Author: Bella Andre

She suspected the reason had to do with the fact that the early part of his own life hadn’t been at all carefree. Clearly, he thrived on being around a puppy’s untamed wildness.

It was a warm day out and she pulled her long hair up from her neck into a ponytail as she grabbed her training bag and headed out to her car. Atlas bounded into the backseat, immediately sticking his head out of the window in anticipation of wind in his fur, his tongue flying free.

Ten minutes later, Heather pulled up outside Sullivan Autos and slipped on Atlas’s leash. She could see a half dozen men onsite and even though her dog was worlds better around men than he had been when she’d first taken him home four years ago, she was concerned that so many big men in one place might overwhelm him. She wasn’t surprised when he stuck close to her, the stiffness of his ears and tail a telltale sign that he wasn’t entirely relaxed.

“Everything’s fine,” she soothed him, rubbing gently between his ears. “We’re just going to play with a puppy, remember?” His tongue plopped out at that happy news and she grinned in response. “That’s right, we’ve got nothing to worry about at—”

“Where the hell is that damned puppy!”

Chapter Two

The frustrated roar split apart the otherwise normal sounds of the sprawling auto garage and both Heather and Atlas went on red alert. She immediately began to scope out the hiding places a puppy would be likely to go in a place like this...especially if it were afraid of its new owner.

Her Great Dane tugged her toward a hedge at the edge of the parking lot and she followed his lead. If anyone could find a lost and helpless little one, it was Atlas. He stopped in front of a thick hedge on the edge of the parking lot, sniffed at the bush, then whimpered and pawed at the dirt.

Heather dropped his leash to get down on her hands and knees to peer inside. Ah yes, she could see black-brown fur between the leaves and branches.

“Hey there, cutie,” she crooned softly. “Want to come out and meet a friend I’ve brought to play with you?”

Unfortunately, just then, the man yelled again. “You’d better get your furry little butt back here!”

Of course the puppy didn’t come any closer. And why would it, if all it had to look forward to was more yelling, or maybe even worse?

Hoping she wasn’t going to end up with fierce little teeth clamped around her hand or ankle, she started to push in through the branches. The sharp tips scratched at the bare skin of her legs in her shorts, but she was too intent on the puppy to pay much attention to the cuts and scrapes.

A large branch snagged on her long-sleeved T-shirt and she realized she couldn’t go any further. Breaking through a few of the branches, she finally managed to squat so that she could get down on the puppy’s level. Reaching into her pocket, she prayed she had a small crumble of a treat left over from the last time she’d worn these shorts.

Giving thanks that she hadn’t actually remembered to do the wash last night, she pulled out a small piece of sausage.

“Mmm. Doesn’t this smell yummy?”

She’d thought the puppy was trembling in the bushes, but now that she was closer, she realized it wasn’t scared.

It was playing.

And, clearly, the way its whole body was vibrating with glee, the puppy thought her little predicament of being stuck in the bushes with it was hilarious.

Despite her jammed-in position between a bunch of sword-sharp sticks and branches, she had to agree that it kind of was.

Knowing at this point that it was a matter of waiting for the little guy or girl to get tired of the game, she sat back on her heels and looked up through the branches and leaves. The clouds slowly changed shape above her in the blue sky. Huddled in a bush might not be the standard place in the world for a breather from her often hectic workday, but she found she was glad for a moment’s respite.

Unfortunately, she could still hear the owner yelling for the dog and vowed to deal with him appropriately once she had the puppy.

“I wouldn’t want to come out either, if I were you,” she told the puppy in a soft voice. “But don’t worry, Atlas and I won’t let anything happen to you.”

She ran a training business, not a rescue, but if she found that an owner and a dog weren’t compatible, she did any and everything she could to take care of the dog.

“Doing okay out there, big guy?” she asked Atlas.

She heard the loud thump of his tail on the pavement in response.

“Quite the little adventure Agnes sent us on, isn’t it?”

Which didn’t make sense. How could the man who was yelling and cursing at the puppy be a close friend of a lovely woman like Agnes? Having seen the woman interact with the dog she adored, Heather had thought her training client was more perceptive than that.

Suddenly, a wet tongue pressed into Heather’s palm and she looked down to see the puppy trying to climb onto her lap as it munched on the treat.

“Well, hello there,” she said to the very cute Yorkie.

Gently, she laid one hand on the puppy’s back and a happy sound came from its throat as it tried to burrow closer to her fingertips. Heather spent a few moments massaging the incredibly soft fur, but with the owner still yelling for his dog, she knew they couldn’t stay in here forever.

“How about we go find you a nice full water bowl?” And a much nicer owner, too, while we’re at it.

She cradled the dog in her arms to shield it from the branches and slowly began the backward procession out of the brambles. She laughed as the puppy licked her chin, even though the scrapes on her legs were going deeper on the way out than they had when she’d dived into the bush.

Heather was still in the process of awkwardly crawling out of the dirt on her hands and knees while holding on to the wriggling puppy, when she heard footsteps behind her, along with the renewed thumping of Atlas’s tail.

Turning her head as far as she could to try and look over her shoulder, she spotted a pair of large brown boots on the pavement beside her dog.

“Did you find the little bugger?”

Gritting her teeth, she replied, “If you’re talking about the puppy, yes, I found her stuck in this bush.”

Okay, so maybe stuck wasn’t precisely the truth, given that the dog had clearly been playing hide-and-seek, but what the owner didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Besides, her allegiance was to the puppy in her arms, not to a man who clearly had no business owning it.

Heather continued to work on getting out of the bush, which, unfortunately, seemed intent on keeping her prisoner forever. Just a couple more feet and she’d be free to give the man in the brown boots a piece of her mind.

She felt a bead of sweat slide between her shoulder blades as she tried to lift her torso, but no matter how she tugged, she couldn’t move more than an inch in any direction. Frustrated with being on her hands and knees in front of a stranger, with her scratched-up kneecaps stinging like crazy, she yanked herself back. But apart from her shirt ripping at the side of her ribs, she wasn’t any closer to being free.

“Hold up, you’re caught on a branch.”

The man’s voice, when he wasn’t yelling at innocent puppies, had a rich, deep timbre that moved through her veins like potent red wine on an empty stomach.

She felt the stranger reach across her back to thread her T-shirt back through the branch that had taken hold of her. Did he mean for his fingertips to skim her spine? she wondered as she held her breath until he was done.

But whether he did or not had nothing to do with her reaction.

She shouldn’t have felt like a lover had just caressed her.

Heather waited for Atlas to growl at the man for daring to touch her, but instead, he just kept wagging his tail.

She couldn’t believe it. After a lifetime of distrusting all men everywhere, Atlas hadn’t decided to take an instant liking to this one, had he?

“All clear,” the man finally said. “Here, reach back for my hand and I’ll help you up.”

He didn’t give her time to agree or evade, he simply slid his calloused palm against her softer one, and pulled her to her feet. Her legs had been cramped into the tight position for long enough that blood rushed too fast to her calves and feet. Unsteady, she swayed against him, her shoulder pressing against his chest.

Her hand still in his, he said, “I’ve got you,” as he brought his other arm around her waist to keep her from tumbling with the dog in her arms.

She was shocked by how good it felt to have his arms around her. So stunned, in fact, that when he said, “I’ll take her off your hands now,” she almost let him take the puppy from her.

But despite how topsy-turvy her body was behaving, she hadn’t forgotten the way he’d yelled for the puppy, or how angry he’d seemed.

Heather took a step back out of his arms, finally pulling her hand free to hold the dog closer to her chest to protect it. “No,” she said as she finally looked up at his face, “I don’t think that’s a good id—”

Oh my God.

She took another step back, but this time it had nothing to do with the dog in her arms. Heather had never understood her friends who drooled over pictures of good-looking men, had always figured she wasn’t particularly visually oriented.

Now she realized it was simply that her gaze hadn’t landed on the right man.

Within five seconds of taking in his dark hair, his perfectly chiseled face, his blue eyes and broad shoulders, her heart started to pound too fast, her mouth dried out, her palms grew damp, and her breath quickened. Not to mention the fact that all of her girly parts were actually growing hot and tingly.

Not once in twenty-seven years had she ever been struck with such a visceral, physical reaction to a man.

What was wrong with her?

Forcing her synapses to refire, she said, “Is this your puppy?”

He lowered his gaze to the puppy’s cute face. “Unfortunately.”

Jerk.

“I know you’re interested in my dog training services,” she told him, “but I’m afraid—”

“You’re a dog trainer?” he asked, cutting her off before she could tell him that not only was she not going to work with him, but she also thought it best that she find the puppy a new home right away. One that would appreciate the little dog in all her mischievous glory. “You’re not one of the girls for the ad?”

He gestured over his shoulder and she looked to see a half-dozen women in bikinis standing around waiting for a photographer to finish setting up lights.

She blinked at him, unable to believe he could possibly have thought that. “God, no,” she said, and then, “You asked Agnes Mackelroy to call me about some special training sessions.” She paused before asking, “Didn’t you?”

He shook his head. “I always knew I loved that woman for more than just her killer Aston Martin collection.” The smile he gave her was clearly intended to melt her into a puddle of lust at his feet. “Trust Agnes to also send the prettiest dog trainer on the planet my way.”

Absolutely, positively refusing to melt for him, she arched her eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

Atlas reacted to the icy tone of her voice by letting out a low whine. She couldn’t believe this man was talking to her like this, trying to flirt with her by saying she could be one of the models. Especially when she knew exactly what she looked like in her ripped, sweaty shirt, muddy shorts, and skinned knees.

If only she’d trained Atlas to be an attack dog...

A man holding a large camera called out to them. “Hey Zach, the models need to know how you want them on the cars?”

“Don’t let us stop you from your important work. Atlas, let’s go.” She picked up his leash as her big dog rose to his feet beside her.

She was heading to her car when Zach said, “Hey, I thought you were going to stay to train me?”