Wednesday Walks & Wags. Melissa Storm
side with the clear hope that she’d packed some special treats for him, too.
“I brought cookies!” Amy trilled as she revealed a generously sized Tupperware filled to the brim with one of her famous homemade confections. Well, famous among the four friends at least. “I came up with this recipe earlier in the week, and they’re already Darwin’s favorite thing ever.”
The old dog untangled himself from Bridget’s hyper Pomeranian and overbearing pit bull mix, then sat himself at Amy’s feet, fixing her with a doleful expression.
“Darwin, you’re supposed to be on a diet!” Amy scolded, but then opened the container and tossed him a cookie, anyway.
“Are those safe for them?” Nichole asked, always the voice of reason even though she had no dogs of her own. That didn’t stop her from researching everything just for the sake of learning something new. It never failed to impress Bridget how her friend knew an extraordinary amount about almost any topic she could think of.
Amy forced one of the treats into Nichole’s mouth before the other woman had a chance to argue. “Try it for yourself and see.”
Anger crossed her face first, followed quickly by relief and then pleasure. “Are these for dogs or people?”
“Both!” Amy answered proudly. “My own recipe. Safe for dogs but still yummy for people.” She cupped her mouth as if she were going to whisper a secret, but then she yelled loudly enough for the next apartment to hear. “The secret is molasses.”
“I’ve going to have to pass,” Hazel added with a grimace. “I’m here to see Bridget’s new place, not to ruin my bridal diet.”
“Oh, like you aren’t perfect exactly as you are,” Nichole said with a grimace of her own.
Hazel smiled and touched her belly for a brief moment. When she noticed Bridget’s eyes on her, however, she quickly removed her hand and strode deeper into the apartment.
“Beautiful layout,” she said, inspecting each room while the others trailed her. “Need any help with the setup?”
Bridget chuckled at this. “Oh, Hazel, we both know I can’t afford your services. I can barely afford this apartment.”
Hazel narrowed her eyes. “And we all know my services are always free of charge for my besties.”
“I’ll think about it,” Bridget promised, even though she already knew what her answer would be. While Hazel was a remarkably talented and highly sought-after interior designer, she was also the worst neat freak Bridget had ever met. If she had a hand in putting together Bridget’s apartment, Hazel would no doubt expect it to be kept up to her standards.
Bridget had always preferred clutter to cleanliness, even as a small child. It was part of the reason she knew her father and brother Caleb were happy she’d found a place of her own and moved out of the family home. The rest of that reason rested squarely with her rambunctious pack of spoiled dogs.
“Wow, look at that view,” Amy cooed from her newly assumed spot at the large picture window. She’d always been the peacemaker of their group, and her timing now helped diffuse the growing tension. “It even comes with a cute neighbor guy,” she added, blushing furiously.
Nichole and Hazel both raced to her side.
Bridget went a bit more hesitantly.
Sure enough, the blond man she’d seen earlier that day had reappeared. The group watched in silence as he and his two dogs cut across the courtyard and headed for the main street. Once there, they took off at a rapid clip and quickly disappeared from view.
“Hot, healthy, and clearly loves dogs,” Amy mused, ticking off each trait on her fingers as if making some kind of valid argument here. “If I weren’t already head over heels for Trent, I’d race you to him.”
Hazel elbowed Bridget in the ribs. “Who knew your new place also came with a new ‘boyfriend,’ eh?”
“I guess he’s cute. Kind of hard to tell from this far away, though.” Bridget shrugged. Ever since Amy and Hazel had both found their other halves, they’d jumped headfirst into playing matchmaker for their two unattached friends.
Nichole fought them hard whenever they so much as suggested a man she might be interested in, which left Bridget as the main target for their misguided attempts at making a love connection.
Honestly, the last thing she needed was a romance.
Not when she already had so much work to do on herself and not when she saw firsthand how devastated her father was after losing his lifelong partner. Bridget wasn’t sure how much more loss she could handle in her life, but she knew there’d at least be less of it if she avoided taking on anything—or anyone—new for as long as she possibly could.
Chapter 3
Bridget’s friends stayed for a few hours before obligations to work, family, and other commitments forced them to return home. Bridget herself had a start time of seven the next morning, when she was scheduled to assist her favorite vet with spays and neuters.
This was a new responsibility, and one she was quite excited to add to her growing list of tech duties. While she wasn’t quite as gung ho as Nichole when it came to learning, Bridget did love to master new skills. It was one of the best ways to stay busy.
Set big goals and then exceed them.
She’d always been the overachiever in her family. Her dad had remarked more than once that Bridget’s commitment to her mother’s care was what had kept her alive so long at the end. The problem, of course, was that a higher bar meant a longer way to fall when she wasn’t able to reach it as planned.
Recognizing this tendency didn’t make it any easier to avoid it. It just gave Bridget more to fixate on. Maybe this realization played a small part in keeping her up that night. She was filled with excitement and nervousness about the big day ahead, even though she knew she was once again playing into the addictive pattern of achieving success and then promptly growing bored of it.
The lack of sleep might have also been because she was still adjusting to her new place. Maybe her bed wasn’t set up for maximum feng shui, or Marie Kondo, or whatever interior organization thing everyone was doing these days.
The fatigue that weighed down her limbs now begged her to accept Hazel’s help getting this important piece of her life right. Then again, she’d probably be so tired when she returned home from work tonight that she wouldn’t even be able to make it to the bedroom before she fell asleep in an exhausted heap outside the door.
Whatever the case, she lay blinking up at the ceiling for hours before sleep finally took her. Of course, Teddy woke her less than three hours later with another exuberant bout of barking.
Bridget groaned and pulled the pillow over her head, which prompted the fuzzy Pomeranian to jump up onto the bed and dig at her side until she sat up with a huff.
“That’s it! You’re getting crated and covered at night,” she threatened even though they both knew she didn’t mean it.
Teddy smiled so wide his tongue lolled from the side of his mouth.
“How can a tiny eight-pound ball of fur make so much noise?” she asked, receiving a loving lick in response.
“You’re lucky you’re so cute,” she grumbled, then pushed the covers aside and pulled herself from bed.
Thanks to Teddy’s early wake-up call, Bridget had extra time to get herself ready for work, and she needed every additional minute. By the time she’d downed her third cup of coffee and applied a second coat of concealer to cover the deep purple bruises beneath her eyes, she felt about 75 percent human and only 25 percent sleep-deprived zombie.
Progress.
* * *
“Good morning,” the receptionist called brightly from