lure her out with milk bones. She took the treat, but since the hairs on the back of his neck were still standing, Dusty decided not to get too close.

Angel allowed him to put the leash on her collar, but Dusty was already considering what to tell Mikayla. Based on her behavior, some part of him believed she was dangerous and unstable. But the look of pain in Mikayla’s eyes told him she loved the mangy mutt, and from the way the dog sat looking up at her adoringly, the feeling was mutual.

Angel tilted her head to the side, as her eyes glanced between his face and the hand that contained the milk bones. She started forward and then stopped, looking up at Sam. After a while, she sat back down and ignored the milk bone.

Prideful thing. Dusty made a ticking sound, and continued to coo and coax, and he could see Angel was torn between her image and taking the offered milk bone.

He started making the cooing sound once more, and this time Angel paused before moving across the floor to collect the biscuit. Sniffing at the offered hand, she scooped up the biscuit and in two bites it was gone. While the dog ate, Dusty took the opportunity to check for bumps or physical injuries, still trying to find the cause of her initial reaction to him.

“Everything okay?” Sam called over his shoulder.

“Yes, she seems fine.”

The dog had relaxed, so Dusty led her outside. Their truce lasted until the treats were gone. And once again, Angel returned to the low, unexpected growl every time he tried to make her do something she did not want to. But as the days wore on, Dusty began to understand that despite her strange behavior, Angel was no more dangerous than any other dog.

In fact, she was less dangerous dog, and more spoiled mutt. He couldn’t help wondering if she growled at Mikayla to get her way at home. He added questions to the growing list in his brain.

After the third day, Dusty allowed Angel to remain in the yard with the other dogs to build social skills, but soon discovered what a mistake it was. Angel was a natural born leader and soon she’d replaced him as the alpha in the play yard.

Once her leadership had been established she began finding ways out of the play yard. The crawl space under the training building, digging holes under the gate—and what was most impressive was the speed with which she did it.

And no sooner would he and the other trainers round up Angel and her fellow escapees than she would be back at it again. She’d even somehow managed to recruit Athos, Porthos and Aramis into her little gang.

Frankly, he wanted the scrappy little fur-coated headache off his property, but that was not an option. Because along with Angel would go Mikayla. And Dusty was nowhere near ready to say goodbye to her.

From the moment she drove away from the ranch two weeks ago, she had been all he could think about. He’d gone online to find out what he could about her and discovered the most important fact. She was single.

He dug around his house until he found her book and reread it. She wrote in third person, but it was obvious some of it was based on her own experiences. The emotion was simply too raw to be completely fictional.

He’d counted the days waiting for her to return for her two-week visit, but now that it was here, he was hoping she would not show. Because he had nothing to offer in the way of improved behavior.

As he and Angel stood facing off in the yard, the small form of a woman coming from the direction of the hospital appeared.

Dusty relaxed his stance and was surprised to see Angel do the same. He slowly sat down on the ground. Once he was seated on the ground, Angel loped over to him and licked his face in satisfaction.

It came to Dusty like an epiphany. The problem between them wasn’t her inability to be trained, Dusty realized. It was his.

There could be one pack leader, and Angel had decided that leader would be her. Which meant Dusty would have to heel.

He rubbed her under her chin. “Like hell,” he said in a singsong voice. “You listen here, you mangy mutt,” he continued in the playful voice. “I’m the alpha around here and you best not forget it.” He rubbed her belly. “But if this is what it will take to get through this afternoon without Mikayla knowing what a hopeless case you are, so be it.” He rubbed behind her ears. “But tomorrow is a new day and a new way.” His voice never changed from the playful, baby cooing. “Yes, it is. Yes, it is.”

Just then Mikayla reached the gate. “Angel!”

At the sound of her name, the dog’s floppy ears perked up and she turned toward the sound. Spotting Mikayla, she raced to the fence and attempted to poke her nose through the open holes, trying to lick any part of her she could reach.

Mikayla turned from the gate and rushed into the building and out into the play yard, and Angel was right at the door to meet her. As Dusty watched the reunion, his resolve to train Angel was strengthened.

Regardless of the whys, it was obvious Mikayla loved the dog, and for that reason alone he wanted to give her the obedient pet she deserved. He stood and dusted his jeans as he came over to them.

Today, she looked professional in a navy blue pants suit that was getting covered in dirt. Her long hair was twisted up in a loose bun, and she wore a touch of makeup, which he knew from her last visit she did not need.

She looked up at him and smiled. “I had no idea how much I would miss her.”

“As you can see, she has missed you, too.”

“Look what I have!” She pulled a stuffed toy from her pocket and tossed it, and Angel took off after it. Mikayla looked up at Dusty with a resolved expression, and he realized in that moment she was expecting bad news. “How did she do?”

He smiled. “Not bad. Kind of a rocky start. But it goes like that sometimes. We’ll figure each other out eventually.”

Her eyes widened. “So, you’re not sending her home?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Well, other trainers have given up after one afternoon with her, and she’s been here two full weeks.”

“I told you before I haven’t met a dog I couldn’t train, and that still stands.”

“Oh.” A look of disappointment came over her face. “That’s great.”

Dusty laughed. “I can tell you’re real pleased.”

“I am.” She shrugged. “You really are our last chance. I just miss her, that’s all.”

“Not sure I like being seen as a last chance. But don’t worry, I’m sure these weeks will fly by in no time.”

Mikayla watched Angel toss her favorite stuffed toy, swinging it in every direction. “She seems happy.” She glanced around the play area. “Where are the other dogs?”

“We’ve found it better to work with Angel without distraction.”

She frowned. “Oh. I hope you’re not making them stay in their pens all day to accommodate us.”

“Oh—not at all. We work with them one-on-one for two hours of the day and then we work with them as a group.”

“Oh.” She yawned, and only then did Dusty notice the dark bags under her eyes.

“How have you been?” he asked.

“Pretty good—a little tired, though. I just did a seminar in Fort Lauderdale.”

“Oh, really? What kind of seminar?”

“Self-empowerment for women.”

“I did notice your book had a somewhat female bias.”

She gave him a hard look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Dusty’s eyes widened at the tone of her voice. “Nothing, just you see things from a woman’s point of view, which is perfectly natural.”

She studied his face for a few seconds, and then turned back to gesture Angel over. The dog loped across the yard to her for a brief moment before taking off again.

“Sorry, I’m touchy about that particular subject. I’ve been called everything from a man-hater to a lesbian, all thrown out as slurs.”

Dusty frowned in surprise. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

She shrugged. “It’s okay. I’m used to it. The seminars always wear me out, but I couldn’t go home without seeing my baby.”

Angel had retreated to the other side of the yard, and she was busy rooting around in the grass.

Dusty and Mikayla stood watching her for a few minutes before Mikayla said, “I better get going. Long ride back to the city.”

Dusty knew it was now or never. “Um, Mikayla, I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner with me sometime?”

She paused, and glanced at him nervously. “I’m flattered, but—”

He held up a hand. “It’s okay. I just thought I would ask.”

The pair stood in an awkward silence for several seconds before Mikayla said, “So…about the training sessions.”

Dusty nodded. “Right. Can you start tomorrow?”

“I sure can.”

“We like to have the dog and owner work together two to three times a week. Will you be able to fit that into your schedule?”

“I’ll fit whatever I have to into my schedule. Like I told you, Angel is very important to me.”

“Okay, then. I guess we’ll see you tomorrow. Is nine too early?”

“No, I’ll be here, nine o’clock.”

Another awkward silence fell over them, and Dusty had that strange sensation of experiencing her emotions. Today it was a thin layer of nervousness in the air.

Mikayla thought about calling to Angel once more, but she was having so much fun playing with her toy she decided not to. Besides, she would be seeing her in the morning anyway. “Well, good night.” She turned and headed back to her car.