on? Call me.”
He’d been acting on some sort of adrenaline until now, but as he followed the little red car, navigating the country roads between Jewell Rock and Bend, realization dawned on him. What would he tell his mother if his relationship with Bailey had actually ended? She’d been so pleased when he and her best friend’s daughter had announced their engagement...and annoyed that they’d taken years to get to the stage of almost tying the knot. This, so soon after the loss of her husband, would devastate her. Anger surged inside him at Bailey and he almost missed the moment when breakup girl turned down a street on the outskirts of Bend.
He slammed on the brakes and swerved to follow. He’d been a teenager with a brand-new license the last time he’d driven this recklessly and he was out of practice. About three minutes later, she swung into the driveway of a little house that looked in dire need of renovation.
Callum parked on the street out the front. Should he confront her now or wait until she was done with the next lucky recipient of her “work”? He waited and watched a moment, but when he saw her unlock the front door and go straight inside instead, he realized she must live here.
In that case... He climbed out of his SUV and beeped it locked, all psyched up to confront her, to demand more of an explanation. And, if he were honest, to tell her what he really thought of her career choice. But his bluster cooled the moment he stepped into her doorway. Either her housekeeping skills were dismal, or while she’d been delivering him the breakup speech, some scumbag had broken into her house. The smashed glass panes on her door indicated the latter.
Standing in the middle of the disarray, she bent down, grabbed some kind of vase off the floor and then spun around and held it as if she were about to hurl it at him. “Stay right there!”
He froze and held his hands up in surrender.
Recognition dawned in her eyes. “You! What are you doing here?”
“I...um...” For once in his life he was lost for words. Now didn’t seem the time to pay out on her.
“Never mind.” She shook her head, threw the vase onto the couch and headed down a hallway, wailing “Muffin, Muffin!” as she went.
Frowning, Callum stepped inside and surveyed the mess. Whoever had done this had left no stone unturned. What a violation. He dug his cell out of his pocket, about to call the police when she returned.
“Muffin’s gone.” Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“What?”
“My dog,” she sobbed, rushing past him back outside. “Muffin! Muffin!” She continued shouting that one word as she frantically searched her front yard.
He stepped onto the porch. What kind of mess had he gotten himself into? If he were sensible, he’d head back to the SUV, climb inside and phone this in to the police on his way back to the distillery. But what kind of guy would leave a woman alone in a situation like this?
“Hey!” he called, still having no clue of her name. “What’s Muffin look like? I’ll help you look.”
She froze a moment, looking at him as if she couldn’t tell if he meant it or not, then said, “He’s a golden cocker spaniel. About this high—” she gestured to just above her knee “—he’s wearing a red collar with a gold heart ID tag on it and he has a lot of fur.”
“Okay. Got it.” He shoved his phone back into his pocket. “I’ll have a quick drive around, why don’t you go check if any of the neighbors have seen him?” She appeared more worried about the dog than the house and the culprit was probably long gone, so he decided to focus on the mutt first, as well.
“Thank you.” Her voice was choked as she rushed over to the house on her right.
Callum jogged back to his SUV, climbed in and, shaking his head, turned the key in the ignition. When he’d woken up that morning he’d been engaged and planning a wedding, now it appeared he was single and looking for a stranger’s dog. What crazy thing could happen next?
“Did you find him?” Chelsea asked as half an hour later Callum climbed out of the SUV he’d just parked behind her car.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry.” He sounded genuinely so and a prick of guilt jabbed her heart that she’d dumped him without hanging around to offer support. The services of The Breakup Girl included counseling of the dumpee and it wasn’t unusual for her to spend up to an hour with the brokenhearted after she’d done the main part of her job. She let her clients’ exes pour out their hearts to her, and by the time she’d finished, most of them had decided getting shafted was the best thing that had ever happened to them. As her old friend Rosie often said, some people could cook soufflés that didn’t flop in the middle, some people could play a musical instrument and Chelsea’s talents lay in the art of dumping people. But she’d failed dismally in being a professional where Callum was concerned; being in the confined space of his office had flummoxed her.
And instead, here he was helping her.
“I guess you didn’t either,” he said as he walked toward her.
She shook her head, sniffing as the tears threatened to fall again. She hated crying and rarely did so—especially in front of other people—it made her feel weak. But there was only one thing in the world that truly mattered to her and that was Muffin, so these were exceptional circumstances. How would she survive if he didn’t come back?
“Let’s get you inside,” Callum said. And before she realized what was happening, she felt his arm close around her shoulders as he ushered her toward her front door. He was so warm, so solid, and she had a crazy urge to lean into him but instead she pulled away and headed inside, conscious of him following behind her. Chelsea was unsure why he was hanging around, but not in the head space to question. She’d barely noticed the mess the first time—so focused on Muffin—but now she hardly recognized her home. Living alone it was easy to keep things tidy as she liked them, but her little house looked as if she’d moved in a year ago, emptied everything she’d owned onto the floor and left it there.
“I don’t understand what they were looking for,” she said, surveying the mess. It would take her days to clean this up, but her first priority was finding Muffin.
Callum came up behind her. “Probably just kids, but either way, we should call the police before you move anything.”
“I need to do up some notices about Muffin and hang them around the neighborhood.” She glanced over at her little desk—or rather where her little desk was usually set up in the corner—and promptly burst into tears. They hadn’t taken her laptop or her printer but the desk had been upturned, her laptop looked to be broken in two and her printer lay in a number of smashed up pieces.
Callum cursed as he followed her gaze. Two seconds later he was right beside her. “Here.” He offered her a crisp white handkerchief. She took it, surprised—she didn’t know men still carried such things.
“Thank you,” she whispered and then used it to wipe her eyes.
As if a mind reader, he said, “My mom makes me carry it. She says you never know when you’ll need one and I’d never admit it to her, but it does come in handy every now and then.”
