Wild Open Hearts (Bluewater Billionaires) - Kathryn Nolan Page 0,50

mouth exploding with cold bubbles, tart hops, sweet mango, spicy chili and salt.

“What’s the word you said?” Beck asked.

“Alchemy,” I replied.

“What does it mean?”

“When a process seems magical. Like a transformation. An elixir.”

Beck licked the remaining salt from his lips. “I like that.”

I smiled, watched the crashing waves for a minute. The humid breeze caressed my skin, wrapping around us both. “Is this what it feels like during your day? This… effervescence?”

His brow furrowed. “What does that word mean?”

“Light. Bubbly,” I explained.

“Yeah. Although it’s only one dog.” Beck said that almost robotically.

“That’s not how I see it,” I explained. “When we do good in this world, it doesn’t matter how small we believe it to be. Kindness ripples, has an impact long after our connection is finished. To me, you’re a hero.”

“You’ll make me blush,” Beck said. He shifted on the table, knee resting on mine.

He didn’t move it.

“Does anything really make you blush?” I teased, leaning back on my palms.

“Gorgeous women drinking expensive whiskey.”

My heart tripped, spun, fell over itself.

Beck Mason liked me.

The knowledge spread through me like a languid pleasure.

Because I liked him too.

Those butterflies magnified.

“Noted,” I said. “For the future.”

“You don’t feel this way at Wild Heart? Effervescent?”

“Sometimes. Or… no. Also yes?”

He chuckled.

“I guess I founded Wild Heart based on that feeling. But my responsibilities are vast and what we do is more at a systems-level, working to change the way corporate values and social justice values intersect. It’s thrilling. Innovative. Terrifying.” I pulled at the label on my beer, tugging it clean off. “The effervescence has rubbed off a little bit, I think. Which isn’t bad. Just a change.”

A shift, my subconscious reminded me.

“Learning about the animal testing was actually a brutal reminder of how close I am to it. I guess it is more personal than I realized.” I sucked a piece of mango into my mouth, experienced that same crash of taste. “I do miss this feeling of personal connection. Rescuing Sunshine… there’s no other feeling like it, is there?”

“I don’t think so, no,” he said. “I struggle with that, being on the front-line, working with dogs rather than with donors. Elián doesn’t want me doing things like this. Neither does my board. They want me talking to people. Asking for money.”

I tipped my bottle against his. “Well, for tonight, I say fuck ’em.”

“Never thought I’d hear Luna da Rosa say fuck ’em.”

I snorted. “What do you think I’d say?”

“Let them follow their own spiritual path.”

I shook my head, laughing into my beer. “I’ve got many layers, Beck Mason.”

“I’m beginning to realize that,” he said—and his eyes on mine felt magical.

Alchemy. Maybe there was more elixir than alcohol in this Heineken.

“Do you have a dog, Beck?” I asked.

“Me? No. Why?” he said.

“Because you’re a dog hero,” I said. “I guess this whole time I assumed you had like seventy dogs living with you.”

He stared off into the peach-tinted sea. The palm trees around us were transforming into dark, tropical silhouettes. “I already have fifteen dogs at Lucky Dog.”

I nudged his knee. “But you don’t want your own dog?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Ever since Willow…” He stopped.

“Willow… the dog you worked with in that program?” I asked, the memory sliding back. Beck, all alone on his graduation day, watching this dog he’d cared for be taken away by another family.

“It was twenty years ago. I don’t admit that to a lot of people because I think they’ll think it’s stupid.”

I winced at that word. “Stupid?”

“It was one dog. Two decades ago. I can’t move past that?”

“Beck.” I lightly touched his back, then splayed my fingers out. “You loved her very much.”

“She saved my life.” His voice was thick. “If I hadn’t been placed there, if she hadn’t been my dog, I’d be running the Miami Devils right now, in and out of prison, stuck in a cycle of violence.”

My stomach twisted, imagining Beck transplanted into this dark alternative future.

“I know that she was never really my dog. But there’s a connection that happens. When a terrified animal looks at you and trusts you. Only you. You feel responsible for them. You… love them.”

I was silent, utterly transfixed by this mountain of a man next to me.

“Dogs like Willow are disposable in our society. That always made me angry. Because she wasn’t nice looking or perfect or had all the right pedigrees or came from the right breeder.”

“Our society thinks that people like that are disposable too,” I said. Beck looked at me with