Flirting with Love

by Melissa Foster

  One kiss will tell me if this is real or not. I know it will.

  She couldn’t bring herself to lean a little closer and press her lips to his. Making that move still seemed a little too close to her mother’s behavior. She could wait, even if her body was revved up like an electric beater on high speed. Couldn’t she?

  She moved to get her mind off of his lips. He kept hold of her hand as he closed the door. The silence was deafening. Maybe she should lean closer to him, give him a hint she was interested. Hadn’t they both been hinting all night? Oh God. This was torture. She needed to get her mind off of kissing him.

  “Do you think I could borrow your dogs tomorrow when I go to the dog park?” Leaves rustled in the trees, and she tried to concentrate on that instead of on how much she liked holding his hand.

  “Borrow my dogs? They’re not cups of sugar.”

  She smiled at his answer. “I know. I just figured that they would enjoy playing with other dogs while I was there, and it would give me pups to play with while I was meeting people.”

  “Ah, like candy for children?” He walked beside her up the porch steps.

  “No. Maybe sort of, but I love playing with dogs.”

  “Which begs the question, why don’t you have one?”

  She tried to formulate a coherent answer, but her words came out stilted and breathless. “Time. I only have so much. One day...” I’m making no sense.

  He was silent as he walked her to the door, and his eyes filled with serious contemplation, making her even more nervous. She fumbled with the keys. Ross leaned a hip against the house and watched her with an easy gaze.

  “You’re nervous.” His eyes never left her.

  “A little,” she admitted.

  “No need. No expectations, remember? I’m just being a good neighbor.” He pushed from the wall, and a rush of heat filled the space between them.

  A good neighbor? A good neighbor lets you borrow sugar. They don’t turn your insides all fluttery and stand there looking badass and sensitive at the same time, which, by the way, is totally unfair.

  He took the keys from her and unlocked the door, then pushed it open.

  “You can take the boys to the park if you want to, but they’re a handful, so don’t feel like you have to take all three.”

  “I have big hands.”

  His eyes went nearly black, and his mouth lifted into a grin, tipping off Elisabeth to what she’d implied. Oh Lord. He stood in the doorway with her keys in one hand and his sultry eyes locked on her. When he leaned in close, she was ready for a kiss. So damn ready she couldn’t breathe. She closed her eyes and he pressed his lips to her cheek; then she felt the keys in her palm and his hand curling her fingers around them. She opened her eyes and he was looking at her with a wanton look in his eyes.

  What. The. Hell?

  “G’night, Lissa.”

  Lissa. It was the nickname her aunt Cora had given her. No one else had ever used it, and she loved hearing it come from Ross’s lips almost as much as she liked the feel of his lips against her cheek.

  And now he was leaving. As her brain screamed, Don’t let him go! Run to the truck, grab him by the collar, and kiss the hell out of him, she envisioned her mother lusting after some wealthy man. She forced away the thought, but the desire lingered.

  And sizzled all the way to her toes.

  Chapter Seven

  WHEN THE PROGRAM director had first approached Ross about joining the service-dog training program six years earlier, he’d been skeptical about handing eight-week-old puppies to convicts. At the time, he hadn’t had any experience working with convicted felons, and his love of animals outweighed any love he’d known other than the love he had for his family. But he’d heard about other prison systems with similar programs, and the dogs and inmates seemed to establish bonds just as well as people outside of the gated walls did. The program itself was providing a valuable service, and the dogs were well cared for. He’d given it a shot. It was Tuesday, and as he parked at Denton Prison, he thought about the program. In the years since he began working with it, he’d seen the hardest of men soften and love the dogs so deeply it made his throat swell to think he’d almost nixed the idea completely. Ross wasn’t a risk taker in general, but he’d taken a chance by getting involved in the Pup Partners program, and it was one of the most rewarding programs he’d ever taken part in. He’d been taking risks in his personal life lately, too.

  Ross had spent his life avoiding gossip like the plague, but he couldn’t put distance between himself and Elisabeth. He’d tried to remain purely platonic at dinner at his mother’s house, but he was drawn to Elisabeth like cats to catnip—and boy, did he want to devour her. He nearly did when they’d said good night, but he’d somehow managed to fight the urge. He sensed that once he gave in, that was going to be it. Every time he saw her, his stomach did weird things, and she aroused the hell out of him with the slightest of touches. What would it be like when their lips actually met? When his hands explored the curvy plains of her body?

  Fuck.

  He was hard again.

  He knew it was a bad idea to date a woman who was already the focus of so much gossip, but it was getting more and more difficult to keep his desires to himself. He didn’t need to get tangled up in the shitty Trusty grapevine. Even knowing this didn’t dissuade his body from craving her and his mind from returning to her.

  He flicked on rock music, which he hated, and drew upon the women who were sure to erase any sexual thoughts from his mind. Rosie O’Donnell. Barbara Walters. Hillary Clinton. The training session would be a good distraction from his thoughts of Elisabeth. A few deep breaths later he was ready to handle the dog training without an embarrassing hard-on.

  The waiting list for the program was more than five hundred prisoners long, and there were strict guidelines they had to meet in order to be accepted into the program, the most important of which were no history of a sex-related crime and no history of abuse or cruelty to animals. There were other guidelines, of course, such as maturity and education level, term of incarceration, and prisoners must not have had an infraction within ninety days of being accepted into the program, and of course, during the program. Ross was comfortable with the guidelines as a means for weeding out the candidates who would not put the dog’s needs ahead of their own, and the fact that prisoners were selected by a committee usually helped ease his mind, but every now and then a prisoner—in the program, they were referred to as handlers because they handled and trained the dogs—would come through that worried Ross. Trout Granger was one of those handlers, and Storm was the dog he trained. Because of that, Ross had chosen Storm as his weekend charge. This allowed him to monitor Storm’s progress and watch for signs of trouble. So far, he had no reason to be concerned.

  Trout hulked over the six-month-old black Lab. At six five and three hundred pounds, Trout looked like the killer he was—or had been. Ross wasn’t sure how to define the inmates after they’d been in the system as long as Trout. Timothy Michael Granger, aka Trout, had been just eighteen years old when he was arrested for cutting his mother’s ex-boyfriend’s throat—ten years after the man had killed his mother. He’d called the police from the man’s apartment and waited for the police to arrive ten minutes after committing the crime. He’d served fifteen years of a life sentence. Trout had graduated as his high school’s valedictorian even after being in the foster system for ten years. At the time of the murder, he’d had a scholarship for a full ride to college, and the day after he turned eighteen, he threw it all away. Trout wasn’t from Trusty, but his academic background was similar to Ross’s until the day he killed a man. Ross’s love and loyalty to his family was all-consuming, but he knew he didn’t have it in him to kill another human being, and he wondered what had made Trout cross that line and why he’d waited ten years to do it.

  At six three, two hundred ten pounds, with a body sculpted by good genetics and exercise, Ross had a strong presence, but he had no doubt t
he man standing before him could snap his neck in a hot second—and maybe never think about him again.

  Storm sat at Trout’s feet, wearing his red SERVICE DOG IN TRAINING, DO NOT PET vest. Ross was always impressed when the handlers began their training in the correct position with their dog. Storm was doing well. Last week he’d been antsy and had a hard time settling down. Progress.

  “Any problems to report?” Ross asked.

  Trout’s jaw swished from side to side. His deadpan stare didn’t change, and he didn’t make a sound. Ross knew from their previous interactions that Trout was a man of very few words, and those words were only the necessary words for training Storm: heel, settle, leave it, good boy, free dog. That’s as far as they’d gotten. Ross watched for the shake or nod of Trout’s Frankenstein-sized bald head, upon which the words Honor Thy Mother were tattooed in black. They went nicely with his colorful tattoo sleeves. Like a hat might top off an outfit.

  Trout shook his head.

  “Good. He’s eating okay? Sleeping in his crate?” Ross eyed Storm, who was looking up at Trout with the trust and adoration of a child to a father. Ross said a silent prayer that Trout would never lose his temper with Storm, though he hadn’t seen even a flash of emotion one way or another from him. In fact, the guards said he rarely spoke to anyone.

  One curt nod; then he eyed the dog, and that shift in his gaze gave Ross pause.

  “Sleeping trouble?”

  He looked down at Storm. “Stay.” Trout’s commands were delivered in a low voice, barely audible from across the room. That same voice used in combination with the deadpan stare would surely send any man running for the hills. But Trout had found his pitch with Storm, who obediently followed every command.

  He stepped closer to Ross—a wall of muscle and silence.

  “What is it, Trout?” Trout wore the standard gray uniform—a pullover shirt and matching pants—and smelled of industrial soap and sweat, not exactly a pleasant combination.

  Trout leaned down closer to Ross and spoke softly, as if he didn’t want Storm to hear him. “Storm had trouble sleeping last night.”

  He had a gravelly, deep voice, thick with concern at the moment. His grave concern meant that Trout had connected with Storm on an emotional level, which was one of the goals of the program. Ross was surprised to hear something from Trout other than the few words they used in training, and the worry in his normally ice-cold eyes softened Ross’s view of him.

  “That happens. Was he sick? How’s he been acting today?” He moved to the side and eyed Storm, whose eyes were bright. Storm cocked his head and panted.

  “Fine today. Fine yesterday. He whined and cried, and I tried covering the crate and talking to him.”

  “And?”

  “And.” He looked around at the empty room, then turned back to Ross. “The other inmates were bitching, so I crawled into the crate and put an arm over him.”

  “You crawled into the crate? You fit in the crate?”

  Trout cracked a crooked smile, and dimples appeared in his cheeks, taking his hulking-monster image down a notch, to that of a gentle giant. A murdering giant. This was the first real emotion he’d seen from Trout. It struck Ross that the man he’d been most concerned about might turn out to be the most compassionate.

  “Shoulders, chest. What should I have done, Doc? I couldn’t just let him cry with all the other guys hollering like they were.” Trout stayed in a special wing of the prison, where only prisoners with dogs were allowed.

  “That’s a good question. We’ve had handlers who have done what you did, but it’s rare, and we don’t encourage it, because the dogs have to learn to self-soothe. You tried covering the crate, and that didn’t work?”

  Trout shook his head real slow. “He was sad, I think.”

  “Sad?”

  Trout nodded. “Sad.”

  He wasn’t about to argue with the three-hundred-pound man. “I’d like to check him out and make sure he’s okay; then why don’t you see how he does tonight? Expect him to do well. Do whatever you normally do. If you’re still having trouble, we can figure it out. But it might have just been a onetime thing.”

  “I don’t mind lyin’ with him. Is that allowed?”

  After the first few weeks, dogs didn’t typically have issues at night. Technically, the inmates were allowed to lie with the dogs in the program, but Ross didn’t want to promote anything that would hinder the love for Storm’s crate that Storm needed to adhere to in order to pass the program. Then again, Trout was talking, and that was a different type of progress.

  “I’m worried about the size of the crate, Trout. You could crush him if you roll over onto him.”

  Trout narrowed his eyes and nodded. “I won’t.”

  “Let’s play it by ear. If it happens tonight, try talking to him. And if you have to, put just your hand in the crate. Okay?”

  “Sure, Doc. That’s a good idea.”

  They completed the training for the day, and Ross met with Walt Norton, the prison program director for Pup Partners, before he left. He let him know what was going on with Trout and Storm and asked him to keep an eye on them. Walt was in his midsixties with hollow cheeks and deep-set dark eyes, giving him a serious look, even when he smiled.

  “I’ll keep an eye on them. The program is making a difference for Trout. He’s no longer sitting by himself in the cafeteria. He’s sitting with other inmates, and he’s answering questions instead of grunting. An inmate asked him why he was sitting with them, and the guard heard him tell the guy that it was good for the dog.”

  A vital part of the dogs’ training was that they remained with their handler around the clock. They learned how to sit without begging when their handlers ate and how to react to other people and dogs, just as they would be expected to behave outside of the prison.

  Walt shook his head. “Good for the dog. He’s a stone-cold killer. Hasn’t done more than grunt or nod since he arrived fifteen years ago, and a dog pulls him out of his shell. Go figure.”

  On the way back to Trusty, Ross thought about Trout. Not for the first time, he wondered if Trout had adapted to prison by remaining silent as purely a survival technique, or if he was a relatively silent man before his incarceration. He’d tried talking to Trout when he’d first entered the program, but it was apparent after the first three questions that he wasn’t going to get far. Ross knew the power of a pet’s love could change a person, and he was glad to see that Trout wasn’t too far gone to feel an inkling of compassion.

  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.
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br />   “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.