He should go upstairs. Picking up strays was not his responsibility, and with his current luck, the dog would bite him. He’d spent the last eighteen years of his life helping to raise his younger siblings. Now his family was settled. Business was up. Some debts had been paid. Conor finally felt like he could relax.

Maybe he’d take a vacation.

Alone? Yeah, that was lame, but he hadn’t even had a date in ages. Not that he was really trying. He couldn’t get that curator he’d met in Maine out of his head. Something about pushing the cool blonde’s buttons heated his blood and made the women who tried to pick him up at the bar seem . . . too easy. Dr. Louisa Hancock would be a challenge.

God, there must be something wrong with him. He was thirty-eight. It was time to settle down like his siblings, not go looking for extra work.

Thunder cracked again, and the dog went flat on the pavement. He tossed another piece of cheese on the ground closer to his feet. The dog moved forward, one eye on Conor, one eye on the food. He squatted and held a chunk toward the dog. The rain intensified, soaking Conor’s hair and dripping onto his nose. The dog moved forward and took the food from his hand. A drop of blood dripped onto the blacktop and swirled pink in the eddying runoff. He looked up at his apartment door, then back at the dog. Big, brown eyes blinked at him with a thoroughly pathetic, soulful, woe-is-me expression.

“Just for tonight. In the morning I’m taking you to the animal shelter. I’m not home enough to have a dog.”

The pit licked his fingers.

“Come on.” Holding the remaining provolone in front of the tentative dog’s nose, Conor led him—he glanced back—her up the stairs and into his apartment. He filled a bowl with water and spread a fresh towel on the old linoleum floor. “I’ll be right back. The first-aid kit is in the bar.”

He jogged downstairs. He was halfway to the back door of the bar when footsteps and the metallic echo of a garbage can being knocked over put him on alert. A teenager was making his way down the alley. He stopped, squatted, and inspected behind the Dumpster. Conor sidestepped toward the door without taking his eyes off the kid.

“Hey.” The kid shuffled into the light. Under a black zip-up hoodie, he wore a wifebeater, saggy jeans, and Air Jordans. “You seen a gray dog?”

The kid didn’t look familiar, but the mean glint in his eyes—and the condition of the dog upstairs—set Conor on edge. He shook his head and lied. “Sorry, no.”