Not Just the Girl Next Door

by Stacy Connelly

  Her pulse picked up as she opened the driver-side door, and Mollie had to remind herself that she was annoyed with him. How many times did they have to have this conversation?

  “Hey, Moll.” Walking around the side of her house like he owned it, Zeke Harper greeted her with a smile. “How did it go at the shelter?”

  Mollie tried to glare at him. She really did. But as he lifted a muscled arm to wipe the sheen of sweat off his forehead, annoyance wasn’t exactly the emotion sending a blast of heat through her body. Dressed in a navy T-shirt and well-worn jeans with—heaven help her—a leather tool belt around his narrow hips, Zeke Harper looked more like the hot host of a DIY show than like the respected psychologist he was.

  Trying to keep her voice, her blood pressure and her hormones from blasting sky high, she asked, “What are you doing here, Zeke?”

  He hitched a thumb over one broad shoulder. “I thought I’d get a jump on replacing those rotted steps on the back porch.” A smile he didn’t try all that hard to hide tugged at his lips. “You were off to such a good start, tearing them out like you did.”

  Mollie’s face heated. She’d felt quite proud of herself as she’d torn out the rotting wood steps, risers and stringers. Since then, she’d made several unsuccessful attempts at cutting the new stringers but could never quite get the angle right. So she had moved on to another project and contented herself with knowing she was getting her lunge work in every time she came in from the backyard.

  “I was going to finish them,” she said.

  “Sure you were, kid,” Zeke said happily as he threw an arm around her shoulders. “But what are friends for?”

  Mollie cringed a little, enough so Zeke noticed and quickly removed his arm. “Sorry, I guess I am kind of sweaty.”

  “You know I’m not afraid to get dirty,” Mollie challenged.

  As their gazes met, for a brief second the atmosphere around them seem to change, to shimmer with an electric charge like the air right before a storm. His hazel eyes, normally so full of teasing and laughter, darkened, and Mollie’s heart fluttered in her chest.

  But then he blinked, and whatever she thought she’d seen disappeared. “You had a three foot drop-off at the edge of the porch. That’s not safe.”

  Overprotective concern. Now that emotion she immediately recognized and the curious flutter sank to her stomach like a stone.

  Kid, she reminded herself as she swallowed hard. Friend. That was how Zeke thought of her. The little sister he’d never wanted.

  He had teasingly dubbed her with the title long ago, and even though she’d never thought of him as a big brother, a part of her clung to the designation like a shield. Anything to keep the man she’d fallen in love with years ago from ever learning about her hopeless crush.

  “You could at least wait for me to ask for help first,” she argued.

  “I would.” He pinned her with a knowing look. “But you never ask.”

  Maybe she did have a habit of digging deeper when she was already in over her head. But she wasn’t a kid anymore, and the woman in Mollie longed for the day when Zeke Harper would see her as someone other than his best friend’s little sister...always in need of rescue.

  Chapter Two

  “Two dogs?” Zeke demanded as he followed Mollie around the side gate to her backyard. Though her property extended far beyond the fence line, the wooden structure that surrounded the large grassy area was one of the first remodeling projects he’d helped her with.

  Before taking on the leaky faucets. Before putting in the new water heater. Before tearing out the decades-old carpet. Because the fence was important to the dogs and the dogs were more important to Mollie than anything.

  He admired her huge heart when it came to the animals, he really did. But he was starting to worry that she was dedicating too much of her life to the dogs she rescued and the ones she trained.

  “Your text said that you were going to the shelter to evaluate a dog. You never said anything about bringing two of them home with you.”

  “I did go to evaluate him.” She tossed the words, along with her reddish-blond curls, over her shoulder as she glanced back at him. “And my evaluation was that Chief needed to be in a foster home and out of a kennel.”

  Mollie had introduced him to both dogs—the happy, playful seventy-pound puppy named Charlie and the shy, scared Chief.

  The poor guy did look terrified. He’d been cowering in the back of the crate in Mollie’s SUV, and it had taken quite a bit of coaxing from Mollie and some encouraging barks from Charlie to get him to come out. And even then, he’d crouched so low that his belly was practically brushing against the grass.

  “Look, I get it, but don’t you think this is a lot to take on? Between the house, volunteering at Furever Paws, your job, your own dog...” He waved a hand to the house, trying not to cringe at the sound of Arti howling like mad inside. Mollie loved the long-eared hound like a kid, but Zeke wasn’t sure he’d ever met a goofier, clumsier, crazier dog.

  “I can do this, Zeke. The house is fine. I’m perfectly capable of handling my volunteer work and my job, and Arti is, well, Arti.” Unleashing both of the new dogs to explore a backyard filled with various dog toys and agility equipment, Mollie said, “I’ll introduce the three of them later today, but I’m sure they’ll get along.”

  Though Zeke didn’t dare say so out loud, it wasn’t the house, the shelter, her job or her dogs he was worried about. It was Mollie herself. She worked hard, probably too hard, and while he knew she kept in good physical shape—she couldn’t possibly keep up with the rigors of dog training and agility if she didn’t—she spent too much time alone with only canine companionship.

  But whenever he encouraged her to go out more often, Mollie would only laugh. “What can I say?” she’d joked more than once. “I get along better with animals than I do with people. I wear my ‘crazy dog lady’ title with pride!”

  Zeke didn’t think Mollie was crazy—not as a friend and not as a psychologist. He had noticed, though, that she’d isolated herself more and more over the past two years. That worried him. When he saw a problem, his first instinct was to find a solution, and he quickly decided Mollie needed to get out more, to go on a date or two. She’d need a bit of encouragement, of course, which was where he came in. Fixing her up would be no different than fixing her back steps.

  Okay, maybe it was a little different...

  Certainly his track record with power tools was better than his own success when it came to relationships. And that included the time in shop class when he’d slipped while working with a circular saw and needed twenty-two stitches. At least he’d only tried cutting his fool hand off.

  Lilah Fairchild had done her best to rip out his heart.

  But Mollie was nothing like his ex-fiancée. She was sweet and kind and funny, and Zeke didn’t like the idea of her being alone.

  And Patrick wouldn’t have, either.

  Zeke took a deep breath and refocused his attention on Mollie and the new dogs as Charlie raced over at full speed and jumped up, planted a pair of muddy paws right on Mollie’s chest and dropped a tennis ball at her feet. Zeke knew plenty of women—Lilah included—who would have been annoyed. But Mollie merely laughed and bent to pick up the slobber-covered green felt. “Somebody needs a few lessons in the proper way to greet people, but look what a smart girl you are to find a ball!”

  The silly Lab basked in the praise, tail wagging her entire body, pink tongue hanging out the side of her mouth. Zeke wasn’t surprised. Mollie had always known how to encourage him, too, how to cheer him up like she had in the days following his broken engagement.

  Lilah wasn’t good enough for you. You deserve someone so much better.

  Mollie deserved the best, which would make finding the right guy for her a tall order. Not that plenty of guys wouldn’t be willing. Even though Mollie wasn
’t the type to waste time messing around with her hair or piling on makeup, she had a fresh-faced beauty. With her reddish curls, blue-green eyes and freckled skin, he’d always thought she was cute.

  He watched as Mollie tried to engage the dog in a game of fetch, but Charlie clearly had other ideas. Like playing keep-away by racing around the yard, prized ball clutched in her drooling jaws. The dog zigged every time Mollie zagged, and her laughter grabbed hold of something inside his chest.

  Cute? Hell, she was gorgeous.

  The late-afternoon sun brought out the blaze of golden highlights in her hair. Her royal blue Best Friends T-shirt showed off her toned arms and the thin material hugged her breasts. Her jeans were well-worn and faded, one of the back pockets partially torn off and flapping against a perfectly rounded backside. The tattered square seemed to taunt him to reach out and give a tug, and he didn’t think it was any latent OCD tendencies that had his palms sweating.

  Almost as if sensing the wayward direction of his thoughts, Charlie charged toward Zeke, grass churning beneath her paws, and launched straight at his midsection. He might have withstood the blow if Chief hadn’t wandered up behind him, close enough that the back of his knees connected with the dog’s sturdy body as he stumbled backward, upending him as easily as the stupid prank-playing jocks back in high school had.

  He landed flat on his back with a grunt, squinting up at the bright sky overhead. The fragrant grass was cool through the material of his T-shirt, but not cool enough to keep the heat of embarrassment from sinking into his skin.

  “And to think, I didn’t even have to train them to do that. Such natural talent!”

  “Very funny,” Zeke grumbled, glaring up at Mollie’s smiling face as she moved to block out the sun. Not that her smile was any less bright or less effective at warming the blood pumping through his veins.

  She held out a slender hand. Determined to regain control of his baffling desire, Zeke reached up, caught her by the wrist and pulled too hard...just like he would have done back when they were kids.

  Mollie lost her balance, her startled shriek cutting off with a soft “Umph,” as she tumbled down to the ground beside him. Charlie, thinking this was another new game, nosed her way in between them, bouncing the disgusting ball off Zeke’s forehead before trying to lick the two of them to death.

  Chuckling as he lay on the ground, it was like he was a kid again, running wild with Mollie, Patrick and Shadow, and all seemed right in his world once more. Mollie was still the ponytailed, tagalong kid he remembered, the one who always had been and always would be his friend.

  But then she sat up, shaking her hair back with a toss of her head as she leaned over him. Time jumped forward from one heartbeat to the next, and suddenly she was all woman. The smell of fresh-cut grass mingled with the wildflower scent of her skin, and Zeke’s body clenched in reaction.

  The hazy mist of nostalgia burned away under the unexpected blaze of lust, followed quickly by an equally scorching wave of guilt. Mollie wasn’t that little girl anymore. The dog dancing around them was Charlie, not Shadow, and Patrick was—

  Cutting off the thought, Zeke pushed to his feet. Charlie sat a few yards away, the ball at her feet, and if ever a canine could look smug, she did. “You’ve got your work cut out for you with that one,” he said, his tone sharper than he’d intended.

  Mollie frowned up at him as she slowly stood. She brushed at the blades of grass clinging to the back of her jeans, and Zeke had to force his gaze away. “It’s been too long since you’ve had a dog. You’ve forgotten how much energy a puppy has to burn.”

  “I haven’t forgotten.”

  Acting as though she hadn’t heard him, Mollie said, “I can think of a really easy way to remedy that.”

  They’d had this discussion plenty of times, and the familiarity of the argument helped settle his unease. “I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t understand why not. You know how much you loved Shadow.”

  “I did. She was the greatest. But you did the heavy lifting.” Mollie had been over at his parents’ house all of the time—willing to walk the dog, play fetch with her, keep her well groomed.

  “Taking care of someone you love is never work.”

  Zeke wasn’t sure why his eyes automatically went to the newly built stairs leading to Mollie’s back porch. That had been a lot of work, but he’d been more than willing to do it because...because...

  “It’s a responsibility,” he argued, not even realizing he’d said the words out loud until Mollie started talking again.

  “Owning any kind of pet is a responsibility.” She shot him a grin. “But you’ve always been a responsible guy.”

  He was a responsible guy, and by default, Mollie was his responsibility. Whether she liked it or not. He would never admit it, but a part of him was glad that Mollie had a stubborn tendency to resist his efforts. Any show of gratitude would only have added to his feelings of guilt—and Zeke already had plenty of that where the McFadden siblings were concerned.

  Years ago, Zeke had made his best friend a promise. Straight out of boot camp and ready for a tour that would take him overseas, Patrick McFadden had asked Zeke to look out for his little sister.

  Zeke had immediately agreed. He and Patrick had grown up as neighbors in an affluent, historic section of Spring Forest. Patrick had been the closest thing Zeke had to a brother. And just as Zeke and Patrick had always been best friends, meeting up after school, playing sports, exploring the woods around Spring Forest on the weekends, Mollie had always been the kid sister wanting to tag along. Looking out for her came as naturally as hanging out with Patrick.

  Both men knew Mollie had a big heart—maybe too big. She was always willing to think the best of people, to give anyone who asked a second, third, fourth chance. The last thing either of them wanted was for someone to take advantage of her giving, caring nature.

  With his friend answering the call of duty and willing to risk his life in service to his country, Zeke didn’t want Patrick to have to worry about his little sister back home. So Zeke had made his friend that promise.

  And then, two years ago, Mollie had shown up at his door, her bright eyes ravaged by tears, to tell him that Patrick was never coming home.

  His best friend was dead, and the promise Zeke had made—along with the reminder of Patrick’s final visit home—weighed on Zeke so heavily that the crushing pressure on his chest made it hard to breathe.

  He looked down, startled by the cold press of a nose against his hand followed by the familiar weight and warmth of a sturdy canine body leaning against his leg. Reaching down, he ran his palm over Charlie’s silky golden head, taking comfort in the easy, quiet companionship.

  “You need a new best friend.”

  His heart cramped a bit at the softly spoken words, and he looked up to find Mollie watching him, her gentle soul reflected in her blue-green eyes. Logic told him neither she nor the dog by his side could possibly know what he’d been thinking. But from his own experiences with Shadow and with the service dogs at the veterans’ support group where he volunteered, he knew how intuitive animals could be.

  And as for Mollie... Patrick was a tie that would always bind them together. Zeke didn’t need to tell her he was thinking about his friend. Not when Patrick was always there between the two of them.

  * * *

  The steps were perfect. The raw wood was sanded to a smooth finish awaiting the stain or paint of her choosing. Mollie had no doubt that each step and rise was strictly to code and not a single degree off.

  But that was Zeke. All straight lines and precise measurements. His massive toolbox lay open at the top of the stairs. Inside, each red plastic section held a specific size of nail, screw, nut or bolt. Everything properly labeled and carefully maintained, and nothing like her junk drawer, which held a random mishmash of items that may as well have escaped from the i
sland of lost tools.

  “You could have waited for me, you know. I would have liked to see how you figured out how to cut the stringers...just in case.”

  “It’s not that hard.”

  She held up a hand as Zeke went on about maximum riser height and tread depth, cutting him off by saying, “I get it. You’re brilliant.”

  And he was. Zeke was the smartest person she knew, and not just book smart. If there was anything he wanted to learn—and Zeke tended to want to learn everything—he could pick up a how-to book or watch a few online videos and know all there was to know about cutting stringers, building a fence or replacing a faucet.

  “You don’t have to worry.” He stomped a booted foot against the lowest tread. “Trust me, these suckers are solid. They aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Well, no. Not unless I tear them out again.”

  “Tear them out? Why would you do that?”

  “Because they’re too perfect!” The old steps, though lacking in structural integrity, had made up for their rough, splintered surfaces with character. They’d had knots and dents and a weathered finish that matched up with the rest of her house. “I’m going to have to replace the deck, the door, the back half of the house to try to get everything to look half as good as your steps.”

  Zeke only grinned. “Sounds like I have my work cut out for me the next few weekends.”

  “No, Zeke. You don’t. It’s my house. My responsibility.”

  For a brief second, a shadow seemed to cross over his handsome features before he offered her a confident smile. “Of course it is, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help out around here, does it? How else am I going to pay you back for all the delicious meals you make me?”