An incredibly appealing combination that made him want to haul her onto his lap and show her cynic. “True enough,” he agreed. “But it takes one to know one.”

She snorted and it was the craziest thing, but hell if he didn’t feel the tug of attraction for her all the way to his toes.

Yeah. Definitely dangerous territory.

“Wait here.” She slipped out of the truck and vanished inside the kennels. Twenty seconds later she was back with her insurance card. “Keep it, I have another.” She wrapped Abigail’s leash around her wrist and grabbed the box. “Thanks for the ride, stranger.” Then, with a flash of a smile, she sauntered off in those baggy Carhartts toward the kennels, looking for all the world like a princess going into her palace.

Three

L ilah Young forced herself to cross the yard and get all the way to the front door of the kennels before allowing herself to glance back at the truck.

He was still there: Brady Miller, pilot, photographer, kisser extraordinaire, slouched behind the wheel, hair still messed up from her fingers, watching her.

Letting out a low breath, she pressed a hand low to her abdomen. “Sweet baby Jesus,” she whispered.

“Quack,” Abigail said.

With a low laugh, Lilah opened the door and managed a smile at her business partner, Cruz Delgado. “I’m back. Again.”

Cruz’s perfectly toned hard body was still where it had been two minutes ago when she’d come running in-sprawled flat on his back in the center of their greeting room, with Lulu on top of him.

Lulu was a lamb that thought she was a puppy. She belonged to one of their clients who was out of town for a few days, and she sometimes needed a little extra TLC in the middle of her day. Okay, all of the time she needed a little extra TLC. Lulu was a ’ho for TLC. “How many times do I have to tell you,” Lilah said to the lamb. “Cruz is mine.”

From the floor, Cruz grinned, then pushed Lulu off of him and sat up. His silky dark hair fell into his face, but he shoved it back, flashing laughing melted-chocolate eyes Lilah’s way. “She was feeling lonely. We were playing tag. She won.” He rose to his feet, scooped Abigail up, and disappeared into the back. When he returned without the duck, he took the box from Lilah’s arms next and smiled down at the three sleeping babies. “They were good for you?”

“Not even close, the little heathens. Don’t get me started.”

Cruz looked out the window at the truck turning around in the front yard. “So where’s your Jeep?”

She didn’t really want to talk about it, not when she could still hear Brady’s truck’s motor, just the sound making her nipples hard. “The Jeep’s on Main. Don’t ask. Today’s crazy enough. We have a full house, and I have a message that there’s a new rescue at Belle Haven.”

She and Cruz had rotating shifts that allowed the kennel to be open for enough hours in the day to be effective. They traded off between two shifts-six A.M. to two P.M., and noon to eight P.M.-with part-time help from high school kids on the weekends and as needed.

Lilah typically took the early shift because Cruz didn’t do early. But he had a gig tonight in Coeur d’ Alene, where he moonlighted as a bass guitarist in a cover rock band, so he’d come in at six o’clock.

Along with the kennels, Lilah was the go-to person in town when there was an abandoned animal. There was no official humane society in the area, so if an animal needed temporary shelter, she was it. This came mostly from her inability to bear seeing anything suffer and the fact that she got far too attached to every animal she met. The rescue part of the business was extremely nonprofit and depended on grants and donations, so Lilah-along with Cruz-worked hard to keep the kennels afloat.

Their only source of income. A typical workday began at the crack of dawn with the day’s client files spread out in front of her. She reviewed all the pets coming in or going out and decided where they would be kept. The facility had several sections: the outside pens, the inside pens, and the inside playroom, where the friendly, well-adjusted animals could hang out together under careful supervision. The not-so-friendly and grumpy older clients, were separated out from the pack and dealt with individually. It was usually those animals that claimed Lilah’s heart the fastest.

Part of the morning’s record-keeping process always involved reviewing any other important events such as vet appointments, client visits, and employee notes. In today’s case, there’d been an abandoned dog dumped off at Belle Haven, the veterinary center a half mile down the road.

Belle Haven was run by her two closest friends, Adam and Dell. They were holding the dog for her. She’d pick him up and care for him until she placed him in a foster home. But first she looked herself over. “I got up too late to grab a shower. I’m going to go take a quick one now before I head to Belle Haven.”

“Need me to soap your back?”

She slid Cruz a long look. “Been there, done that, remember?”

“I remember it was good.”

“Uh-huh.” They’d dated for approximately two weeks several years back, until they’d realized they were far more suited for this, for a friendship. “Except for the part where we drove each other crazy,” she reminded him.

“Yeah.” He blew out a sigh. “Maybe you could work on not driving me crazy.”

She laughed. Living in a small town had made it hard for her to find a guy she meshed with. There weren’t all that many to choose from in the first place, and the few that there were, she’d known a long time. Forever.

She loved Cruz, but they were day and night when it came right down to it. And the biggie: she wasn’t in love with him, and she never would be.

Ditto for him. He liked to be the center of a woman’s universe, and she had too many things in her orbit to give herself wholly. Luckily, they’d both survived the attempt, and so had their business. “Let me guess-Marie dumped your sorry ass again?”

He shrugged. “Little bit, yeah.”

Lulu bumped her head into Lilah’s thighs until Lilah bent and stroked the lamb’s ears. “What did you do this time?”

He sighed. “I forgot our anniversary.”

“What anniversary? You’ve only been dating a few months.”

“Not that kind of anniversary.” When he waggled a brow, she rolled her eyes.

“TMI. And just make it up to her. I’m sure you can figure out how.”

He was thinking about that when Lilah headed out. She lived in a small cabin next door, and when she slipped inside the small cozy place, she sighed. It was neat and clean and warm, and unlike just about everything else in her life, all hers.

But.

But even with the three years that had gone by, it was still too quiet without her grandma’s cheerful voice.

“Mew.”

Lilah looked down at the three-legged black cat winding her way around her ankles. There were rescues coming in and out of her life, waiting patiently for the right home, but Sadie was her favorite. Lilah knew that wasn’t fair, but tell that to her heart. Twice she could have placed Sadie with a foster home, but she hadn’t been able to do it.

Whenever there was even a hint of an animal being fragile, she had a hard time letting it go to an adoptive family. And though Sadie wasn’t fragile, she was special.

Okay, so the truth was, they were all special to her. She couldn’t help it, she just couldn’t make herself abandon anything, ever. After all, she knew what that felt like.

“Mew,” Sadie said, bumping her little head to Lilah’s calf.

Lilah scooped her up and nuzzled her close.

Sadie was deceptively small, and it made her look like a kitten even though she was full grown. The mistake was in thinking that she had a kitten’s temperament. She didn’t. She was ornery as hell.