Hot Under the Collar

by Roxanne St Claire

  For once? Acting like she didn’t like him was the real challenge.

  Sam Smith crooned a high note as Cassie slid her hands up Braden’s shoulders, taking it slow like this charade called for, but it was a nice excuse to appreciate each cut and dip and bulgy bicep she’d been eyeing in the months since they’d met.

  “Little closer, cuz.” He splayed his big hands over her back, adding just enough pressure that there wasn’t a molecule of air between them.

  “So she buys it?”

  “Yeah.” The word was gruff, low, and almost lost to the music.

  As he turned her a half step, Cassie peeked at the bar and locked gazes with one very interested Simone London.

  “Oh, she’s buying,” Cassie assured him.

  “Really?” He pressed his lips to her hair, the contact zinging through her.

  “Very realistic,” she whispered. So was the knot of need forming low in her belly. Too realistic.

  He looked down at her, doing his part by slaying her with a slow, bedroom-quality smile. “Think she believes we’re a thing?” he asked, swaying with far more grace than he ever showed when attempting the sirtaki.

  “Maybe.” They turned, and she got another look, noticing that Simone’s eyes had tapered to an intense stare, and she’d stopped talking to her friends. “On a scale of doesn’t-give-a-crap to ready-to-flip-her-stiletto-at-me? I’d say she’s a definite six.”

  He threaded his fingers into her hair, nearly making her collapse at the knees. “Gotta raise the stakes.” Their hips brushed, pressed, and electrified them both for one long moment.

  Oh. Something was about to raise, and it wasn’t just the stakes.

  “Brace yourself, cuz,” he whispered the words as his mouth came down on hers, searing her lips. She sucked in a surprised breath, but then they both stopped moving completely as he angled his head to deepen the kiss.

  Heat crawled up her chest and down her back and all the way out to the fingertips that clung to him. His mouth moved against hers, sweet and insistent, with the beat of the music and her pounding heart. Large, strong hands covered her back to cradle her closer, making her feel safe and terrified and a little like she was floating on air.

  Whoa. This definitely felt…real. Or was it?

  She peeked out from under one partially closed lid to see Simone staring hard at them.

  “I think it’s working,” she murmured into his mouth. Something was working. Like all her nerve endings and a few she hadn’t even known she had.

  He added some pressure and slid his hands a little lower, resting them in the curve of her lower back, his long fingers grazing the pockets of her jeans.

  “I think we better try…harder.” He kissed her again, this time letting their tongues touch and tangle. Their hearts hammered against each other, and somehow, every single person in the bar seemed to disappear except for Braden.

  Suddenly, the music scratched to a stop, then shifted gears into a fast beat, leaving them frozen and shell-shocked and speechless.

  Cassie managed to inch back, swallowing against a desert-dry mouth and her pounding pulse. As she caught her breath, she saw Braden look right at the bar.

  Slowly, like she was moving through molasses, Cassie followed his gaze, which landed on one empty barstool.

  “Sorry, Romeo,” Cassie said. “Not exactly what you wanted.”

  He turned, locking eyes with her. That smolder was still evident, the blue irises dark and direct as he stared at her. “Oh, it was exactly what I wanted.”

  The kiss or the disappearing ex?

  He let go of her and swiped his lower lip with his knuckle, holding her gaze one beat too long. “I better walk you home before the Doublemint Twins come after me with a rolling pin and a spreadsheet.”

  She wanted to laugh at the perfect description of her brothers, but she needed all her focus to walk with curled toes, weak knees, and a low-grade boil of need in her blood. Braden, on the other hand, seemed unfazed by what just happened on the dance floor.

  In fact, he was perfectly normal as he took her to her apartment and gave a very cousin-like and playful salute when he said goodbye.

  It wasn’t until she was inside, alone and behind a locked door, that Cassie finally let out a groan of complete frustration and despair. She could not crush on Braden. Except she was. Hard.

  Well, the crush would die a natural death. When she got into her car, kissed small-town America goodbye, and got a high-rise and a big job.

  Hey, a girl could dream.

  She headed off to bed, where she probably wasn’t going to dream of apartments and a new career. No. Her dreams would be built like a towering inferno and kissed like sin on a stick.

  Chapter Two

  There could be only one reason Uncle Daniel would ask Braden to come over to Waterford Farm on a Friday morning.

  He knows about that kiss.

  As Braden’s truck rolled down the long drive, he peered into the late afternoon sunshine pouring over the expanse of lawns and dog pens that made up the canine rescue and training center his uncle ran with all his cousins.

  Surely Braden wasn’t going to get taken to task for a quick peck on the dance floor?

  Okay, not exactly a peck. That kiss with Cassie was incendiary, unforgettable, and sent him straight to a twenty-minute cold shower when he got home. Which was exactly what he’d known it would be and why he’d had to use that lame Simone excuse to experience it.

  He couldn’t have cared less about making his ex jealous. If anything, she needed to know that her semiregular “accidental” appearances in his life were getting annoying. Why did she bother?

  She wanted something he could never give her, and he hoped she found it with the actuary. But Cassie…with that smart mouth and sweet laugh and a body like she was a real-life Greek goddess? Oh, Cassie Santorini pushed every button he had, and Wednesday night…he just got sick of not kissing her.

  But he couldn’t let that happen again. If they got that close too often, he’d be right back in the same boat he’d been in with Simone, only way worse because…well, because Cassie. From the minute he’d met Cassie a few months ago, he had a weakness for her that constantly tested him.

  And at Bushrod’s the other night, he damn near failed that test. As sweet and sexy as that defeat had been, it wouldn’t happen again. Because Cassie could never be casual, and Braden could and would do only casual for as long as he was a firefighter, which would be for as long as he could stand, run, and carry the line.

  Would he have to explain that to his uncle? God, he hoped not.

  But as he parked the truck behind the bright yellow Waterford Jeep, another thought slowed his hand as he shut off the engine. This was the Dogfather. Steer him away from Cassie? Hah. He might have exactly the opposite in mind. Another marriage in the family.

  Oh, no, Uncle Daniel. Take the matchmaking games to the other Mahoney kids. The only permanent partner Braden wanted had four legs, gray fur, and a tongue that hung out when he was happy. Jelly Bean was Braden’s partner in life and, if everything went according to plan, his partner in work.

  Because Braden’s plan was to expand his role at the fire station to handler of a trained Accelerant Detection Canine, or arson dog. He’d finally found the perfect one-year-old Weimaraner online and had driven five hours to a shelter in Atlanta to pick up Jelly Bean. He’d had the dog by his side for more than a year now.

  During that time, Jelly Bean had been through every level of obedience training, and this past month, he started the final phase: accelerant scent detection. Once he nailed that, they could get certified by the ATF and start working all over the tricounty area. Getting that certification was all that mattered to Braden, and his uncle knew it, and knew why.

  Because, for Braden, it was one thing to fight a fire, which he could do along with the best of them. But that wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

  Since he was thirteen years old and the fire chief knocked on their door at three
in the morning and told them Dad wouldn’t ever be coming home from his shift, Braden swore he wouldn’t just fight fires, he’d use the brains he’d been given to stop them. And the way to stop something was to figure out how it happened in the first place. That’s where Jelly Bean came in.

  He pushed open the truck door and climbed out, scanning the pens where a number of dogs were in the middle of distraction training. Of course, Jelly Bean wouldn’t be there, unless he was showing the rookies how it was done.

  He spotted his uncle almost immediately, leaning against the fence, deep in conversation with Braden’s cousin Liam, the oldest of the six Kilcannon kids. Well, guess it was seven now that Nick Santorini—and his entire Greek family, including one sizzling little sister—appeared on the scene.

  Daniel and Liam turned as he approached, waving him over and sharing one more bit of conversation before Braden was in earshot. They looked serious for a moment, then Uncle Daniel broke into a wide smile and gave Braden a bear hug and a slap on the back.

  “There he is,” he said, his blue eyes twinkling more than they had for years. Of course, Nick’s arrival in the family came with Nick’s mother…who was now a permanent fixture in his uncle’s life. And honestly, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer or more deserving guy.

  “Hey, Uncle Daniel.” Braden greeted him easily and nodded to Liam, who wasn’t much of a hugger. He wasn’t much of a smiler, either, but his dark eyes looked particularly serious today. “S’up, Liam?”

  “Oh, you know. Dogs.”

  Braden chuckled at the simple, no-nonsense answer he’d expect from his older cousin. Sure, marriage and fatherhood had loosened up the former Marine who ran the law enforcement K-9 division of Waterford, but it would never make him talkative.

  That, among many other reasons, made Liam one of his favorite cousins, though Braden was closer in age and interests to Aidan, and the two of them with their rhyming names had always been tight. But where K-9s were concerned, Liam knew his stuff, and he’d been instrumental in guiding Braden—and Jelly Bean—toward success.

  “Tough day in training?” Braden asked, expecting another shrug and single-syllable answer in response.

  “Actually, it’s been a very difficult day. That’s why we wanted to talk to you.” It wasn’t the length of Liam’s reply that surprised him, it was the tone.

  “Is Jelly Bean okay?” he asked, looking from one man to the other for a clue.

  “He’s fine,” Uncle Daniel assured him. “But let’s go get him and have a talk.”

  He did not like the sound of that. “Sure.”

  He followed the other two men into the kennels, a large, bright building that reflected the care and quality that the entire Kilcannon family had put into Waterford Farm when they built the facility. Braden and his brothers and sister had helped a lot in the early days, but now Waterford ran like a Swiss watch, with a constant stream of trainees and rescues and a growing array of programs, like service dog training and Liam’s highly regarded K-9 program.

  “He tried valiantly today,” Liam said as they rounded the corner of the kennel where the K-9s were housed during training sessions.

  Tried? Jelly Bean never “tried” anything. He mastered. His intelligence and willingness to please had been evident from the first. But Braden stayed quiet, waiting for more of an explanation.

  Liam’s section of the kennel reflected his personality—clean and streamlined, organized and purposeful. The only “art” was an illustration of the Marine bulldog mascot with the words USMC Teufel Hunden, meaning Devil Dog, like the tattoo on Liam’s shoulder. In the kennels, most of his trainees, almost all German shepherds and Belgian Malinois, stood at attention at the sight of him.

  Behind the last gate, Jelly Bean did the same, although his green eyes flashed when Braden came into view. He tilted his head in silent greeting, and his tongue curled out of his lips as it always did when he was trying to be good but really just wanted to slather Braden with kisses. But affection might be a sign of weakness, and Jelly Bean rarely showed that.

  “Hey, JB,” Braden muttered, coming close to the kennel and waiting for Liam to unlatch it.

  When he did, Jelly Bean glanced at Liam first, waiting for a signal to go forward. Being the super dog he was, Jelly Bean knew that at Waterford Liam was the leader of the pack. Liam nodded and snapped his fingers, as Braden had learned to do in handler training sessions, and immediately Jelly Bean came closer for a nuzzle.

  Braden ran his hands over Jelly Bean’s soft, sleek, mouse-gray coat. Taking one floppy ear in his hand, Braden flipped it between his fingers, and instantly Jelly Bean dropped to a soldier-like at ease, head up, tongue out.

  “You’re a good dog.” Braden leaned over to deliver the assurance right to his face, then he straightened and looked from his cousin to his uncle. “Isn’t he?”

  “He is a very good dog.” Uncle Daniel put his hand on Braden’s shoulder, the two of them eye to eye at a matching six two. “And I know you’ve worked tirelessly to get him ready for the final stage of training with the ATF. I know that being a handler for an arson dog and using your keen intelligence—and his—to not only fight but also figure out fires means the world to you, and that dream should never die until you realize it.”

  His stomach churned at the speech. “What’s the ‘but,’ Uncle Daniel?”

  “I don’t believe Jelly Bean is going to qualify for that training.”

  Braden drew back at the gut-punch of disbelief. “What?”

  “I’ve seen this before,” Liam said. “He’s a rescue, so we don’t know what he was exposed to in the first year of his life, but someone might have tried to train him in scent detection and done it wrong.”

  “How?” Braden asked.

  “If a dog’s been trained and rewarded for more than one scent, there’s room for error.” Liam reached down to give Jelly Bean a stroke on the head, as if he knew his news might hurt the dog’s feelings. “And now, he sometimes seems to identify multiple scents, barking at various tests we have in the field. He’s successfully identified marijuana, explosives, some people, and accelerants.”

  “And that can’t be trained out of him?”

  “Possibly,” Liam said. “He certainly has the intelligence for that kind of retraining, but…” Liam looked at his father as if he needed backup, and Daniel stepped forward.

  “It might not be a training or intelligence issue,” his uncle said. “If it wasn’t poor training in his past, then there’s a possible defect in his olfactory system. That means he might not have the ability to discern one scent from another, which, obviously, an expert scent-detection dog would need.”

  Disappointment squeezed as Braden tried to process this news, but couldn’t. “He smells treats from a mile away,” he said. “He can smell when I’ve been around another dog and sniffs like hell when you take him out in the world.”

  Uncle Daniel nodded in understanding. “He can smell, Braden, no question about that. But he may not be able to differentiate specific smells. Which could be a problem you might be able to fix with very extensive and specific training, or it could be a physical problem that will never change. You just don’t know until you try.”

  “Okay, then we’ll try,” Braden said. “I’ll do whatever it takes to fix it. What’s involved with the training? When can we start it?”

  Liam shook his head. “It’s a complex and long-term undertaking and not one we’re equipped to do here at Waterford either in terms of staff or space or even know-how,” he said. “I know of two places in the state that specialize in accelerant training specifically for arson investigation and might be able to work with a special case like Jelly Bean.”

  Special case? The words sliced him. It was like they were talking about another dog, not this superstar. “And if I don’t do that, he can’t qualify for the ATF certification?” Braden asked.

  His uncle let out a slow breath. “We have to sign an affidavit that confirms our professional opinion that h
e is ready for the final certification, because they won’t even take him in for testing without that. I can’t sign that for Jelly Bean.”

  Braden closed his eyes at that, rooting around for any other option. “Is there any chance you’re wrong, Uncle Daniel? That it’s not a training or a systemic problem? Is there a third option?”

  “There is the slightest chance that he has a temporary condition, similar to a cold or virus in a human. In my professional opinion as a vet, that’s not the case with Jelly Bean, but I have been known to be wrong.”

  Rarely.

  Braden felt his shoulders drop as it all settled on him. To start over with another dog would be a huge setback for him personally, since he’d trained so hard to be Jelly Bean’s handler. Not to mention that he loved the dog with every cell in his body. Enough that…

  “What’s the special training cost?”

  Liam swallowed. “Ten thousand at a minimum.”

  Braden swore softly. Of course, that was why Accelerant Detection Canine units were rare and nearly unheard of at a fire department the size of Bitter Bark’s. But Waterford had done all this training gratis with the firm belief they’d be handing Braden, and the fire department, a dog ready for certification.

  Next to him, Jelly Bean sat down again and tipped his head back to stare at Braden, patiently waiting for his next command.

  But he couldn’t command the dog to distinguish smells.

  All he could do was let out a heartfelt sigh, which made Uncle Daniel place a firm but always loving hand on Braden’s shoulder. “We can work with you to find another dog. It might take a while, but—”

  Braden shook his head, silencing his uncle. “Don’t. He understands.”

  He loved his uncle for nodding and not even questioning that. “You think about what you want to do. Jelly Bean’s been through every stage of training. He could easily become a different kind of working dog.”

  “I could teach him almost anything but scent detection,” Liam said. “The dog’s a freaking genius who understands more words than my seven-year-old son. That’s why I was so stymied when he made so many mistakes in the training. He wants to get it right. You show him a reward once, maybe twice, and he’ll work like hell for it, but…”