Page 36 of Something Unavoidable

“They have to wait until we sit down,” Keegan said. He pulled out a chair and gestured to it.

Izzy sat, the alternate-reality feeling continuing.

Keegan came back with two plates, one with a more than decent serving of bacon and eggs, the other with a bowl of fruit. Izzy stared. No way had he cooked Izzy a breakfast that he himself wasn’t going to eat. Who did that?

“Fruit?” he blurted.

Keegan huffed a laugh as he rounded the table. “Just wait until you turn forty.” He patted his belly. “Everything ends up right here.”

Izzy scoffed. Keegan didn’t need to worry about that. He looked fantastic, strong and solid.

“You don’t believe me?” Keegan asked with an eyebrow lifted.

Izzy shook his head. “No, I believe you. I just don’t think you need to worry.”

Keegan raised a closed hand.

Izzy frowned. What?

Keegan gave a slight smile at his obvious confusion, then opened his fingers.

There was a clatter that made Izzy jump as the dogs dove for their breakfast. The sounds of three very large animals chowing down made Izzy chuckle. Oh. That was the release signal.

Keegan sat across from him. “In that case…” Keegan snagged a crisp slice of bacon from Izzy’s plate and bit into it.

Izzy made a mock-outraged sound and curled a protective arm around his food, but he was laughing too, and Keegan grinned back, bacon grease putting a shine on his lower lip that Izzy wanted to lick off. Izzy’s face went warm at the thought. Stupid, broken libido. He distracted himself with a big bite of eggs.

“I actually got Riley last, but Chance and Lucky are smart. They picked up her sign language within a few weeks,” Keegan told him as Izzy tried not to inhale his food like one of the dogs—the eggs wereamazing. It had only taken a few minutes for them to finish, and now Riley was back, lying next to Izzy’s chair. Lucky was near Keegan, and Chance the wolf-dog was sitting at one end of the table, which was freaking hilarious. He was so tall he could easily rest his chin on the wooden surface. It felt like having a third person with them.

Izzy lowered a hand for Riley—definitely not the one with bacon grease on the fingers—and got some doggie kisses. “Are they all rescues?”

Keegan nodded. “I told you about Chance and the backyard breeder. He was supposed to go to a sanctuary, but he got away from them and showed up back here a month later.” Keegan shook his head at the memory. “I figured he’d made his choice and I shouldn’t fight him on it."

“Lucky was a surrender to the clinic.” He smiled down at the animal at his side, the only one that looked like a classic German shepherd. “He had some expensive but treatable medical issues as a puppy that his previous owner couldn’t afford to fix. The guy was trying to put him down, so we worked out a deal. Instead of euthanasia, the owner signed him over to me. I took care of his medical needs, and thankfully, he’s in perfect health now.”

“And Riley?”

“She was found wandering on a dirt road in Florida after a hurricane. George, the owner of the rescue I volunteer with, drove a truck down for her and a bunch of other unclaimed dogs.” He sighed. “George does her best to locate their owners, but a lot of animals are just never claimed after these storms. There’s no way to know what happened. Sometimes the owner was a casualty. Others lose their home and can’t care for their pets anymore. And sometimes they just leave the area and don’t come back. It’s hard enough to find homes at the best of times, so George helps bring them to areas where they have a better chance.”

Izzy clutched Riley’s scruff. Poor girl. He didn’t want to think about what she’d been through. “Do you think they left her ’cause she’s deaf?”

Keegan shook his head. “No, actually. I have to believe her owner was a casualty. She was in a remote area that wasflattened by the storm. And I can’t imagine someone abandoning an animal with the amount of training she’s had.”

“You think she was some kind of service dog?” Izzy asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

Keegan shrugged and stole another strip of Izzy’s bacon, making him scowl. “We think it’s possible. She wasn’t microchipped or tattooed, so there’s no way to know for sure. We tried to find someone to adopt her and finish her training, but her deafness made her less desirable. Since she’d bonded with my two, George and I decided she would be happiest if I kept her.”

Izzy finished his breakfast with a protective hand on Riley’s back and Riley’s chin on his knee. He ignored the little voice in the back of his mind wondering if Keegan had room for one more, not-quite-perfect stray.

“Whatever.”

Keegan sighed. And things had been going so well. It was his own damn fault too. The last week or so had given him a false sense of security. Now, he had the sinking feeling that they were back to square one, all because of one thoughtless comment. He dragged a hand through his hair. He wished he had time for this, but he had appointments to get to—one of them with his least favorite client. “Isaac—”

“Don’t ‘Isaac’ me,Henry,” Izzy snapped back. “You don’t get to do that.” He tossed the brush he’d been using on Violet back into the grooming bucket with a clatter.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Keegan tried, but Izzy just laughed, the sound sharp and bitter.

“You basically called me a slut. How could you possibly mean it that would be better?”

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