Saving This (The McCallans #5) (30 page)

Chapter Thirty-Five

After Max had checked on Kellie and the baby, the gate intercom buzzed on Saturday morning. When he answered it, it was Jake who asked, “Are either of you expecting anyone? Says his name is Ryan and he’s delivering something.”

Max shook his head no, but Anna said, “If his name is Ryan Fields, then yes, I am.”

Surprised, Max gave her a look of inquiry.

“It wasn’t supposed to be today, though,” she said. “I’m not sure why he’s here a day early.” She pulled out her phone, which had been silent in her purse since they’d been at the hospital. Scrolling through it, she cringed. “Crap, he called twice today.”

“What’s up?” Max gave her a teasing smile and said, “You know, if you want to do online shopping so I don’t see what you’ve ordered, you gotta do better than that, Anna.”

She laughed and shook her head. “This is better than online shopping. Can you let him up?”

Max gave Jake the go-ahead and then pulled Anna to his chest and kissed her forehead. “You, little lady, are a bit sneaky. I’m not sure what is up.”

“Good. Because it was supposed to be a surprise for you tomorrow, but I guess it’s happening today.”

“ ‘It’ is happening today?” They both heard a vehicle pull into the driveway, so Max stepped onto the front porch. A man slid out of the driver’s seat of a canopied truck and then walked around to the back. Two bodies hopped out, both black-and-tan…and furry.

“What’s this?” Max asked.

“This,” Anna spoke with a huge smile as she tugged him along to follow her, “is a surprise I’ve been holding onto for about three weeks now. Max, meet Bo and Luke. They are one-year-old German Shepherd cousins, and are also police trainee flunkies. We’ve officially adopted them. And this is Ryan Fields, he’s been their handler for the past month to make sure they are healthy and ready for a home and family.”

“Nice to meet you.” Ryan held out his hand to shake Max’s while holding the leashes with the other.

“You as well,” Max replied. He looked at the dogs, surprised that this was something they were actually doing. He and Anna had talked about adopting a dog, but here were
two
of them. And both were beautiful with wagging tails and seemingly eager personalities.

Anna was already petting them both. They must have been familiar with her because she knew who was who. “This one is Luke,” she told him as she knelt down. “He has a bit more black on his face and is a tad smaller. And this one’s Bo.” She moved over to give him a hug too. “His tail is all black and he’s a little bigger than his brother.”

“Wow, okay.” Max took a moment to pet them both. “So…police dog flunkies?” he asked Ryan with a chuckle.

“Yes, sir. They were raised in my police K-9 program but didn’t exactly pass. If they aren’t one-hundred-percent guaranteed for the job they are being hired for, then I can’t sell them to a police unit.”

“So you breed these dogs and train them yourself?”

“Some of them I’ve bred, but most I’ve adopted from shelters or unwanted litters of puppies. They go through a myriad of personality screenings to determine if they’re suited for the job.”

“And these two weren’t,” Max concluded.

“Not really,” Ryan laughed. “As you can see, they love people a little too much. There was also an issue with them being separated when I got them at three months old. They were cousins from separate litters, but they bonded instantly. Neither of them could handle it, so I had to put them back together. I thought maybe they’d make a great narcotics pair and I trained them as such but…”

“But what?” Max wasn’t so sure about owning two supposed guard dogs that would fail at a simple job.

“They are excellent dogs, don’t get me wrong. They just have a little issue with…playing too much.”

“Playing too much?”

“Mmhmm,” Ryan nodded. “They’re, uh…they’re total screw offs.”

Something about that made Max laugh out loud. And as Ryan unclipped the leashes to let Bo and Luke go, they immediately started wrestling with each other.

“Wait a minute,” Max chuckled. “Bo and Luke? Seriously? And they’re
cousins
?”

“They’re just a couple-a good ol’ boys,” Ryan shrugged sheepishly.

Max turned to Anna and gave her a smug smile. “What a coincidence.”

“It’s a total coincidence!” she laughed. “I hadn’t even met the dogs yet when I called Teague and Jay the Duke cousins. But…come on! Isn’t it funny?” She laughed anyway, even if Max didn’t think so.

But he couldn’t help it and laughed with her, because every time they made mention of the
Dukes of Hazzard
and some of the stupid shit they did, Teague and Jay were always mentioned in the same sentence.

“Yeah, this is a bit weird,” Max agreed. “But seriously…”

He watched the dogs for a few seconds, still messing around, biting each other’s necks.

“Heal!” Ryan barked sharply. Both dogs stopped playing and immediately came to him and sat. Ryan looked at Max and said, “See, they’re very obedient, know every command you need them to know, and are very watchful. But their attention span is a little out of whack. Just watch…”

The dogs were sitting there calmly, waiting for another command. Sure enough, one of them wagged a tail and it caught the attention of the other. A neck bite occurred, and then a little nip back, but they were both still sitting there.

“Attention,” Ryan commanded. They both looked at him again, upright and waiting for another command. Looking at Max, he said, “See, they’re just a bit glitched.”

“Glitched? Well hell, I can barely sit at attention like that either,” Max joked. “But in all seriousness, what’s the worst to expect?”

“You’re not gonna have to deal with anything like attacking someone, or growling at the wrong person, or anything serious like that. You’ll have them fetch something, a butterfly will pass by and one or both goes frolicking after it, and when it’s out of sight again, they’ll go right back to fetching what you asked them to bring you.”

“Well that doesn’t sound so awful.”

“No, they’re not defective dogs. They’re not top-notch for a serious police job, but they’re definitely more trained than the average pooch. I think you’ll be very happy with them. You just gotta love their quirky moments and let them slide. Focus on the good things they can do.”

Anna tugged on Max’s arm, purposely like a little kid. “Please, can we keep ‘em? Please, please, please? Wait, you haven’t even seen what they’re capable of. Just watch.”

There was no way Max was going to say no. These dogs were gorgeous, and if their only weakness—if it even was a weakness—was screwing around too much, then that wasn’t a big deal at all.

But he watched Anna work with Ryan, making the dogs sit, stay, walk, run, and fetch. Ryan used the command “go check the fence” and pointed down to the gate. He said eventually they would learn “gate” instead, if that’s what was preferred. They all followed the dogs down the driveway—even Jake, who seemed extremely interested in what was going on.

Bo and Luke were sniffing along the ground, but mainly peering out through the wrought-iron bars to observe beyond the property line. They did this for a couple of minutes, going left along the fence and then right, until Ryan told them to report. Both dogs sat in front of him peacefully, tails wagging just a bit.

“This is how they report if everything seems okay,” Ryan informed them. “And if something were off, like maybe someone was lurking around or hiding in a bush somewhere, they’d be barking during their search
and
when they report back to you, to let you know something’s wrong.”

Max nodded, thoroughly impressed. “Okay, so there are a few acres here. Will they be able to do the whole perimeter?”

“Yes, sir,” Ryan concurred. “I’d walk them on a ‘full search.’ You have to do it with them a few times to get them familiar with what you want them to do and they’ll do it until you tell them to stop. Of course, you know, they might have to mess with each other here or there, but they’ll go back to work.”

Jake finally spoke up when he said, “And I have security lights available that can be triggered by motion or the specific bark of your dogs. They’re pretty cool, can light up an area instantly and scare off any trespassers pretty easy. No one likes to lurk in the light,” he smirked.

Max cast him a suspicious side-glance. “Were you in on this too?”

He tried to hide a smile. “Yes, sir. Anna asked if it would interfere with your security here.”

“And?”

“And…I told her I would implement them as needed.”

“Hmm, interesting.” Max eyed Anna, who still looked a bit sheepish.

“And you can whistle for the dogs like this—” Ryan made a quick chirp—“if they’re close enough to hear, or their collars have this little thing here…” He grabbed Luke’s collar and showed Max the tiny box connected to it. “It operates only from a remote and it just emits a quiet little hum that tells the dog to ‘return to base.’”

Max couldn’t have been more impressed, but damn, he actually had a pair of dogs now. This domesticated stuff was rolling right along.

“Anna has arranged for me to continue working with the dogs until they’re completely ready to operate their best for you. We can work on specific routines or jobs for them…whatever it is you need from them. I think this place will really be fantastic for them, to be honest.”

Max glanced at Anna again, who was seriously beaming from head to toe. She was petting both dogs at the same time, and just seeing her that happy made him feel like one lucky bastard.

Chapter Thirty-Six

“I really thought you were upset at first,” Anna said as she cuddled up to Max in bed that night.

“What? Really?”

“Yeah, the look on your face,” she giggled. “You just looked a bit scared.”

“Nah, not scared. It was just new to me. We had one dog growing up that I can remember. A Doberman, and he was fucking mean. Definitely not a family pet. He was literally meant for being a growly little shit to anyone who came close to our gate. He didn’t do all the things Mickey and Minnie do, though.”

“Oh my God, will you stop calling them different names?” Anna laughed.

“Fred and Ethel?”

“No, they’re both boys!”

“Hmm, how about Simon and Garfunkel? Bert and Ernie? Oh, I know one you’d remember, Ben and Jerry!”

“Shut up!” she laughed.

“Not the ice cream duo? How about Batman and Robin?”

“You’ll just have to get used to Bo and Luke because I love it. And I think it suits them just fine.” She was quiet for a few seconds as they laid in the dark. “Hey, you think they’re okay?”

“They’re absolutely fine. You hear any noise? They’re together, so Ryan said they’d be quiet if we told them ‘bed for the night’.”

“I know. But mainly I want to go cuddle with them like a little kid. They’re my first dogs, you know.”

Max kissed the side of her face. “I know, babe. And you did great, sweetheart. They’re gonna love it here and we’ll love having them here. Thank you so much.”

“I can’t wait for Chase to meet them. He’s going to be so excited. I really hope they’re gentle around him though. What if—?”

“He’ll be fine. And we have a couple of weeks before he spends some time here again, so maybe we can make sure we’ve got all the commands down and stuff. I really don’t want to accidently tell them to search him.”

“Oh my gosh,” Anna laughed.

Max’s phone buzzed on his nightstand. He wasn’t going to answer it, but checked the screen to see who Mary had allowed to be forwarded at this hour.

“Fuck, it’s my dad,” he sighed. And it was almost midnight, so he figured he’d better answer it.

“Yeah, Dad, what’s up?”

“What’s up?” he repeated snidely. Max immediately felt his mood slip. “You read the tabloids lately?”

Max rubbed his eyes and blinked, even though it was too dark to see much. “No, I thought that was your job.”

“Very funny, smart ass. So I guess it’s not a big deal that Olivia Douglas is back in town and you two are starting where you left off six years ago. Oh, and let’s not forget the other headliner… The beautiful one of Kate holding Chase close; the title claiming that you’ve taken her son away from her. And—”

“Come on, Dad. She sets herself up for that garbage.” However, the thought of her using Chase for a tabloid photo op royally pissed him off. “A simple statement to the right people will take care of that rumor instantly.”

“Then do it, Max! You need to do some damage control right now! If you don’t have a new PR to fix this, I’ll hire someone for you.”

“What is there even to ‘fix’? It doesn’t matter what I do or say, those stories will run anyway.”

“This one needs a counter-story, Max.”

“I just don’t care anymore, okay? The only people who have a right to know about my life are the people I care about. And I want you to stay out of this mess, okay? Let it run its course. I have equal time with my son and that’s all I wanted. We both knew this was coming. Just let her dig her own grave.”

The silence on the other end was a bit deafening, but he waited for his father to either hang up on him or come back with something more.

Apparently it was the latter.

“I’m assuming you know about the bloody photos of that prick who attacked Kellie four years ago. So now it’s all over the news that Teague and Jay jumped some poor helpless guy and beat the shit out of him outside of a night club.”

Well, that wasn’t the news he wanted to hear. And yeah, he’d been worried about it, but just the idea of Kate going so low like that really pissed him off.

How far was she willing to go?

“I’ll handle the shit with Teague, but you fix your own stuff,” his dad said.

“Before you do anything, you need to talk to Teague first. He already knows that Kate was willing to throw any one of us under the bus.”

“Oh well that’s just fabulous. Who the fuck knows what she’s going to do next!?”

“It doesn’t matter. I have joint custody of my son, and she’s going to be an angry, selfish bitch all she likes, but my main goal is to keep it away from Chase. Let her look bad, not us.”

“This is ridiculous. You don’t fight fire with a trickle of water. How do you think I’ve survived in this industry? How do you think I’ve accomplished so much? It’s because I never backed down to threats. I’m ready to sue her scrawny little ass for defamation of character! She needs to be buried in her own shit!”

“She can’t touch me, Dad. What is she going to do?”

“Since when did you stop caring about your image? You really want to dump your legacy in the toilet? I can’t do this with you anymore. I’m done! Your name is off anything and everything associated with me or the studio. That goes for Chase, too. The last thing I need is that bitch coming after his share of the company when he’s older. You got your way, okay? Congratulations!”

That time Craig really did hang up on him.

When Max set his phone back on the nightstand, Anna rubbed a hand against his leg. “Obviously everything is not okay?”

With a sigh, Max situated himself back in bed, pulling her closer to him. “My father disowned me. Again.”

“Oh jeez, Max,” she answered with a worried chuckle. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Nothing to say. He’ll come around again. I just wish he could understand what kind of battle he’s fighting. It’s one where no one wins.”

“In his mind, that’s not true. To him, there might not be any other answer except to protect his sons the best way he knows how. That means bowing down is not an option.”

Max considered that for a second and concluded she was right. His father never did go after any minor rumor or anything that was obviously a fabricated accusation. And maybe the mess with Kate was really not the right time to be yielding.

“I truly don’t know what to do,” he sighed, rubbing his eyes in the dark. “Am I being idealistic with all of this?”

Anna paused for a moment, but her hand was lightly rubbing his chest. “I think you’re trying to do the right thing but there are too many variables. Maybe there isn’t a way to win at this, but I don’t think what you’ve chosen to do is wrong.”

“You don’t think I’m trying to sweep anything under the rug?”

“No, not at all. You do the best you can with what you’re given, right? You’ve chosen to lay low and not tangle with anyone on a public level. I see nothing wrong with that and I would do the same thing.”

“But you don’t think it’s realistic,” he stated more than asked.

She paused again. “Well…I think it is the better choice, but I honestly feel like… Shoot, I don’t know how to word it.”

“You honestly feel like I’m going to be fucked over anyway,” he nodded, reading between the lines.

“Yeah, pretty much,” she sighed. She laid her head against his chest. “Maybe it’s just my ‘expect the worst, hope for the best’ mentality but…I just don’t want you to be blindsided. I don’t want you to be hurt anymore than you have been.”

“Just because I choose to keep the peace, doesn’t mean I’m unaware of her intentions. She’s out for blood, I know that, but she’s gonna have to act on that on her own. It’s just not in me to be the aggravator. I texted her to see if we could meet about Chase and she told me to fuck off. So obviously cooperation is not on the to-do list. Never has been and probably never will be.”

The sad reality of that was impossible to overlook.

“Will you tell me more about you mom? You seem to avoid the subject. When I met her in person, you couldn’t sweep her under the rug so easily.”

He hesitated for a few beats. “I wasn’t avoiding it. Well, not entirely. I’m just not that close to her.”

“And why’s that?”

He sighed. “Well, I’m a typical kid of divorced parents. I split my time with them when my mom moved out. And to be honest, neither of my parents are very nurturing people. I grew up in a business family. Hugs and ‘I love yous’ were unheard of. My mom’s family mostly worked in New York, and I did spend some time going back there with her and working on a couple of projects, but I didn’t want to move there when she did ten years ago. And I’m aware a lot of people have questioned why I tend to accommodate my dad over the years instead of my mom, given what they think they know about him.”

“So why have you?”

He paused, letting the truth roll around in his head for a while. “Because people don’t know it was my mom who had an affair first. Before my dad had his thing with Teague’s mom, my mom was stepping out on him first. A year before I was born, before they’d even been married for a year, she was going to leave my father for Anthony Davidson.”

“Whoa, what?” Anna gasped. “
The
Anthony Davidson? The one she co-starred with in the
Angels
series?”

“Yep. But Anthony ended up moving on to another actress, and his affair with my mom was never even known by the public.”

“So how did you know about it?”

“I heard her and my dad fighting about it one night. It was several years later, when I was seventeen. My dad was put through the ringer with tabloids because his affair had legitimate proof—Teague—but my mom kept her name in tact with her indiscretion because Dad kept the secret to himself. He protected her reputation back then, forgave her, and they reconciled and had me a year later. But when my dad had his fling, she never offered him the same courtesy.”

Anna scoffed. “Wow. Why?”

“I dunno. She claimed my dad had a few other women on the side and didn’t deserve a second chance.”

“Well that’s one thing, but she felt it was also necessary to damage his career?”

“I honestly don’t think she was happy in the marriage to begin with. I don’t know how the rumors hit, but once Teague came to live with us, it pretty much solidified anyone’s doubt. But other than trying to get me to move to New York back then, she really didn’t invest much time in me. She supported me and played the role of the proud mom when necessary—and that’s fine, it is what it is—but no, we’re not really close when it comes to anything more. She wouldn’t even be able to tell you my favorite foods.”

“So… Do you resent your mom? I mean…do you feel like you had to choose one parent over the other?”

“Mmm, not really. They both messed up so I feel like their mistakes canceled the other’s out. It put them on equal ground in my eyes. It basically came down to living in California or New York for me, so I chose to stay where Teague, Jay, and Kellie were. But like I said, we’ve just never been a warm family. Teague and I had better relationships with our housekeepers and bodyguards than we did our parents. They didn’t love each other enough to be loyal, bottom line.”

Anna was quiet for so long, Max thought she’d fallen asleep. But a minute later she asked, “Do you worry that the same thing is going to happen to you?”

The question caught him by surprise, but yes, seeing his parents stumble through a failed relationship had probably formed his opinions early on. “It’s always a possibility, I guess.”

“Not with me,” she stated firmly. “You don’t ever have to worry about my loyalty, Max. Never.”

She threw a leg on top of his and squeezed as much of his body as she could, almost like she was trying to prove how tightly she’d hang onto him. He wanted to respond, but really had no words except to hold her securely in return.

He actually felt that was enough for the both of them.