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

Flynn said, “You’re going to tell me you have to leave Seattle. I get that.”


“Well, there’s only one way I wouldn’t be.”


Did Mac dare hope? “You’re not saying…”


“I amsaying, Mac. I amsaying—” And he drew in a deep breath, let the words out on the exhale. “—I’ll come with you.” Flynn’s blue eyes shimmered with tears. “If you want me to.”


“Really? You realize my home town is, like, ten thousand people, and we’d be living in a—”


“Trailer. I know,” Flynn said. “So? Given the choice between living in a McMansion in a cosmopolitan city or in the boonies with this man and these dogs I love—honey, there’s no contest.”


Mac stared at him. He truly felt as though he were waiting to wake up. This was too much. Too good. Flynn would poke him soon—and not in a good way—and tell him he was joking.


But all that happened was that Luz turned and stood up against the door on her hind legs, scratching rather desperately at the wood.


Chapter 72