Page 20 of A Beach House Beginning

She spotted him coming onto the porch and waved.

“Hello. Don’t mind us. This is about our tenth trip outside this evening. We’re working on potty training. I’m not quite sure Theo understands the concept completely yet, so I imagine we’ll be coming out frequently to reinforce. So much for my relaxing summer vacation, right?”

She smiled, a white flash in the moonlight, and his entire body seemed to tighten.

“He’ll figure it out,” he said. “Consistency is the key to training puppies.”

She moved closer, and he could smell the scent of her, an intoxicating mix of strawberries and vanilla and sunshine.

“You sound like you have some experience in that area. Have you trained many dogs?”

For a brief moment, he debated how much to tell her and finally decided there was no good reason to withhold the information.

“I was part of a canine training initiative in prison. We did the initial basic training with puppies that might eventually become service dogs. I was lucky enough to have three great puppies during my time. All of them eventually graduated and are working as trained service animals now.”

“That sounds like a wonderful program.”

The dogs had truly been lifesavers to him, bringing peace and comfort and purpose during those dark years.

“It was a good fit. You have a bunch of people with nothing but time on their hands. That’s what dogs need most, especially in the beginning.”

He missed those puppies. He had given his heart to each of the three dogs he had worked with in prison and had been gutted when it was time to pass them on for the next phase of their training.

Now that he was on the outside, Wes had been thinking about getting a dog of his own, though he wasn’t sure he was ready to start over with another pet.

He supposed some part of him still worried things might change in a heartbeat, that something could happen to throw his life back into chaos. He didn’t know what that might be, but didn’t want to take any chances that he might not be ready for that kind of complication and commitment.

That was the main reason he was working as a mechanic at the Gutierrez brothers’ shop. He was good at it, for one thing, but he also needed something fairly straightforward to do right now while he tried to figure out the rest of his life.

Before his arrest, he had been running a highly successful security company in Chicago with thirty employees and multimillion-dollar contracts.

All of that had disappeared in a blink. The company. His life savings. And most of his trust in humanity, Wes had to admit.

He wasn’t sure he had the bandwidth right now to start over and rebuild everything from scratch.

He knew he had to start somewhere, but he had no idea where the hell that somewhere might be.

He wasn’t about to spill his angst all over Jenna Haynes. If she knew the tangled morass of his brain, she would probably be more afraid of him than she had been when he first moved in.

She didn’t seem as afraid of him now.

He found that awareness both exhilarating and vaguely terrifying.

Some part of him wanted to warn her she had every right to be afraid. Around her, he felt like the proverbial Big Bad Wolf. He wanted to swallow up a sweet thing like Jenna Haynes in one delicious bite.

“I could use any pointers you have with Theo here,” she said before he could tell her any of those things. “This is my first time training a dog. My first time being responsible for any pet, actually.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t have a dog growing up?”

“No. Believe me, I wanted a dog desperately but it never quite worked out.”

“Why not?”

“I grew up with a single mom, with no dad in the picture,” she said after a slight hesitation. “I don’t even have a name, since he took off before I was born and my mom didn’t like to talk about it. Mom always worked two jobs to support us, and she didn’t think it would be fair to have a pet when we weren’t home very often to take care of him. Also, money was invariably tight so she could never quite justify the cost of pet food or vet bills when she was working so hard just to take care of us.”

“Is that one of the reasons you gave in to Addie’s pleas, even though you’re nervous about taking on a dog? Because, like most parents, you want to give her what you always wanted but never had?”

Her gaze sharpened at his insight. “Yes. That’s exactly why. Good guess, Dr. Calhoun. I must say, I feel a little called out right now.”

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