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And the things he’d do would be dirty. Hell, the man probably skipped dirty and went straight to filthy. The kind of things she read about alone at night.
“You’re right,” he said as his shoulders relaxed.
Brooke blinked. “Huh?” Oh, God, how embarrassing. Caught practically drooling over the man.
Again.
His stubbled face hovered just inches above hers. “It does make me sick. Prick is the lowest kind of shit, so it doesn’t surprise me he’d abuse animals, but I do fucking hate it.”
Her shoulders sagged. “The cops don’t seem to care. David, my vet friend, filed a report after he received each dog. He also told them our suspicions about this place. So far, they don’t seem too concerned.” Disgust filled her. If a dog had attacked a child, the cops would be on it in a second. Why couldn’t they extend the same courtesy to the injured animals?
“You can file a thousand reports. Cops around here won’t do shit.”
Her heart sank. “You think?”
Curly nodded. “Prick’s got an in with the local police. Least he did back when I knew him better.”
“You were friends?” she asked, trying to envision the two of them hanging out but couldn’t see it.
He must have heard the disbelief in her voice. His gaze darkened. “We ran in the same circle.”
The motorcycle club. After David and Nancy left yesterday, the urge to Google Curly had been nearly impossible to resist, but she’d managed. Any moment now, a thorough background check would land in her inbox, and she’d have accurate information on the man. Not inflated, overblown, or downright falsified reports from the Internet. If anyone knew how events could be twisted, embellished, or lied about then spread through social circles, it was her.
Curly lifted a hand from the wall, and the next thing she knew, his finger was on her face. The coarse pad stroked her cheek, near the corner of her mouth, eliciting a full-body shiver. “W-what are you doing?” she asked, unable to keep the breathlessness out of the question.
“You had hair stuck to your lip. Just getting it for you.”
“Oh”. She touched the spot on her face, still tingling from his touch. “Thanks.” Time to get this back on track before she grabbed him by that sexy hair and begged him to teach her how sex should be. “So, uh, going to the cops is a waste of time?”
Curly pushed off the wall with a huff that sounded like pure frustration and gave her his back. After staring across the field, he faced her again. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
Shaking her head, she remained against the barn. “I can’t.” Her passion for rescuing animals ran deep. Once, her therapist had suggested she took in abandoned and abused animals as a projection of her traumatic feelings of rejection and neglect. No one had rescued her. No one had helped her escape her own hell. She’d done it on her own and now had a compulsive desire to help creatures less capable than her. That had been the last session with that therapist. Not because their accusation had been wildly out of line, but because they’d hit the nail a little too close to the head, and she hadn’t been mentally prepared to deal with the truth then.
“How long before you do something stupid like this again?”
Despite his serious question and the hard set of his face, Brooke couldn’t help but chuckle. “Honestly? Not long. I’ll need to figure out my next move, but I’m not walking away from this until I’m certain I’m wrong about the dog fighting or until I shut it down.”
She and Curly knew nothing about each other beyond a similar love of dogs, but for her, it was more than that. She’d rescue every dog in her power and make sure men like Prick paid for their crimes by whatever means necessary. No matter what it said about her psyche.
Curly studied her for so long she squirmed against the wall. That gaze of his was too intense. As though he could see beneath her skin to the heart and soul powering her actions.
“Look,” she said as she reached up to adjust what remained of her ponytail. “Thank you for the save today.” She’d never admit it, but for a few moments, she’d been closer to scared than concerned when Prick had her cornered. He’d happened upon her while she’d been peeking into the barn. Just dumb bad luck.
Years ago, she’d vowed no man would ever physically intimidate her again, and with the help of self-defense classes and the pepper spray she kept in her purse, she’d kept that promise. But today, she’d left her purse in the car, and it had been a while since she’d practiced her martial arts skills, so when confronted by a large, angry man, she’d suffered a flash of paralyzing panic.
