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Tag blushed, dark color staining his cheeks. Holy moly. She didn’t know the man had it in him. “Mr. Bradley may be under a mistaken impression.”
Uh-huh. She’d just bet.
“That’s Mr. Bentley to you. Check my mailbox next time you forget my name.”
“Either you have a girlfriend or you don’t.” She might have been out of the dating pool for a few years, but even she knew that much. Tag muttered something, taking the high road, and shoved the doors open. Whatever. She’d be the first to admit her social skills were rusty. She waved in Mr. Bentley’s general direction and followed Tag inside. He wasn’t much on furniture—he had a couch and a coffee table and nothing else—but a fifty-pound bag of dog food dwarfed the kitchen counter. The bag of cat food next to it wasn’t much smaller, completely overshadowing a couple of browning bananas. Maybe he had monkeys, too, because the man clearly had hidden depths.
“You have pets,” she said, stating the obvious as a white boxer wearing a happy grin loped toward them, followed by a Chihuahua suffering from some kind of eye infection. A geriatric cat and a rabbit brought up the rear of the parade. Honest to God, the man had his own Easter bunny, even if he’d apparently passed on the monkeys.
She hazarded a random guess because it had been a day full of surprises. “You’ve become a vet because rescue swimming is so boring.”
“No.” He greeted the dogs and the cat, picking up the rabbit and tucking it beneath his arm. Tag’s place was definitely small. He had a teeny living room and a galley kitchen too miniscule to hold the two of them. “Meet Ben Franklin, Buckeye, Beauregard, and Cadbury. Cadbury’s the one with the floppy ears, in case you’re wondering, but they’re all boys, and no one comes when called. The bathroom’s through there,” he said, waving a hand toward the hall.
“Are you moonlighting as Doctor Doolittle?” Snarking distracted her from the residual queasiness in her stomach—and the awkwardness of being here, alone with him, when she had memories of him naked. “Why all the animals?”
He shrugged, a powerful roll of his shoulders. “They needed a place.”
She settled for escaping into the bathroom while he fed his menagerie. The man even had a bonus toothbrush, which after her palm-tree encounter, she was pathetically grateful for. Mint had never tasted so good—and was all she wanted to taste right now. Not a big, too-charming, badass Navy man who thought she needed rescuing. No way, no how.
* * *
TAG HAD RENTED the apartment furnished from Mr. Bentley, and taking things month-to-month had seemed wise. Now with his plans to leave Discovery Island firmed up, the decision was even more fortunate. It wasn’t like he owned any furniture anyhow. He’d always traveled light, and his non-ops stuff fit in a pair of duffel bags. So he shouldn’t have this strange, warm feeling of satisfaction, getting Mia on his turf. The first time—the last time, he reminded himself—they’d gone at it in her hotel room. The place had been perfectly comfortable, and they’d really only been interested in the bed. The wall. He grinned slyly. And the floor...
The boxer bumped his leg, making himself known. “Lucky dog.”
Ben Franklin panted happily up at him, everything right in his doggie world.
Tag’s own life wasn’t quite as simple, and Mia was just the latest symptom. He was a sucker for four-legged and lonely. He’d have to figure something out, though, before he headed back to San Diego in six weeks. Base housing wouldn’t allow animals, and, although he could rent a place off base, finding a pet-friendly landlord would be a challenge. And, besides, animals couldn’t be left alone for months on end. Somehow, he needed to re-home the menagerie in the next six weeks. He definitely shouldn’t have named them.
Buckeye gave him a reproachful glare, as if he’d read Tag’s mind and knew the guy who provided the dog chow was having second thoughts. Or getting attached. Yeah. It was the attached part that posed a problem.
“We should get her a shirt, yeah?” One way or another, he’d figure out a solution to his animal woes. Maybe Dani need a dog. Or two. And Piper was definitely a cat person.
Beauregard rubbed against his ankles, decorating his jeans with cat hair, and then pranced down the hallway, tail swishing. The haughty gesture looked enough like a yes to him, so he took his cue and followed the tail. Thank God he’d done laundry this week. Mia had served overseas, and she’d have roughed it more than once, but even he drew the line at offering her a used T-shirt.
