“I have a bad feeling about him.”
She narrowed her eyes and every time she did, her lips drifted into a pout. I wondered if she knew she was doing that. “Let me get this straight. You have no clue about my clientele, but you don’t like him based on what, a feeling?”
I could tell her the guy had been taking pictures, but I didn’t want to scare her. Besides, maybe he was telling the truth. “That’s right. I’m a good judge of character.”
When she opened her mouth, I sensed she had a spicy retort, but she snapped it shut while looking away. Since when had she experienced any difficulty tossing out a snide remark? Only when I was standing naked in front of her.
“Are we talking about a guy with a ballcap?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
She dared take a step closer but stopped herself, especially since she offered a salacious look that provided another sweet sight of a deep rose blush on her face. “His puppy was shot by some jerk and I just wanted to make certain the little guy was doing okay. There’s nothing to worry about so you can just… mind your own business.”
I’d never seen anyone work so hard to ignore chemistry. Well, so be it.
“That’s fine. I gotta head to work anyway.”
“Good,” she murmured, but her eyes remained locked on mine.
“Yeah, good.”
“Great.”
How fascinating she was even more nervous than she’d been before. If she only knew the vivid and sinful things I’d tossed around in my mind the night before.
Good dreams were hard for a boy like me to find.
We stared at each other, and she tried a different tactic, smiling in a way that would remain with me for the remainder of the day.
“I didn’t get a chance to tell you thank you for hanging the sanctuary sign. That was very sweet of you.”
That’s not what I expected. “Sure. Ellie May should be honored.”
Grace could drive any man crazy with her subtle actions, the slight hand gestures and the way she wrinkled her nose when thinking about something. “My mother used to tease me with that name when I was a kid. One of her favorite characters in a television show had that name.”
“The Beverly Hillbillies, only her name was spelled slightly differently.”
“Yeah, you’re right. How did you…”
“It was my mom’s favorite show. She used to make me watch reruns.” Not a memory I needed.
“Like mine,” she whispered. “I wanted to honor my mother’s memory. Anyway, thank you. That was a wonderful surprise. Be safe at work today. Okay?”
“Sure.”
With a nod and another quick glance, she moved out the front door. I trailed behind her, watching from behind the screen door while she greeted him.
He gathered the dog from the passenger seat, his back to me. I might not know much about animals, but I had a feeling dog people all reacted much like Grace. With TLC and kid gloves when an injured or sick animal was involved. He couldn’t care less, keeping the dog six inches away from his body. Awww… He didn’t want to mess up his clothes.
He stopped just before heading into the door of the clinic, turning his head toward the house and where I was standing.
No. I didn’t like the asshole at all, which was why I decided to take pictures of his truck and his license plate.
A guy couldn’t be too careful.
* * *
Grace
