New Leash on Life (The Dogfather Book 2) Read online

  Taking a breath, she got some nods, some exchanged looks, a little skepticism, a lot of interest.

  Then she risked a look at Shane and saw something else. Some…heat. It made her stomach do a flip, so she looked away to avoid the response she couldn’t afford when she clicked to the next slide.

  “I propose to make Bitter Bark the town known primarily for one thing and one thing only…the unabashed love for and welcome of that one member of the family that inevitably gets left out of every vacation.”

  She clicked to a slide of a little puppy with big eyes and a sweet face. It did nothing for her, but the chorus of “awwws” in the room boosted her confidence. She sneaked a look at Shane and noticed his expression had softened somewhat, and included a knowing smile.

  Well, he had given her the idea when he mentioned the dog training facility. He just failed to mention his family owned it.

  “We’re going to the dogs?” Jeannie joked, getting a nervous laugh from the rest.

  “It’s a doggone good town?” This from the undertaker, making everyone moan.

  She let them settle down before taking ownership of the room again. “You’re close,” she said, so as not to alienate the mockers. “I propose we position Bitter Bark as the most-dog-friendly vacation spot in the state of North Carolina and, in fact, the entire US.”

  “How?” someone asked.

  “By making dogs welcome in restaurants, in shops, at all businesses, all around the campus of our local college, at the river rafting, on the hiking trails, and in every single shop. Not simply welcome, but a focus. If families know they can bring their furry companions and come as a whole family, then they are so much more willing to book a vacation. We have a dog training facility…” She nodded to Shane. “Which I understand is world-class.”

  “It is,” he agreed.

  “And we have one more thing that no other town has.”

  They all stared at her, some definitely mesmerized, some processing this idea. Or stunned speechless. She still didn’t know, but had a feeling she was about to find out.

  “We have the name. Or at least we will.” She clicked to the next slide showing a large map of the state of North Carolina with Bitter Bark in big, bright letters. “Let’s seal our place on the tourism map as the number-one family destination for people who love dogs when we change the name from Bitter Bark….” She clicked again, this time with the new name. “To Better Bark.”

  The room instantly exploded.

  Chapter Four

  She was serious. She was dead-ass serious, and Shane didn’t know whether to throw his head back with a hoot of laughter or kiss her on the mouth, because the idea was hilarious and she was…sexy. Confident. Smart. And sexy.

  Considering how badly he wanted to undress her with his eyes while she spoke, he couldn’t get down to imaginary underwear, because the idea was so damn good he actually had to pay attention.

  And now, all around him, the outburst around a table full of opinionated people who were arguably some of the town’s biggest movers and shakers filled the room. The divide was easy to see and evident by the questions and comments.

  “You can’t change the name of a town that’s about to celebrate its 150th Founder’s Day!” sourpuss Nellie Shaker predictably squeaked out. She’d never shaken anything in her life, Shane thought, and wouldn’t start now.

  “That is the most inventive thing I’ve ever heard!” Andi may have smashed his brother’s heart a while back, but she was cut from the same intelligent, professional cloth that Chloe was wrapped in.

  “Inventive? Try ridiculous!” the news guy, Chandler, balked. “We’d change the name to the Better Bark Banner? Next you’ll suggest editorials written from a dog’s perspective.”

  Chloe brightened, unfazed by the criticism. “I love that idea, Ned.”

  “Well, I’m not going to be Better Bark Body and Mind,” Jeannie Slattery snorted. “Unless I add dog grooming to my services.”

  “You might consider that and double your business,” Chloe replied with a dazzling smile. She let the reaction die down, then placed her fingertips on the conference table and leaned a little closer to pin them with her sparkly ebony gaze.

  Shane let his attention slip down to see how nicely her top clung to her figure under that white jacket, appreciating her long, thick ponytail the color of a freshly washed chocolate Labrador spilling over a shoulder. Everything about her was clean, crisp, orderly, and hot.

  Oh, he would have so much fun undoing that hair and getting her out of her flawless white clothes and making her all messy and sweaty and—

  “Ladies and gentlemen, will you please hear me out?” she asked, pulling him out of his fantasies.

  “What kind of town changes its name?” Easterbrook demanded.

  “A smart one,” Chloe replied. “There’s plenty of precedence of small towns who changed their name for a day or a month or a year, including Joe, Montana, to capitalize on a celebrity. Some have changed their name permanently, like North Tarrytown, New York, when they embraced a famous local legend and become Sleepy Hollow back in the 1990s. Check the record, because the economic lift to that community was tangible.”

  A few responses, some harrumphing, and the mayor tapped her hand as if it were a gavel. “We asked for a great idea,” Blanche Wilkins said loudly. “So let’s give her a chance to explain what she’s thinking.”

  After a moment, the room grew silent again, all eyes on a woman who…had a pair. And Shane didn’t mean the lovely breasts he was sneaking peeks at. Sure, she had big brown eyes and an angel’s face and pouty lips that tasted like cotton candy. But that was only packaging. Chloe Somerset was no pushover and, whoa, he liked that in a woman.

  It would make sex all that much sweeter.

  She crossed her arms and started walking around the room as she talked, a technique that forced their gazes to follow her and one he’d learned years ago when he cleaned up in law school mock trials.

  “When I heard there was a world-class dog training facility here,” she said with a slight nod to Shane, “I admit that’s where I got the idea.”

  Credit to him, he noted.

  “And from there, the ideas rolled. There is no town in America like this, nowhere that could attract families for fun and activities that also includes this very key member of so many families in our country. Hear me out.”

  Back at her computer, she clicked to the next slide, one that he was quite familiar with: dog ownership in the United States.

  “Over seventy million dogs in this country. Thirty-seven percent of homes have at least one, many have two dogs or more. Services for dogs are growing at an astronomical rate. And look at this.” She clicked again and literally buried them in statistics he already knew.

  Before they could breathe, she moved to the next set of statistics: family vacations. She obviously knew her stuff, snapping slide after slide and making her argument with such skill, he could practically feel the room shift in her favor. How many families would take a vacation to a new place if they were comfortable bringing the dog?

  And, she added, celebrating the dog. “Because Better Bark won’t just be dog-friendly,” she added. “We’ll be dog-focused.”

  She flashed picture after doctored-up picture of local businesses in the new section of town, all of the signs changed from Bitter Bark to Better Bark. She’d used photo-altering software to show where there could be “dog resting” stations, changes to the local parks, and even special “leave your leash” poles.

  “Just think of the possibilities,” she said with infectious enthusiasm. “Nothing brings in families like festivals and events. The towns you all want to emulate, like Asheville and Boone and Blowing Rock, all have jazz concerts, art festivals, 10Ks, and wine tastings. I’m proposing a year-round calendar of special events that all—every single one—have an emphasis on the universal love of dogs.”

  “Like a pooping contest in Bushrod Square?” Jeannie pushed back a lock of fake red h
air, and most of the table, including Shane, shot her a look of disgust.

  But cool-as-a-cucumber Chloe barely flinched.

  Instead, she clicked to a slide of a giant twelve-month calendar, a different event highlighted in each month.

  “The Better Bark Dog Show that’s a sort of mini-Westminster,” she said, gesturing to the slide. “Then we’ll have a Bark in the Park art festival that features paintings, sculptures, and artwork of dogs. There will be Woofstock, our outdoor doggie concert. We’ve got the Doggie Olympics, a Bow Wow Beauty Contest, a 10K Run for the Rescues, and…” She pointed to December. “Santa Paws, a special adoption day just in time to have a new face in the family photo on Christmas morning.”

  Shane felt his jaw drop a little. This was friggin’ brilliant. Every single person at Waterford Farm would love this…along with every single dog.

  “Who’s going to pay for all this?” Ned, the news guy, demanded.

  “Sponsors like pet-supply makers and pet superstores and tourists.” Chloe tilted her head as if that were obvious. “Lots and lots and lots of tourists.”

  “It’s too much,” the always-fun undertaker, Mitch, groaned. “A little dog thing, okay, one annual event. Anything else is going to alienate the people who don’t like dogs.”

  “Then let them go to Asheville or Boone,” Chloe replied. “If we only get the families who have dogs to bring on vacation, we’ll have more tourism business than we can handle.”

  So deft, using the corporate we, Shane thought. And she was right.

  “I believe in this idea.” Chloe leaned her fingertips on the table and stared Mitch in the eye. “I have created and run many successful tourism campaigns, and I know what builds visitors. This will work. I absolutely guarantee it.”

  Before they could respond to that declaration, she clicked to the next slide, this one detailing a national publicity campaign that included every imaginable form of media and how they would cover the story of a town so devoted to dogs that it changed its name.

  She finished with a banner over the face of a ridiculously cute pug that said, “Hot diggity dog! Let’s go to Better Bark!”

  And every single person in the room sat in dead, stunned silence, flattened by the bulldozer that was Chloe Somerset and her ideas.

  Including Shane. He’d listened, holding her little white business card in his hand, running his fingers over the raised letters the way he wanted to run them over her body. Slowly, carefully, and with great admiration.

  She finished, closed her laptop, and sat quietly, looking from one to the other. “Any questions, ladies and gentlemen?”

  “Yes,” Jane Gruen said. “How quickly can we do this so I can get my B&B certified for dogs and advertise it?”

  “You’d let dogs in the Bitter Bark Bed & Breakfast?” Ned shot back. “They’d chew up the furniture and piss on the rugs.”

  “Hang on.” Blanche raised a hand as if she had to be the voice of reason. “A change of town name would require first an advisory committee vote, then if it passed, it would have to be taken to the town council for a hearing that allowed for debate from business owners and locals and, finally, a full citizens’ vote. I’d have to look at the bylaws, but a name change is not something that can be done in this room, obviously. But we can take an initial committee vote.”

  “We don’t have to vote.” Mitch leaned forward. “This is a waste of time and will never pass.”

  “What?” Andi’s jaw dropped. “This is the single most exciting idea I’ve ever heard.”

  “Forget the dogs.” The librarian, Nellie, cleared her throat, fighting for their attention, color rising when she got it. “This town was founded in 1867 by Thaddeus Ambrose Bushrod. He named it after the tree that sits at the heart of the entire community. You can’t change history.”

  Every eye in the room shifted to Chloe, waiting for her to volley back.

  “Then you better change the tree.” She crossed her arms and leaned forward. “Because that one is a hickory tree.”

  That caused another little uproar, but not from Nervous Nellie. She nodded repeatedly. “That’s true. It may be that Captain Bushrod was mistaken about the tree. But he thought it was a bitter bark, and he named the town after that tree.”

  “Bitter bark is actually a shrub with wonderful medicinal uses,” Chloe said. “If it would make you feel better, we could plant some all over the square and call it Better Bark.”

  That caused another round of arguments that Chloe silenced by holding her hands up. “Please, think of the publicity if we rename this town a hundred and fifty years after its founding…with a hundred and fifty dogs in the square,” she added, her voice rising as if she just had a new idea. “The Barkiversary!”

  Shane gave a soft hoot and clapped. “Damn, you’re good.”

  “Well, of course you’re all for this,” Jeannie Slattery hissed at him. “Waterford Farm would only benefit financially. I suspect you’re behind this whole thing, frankly. Tourists all coming in and going to see your place. It would build your business.”

  “It would build everyone’s business,” Andi Rivers chimed in. “That’s the whole idea, Jeannie. It differentiates us in a way that no one ever dreamed of.” She beamed at Chloe. “My head is spinning with ideas that we could incorporate into the next phase of development.”

  “That phase is on hold,” Dave Ashland chimed in. “I’ve been texting James Fisker, who owns a little over twenty-five percent of Bushrod Square, and he’s not ready to develop anything with property values as low as they are.”

  “But values can only go up if we’re wall-to-wall with tourists,” Blanche retorted. “We can’t do anything if we don’t do anything.”

  The pithy phrase got everyone mumbling and made Chloe beam at the mayor. “Exactly,” she agreed.

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Easterbrook stood to take over the conversation. “I speak as the representative of the family that’s been burying Bitter Barkers for five generations.” He leveled a gaze at Chloe. “An Easterbrook put Thaddeus Bushrod in the ground under that tree.”

  “That hickory tree,” she said softly.

  He looked like he wanted to bury her. “We need to vote,” he said, adjusting the sleek tie that added to his tall and commanding presence. “By secret ballot, so there are no hurt feelings and no lobbying one way or another. Before we spend one more moment of our short and precious lives on something that will either turn everything upside down or become a distant memory. Every single one of us in this room, except you, Miss Somerset, needs to cast a yes or no vote. From there, we’ll either take it to the town council or ask our esteemed specialist to return to her drawing board for more ideas.”

  Shane saw her shoulders sink a little at that possibility.

  “Are we voting on the concept or the name change?” the librarian asked. “Because we could be dog-friendly without a ridiculous new name.”

  No doubt where Nellie stood.

  “Yes, the concept would work without the name change,” Chloe said. “But then you have no hook. No promise to the guest. No way to generate national news coverage, and I do mean a few minutes on CNN and at least an hour-long special on Animal Planet.”

  A few people leaned forward, like hooked fish.

  “Animal Planet?”

  “National news?”

  “A promise to the guests,” Jane Gruen cooed. “I love that concept.”

  Chloe nodded. “A promise is critical, Jane. It’s at the heart of every tourism campaign, and I believe the name of Better Bark does that.”

  “We should keep the name,” Chandler insisted. “The dog thing’s a cute idea, and we still have ‘bark’ in the name.”

  “Bitter,” Chloe replied. “Bitter is not better. It is a word that, by its very definition, is not friendly. It’s hurting the town, in my professional opinion.”

  The statement, which had to have some basis in truth, silenced them all.

  “That’s what makes the whole idea a winner,”
Chloe continued when no one argued. “Anyone can say they are dog-friendly and have a few hotels or restaurants that welcome dogs, but I’m proposing you restructure this entire city around the universal love of dogs, and that starts with a name change.”

  “Then we’ll vote by secret ballot,” Blanche said, standing up. “I’ll get my assistant to bring in ballots and a box. Chloe, will you step outside for a few moments?”

  “Of course.” She stood and shot one more warm smile at everyone in the room. “I want to remind you that I have created winning tourism campaigns for dozens of cities and a few countries. I know this will work. I am one hundred percent confident that within one year of implementing this change, tourism will increase by a thousand percent. Asheville will be scratching their head about how to compete.”

  On that, she left, and every person in the room—including Shane—watched her in wonder.

  He was so attracted to her, it hurt.

  Which made him certain he knew exactly how to vote.

  * * *

  When Chloe walked back into the conference room not ten minutes later, the adrenaline that had dumped through her veins after that presentation had finally settled to a low-grade tension that hummed through her.

  She knew this would work. She had complete confidence in the idea and absolutely would bet everything she had that this idea would increase visitors to the town and help the local economy. And Aunt Blanche’s job would be safe, and Uncle Frank’s legacy intact.

  But would they go for it?

  Sure, a few of them would be old school and stick to the name of the town because they were distantly related to the founder or didn’t care that the place was named after the wrong tree. But if they were truly the business professionals who cared about the growth and success of their companies, then they should recognize that this was a great idea.