Your Bed or Mine? Page 4

  Zada suddenly glanced back over her shoulder at him.

  Damn! Rick didn’t like the gleam in her eye.

  Forget middle ground!

  Try shaky ground.

  That’s the ground I’m standing on now.

  As if to prove it, Zada walked back in his direction.

  Rick felt the earth shake slightly beneath his feet.

  “I’ll accept your Survivor challenge,” Zada announced, “as long as you agree to a few conditions.”

  Did she imagine it?

  Or did Rick pale slightly beneath his deep tan?

  He actually gulped. “What kind of conditions?”

  Zada held up the first finger. “No other women in my house.”

  Rick didn’t answer.

  He just kept standing there, staring at her like some zoned-out zombie.

  Bob finally spoke up and said, “My client will agree to that condition. But he demands the same courtesy from you. The house will also be off limits to any of your male friends.”

  “Agreed,” Zada said, but she looked directly at Rick when she added, “The guy I’m dating and I can always go back to his place.”

  It was a cheap shot, and she knew it.

  She’d never even looked at another man.

  But the slapped-silly look on Rick’s face?

  Priceless!

  Zada held up finger number two.

  “Moving back in today isn’t an option,” she said. “I need time to rearrange my things. You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to move back in.”

  Bob looked over at Angie and frowned. “Your client was supposed to have her things ready to move out today.”

  Rick spoke up and overruled him. “Tomorrow’s fine,” he said. “I’ll stay at the training center tonight.”

  “I could care less where you stay,” Zada was quick to tell him. “My only concern is that you wait until Saturday to move back in.”

  Rick’s blue eyes darkened.

  Darker.

  Darker.

  Crap!

  No more zombie.

  His my-way-or-the-highway glare was back.

  “I wasn’t implying that you cared where I stayed,” Rick said curtly. “But you can expect me at the house first thing in the morning, Zada. And I don’t mean noon. That’s your idea of morning. I’ll be up at oh-five-hundred hours as usual, and ready to move back in by oh-seven-hundred hours.”

  Angie frowned and looked over at Bob. “Would you please instruct your client to speak in civilian terms? None of us, including your client, happens to be in the military at the moment.”

  Bob translated, “He’ll be up at five AM and at the house by seven AM.”

  Angie said, “Then why didn’t he just say that?”

  Bob shrugged.

  “Anything else?” Back-in-control Rick wanted to know.

  Zada held up a third finger. She thought for a second. Then put her hand back down.

  “I guess that’s it,” she said.

  “That’s it?” Rick seemed relieved.

  She knew she should have thought up a few more conditions just to annoy him, but Zada was too rattled herself at the thought of Rick moving back in. Plus, Rick’s eyes were so blue now they almost looked black.

  Not a good sign!

  Zada slipped the purse strap off her shoulder, reached inside for her keys, and removed the key to the new lock on the front door from her key ring.

  She handed Rick the key and said, “Since you’ve already established it’s unlikely I’ll be up at your idea of morning, take the guest bedroom at the end of the upstairs hallway. You know the one. The bedroom that happens to be as far away from my master bedroom suite as possible.”

  “That happens to be my king-size bed in the master bedroom,” Rick said with a frown. “I had that bed before we were married. I say we flip a coin to see who stays in the master suite.”

  Zada shook her head. “Not a topic for discussion,” she said firmly. “My bed. My bedroom.”

  “For now,” Rick vowed through clenched teeth.

  “Game on,” Zada told him, eyes narrowed.

  Before Rick had a chance to get in the last word, Zada turned and walked away. And she did so with a confident swing to her hips that she hoped made Rick’s damn brooding blue eyes pop right out of his thick, stubborn skull.

  When Zada walked away, Rick knew without a doubt—thanks to his big shot attorney—that he had just put his own stupid neck in a hangman’s noose. The imaginary pressure on his windpipe caused him to reach up and loosen the tie Zada had given him for Christmas last year.

  “I expect a fifty percent discount on my legal fees,” Rick informed Bob as he watched Zada sashay down the hallway. “That’s the least you can do for this mess you’ve gotten me into.”

  Bob laughed. “Are you kidding me? Thanks to me, you’re going home instead of going out to look for another apartment. And also thanks to me, you have a good chance of keeping Simon and the house. Maybe I should double my fee.”

  “I have a slim to none chance of keeping Simon and the house,” Rick corrected. “And you know it.”

  “Still, slim to none is better than no chance at all,” Bob said. “And you said yourself reaching a compromise with Zada never would have happened.”

  Rick kept watching Zada.

  Bob followed his gaze.

  “Stubborn or not, that Zada sure is one fine-looking woman,” Bob said. “No one can argue about that.”

  Rick didn’t try to argue.

  Except “fine looking” didn’t do Zada justice.

  “And speaking of fine-looking women,” Bob said, nodding toward Angie who was heading down the hall in the opposite direction, “I haven’t called that particular fine-looking woman in a couple of days. Which means I have some fast talking to do if I don’t want to spend my Friday night alone.”

  “What?” Rick was stunned. “Isn’t that illegal or something? Attorneys sharing the same bed when they’re representing opposing clients?”

  “Nope,” Bob said and grinned.

  “Well, dammit, it should be,” Rick grumbled.

  “You know, Rick,” Bob said with a wink, “if you’d try turning off the testosterone and turning on the charm, that pretty wife of yours might welcome you back to your big king-size bed. Remember. Even a cobra can be charmed, buddy.”

  “I said get out of here,” Rick warned.

  “Gladly,” Bob said. “But watch this. Charm works every time.”

  Bob hurried down the hall after Angie.

  Rick started down the hall in the opposite direction, but he smiled when he glanced back over his shoulder. Bob had caught up with Angie. The lift of her chin said Angie wasn’t interested. Until Bob dipped her backward and kissed her silly.

  When Angie’s I-forgive-you laughter echoed down the hallway, Rick frowned.

  The big idiot, Rick thought.

  Sure, charm might work for a self-proclaimed ladies’ man like Bob. But Rick had personally never understood why women couldn’t see right through a man who said one thing, and did another, yet expected to be forgiven just because he turned on the charm.

  Maybe I do have boot-camp mentality.

  But at least I’m honest.

  A man was only as good as his word.

  Right?

  If I give my word, I mean it!

  But Rick frowned again when till death do us part crossed his mind.

  “Dammit,” Rick said aloud, “I didn’t file for the divorce. She did!”

  Several people in the hallway looked in his direction.

  Rick didn’t care.

  He stalked off down the hallway, looking for the signs that would take him back to the main lobby of the courthouse.

  Turn on the charm.

  Yeah, right!

  As if charm would work on Zada now.

  I’d have better luck charming a cobra.

  Game on. Those had been Zada’s parting words.

  Outwit. Outplay. Outlast. Those stu
pid words, of course, had been his.

  What the hell was I thinking?

  Zada, give in?

  Not in ninety days.

  Not in a million f-ing years!

  Pressure constricted around his throat again.

  This time, Rick jerked Zada’s tie from around his neck.

  Keeping Zada’s hands from around his neck?

  Gulp!

  That was going to be his ultimate ninety-day challenge.

  Chapter 4

  Zada walked across the courthouse parking lot, heading for the Simon mobile—the name she called her sporty, black Lexus SUV. The car was classy, yet equipped with a let-down backseat that provided sufficient room to haul around a 120-pound part-Belgian Malinois, part-German shepherd dog.

  She punched the keyless entry button on her key ring, and slid behind the wheel. But Zada sat there in the driver’s seat for a second, thinking about how tragic it would be if she did have to hand over the dog that had changed the course of her life forever.

  Simon was far more than just a dog to her.

  Simon was her inspiration.

  Simon loved her unconditionally.

  But more importantly, she could depend on Simon.

  Zada couldn’t say that about another living soul.

  He was larger than most mixed-breeds of his type, but Simon was as gentle as a lamb, and he had certainly been more loyal to her than the man who had trained him, thank you very much!

  Simon also had more natural instinct than many humans she’d encountered in her thirty-two years of life—her mother and her sister immediately coming to mind. Only Zada didn’t have time to dwell on that hopeless situation.

  She had her own hopeless situation to worry about.

  Damn you, Rick!

  Why can’t you just leave us alone?

  Zada sighed.

  God, what an idiot she’d been.

  She thought she’d married Mr. Right.

  Until she realized his name was Mr. Always Right!

  I never had a chance, Zada thought. Meeting Rick had hit her like a cosmic explosion. Boom! One look, and she had to have him.

  She’d been visiting Simon at the vet clinic that afternoon when just-out-of-the-hospital Rick walked in, his broken arm still in a cast, his head still bandaged from the concussion he’d suffered when he and Simon were injured.

  “I hear you’re Simon’s number-two fan,” he’d said, stealing her heart with one sexy grin.

  She’d insisted on taking him to lunch.

  Mainly to ask permission to keep seeing Simon.

  Over lunch, she’d told Rick how Simon was her inspiration for a new children’s book series she wanted to write. Lunch had progressed into dinner. And dinner had progressed into going back to his apartment and sitting up all night talking.

  By the end of the first week, she was crazy in love.

  “Crazy” being the operative word.

  Crazy enough to go to Lake Tahoe with Rick two months later while he met with one of the major ski resorts interested in detection dogs as a security option.

  The trip to Tahoe had been the most magical time of her life. She’d never deny that. But the state of Nevada—where all you had to do to get married was say “I do”—had been the perfect place for “crazy” to take on a whole new meaning in her life.

  Rick had proposed the first night they were there.

  She’d said yes the second he proposed.

  The hotel had arranged for everything else.

  One gondola ride up to the top of the Heavenly Ski Resort, and they’d literally been on the top of the world, a breathtaking view of Lake Tahoe below them as they exchanged their vows in a sunset wedding ceremony.

  They’d stayed in Tahoe an extra week, locked in a honeymoon cabin, away from the rest of the world. Two months later, they were moving into Simon’s eight-hundred-thousand-dollar doghouse.

  That’s when reality set in. When they realized they should have lived together first. That love was blind—but that marriage was a real eye-opener!

  Rick had certainly opened her eyes today.

  And she intended to open his eyes tomorrow!

  Zada jammed the key into the ignition and pulled the gearshift into reverse, irritated all over again.

  It was just like Rick to come up with some way to put himself back in her life, back in her face. Well, she had news for Rick. She’d outwit him. Outplay him. And outlast him.

  Rick wants reality?

  I’ll show him reality!

  Zada drove out of the parking lot, heading back to Woodberry Park and the house on Owls Roost Road that she was not going to hand over without putting up one hell of a fight. By the time she drove into the busy downtown traffic on Washington Street, Zada had her cell phone to her ear.

  “Jen,” Zada said when her neighbor answered, “I’m going to have to cancel dinner plans with you and Tish tonight.”

  She heard Jen gasp.

  Jen Marshall and Tish Jones were her best friends. Jen lived next door. Tish lived across the street. Like her, they were both in their early thirties.

  Unlike her, Jen and Tish were happily married.

  Jen said, “Oh, God. Please don’t tell me you’re canceling dinner because the judge ruled in Rick’s favor.”

  “No,” Zada said, sighing over the absurdity of the whole situation. “The judge didn’t rule in Rick’s favor.”

  “Zada, you poor thing,” Jen said. “I was afraid you’d lose your bravado after the fact. That’s why I insist you let Tish and I take you to dinner tonight just like we planned. We’re here for you, Zada, and we want you to know that. It’s only natural to feel sad and let down after a divorce. You probably even feel like a failure right now, but …”

  “Jen!” Zada said, cutting her off. “I don’t feel like a failure. What I feel like right now, is mad as hell.”

  “Completely understandable,” Jen said, talking over her again. “Anger is also a natural response to …”

  “Having the husband you thought you were divorcing today, move back in tomorrow?”

  That comment got Jen’s attention.

  “What did you say?”

  “The judge delayed the divorce,” Zada said. “He’s giving us ninety days to settle the property dispute between us before we appear back in his courtroom.”

  “And he ordered Rick to move back home?”

  “I’ll explain everything when I get there,” Zada told her. “You and Tish did make arrangements for your kids tonight, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Jen said. “Sonya’s spending the weekend with my parents and Tish has a babysitter for the twins.”

  “Don’t cancel the plans for the kids,” Zada said. “Just because I’m canceling dinner doesn’t mean I’m not going to need your help. I’ll call you as soon as I get home and change out of this dress I blew a bundle on, thinking it would be the last time I saw Rick.”

  “You need our help for what?” Jen wanted to know.

  “I have a lot to do before Rick shows up on my doorstep in the morning,” Zada said. “You and Tish need to help me give Rick a homecoming surprise he won’t soon forget.”

  Rick swiped his ID card across the pad of the security lock. When the security bar lifted, he drove his spruce-green Hummer into the training center’s parking lot. The two-story red brick building had once been the old fire hall in the West Chicago suburb of New Hope—back before New Hope had grown substantially in size and was able to afford a new facility.

  He’d opened the training center shortly after the devastating terrorist attack on September 11, when all available resources for dogs trained in explosive detection had basically been depleted overnight. Private bomb dog companies had instantly sprouted up all over the country—many of them more interested in the money than they were in the quality training of their canines.

  Rick vowed his company—Security Detection Services —wouldn’t be one of them.

  He’d jumped at the chance to purchase the o
ld fire hall, knowing the building couldn’t be any more perfect for the type of bomb dog training center he had in mind. The kitchen and upstairs sleeping quarters, once used by the firemen, provided adequate accommodations for dog handlers while they were undergoing extensive training courses at the center. At the back of the building, there was plenty of space for the dog kennels and for a first-class obstacle course and training area for the dogs.

  His experience with a canine unit during his military service had given him the background he needed in the bomb detection field. But Rick had been the first one to admit he lacked the experience needed to train the dogs himself.

  For that reason, he’d hired a team unmatched anywhere when it came to training and expertise. Like the experts he’d hired, Rick firmly believed explosive detection dogs were a special category of detection canines—dogs who should only be trained for one specific task.

  At SDS dogs weren’t cross-trained in reckless combinations, mixing explosive training with training in firearm and drug detection. A bomb-sniffing dog needed to be calm, patient, and completely focused. Being trained in only one area lessened the chance of a dog becoming confused in dangerous situations and putting lives at risk.

  The mission statement at SDS was simple: “Dedicated to delivering properly trained explosive detection canines fully capable of going forth into life threatening situations.”

  Rick’s belief in that statement had saved his life.

  Had Simon not been properly trained, there was no doubt in Rick’s mind that he and Simon would have been killed in the explosion at O’Hare.

  It had been four years since he first opened the center. Now he was thirty-six years old. He had sufficient training experience under his belt. And SDS had become one of the top explosive detection operations in the nation.

  The accredited certification plaques hanging on the wall in his office backed up the claim. The Department of Defense, Homeland Security’s Transportation Security Administration, and the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms commissioned his dogs on a regular basis.

  At least my business is successful.

  Too bad my marriage wasn’t.

  Rick thought this as he drove the Hummer into the bay of the building that had once housed much larger vehicles than the one he was riding in now. The second he turned off the engine, one of the main reasons his business had been so successful started walking in his direction.