Nome-o Seeks Juliet (An Odds-Are-Good Standalone Romance, #2) Read online

  NOME-O

  SEEKS

  JULIET

  New York Times Bestselling Author

  K A T Y R E G N E R Y

  Nome-o Seeks Juliet

  Copyright © 2019 by Katharine Gilliam Regnery

  D2D Version

  Sale of the electronic edition of this book is wholly unauthorized. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part, by any means, is forbidden without written permission from the author/publisher.

  Katharine Gilliam Regnery, publisher

  This book is a work of fiction. Most names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, including the Qimmiq. Some fictional license was taken with the U of M course of study, and technically SatSleeves don’t work in the USA (but wouldn’t it be cool if they did?!) References to real people or places are used fictitiously.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Please visit my website at www.katyregnery.com

  Cover Designer: Marianne Nowicki

  Developmental Edit: Tessa Shapcott

  Formatting: CookieLynn Publishing Services

  First Edition: November 2019

  Nome-o Seeks Juliet: a novel / by Katy Regnery—1st ed.

  ISBN: 978-1-944810-47-4

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue #1

  Epilogue #2

  Sneak Peek at A Fairbanks Affair

  Also From Katy Regnery

  About the Author

  For Henry, who loves dogs as much as I do.

  I love you forever.

  And for Dagmar,

  because she is the best of the best.

  Chapter 1

  Juliet

  NOME-O SEEKS JULIET

  *MUST LIKE DOGS*

  Musher.

  Fit. Single. 34.

  Retired military, honorably discharged.

  I’m looking for a woman to race with me.

  Training available.

  “Nome-o Seeks Juliet,” I read aloud, rolling my eyes at Silvia. “That is the height of corny.”

  “I think it’s kind of cute,” she says in her always-too-loud voice. “Besides, it’s your name, Juliet! It’s like he addressed to you.”

  “Um. No. He addressed it to a potential sled dog racing partner.”

  “And...?”

  “I have never raced,” I say.

  “He says that training is available! He’s exactly what you need. You have to answer this! Aren’t you even intrigued?”

  He is definitely not what I need, and my roommate is officially bonkers.

  “No. Not really,” I say, pushing the magazine off my desk and onto hers to make room for my laptop.

  Silvia DiLeo, my classmate at the University of Minnesota, has been subscribing to The Odds Are Good for years. She has this bizarre dream that after we graduate from veterinary school, she’ll meet a hot Alaskan via personal ad, open a veterinary practice in the frigid north, and live happily ever after.

  Now I’m not one to shit on someone else’s dream, but the only part of that dream we have in common is the graduating-from-veterinary-school bit...at which point I will return home to Montana and join my dad’s veterinary practice, and she can try her luck at hunting down a hot Alaskan.

  “I’m not looking for love, Sil.”

  “Neither is he!” she says. “This ad isn’t in the personals section. It’s in classifieds.”

  “Still...it’s in The Odds Are Good,” I say dismissively. “The major function of that magazine is for Alaskan men to meet lonely hearts. Ugh. No.”

  “Your name is printed.” She holds up a finger. “He’s a musher.” Finger number two joins the first. “And training is available,” she says, pushing all three fingers in my face. She nods her head with conviction. “It’s a sign.”

  “It’s not a sign. It’s a personal—”

  “Classified!”

  “—ad.”

  “Are you being purposely obtuse?”

  “Are you being purposely annoying?”

  “Juliet!” she says, exasperated with me. “Don’t you still want the fellowship?”

  “Thanks for pouring salt in the wound,” I say, giving her a look. “As you know, that ship has sailed.”

  Or will sail, I think, as soon as I send an email to the Doc Staunton Fellowship Board, informing them that my plans for their grant have fallen through and I am no longer able to accept the money.

  “Only because the musher who was going to mentor you backed out of the arrangement. It’s not too late to find someone else...and voilà! Here he is!”

  “Sil,” I say, trying to be patient with my well-meaning friend. “This guy is looking for a woman to race with, not a vet student to mentor.”

  “So...race with him, and I bet you learn everything you need to know.”

  “I don’t want to race with him,” I say between clenched teeth. Take a breath. Be nice. “I wanted to shadow a professional musher for three months and then write a study on the relationship between sled dogs and their owners, and how that relationship informs victory or defeat in competition.”

  “Right!” says Silvia, banging her desktop with gusto and continuing in a singsong voice. “♫ And if you answer this ad ♫ you can still do that.”

  I’m done talking about this. It’s absurd.

  “No.”

  “Want me to write to him for you?”

  I blink at her audacity. “Absolutely not!”

  “You’re impossible,” she says, swiping the magazine off her desk and jamming it into her backpack.

  No. You’re impossible, I think.

  I’m not naïve enough to believe that this conversation is over, but I’m relieved that it’s over for now. And just in time too.

  Professor Steinbuck enters the lecture hall from a side door, placing a folder on the podium centered in the front of the room and opening it to review his notes on today’s lesson: The Genetics of Canine Hip Dysplasia.

  He’s casually hot in jeans and a T-shirt, and I stare at him for an extra second, hoping that his gaze will rise to find mine. Alas, he concentrates solely on the information before him. That’s okay. We have a date—er, um, appointment—after class, which means I’ll have Glenn’s full attention later. Yum.

  While Silvia chats with the student on her left, I think about my recently dashed hopes for a kickass fellowship, and the fact that I do need to formally withdraw from participation by this Friday. It really sucks. Working with sled dogs has been my dream for as long I can remember, and I was thrilled when my proposal won the grant. It hurts to have to turn down the money now.

  Growing up as the daughter of a vet in Missoula, Montana, we spent a week up at Seeley Lake every February, volunteering for the Race to the Sky, Montana’s biggest sled dog race and an Iditarod qualifier.

  My older brother, Braydon, and I would help out the vet crew, mostly, but also assist the mushers in getting their dogs lined up at the starting line and, as we got older, run checkpoint locations along the race and act as vet technicians when needed.

  I know a lot about sled dog racing from the veterinary side, actually. The whole point of this
fellowship was to learn everything I could about the relationship between dogs and musher, so I could round out my understanding. And the best way to truly comprehend that relationship, I figured, was to live with a musher and his or her dogs for a period of time. To immerse myself in their world.

  My father’s friend and veteran musher, Steig Nielsen, had agreed to let me spend three months on his ranch, helping at his kennels, and watching him prepare for the 2020 winter racing season. I wrote up my proposal for the Doc Staunton Fellowship in the spring, was notified in August that I’d won the grant, and planned to spend most of this semester in Montana with Steig.

  Except...Steig called three days ago to back out of our agreement. A surprise stroke over the summer meant that his health wasn’t up to racing this year, and his doctor insisted he take a year off. I quickly reached out to the few other mushers I knew who were located in Montana, but unfortunately, none were comfortable being “under the microscope” from October to January.

  So now, even though I have the fellowship grant, and my time away from school’s been approved, I no longer have a subject for my project.

  It’s possible that today’s meeting with Glenn might lead to an amended proposal idea, but I don’t want to get my hopes up. Besides, with the way my feelings for Glenn have been growing since the semester started three weeks ago, maybe staying in Minnesota this fall wouldn’t be so bad.

  Just as I think this, Glenn looks up at me, his blue eyes lazy as they slide across my face. I shift in my seat as my body responds to his hot look.

  Nope, staying in Minnesota might not be so bad, after all.

  ***

  Knock, knock.

  As my knuckles rap on the heavy wooden door, I glance at the brass plaque on the wall: Professor Glenn Steinbuck, DVM, PhD. One day soon my name will have the same letters following it, identifying me as a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine too, and it makes me smile just imagining it: Dr. Juliet Sanderson, DVM.

  I can hear him inside the office, speaking on the phone, I assume, and knock again.

  Knock, knock.

  The door opens, but my smile fades instantly as a gorgeous, young female student lingers in the doorway. She leans against the doorframe in her too-tight sweater, her long, dark hair mussed and sexy.

  “Thanks, Professor,” she says. “For everything.”

  “You got it, Candace,” he says, using the pad of his thumb to swipe at his bottom lip. He clears his throat and grins at her. “I think you’ll have a great future in animal husbandry.”

  “Me too,” she hums, her voice low and silky. “Breeding’s my favorite.”

  Glenn chuckles, then notices me standing behind her. “Juliet! You’re here. You’re early!”

  “Am I? We said three, right?”

  Glenn looks at his watch. “And three it is...I guess I sorta lost track of time.”

  “Bye, Professor,” says Candace, smirking at me as she steps out of his office and heads down the hallway.

  “B-Bye, Candace,” says Glenn, raising his palm in farewell and straining his neck to watch her go.

  “Ah-hem.”

  Glenn’s eyes shoot back to me. “Juliet! Yes. Come in. Come in.”

  I smell it the second I enter the room and pull the door closed behind me: Sex. That odd, intense combination of semen, vaginal lubrication, and sweat. Glenn’s office windows take full advantage of the late-afternoon sun, so it’s hot in here, and every oxygen molecule holds on tightly to the pungent scent.

  I’m standing in the middle of a warm, smelly sex cave.

  Huh.

  It’s not that I thought Glenn and I were exclusive, but...

  Okay. I guess I thought Glenn and I were exclusive.

  Clearly, I am an idiot.

  He sits down in the chair behind his desk, and I take a seat in one of the two guest chairs, peeking at it first to see if there are any leftovers from its previous occupant.

  “So,” I say, letting my backpack hit the floor with a dull thud. “You and Candace.”

  “Me and Candace...what?”

  “You just totally fucked in here.”

  He grins at me like he’s cute. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

  “Is there a gentleman here?”

  “That’s good.” He chuckles. “I like that about you, Juliet.”

  “My knack for stating the obvious?”

  “Your sense of humor. You’re sharp. Funny.”

  “I’m glad I amuse you.”

  “Come on.” He cocks his head to the side. “Don’t be mad at me, baby.”

  “Why would I be mad?” I ask.

  “I never said we were getting married,” he points out, his eyes lazy under heavy, dark lashes.

  “And I never said I wanted to catch an STD,” I say, “but I guess I’ll get tested after this.”

  “I use condoms,” he tells me, his smile fading a touch.

  “Then I guess breeding isn’t your favorite.”

  “Okay,” he says, leaning forward in his desk chair as he tents his hands on his desk. “You’re pissed.”

  “No,” I say, “I’m not pissed.” Yes, I am. “I’m just surprised.”

  “Baby,” he says, “last I heard, you were leaving town for the next three and a half months. Was I just supposed to wait for you?”

  Yes, I want to say. Yes, you were supposed to wait for me, because we like each other, and I don’t just screw anyone. In fact, five minutes ago, before I walked into your office smelling of Eau d’Fuck, I would have called what we were doing over the last few weeks “making love.”

  Now the thought of those two words makes me want to heave. We weren’t making love. He was fucking me. And I wasn’t the only one.

  “You’re a real class act, Glenn.”

  He shrugs. Then sighs. Then leans back in his chair, his smile gone, his expression long-suffering. “We weren’t in love, Juliet. We just got together a few weeks ago. I thought you knew it was casual.”

  “I do now,” I say, but foolish me, I didn’t then. I actually thought that Glenn and I were building something real, something meaningful.

  He stares at me for a second, as though waiting for me to say more. When I don’t, takes another deep breath, then lets it go. “I guess we should talk about your fellowship.”

  I want to leave. I really do. I want to walk out of Glenn’s office, go back to my apartment, eat a pint of Cherry Garcia and have a quick and dirty pity cry. The last thing I want to do is talk about how something else in my life isn’t working out the way I wanted it to. I’m embarrassed that I so misread the relationship between us. But Glenn is listed as my official faculty advisor on the grant forms, so he’s right; we need to talk.

  “I’m sorry your proposed project fell through,” he says, picking up small Nerf basketball and bouncing it against the wall of his office.

  What a douche.

  “Yeah, but technically, I still have the fellowship,” I say. “I haven’t contacted them yet.”

  “You need to do that,” he says, pausing in his game of catch to look at me. “If you’re unable to use the money, they’ll need to call their second-choice applicant and let that person know they got the grant.”

  Not so fast, swift-dick.

  Without Glenn’s and my romance in play, I find I’m not as eager to stay in Minnesota as I was a couple of hours ago. In fact, I’m downright eager to get the hell out of here. If I never see Professor Steinfuck’s cocky face again, it’ll be too soon.

  “I think there might be another way,” I say.

  “Your email yesterday said that none of the mushers in Montana would mentor you.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “But I found someone in Alaska that will.”

  “Alaska.”

  “Yep. In Nome.”

  “I didn’t realize you knew anyone up there.”

  I don’t, but I’ll be damned if I have to show up in Glenn’s class twice a week for the rest of the semester. No, thanks.

  “I found
a guy in Nome willing to work with me.”

  “A guy? Really?” Glenn leans forward. “You found someone who’ll let you live at their place? Be involved with dog care and training? Until January?”

  I think about the ad. Nome-o said he was looking for a woman to race with him and that training was available. I assume that he has somewhere for that woman to stay, but if not, I’ll use some of my grant stipend to pay for local accommodations.

  “Yep.”

  “What’s his name?” asks Glenn, who’s been an official Iditarod veterinary volunteer several times, and fancies himself popular among the mushers. Behind his desk, there’s a photo of him at the Iditarod starting line in Anchorage. “I probably know him.”

  “I doubt it,” I say. Plus, I have no idea what Nome-o’s real name is...yet. “I’ll write an amendment to the grant proposal and cc you on the copy when I email it to the board at the Doc Staunton Foundation.”

  “You don’t want to tell me his name, Juliet?”

  “Nope. Not really,” I say, reaching down for my backpack and slinging it over my shoulder. “And I should probably let you know that I’ll be requisitioning a new faculty advisor ASAP.”

  He tenses. “Are you going to tell them why?”

  “Am I going to tell them that you’re fucking at least two of your students?” I ask, standing up and pushing the guest chair back under the lip of his desk. “No. I have no interest in being associated with you on that level...or on any level, frankly.”

  His shoulders relax. “You know, I’d still love to stay your advisor. This topic is so close to my heart, and as you know, I’ve volunteered for the—”

  “Out of the question.”

  “Please reconsider.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Okay. Well...” He leans forward and holds out his hand. “Part as friends?”

  “Fuck you, Glenn,” I say, ignoring his hand and heading for his office door. “Fuck you very much.”

  ***

  “Oh, my God! Juliet, that’s terrible!”

  “I know,” I tell Silvia.

  It’s been hours since my final meeting with Glenn, and it still stings that his feelings for me were so...nonexistent. I wasn’t in love with him or anything, but he was the first guy in a long time whom I found attractive and exciting. Smart. Knowledgeable. Experienced. Sexy. It turned me on that we both loved animals and wanted to devote our lives to doctoring them. Throw in the fact that he had a soft spot for sled dogs, and I thought we were forever material.