I pause to wait for Genie to sniff the trunk of a tree, which is a huge mistake. The other two dogs I’m walking this morning think it’s okay to turn our morning walk into a sniff-fest. I’m really off my game this morning, and it’s all because of the announcement about the City Planner position with the city of Cider Cove.
The application packet is in-tense, and I need letters of recommendation, a portfolio, the experience, and it’s at least a three-interview process. Application packets are due November fourteenth, and that gives the current City Planner and his team of people six weeks to find his replacement before his retirement begins.
“Come on,” I say to Genie as I tug on her leash. “Walk. Let’s walk.” With dogs, you need to use short, easy commands. I take these three dogs on their morning walks every weekend, and Genie—a miniature poodle—looks up at me with her happy little smile on her face.
Yes, she’s cute and she knows it.
“Walk,” I say, tugging on the goldendoodle’s leash, as well as the black, full-sized schnauzer who needs way more exercise than I can give him in an hour on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Part of me wishes I could start and run a full-time doggy walking business, but that’s only on pure, clear, somewhat cool Saturday mornings like today. I definitely love my job, what with all the cute skirts and slacks and blouses I get to wear.
I’m not like Lizzie or anything, who’s started doing some plus-size modeling, but she’s good with fashion, and she gives me plenty of items that I actually really like.
Right now, it’s my job causing me to lose focus on the dog-walking. And it’s walking. It’s not hard.
The path we’re on is one I’ve walked many times, the emerald green-grass on my right side opening up to a large field where several people have come to throw balls and Frisbees to their canines.
I’m not paid to do that, and it would make me a little nervous anyway. I have good control of my dogs, but Willie, the schnauzer, tends to bolt when he sees someone or something he likes. Even now, he’s tugging on the leash a little too hard for my liking.
“Don’t pull me,” I say as I give his leash a hard tug. It pulls him back to me, and he looks over his shoulder as if I’ve done him a horrible wrong. But he slows down and keeps pace with the other two dogs. If anything, Genie’s the one working the hardest, her little tawny legs moving at twice the speed of the other dogs.
I make plans to work on my portfolio when I get back to the Big House, because I have plenty of experience in terms of events from my last several years as the Public Works Director.
The desperation to make sure every single thing is exactly right with my application claws at me, and I round the bend in the path, now turning into the sun. Some people complain about the heat in South Carolina, but I personally love it.
It’s not as bad as South Texas, where I grew up, and it’s got the beach instead of the border of Mexico. I love the beach, and sometimes, if I’m feeling particularly peppy, I walk the doggos on the sand instead of through this park.
It’s a harder walk for all of us, as the sand shifts in mysterious ways beneath our feet, and Lucy, the goldendoodle, is a little bit psycho around water. But I determine that tomorrow, I’ll take the dogs to the beach to do our morning walk.
“I’m going to get this job,” I tell the trio of canines. “I managed the clean-up of Discovery Park, and that place was a mess.” Now, it’s one of the most-reserved pavilions and the pickleball courts there are impossible to get on.
I’ve been working on that layout in my portfolio for a week, and I think I’ve about got it done. Right.
As they often do when I’m stewing over work, my thoughts move to the only person I think could get this job over me.
Beckett Fletcher.
He’s the Deputy Director in the Public Works Department for the city, and he does a lot of work with private investors and businesses, using their donations to improve public lands. He’s done some incredible projects too—including a riverwalk improvement that I sometimes take the dogs to—and I know his portfolio will be as flawless as mine.
I scoff under my breath, because there’s no way he can put together a double-page display that shows the before-and-after the way I can. For once, my scrapbooking skills have come in handy, and I never thought I’d say that.
My phone rings, thankfully distracting me from the downward spiral of my thoughts. Ry’s name sits there, and I swipe on the call with my thumb while maintaining control over the three dogs with my left hand. They trot along on my left side like the good puppers they are, and I say, “Hey, Ry,” as I lift my phone to my ear.
“Hey, are you out walking the dogs?”
“Yep.”
“Emma says she could use some help at the shop today, and I got the task of calling everyone.” Her voice slows on the last few words, almost turning into a question without becoming one.
I suppress my sigh, because I don’t mind helping Emma at her florist shop. “What’s she got going on?”
“She has a wedding tonight,” Ry said. “And someone just came in, begging and crying for flowers for their company party.”
“A company party?” My eyebrows go up toward the sun.
“You know how Emma is,” Ry says with the sigh I wanted to make a few moments ago. “She can’t say no.”
I’ve been walking at a brisk pace for half an hour, and my breath scoffs out of my mouth. “It’s a company party. Not a last-minute funeral.”
“Is that a no?” Ry asks.
“No, of course not.” I spot a man jogging toward me with two dogs on my side of the path, and I need the use of both hands for this. “I’ll be there, but I won’t be home for another hour or so.”
“We’re going to go over at ten,” Ry said. “I’ll have Tahlia make you a breakfast sandwich. Emma said she’d order us pizza.”
“All right,” I say. “I have to jet.” I slide the phone in the side pocket of my stretchy pants, and I tug all three dogs closer to my side as Shirtless Jogger continues toward me. He’s wearing a visor and a pair of sunglasses and the shortest shorts I’ve seen on a man—and I’ve seen plenty jogging around the city, the beaches, and on this very path.
He’s got muscles from here to the West Coast, and I’m glad my own eyes are shaded behind a pair of sunglasses, so he can’t tell how I’m ogling him.
His dogs—both brown canines that look like mutts—are on leashes, which are connected to a belt around his waist. He’s got earbuds in, and I see the slightest movement of his head toward me as he gets closer and closer.
His dogs’ tongues hang out of their mouths, and it sure looks like they’re going to trot right past us. I’m not sure who moves first. It could’ve been Willie, who definitely crosses in front of me. Genie follows him, and in the next moment, I’m trying to high-step over their leashes while the guy slows and pulls on his dogs’ leashes.
Both of them are tail-waggingly sniffing Willie already, and all five dogs have decided their greeting chain is happening right in front of me.
How they stop so fast, I don’t know, because I feel like my momentum is still propelling me forward—right of top of them.
“Move,” I bark at the same time I’m trying to find a place to put my feet that isn’t dog flesh. They move like snakes, and just when I see a spot of open cement, it disappears under a bushy, brown tail.
I’m going to fall, and I know it. I look up into a face I recognize, and it’s not until I’m descending backward that I realize the muscular, two-dog owner behind the shades is Beckett Fletcher.
Then I’m down, pain smarting through my tailbone and up into my spine. I only hold one dog leash, which means my other two are loose, and I’m not sure if my pulse is panicked because of that or because Beckett has A Body.
And two dogs. And jogs in this park where I walk my canines.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Beckett says, and he’s instantly on his knees in front of me. “Are you okay?”
If he knew it’s me on the ground, he wouldn’t be so nice. I feel put together wrong, like everything that’s usually straight is all askew, from my sunglasses, to my ponytail, to every stitch of clothing on my body.
“I’ve got the dogs,” someone says, and I look to my left, where the dog pile was. The dog pile I’m now part of. Only Genie sits there, and I don’t see a stitch of black anywhere. Great. Willie’s gone.
“I have—” I try to say, but my voice feels stuck behind my lungs. Until I can get a proper breath, I won’t be able to speak. I have to try. “A schnauzer,” I manage to say.
“I’ve got him,” that someone says again, and Beckett looks over to them.
Then back to me. “The dogs are right here,” he says. “Can you get up? Did you twist or sprain something?” Beckett puts his hand on my shoulder, and the touch burns partly against my bare skin and partly through my tank top strap.
In this moment, with him looking at me with concern, and touching me, I realize—he has no idea who I am.
I never wear my hair up at work. I don’t wear athleisure attire. I don’t have dogs, or wear sunglasses, and Beckett and I never talk about personal things. I don’t know where he lives, or that he has dogs, or anything about him really.
Now, I see the little bit of scruff on his face that indicates he hasn’t shaved today. It’s the color of the rich brown floors in the living room at the Big House, and he’s got a mouth full of white teeth as he flashes me a smile.
My heartbeat clangs strangely in my chest, and I know this feeling inside myself. If he was anyone but the annoying, obnoxious, arrogant, grumpy Deputy Director who works next door to me, I’d be interested in him.
I’d get to my feet and try to flirt with him enough for him to ask for my number. The thing is, Beckett already has my number, and he would never, ever use it to ask me out on a date.
“I’m okay,” I say, my voice lodged down in my throat. I’m relieved I don’t sound like myself, and with Beckett’s hand in mine, I get back to my feet.
I straighten my tank top and take the leashes back from the second man who’d stopped to help. I recognize him too, because he comes to this park all the time. My heart drops to the soles of my feet as Landon smiles at me. He’s asked me out before, but there’s no fizz between us.
Not like there just was when Beckett put his hand on my shoulder.
“Thank you,” I say to him, adjusting the leashes in my hand so I’m holding them the way I like.
“Sure thing, Claudia,” he says, and I press my eyes closed.
So close.
“Claudia?” Beckett asks, his voice pitching up into a near-screech.
Oh, so close.
