Flirting with Love (11 page)

Fitting in anywhere was tricky business. The thought brought his mind back to Elisabeth—
Lissa
—where it had been all morning. When the nickname first slipped from his lips, he hadn’t expected it. But he’d felt so close to her that the intimacy of it felt right, which was just another thing that confused the hell out of him. How could he feel intimate with a woman he’d never even kissed? All morning he’d relived every look, the feel of her hand, the want in her eyes when he’d left her at her door. He’d reminded himself all day that she was living in Trusty and just how bad of an idea it would be to get involved. He knew the risks of dating her if they dated a few times and then realized what he felt wasn’t really as substantive and consuming as it felt. He knew he could end up making her reputation worse and make himself the object of town gossip, not to mention that it could ruin their relationship as neighbors, but that didn’t stop his body from reacting to the very thought of her—or the rebellious side of him he never realized he had to rear its powerful head.

Fuck the gossip.

BACK HOME, ROSS parked behind his younger brother Wes’s truck and glanced at the husbandry book he’d brought home from work for Elisabeth. He left it in the cab of the truck and followed a trail of blood to the grass, where he found Wes standing with his bloodhound Sweets in his arms. Wes owned a dude ranch just outside of town, and he had a penchant for dangerous activities such as mountain climbing and skydiving, and he was always getting injured. God only knew what he’d done now.

“Ross, I need ya, man.” Wes had a deep gash across his forehead.

“What happened?” Ross did a quick visual assessment of Sweets, who looked to be bleeding from her paws. Sweets was the only bloodhound Ross had ever met with no sense of smell, and she was perfectly named, as she was the sweetest dog on earth.

As if to prove Ross’s thoughts, Sweets licked Wes’s cheek.

“Fell while climbing a rock face,” Wes explained, which made no sense given that Wes would never have Sweets do such a thing, but the amount of blood dripping from the gash on Wes’s head told Ross that he was referring to himself.

Ross nodded toward the clinic entrance and they went inside. He flicked on the lights as he led Wes into an exam room.

“I came by last night to have a beer with you, but you were on your date with Elisabeth Nash.” With Sweets securely pressed against his chest, Wes sat on the exam table with a smart-ass smirk on his face.

Goddamn Braden grapevine, a direct descendant of the Trusty grapevine. Ross slanted his eyes at Wes. “Mom or Emily?”

“Em, of course. Dating a Trusty girl? That’s new.”

“It wasn’t a date.” But it had taken a minute-by-minute effort to keep himself from asking her on one.

“That’s not what Em thinks. She said—”

Ross stopped him with a heated stare, then began checking Sweets’s paws. “I don’t see a cut or contusion on her paws. What happened?”

“Oh, it’s not Sweets. Just me. She walked in
my
blood.” Wes’s jeans were smeared with bloody paw prints, and he’d obviously tried to use his shirtsleeve to stop the bleeding, as it was also soaked with fresh blood.

Ross leaned back against the counter and breathed deeply, thankful that Sweets was not hurt and mildly concerned over Wes’s cut. Wes was always getting cuts and breaking bones, and this one didn’t look like it would need anything more than a few stitches, but why the hell was he in Ross’s office if his dog wasn’t hurt, and why did Sweets look traumatized?

“Then why are you holding her like she’s injured?”

Wes kissed Sweets’s head and spoke just above a whisper. “She got scared when I passed out.”

“Passed out? Wes, you should be in Daisy’s office, not mine.” Daisy was their brother Luke’s fiancée and the Trusty family-practice doctor.

“If I go to Daisy, she’s going to tell Callie, and then I’m up shit’s creek, because…” He held up his bandaged hand, which had been tucked beneath Sweets’s body.

Ross laughed. “Same rock face?”

“Three days ago. I told her I wouldn’t go again, and I wasn’t going to, but—”

Ross held up his hand. “Don’t even tell me. I don’t want to know.” He took Sweets from Wes’s arms and loved her up, then set her on the floor, where she wagged her tail and whined at Wes.

“Get down here and sit on the chair. Jesus, Sweets is like a wife.” Ross nodded toward the chair and Wes did as instructed. Sweets settled her head in his lap. “How do you think you’ll keep this from Callie?”

“I won’t. I won’t lie to her.”

Ross arched a brow.

“It wasn’t a lie. I had no intention of climbing that goddamn rock face. It’s on the north side of the mountain and I was going to scout out a new trail for a hike with next week’s group at the ranch, and…” Wes shrugged, and his mouth lifted into an apologetic smile.

“So, you’re going to tell her.”

“Yes. Of course. You can’t lie to a woman. They have built-in sensors for that.”

Good to know
. “Then you should definitely be at Daisy’s.”

Wes sighed heavily. “No way, bro. If Daisy tells Callie
before
me, I’m dead meat. It’s as good as lying to tell her after someone else does, and I can’t tell her over the phone.” Wes pointed to his eyes, which suddenly looked
very
apologetic. “She needs to see me.”

“Idiot.” Ross cleaned his wound and waited for the numbing medicine to work.

Wes looked around for a minute. “Where are the boys?”

“On a playdate.” He thought about when Elisabeth had come by to get the dogs earlier that morning. He’d opened the door, and for a hot minute their eyes had connected and the air between them sizzled and popped. It had taken all of Ross’s focus not to greet her with a kiss, and he could tell by the nervous way she smiled and the way her words were breathy and soft that she was having just as hard of a time keeping her distance from him.

“A…Whatever. You gonna tell me about Elisabeth? From what I hear, she’s here for the money, which you have, so be careful.” Wes leaned down and kissed Sweets’s head. Each of the Bradens had hefty trust funds, passed down for generations.

“She’s not here for the money, and we’re not dating.” She’d moved all her stuff, she was talking about renovating the kitchen, and she was trying her best to fit into the community. None of those were signs of a woman interested in taking what she could and leaving town. The hell with waiting. He began suturing, ignoring Wes’s flinching.

“Fuck, Ross.” Wes fisted his hand.

“Man up, and if Callie asks, I tried to get you to call her.”

“Yeah, I know the drill.”

After Ross was done, Wes cleaned up as best he could, which wasn’t very well at all. He leaned against the counter. “Wanna grab a beer?”

“You’ve got a fiancée to come clean to,” Ross reminded him.

On the way to the front door, Wes asked, “How do you know Elisabeth’s not here for the money if you’re not dating her?”

“She’s hiring Emily to renovate Cora’s kitchen.”

“Probably to flip it,” Wes suggested.

“Not to flip it.” Why was he explaining Elisabeth’s plans to Wes? “Next time you want to grab a beer, text the word
beer
. I could have used one after I dropped her off.”

“Didn’t get any? No wonder you’re pissy.”

Ross opened the door. “Out.”

ELISABETH HAD BAKED all morning for tomorrow’s deliveries; then she’d calculated her current income and went back to check it against her aunt’s records. Orders were slowing down a little. Not much, and she might not have noticed had she not compared the figures, but seeing a downturn of even a handful of pies in the three weeks since she’d moved to Trusty and taken over the business wasn’t exactly uplifting. She’d have to make more of an effort to sell and maintain that business along with her pet business.

She had a great afternoon at the dog park with Ranger, Knight, and Sarge, doing more playing than marketing of her business. It had been a few weeks since she’d had any real doggy time, and she missed having dogs and cats in her life on a daily basis. Farm animals were wonderful, but give her a pup or kitty and she was in heaven. She’d handed out flyers about her business and talked to every dog owner, but most changed the subject the minute it came to grooming or dog care, giving her no time to really try to explain or to market her business.

She’d then gone to Missy’s Dog Grooming in Allure to introduce herself and see if she’d be interested in a reciprocal referral relationship, but Missy had done her best to dissuade Elisabeth from trying to build a grooming business. She obviously didn’t want competition, which told Elisabeth that maybe there wasn’t much of a market for dog grooming in Trusty after all. By the time Elisabeth drove back to Trusty, she was barely holding on to a thread of hope. She needed a better plan.

A better plan
. Was she fooling herself? Had she wanted to be in Trusty so badly that she tricked herself into believing it was as wholesome and as welcoming as Aunt Cora? Was the wholesomeness she’d felt nothing more than the love of her dear aunt? Did her mind fabricate the rest? Tears welled in her eyes as she neared Ross’s house.

No. No, no, no. Do not cry
.

Knight, who had refused to sit in the back of her car with the other dogs, huffed a breath and rested his big black head on her lap, like he knew she needed company. She stroked his fur. Of course he knew. Dogs understood her so well.

“I’m not giving up. No way. I’ve wanted to be here too long to fold under pressure.” Her words were stronger than her conviction at the moment.

She drove down Ross’s driveway, passing a guy in a truck who waved and smiled on his way out. Just when she was at her wit’s end about how unfriendly the people here were, one guy in a truck gave her a reason to smile. She waved and almost managed a smile, until she drove closer to the house and saw Ross standing on the porch with a serious look on his face. She hoped she hadn’t kept his dogs too long.

She parked the car and stroked Knight’s head. It was worth Ross being a little upset. All three dogs had already wound their way into her heart and filled her lonely spots with love. When she looked up again, Ross was opening her door, and when he smiled, it softened the tension she’d seen only moments earlier. Elisabeth breathed a little easier, though for some reason she felt on the verge of tears again.

Elisabeth was strong-willed, but she had a sensitive soul. It had always been a bone of contention with her mother, who was one of those steel-willed women who could shrug anything off.

Ross leaned down. “Hey there, Lis. Did the boys behave?”

Lis
. God, she loved that.
I shouldn’t love it. He’s just being nice
. He probably knew her business would fail. Then what? She’d sold her place in LA, and she didn’t want to go back there anyway. She wanted to be here. Forever.
Only here
. Despite the unfriendly people and the trouble she was having getting her business off the ground. This is where she’d always wanted to be. She couldn’t have been that wrong. Aunt Cora couldn’t have been that wrong in leaving the business and property to her.

Knight lifted his eyes to Ross but kept his head in her lap. Elisabeth was thankful for the weight of him. It kept her securely in the car instead of jumping into Ross’s arms for a hug on the worst day of the last few weeks.

It was all she could do to form an answer. “They were perfect.” She swallowed the urge to unload her heartache on him and stepped from the car, moving swiftly to open the hatchback for Sarge and Ranger.

“I somehow doubt that. Ranger can be a little rascally.”

Knight followed them around to the hatchback, where Sarge and Ranger were lavishing Elisabeth’s face with kisses. She stood with a hand buried in each of their fluffy necks, soaking up their unconditional love.

“Come on, guys, give her a little breathing room,” Ross said.

“No, it’s okay, really.” She sat between the dogs, one arm over each, her legs hanging out of the hatchback.

“You don’t mind dog slobber?” Ross smiled, and it pierced her heart.

“Nope. I need it.”
And a hug and about a jug of wine
.

Ross patted his thigh, and Sarge stepped from the car, giving up his spot to Ross. “Hard day at the dog park?”

“I’m fine,” she lied, and turned away.

Ross lifted her chin and brought her eyes back toward his. “Hey. Did something happen?” His voice was serious, his eyes concerned.

“No. Nothing like that. I think you might be right about people around here not seeing any value in pampering their pets, or even grooming them.” She felt her lower lip tremble and turned away again. She’d come all this way, and she loved her job. She’d never imagined that a job that pulled in six figures a year in Los Angeles couldn’t pull in at least half that in Trusty. She’d never been so wrong in her life, and she hated the idea of not doing something with dogs and cats. She loved baking, and her aunt’s business was a fine one, if she could keep it going, which she’d work her ass off to ensure, but she wanted her pet business, too, so badly that even the thought of not having it felt like a beating.

Her eyes welled with tears again.

Damn it
. She stepped from the car and turned her back to Ross.

“Well, I’d better get going.” She hurried Ranger out of the car, intending to leave, but Sarge and Ranger circled her legs, whining and licking her hands. Knight joined them, and it was all she could do not to crumple to the ground and take comfort in them for another hour or two. She felt a tear slip down her cheek.
Oh God. No, no, no
.

She felt Ross’s strong hands on her shoulders, his chest pressed against her back, and—
Oh God
—his five-o’clock shadow met her cheek, which for some reason pulled even more tears from her overflowing eyes.

“Hey. Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.” He turned her in his arms, and Elisabeth buried her face in his shirt.

She didn’t look up at him, and she didn’t think about how embarrassing it was to be bawling in front of her hot neighbor as she clutched his damp shirt, wet with her tears. She was thankful for the comfort of his arms around her and the feel of his heart beating against her cheek. She inhaled one deep breath after another, trying to pull herself together and getting a nose of Ross’s potent masculinity.