On a bright autumn day, Flynn Marlowe lost his best friend, a beagle named Barley, while out on a hike in Seattle’s Discovery Park. On a cold winter day, Mac Bowersox found his best friend, a lost, scared, and emaciated beagle, on the streets of Seattle. Two men. One dog. When Flynn and Mac meet by chance in a park the next summer, there’s a problem -- who does Barley really belong to? Flynn wants him back, but he can see that Mac rescued him and loves him just as much as he does. Mac wants to keep the dog, and he can imagine how heartbreaking losing him would be -- but that's just what Flynn experienced. A “shared custody” compromise might be just the way to work things out. But will the arrangement be successful? Mac and Flynn are willing to try it ... and along the way, they just might fall in love.

Lost and Found

“He is a bit of a man magnet.” Flynn looked pointedly at Mac. “Case in point.”


Just then, in one of life’s moments of truly regrettable timing, two young women came up to them. Both were clad in running gear. One had a blonde ponytail, the other a short dark bob. One was pushing a sleeping towheaded child in a running stroller. Both were eyeing the table with something approaching covetousness.


Blonde ponytail approached them with a perky cheerfulness that immediately grated on Flynn’s nerves. Go away! Leave us alone!He wanted to shout at her, because he knew what was coming. Instead he just looked up at her briefly. He didn’t smile. His expression, he knew, voiced a very weary one-word response to her greeting. “What?”


“My friend and I just noticed that it looks like you two might be done with the table, and, well, you can see we have our hands full here.”


Chapter 31