Home Is Where the Bark Is

Home Is Where the Bark Is by Kandy Shepherd Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: Home Is Where the Bark Is by Kandy Shepherd Read Free Book Online
Authors: Kandy Shepherd
Canberra. His cover—legal attaché to the U.S. Embassy. When he got back to DC it had been to the post with the promotion-blocking manager. Not long after, he had resigned.
    Adam rolled his eyes in a manner Nick found disconcerting. “Serena St. James. In the time you were away she must have been on every billboard in the country.”
    Adam grabbed Nick’s computer mouse. Googled again.
    “This, my friend, is Serena St. James,” Adam announced.
    Within seconds another image filled the screen. A breathtakingly beautiful, dark-haired woman lay seemingly naked in an old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub of liquid chocolate. Her shoulders were slightly raised as if she were about to get out of the tub. The dark chocolate streamed off her shapely, olive-skinned shoulders and molded her perfect breasts. The peaks of her nipples were visible through the layer of chocolate. Her face wore a slow, seductive smile Nick recognized instantly, and one chocolate-coated finger rested on the full lower lip of her lush mouth. Eyes the color of dark honey were lit with a multitude of sensual promises.
    Nick felt like he had been kicked in the gut.
    Unless she had an identical twin, this chocolate-coated goddess was Serena Oakley.
    He stared so long at the screen the image went fuzzy.
    Somewhere he must have seen this picture; that was why he thought he’d met her before. Though how he could have forgotten it . . .
    With fingers that felt suddenly thick and clumsy, he clicked and scrolled through some of the multiplicity of websites devoted to “girl in bath of chocolate” and other salacious tags that involved the words “lick” and “eat.”
    He learned how she was a part-time model who had been photographed in the bath of chocolate for Maddy Cartwright’s “The Ultimate Chocolate Fix” food feature for Annie magazine. The chocolate company had loved the pictures so much it had bought some of the images for their national advertising campaign. Then the photographer had sold the rest of the series for a Chocolate Girl calendar that had sold squillions.
    Serena St. James was a fantasy figure to countless men. But liked by women, too, for her funny takes on chocolate and how hard she had to work to keep in shape. She’d been featured on the covers of magazines. Been interviewed on television. Appeared on Oprah .
    He’d been on the other side of the world in Australia and missed it all.
    But there could be no doubt she was the alter ego of Serena Oakley, doggy day-care director. What was her game, burying herself in disguise as a geeky animal nut?
    Nick shut down the websites. Muttered to Adam he was going outside for some fresh air. In the green patch of park outside the office he slouched on a bench and stared ahead across the Embarcadero to the masts of the yachts and the span of the Bay Bridge.
    He felt empty. Drained. Like he’d woken up from a dream to find he was living in a nightmare.
    Serena Oakley. Serena St. James. Whatever she cared to call herself, she was famous. A modern-day pinup. A celebrity.
    What hope would a regular guy from a small town have with a woman like her? Would she even look in his direction? Of course, if she was a crook, did it matter?
    He cracked his knuckles so loudly the woman at the other end of the park bench glared at him and moved pointedly away.

    Checkout time from five to seven was the busiest time of the day at Paws-A-While. Serena waved good-bye to the English bulldog’s mom and the Weimaraners’ dads. She looked at her watch. Twenty after six.
    She started to tidy the designer dog collars in the reception area product display. Noted that the more expensive the collar, the more she sold. She was right out of the crystal-studded style that gave no change from a one-hundred-dollar bill.
    She looked at her watch again. Shook her wrist as the hands hadn’t moved at all.
    She started to sort the doggy beauty bar. Who would have dreamed she would sell so many luxury fur care goodies? The

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