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“You would,” Van said.
“I would what?”
“You’dwriteitright.You’dwriteitright-erthanyour new editor has ever seen before. You always do.”
Mary stopped fiddling with his tie and stood back to search his face. “Van? You’ve never said anything like that before. You sound darn proud of me.”
Van fidgeted. “Okay, okay, I’m not always that good at saying what I’m thinking.”
“Or feeling.” She kissed his cheek. Oh, how she loved this man.
“Or feeling.” He subsided into some semblance of standing still until she finally finished his tie.
“I deserve a reward.” He kissed her for long moments.
Mary pulled away, so reluctantly she could feel the siren suction on his lips and between their warm bodies. “It was your aunt’s idea to make this maybe-marriage shindig another full-blown dress affair, and you didn’t talk her out of it, so live with it. Besides, what is it with you and a bow tie, anyway? You put a suit on at seven o’clock in the morning. All three pieces. And a tie.”
“But that’s a real tie. This is a bow tie. And that’s business. This is … ”
That made sense, now he mentioned it. The loveable goof he was becoming when he was in sweatpants — she saw that man only at home. He slipped on his public persona on his way out the door, complete with suit, tie, and slicked-down hair. Well, that last part never lasted. His thick, adorable, ebony curls never wanted to cooperate with the all-business side of him. And his mouth when he forgot to press his lips tight —
“Oh, no you don’t,” Van said. “My mouth is off limits. Next thing you know, we’d be naked. After, you’d have to tie me up in that tie all over again.”
“I’llmakeitworthyourwhile,”Marypurred.“Ihave a few different ideas about what I could do with you and tying that tie.”
Van whipped the tie off himself, looped it around her neck and hauled her in.
***
Mary thought the dogs should stay home. Van, though, couldn’t leave the house these days without his canine entourage and all the paraphernalia it took to keep them warm, safe, and happy. Not to mentionthetarpstokeeptheirvehiclecleananddry. Women schlepping diaper bags thought they had it rough. Hah!
It was the one thing on which she could never budge Van. He refused to leave part of the family home alone, so she got the leashes while Van loaded the whelping box into the van.
The Puppy Palace, as they’d come to call the box, was solid, sturdy oak, but the heavy structure rolled into the van with fingertip ease. Van had installed a ramp and winch on the vehicle. The canine castle featured a gold-tasseled rope to use with the winch and smooth-as-silk wheels to glide up the ramp.
Of course, nothing Van had tried to engineer could make it possible to get the Puppy Palace into his Jag. Next thing Mary knew, the Jag was banished to the parking garage at the apartment he had shared with Cyn. Now he drove nothing but the van. Collapsible mesh walls on the palace kept the puppies inside when necessary.
Van’s Canine Transportation Project was down to a fine, efficient art.
But Mary thought getting out of the van and into the party with the pups and their parents would be another matter entirely.
She was right, although not quite in the way she expected.
It took a good twenty minutes to get the dogs and the whelping box past Mohammed, the doorman, and Walden in his security post at the front desk.
Both men stroked the box’s carvings in awed admiration, asked about the construction and nodded sagely over the answers. And, of course, the men had to shake paws with proud papa Lancelot. Mary figured the four-legged father would have handed out cigars if he’d had any on him.
He settled for nosing Guinevere forward to accept her introduction too. Can’t let the little lady — well, okay, the big lady — take a back seat for all this homage. She was the one who actually produced the cute little miracles wobbling around in their box, reveling in the adoration. Of which they received copious amounts as the security men all but cooed over the puppies.
Mary thought Walden and Mohammed demonstrated excellent taste. Guinevere’s puppies, each with the noble face of a Saint Bernard and the charming, floppy ears of a Basset Hound, were the ultimate in adorableness.
Mary, Van, and their canine entourage finally got to the elevator, then to the condo’s pool and party patio. The gauntlet there was bigger, noisier, and more insistent, with dozens of people crowding in to ooh, ahh and coo.
The puppies got most of the attention, of course. Is there a human being on the planet who can resist puppies? Then Mary and Van had to explain, again and again, that they didn’t know how stalwart little Lancelot and big pushover Guinevere had managed to do the deed that created the puppies in the first place.
The big surprise was how many people had dogs in the family way, and how desperately the “parents” wanted one of Van’s whelping beds. A new status symbol had been born.
“Name your price, dear boy,” one of the prospective purchasers said. “I’ll pay anything, simply anything.”
