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the upkeep. He thrust away the obvious thought: if they were still together, he’d have this place sparkling by now.
    He peered into the oblong windows flanking the front door. A light was on in the back.
    He knocked on the door.
    No responding footsteps inside.
    Shit. Where was she? He peered through the glass again. It was cloudy with age and streaked with drizzle, but he would’ve been able to see movement if someone was home.
    He knocked again.
    No answer.
    Heat suddenly flamed in his neck. Of course. What a friggin’ idiot he was. Hard to believe he was a bloody detective when he couldn’t put two and two together.
    Kate’s car was here, but she wasn’t, because it was Friday night and some guy had come and picked her up and was taking her out to a nice restaurant, and he was standing on her front porch in the fucking freezing drizzle with a fucking envelope stuffed in his pocket.
    He’d had it all planned out. What he’d say—“I found this under the sofa”—how’d he act. But she always seemed to pull the rug out from under him.
    Man, how fucking stupid could he be?
    No more stupid than you were on New Year’s Eve.
    He spun on his heel, taking the front porch steps two at a time, and stalked toward his car.
    A large dog lunged toward him.
    He leaped back. Not far enough. The dog jumped on him.
    “Alaska!” The owner pulled futilely on the dog’s lead.
    Ethan stared in disbelief. “Kate?”
    Since when did she have a dog? Pain sliced through him. Anger added a satisfying sting. She’d never called him. Never apologized. Just left him scrambling for his engagement ring on the floor of Bob MacDonald’s house.
    Within weeks, she’d gone to the enemy camp and joined LMB. Then bought a house. Now a dog. What more could she do to show that he had meant nothing to her?
    The dog’s front paws were still planted on his chest. Ethan stared into its ice-blue eyes. He fought to control his anger. It wasn’t the dog’s fault. “Down, boy,” he said, pushing him away.
    The dog grinned and jumped down. Kate stepped closer. “Ethan?” The quiver in her voice betrayed her shock. Mist beaded tendrils of hair around her face. Her eyes shone with a clear amber light that pierced right to his heart. Shit, how could she still do this to him? When he knew, he knew, that the light in her eyes was deceptive. “What are you doing he—”
    The dog poked his muzzle in Ethan’s crotch.
    “Alaska!” Kate cried, yanking his leash. The dog pulled his muzzle out and strolled over to a light pole, lifting his leg. A graceful arc of pee shone under the streetlight.
    “Nice,” Ethan said. If he hadn’t been so angry, he might have seen the humor in this. The dog had summed up his relationship with Kate with brutal efficiency: sniffing his crotch, then pissing on the sidewalk.
    He may have learned the hard way that he didn’t know Kate the way he thought he did, but he definitely got this dog’s vibe. “Where’d you get him? The Shelter for Delinquent Dogs?”

5
    K ate stared at Ethan. Shock reverberated through her. Then guilt. Longing. Grief, pain, anger. Flooding her. Making her reel. She couldn’t believe he was here. On her sidewalk. Waiting for her. Why, after all this time?
    Whatever the reason, the sight of him set her heart jumping and skittering as if it was trying to run for cover and there was nowhere to hide.
    There was nowhere to hide. That was the problem with Ethan. His presence was so large, so full of life, that it crowded out the safe place deep in her heart she burrowed into when things got too painful. The place she had found when she was ten, the place she had retreated to on a permanent basis six years later. The place he’d chased her out of for six heady months.
    She finally was able to move her lips. “Sorry. He’s not usually like this.” Not only was that a lame excuse, it was a lie. She had no idea what Alaska was normally like. She’d only had him for a week, and she’d spent most