Flirting with Love (21 page)

“Hi, Walt.”

“Hey, Ross. I hope I caught you before you headed this way.”

“Is there an issue?” He leaned back in his chair and glanced at the clock.

“I don’t think I’d call it an issue. More of a miracle, I think. I got a request earlier today from Trout. He’d like to know if he can get a stuffed animal for Storm. He seems to think the dog is lonely.”

Ross leaned back in his chair and thought about Trout and how close he must feel to Storm to be requesting something to make him feel more comfortable. Beneath that hulking exterior was a caring heart—even if he had killed a man. It made Ross wonder even more about the man Trout had been before he’d made the choice to kill.

“It’s actually not such a crazy idea. Sure, I can pick one up on my way there. Walt, can you tell me any more about Trout than what I read in his file?”

“Have you Googled him yet?” Walt’s voice grew serious.

“Yeah, I did. But what’s your take on him?”

“He’s either brilliant or an idiot. I’m not one to judge.”

Two and a half hours later Ross and Trout were finishing Storm’s training and Ross was doing a quick exam on Storm. He opened Storm’s mouth and checked his teeth, buying time, and hoping to get Trout talking. Ever since he and Elisabeth made love, he’d been thinking about the future. He’d always wanted to have children, and Trout was a reminder of how wrong things could go for a kid. Ross wanted to understand Trout and the decisions he’d made.

Trout sat with his elbows on his knees, neck bowed, one hand fisted inside the other.

“I brought you the toy you requested for Storm.”

Trout turned his head and his hands stilled. “Thanks, Doc.”

Ross ran his hands down each of Storm’s legs. Touching was good for Storm. Getting used to being handled was key to service-dog training.

“What made you think of a toy? Oh, and I got a toy he couldn’t chew through. He can choke on stuffed animals, so you want to be careful with the items you allow in his crate.”

“Choke.” He nodded.

“There’s a button on it that makes a heartbeat sound, too. It should calm him.”

“A heartbeat.” He nodded, and his eyes filled with worry. “I don’t want him to choke, Doc. You’re sure this one is safe?”

He was amazed that Trout was talking to him, but the dog seemed to be a safe subject. “Positive. You had a dog as a kid, right?”

Trout turned his head the other way. He rubbed his palm over his fisted hand. Ross checked Storm’s ears, realizing that he’d struck a chord with Trout.

“How’d you come to the decision that Storm was lonely at night?”

Trout’s head shifted back in his direction again, his stare cold and vacant. Ross waited him out and held his stare for a full minute before Trout’s enormous shoulders rose in a shrug.

“Television show.”

Ross nodded. “Good call. My gir—” He caught himself. One rule of thumb was never to talk about your personal acquaintances with the inmates. “My friend mentioned that moving the crate closer to your bed at night might help, too.”

 Trout nodded.

“What kind of dog did you have as a kid?”

Trout clenched his jaw, remaining silent.

Trying to talk to Trout about his past was proving to be just as difficult as Ross thought it might be. He finished checking each of Storm’s paws, then took the toy from his bag and handed it to Trout.

Trout smiled, momentarily flashing those dimples Ross had caught a glimpse of last week. “Thanks, Doc.”

“Did you ever give your dog a toy when you were a kid?”

Trout drew his brows together again. His jaw clenched tight, and when he lifted his eyes to Ross again, they were full of rage.

Ross drew his shoulders back and held his stare once again. Instinct told him to treat Trout like a grizzly, look away, walk silently away, but the man in him held him in position.

“Trout?” He didn’t know why he felt compelled to try to figure out what had made Trout go from being valedictorian to a murderer, but he needed to understand it. He wanted to understand him.

Trout looked down at Storm. “My dog cried at night. My m—” He looked away, narrowed those angry eyes, and stared down at the floor as he spoke. “Someone said he was lonely. Gave him a toy and he slept fine. Dogs get lonely just like people.”

Ross caught the stifled mention of his mother, and in that second, Ross saw Trout not as a murderer, an inmate, or a dog handler, but as a son. A boy who for eight years had a mother who probably loved him, who cared for him, took care of his skinned knees and washed the dirt from his face. The records he’d seen hadn’t indicated abuse from Trout’s mother. She wasn’t a drinker. She didn’t do drugs. She was a mother, and this three-hundred-pound man had been her little boy—and she’d been murdered right before his eyes.

A guard came through the door and Trout clenched his jaw tight again.

“We done?” Trout grumbled.

“Trout. What happened to your dog?”

“Carver happened to him.” He looked down at Storm. “Let’s go.” The dog fell into step beside him.

Thomas Carver was the man who’d murdered Trout’s mother.

ELISABETH WAS MAKING cookies for Ross’s dogs and cookies in anticipation of Emily’s visit to discuss the kitchen renovations when her cell phone rang. She hadn’t spoken to Ross this afternoon, and she hoped it was him. She tried to ignore the disappointment that washed over her when she didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello?”

“Hi. Is this Elisabeth?” a woman asked.

“Yes.”

“This is Cherry Macomb. I live on the outskirts of town, and I heard that you pick up dogs for grooming. What do you charge for that?”

Her pulse quickened. “How did you hear about me?” She quickly tried to assess if she could commit to picking up any more dogs, and considered what a reasonable fee for Trusty versus Los Angeles might be.

“My neighbor Sally buys her vegetables from Wynchels’ and she said their dogs looked like brand-new dogs. Clean, fluffy, like they’d been to a salon, and Wren told her that you did it. Can I make the same arrangement?”

“Yes, absolutely.” She remembered what Wren had said about the bows. “How do you feel about bows?”

“I love them!”

They made arrangements for Elisabeth to pick up Contessa, a two-year-old shih tzu, on her way to the Wynchels’. As soon as she hung up the phone, Emily arrived.

Emily hugged her like they’d been friends forever. She’d come straight from the office and was wearing a nice pair of slacks with a low-cut white blouse and a pair of strappy black sandals. She looked fashionable, comfortable, and pretty, with just a hint of eyeliner and blush.

“Your house smells like a bakery.”

“That would be the banana-nut cookies I just made.” They headed into the kitchen.

Emily inhaled and sighed. “Do you need a taste tester?”

“They’re for you. I love to bake, and your visit was a great excuse.”

“Thank you.” She reached for a cookie.

“Wait. Those are puppy cookies. It’s this tray.” She pointed to the banana-nut cookies.

“I almost forgot you had a pet bakery.” Emily raised her brows. “No wonder my brother’s so into you.”

Elisabeth wasn’t sure how to respond.

Emily rolled her eyes. “Ross adores animals, and so do you. A match made in heaven.”

My feeling exactly
. “We do have a lot in common.”

Emily surveyed the kitchen and her eyes landed on the beer cakes. “No wonder you said you needed more ovens. You must bake all the time. How can you stay so thin?”

“Oh, those aren’t for me.” Elisabeth laughed at the thought of eating three cakes by herself. “I was creating new recipes for cakes to sell at the county fair. Ross taste tested them for me. You can actually take one home with you if you want.”

“Really? Thank you. We’d better talk about your renovations or you’re going to think I came for free food.”

They went over Elisabeth’s ideas for the kitchen, and Emily took notes on the layout and sketched out ideas for moving counters and adding an island. Two hours later they had moved into the living room, taken their shoes off, and were sitting on the sofa with a sketch of the new layout and a plate of crumbs between them. And Elisabeth had a new friend.

Half an hour after Emily left, Elisabeth heard Ross’s truck in the driveway. She went to greet him. His steps were heavy, his eyes serious and pinned on the ground.

She stepped off the porch and hooked her finger in his pocket. “What’s wrong?” He shook his head, and her heart sank. “Ross? Did something happen to Storm?”

“No, he’s fine, sorry. Just thinking about Trout.” He raked his eyes down her body and smiled. “You look beautiful.” He leaned down and kissed her. “See? And your kisses wipe my worries away without a trace.”

“Fibber. I see that wrinkle on your forehead. What’s wrong with Trout?” She took his hand and they sat down on the porch step.

“I just can’t figure out how or why a guy who had a free ride to college and was a high school valedictorian would throw his life away.” He squeezed Elisabeth’s hand. “How does that happen? And more importantly, as a parent, how can you stop it from happening?”

“Didn’t you tell me that he killed the man who killed his mother?” She remembered the story Ross had told her, and she knew how much it had bothered him then, but she wondered why his worry had escalated.

“Yes, but I just don’t get it. He’d not only made it through ten years in the system, he beat it.” He shook his head. “Why on earth after ten years, and all that hard work, would he throw it all away?”

Ross shrugged and rose to his feet. “I don’t mean to be a downer. I’ve been thinking a lot about life and family lately, and when I was at the prison today, I saw him in a whole different light. I’ve seen him as an inmate all this time, but today I saw him as his mother’s son. Surely he wasn’t a monster at eight years old. He was a kid, Lis. A little boy who watched his mother die. God only knows what me or any of my brothers would have done if someone killed our mother. It could be any one of us in that jail.”

“I wondered if that was what you were worried about. Rossie, you’re not a killer.” She watched him pace. “You love your mom, but I think something has to go really wrong in someone’s brain to actually murder another person. I saw you when you had to put Gracie down. Your eyes were damp, and even if you don’t want to admit it, you were upset for a long time afterward. Your body was tense, and you could barely look at me.” She touched his arm to stop his pacing. “And if you’re worried about when you have children, I highly doubt you could raise a child who would kill another person.”

His eyes grew even more serious. “I know that. That’s not really what I meant. None of us—not me or any of my brothers—could actually kill a man, but the question running around my mind is this. Does the fact that he avenged his mother’s death make him a cold-blooded killer from birth, or did something snap when it happened?”

“I don’t know enough about that stuff to answer, but it makes me want to call my mom.”

He pulled her into a hug. “Sorry to unload on you. Go ahead and call your mom.” He kissed her again. “Did everything go okay with Em?”

“Yeah. I love her. She’s like the best friend I’ve always wanted.”

“Really? Well, that gets me a little jealous.”

Elisabeth looked into his seductive gaze and felt her heart opening even more to the man who wasn’t afraid to show her he was human. He had fears and worries just like she did, and he wasn’t embarrassed by them, which made her fall even harder than she realized she could.

WEDNESDAY EVENING, ELISABETH put on a pair of dangling silver earrings and slipped her feet into a pair of sandals. She looked way too sexy in a royal blue halter-top maxi dress that hugged every inch of her incredible body.

“You look like you stepped out of
People
magazine, and you should have Brad Pitt on your arm.” They’d spent the night at Ross’s house last night, and he was getting used to waking up with his sexy girlfriend wrapped around him and a dog at his feet. They’d made love that morning, and when Ross was helping her with the animals, they’d made out in the barn like teenagers. She’d left a note next to his keys when she left that morning.
I’ll miss you today. Can’t wait to be in your arms again.
Even when she wasn’t with him, she was present. And every time he was with Elisabeth, he noticed things he hadn’t before, like the way she crinkled her nose a little when she was reading, and at night, just before she fell asleep, she twisted the ends of her hair between her finger and thumb, the same way he’d seen her do when she was nervous, only at night she did it with a sleepy smile on her lips.

He folded her into his arms and kissed her neck. “Every guy in the restaurant will have their eyes on you.”

“Mm. Jealous?” She arched her neck back, giving him full access to her delicate, tasty skin, which he took full advantage of, trailing kisses up her neck, then sucking hard enough to make Elisabeth gasp a breath.

They were in her bedroom standing by the dresser, and Ross wanted to rip that dress off, lift her onto the dresser, and make love to her until she could barely breathe. But they were supposed to meet Rex and Jade for dinner in thirty minutes.

“Maybe a little jealous,” he admitted.

He gathered the skirt of her dress in his fist, then slid his hand beneath, along the back of her thigh, and took a handful of bare ass. He loved when she wore thongs. He was hard just thinking about ripping it off.

“Rossie,” she whispered. “The time…”

The seconds were ticking away, but he couldn’t stop, not now that he’d touched her. He wanted her too badly.

She spread her legs and he rubbed her through the thin material.

“You’re…unfair.” She clutched his shirt in her fists and snagged a few chest hairs along with it. “We can’t. I’ll have to shower again if you come in me.”

She panted out a few breaths, and he slid a finger beneath the damp material and stroked her slick skin.

“Oh God, yes,” she relented.

“I’ll just make you come,” he whispered as he slid his fingers inside her and furtively stroked her until she was so wet he had to have her.