A Love So Sweet by Addison Cole (34)

WHILE THEIR FATHER went inside to grab a bottle of champagne and the others inspected the damage to the cars, Treat took advantage of a few quiet moments to make out with his fiancée. They were midkiss when the sound of hooves on pavement called everyone’s attention past the crunched vehicles, where a woman riding a black stallion slowed to a halt at the end of the driveway. She wore a flowing white dress, hiked up and bundled across her thighs. She slipped her cowgirl boots from the shiny stirrups and flipped her long black hair over her shoulder, giving Treat a better look at her face.

Treat sidled up to Rex, who was standing a few feet away, holding Hope’s reins, and said, “Is that Jade Johnson?”

Rex spun around, practically salivating at the sight of her. “Holy…” He mounted Hope and looked over his shoulder at Jade. When Rex was in high school, he’d had an enormous crush on Jade. But Earl Johnson was the object of their father’s grudge, and Treat had written that crush off as Rex wanting the forbidden fruit. But from the way Rex was looking at her now, Treat had a feeling he was very wrong.

“Jade Johnson was our neighbor,” Savannah explained to Max. “She moved away quite some time ago.”

“Looks like someone got the best of your cars!” Jade hollered.

Rex’s eyes narrowed. He fisted his hands tighter around Hope’s reins. Hugh looked up from where he was crouched by the crunched fender and shot an uncomfortable look at Treat. Treat glanced back at the house, scanning the porch for their father. If he caught them talking to a Johnson, they’d never hear the end of it.

“Nice to see you, Jade,” Hugh said in a low, tethered voice.

“Not quite a Ferrari, is it?” Jade teased their race-car-driving brother. She looked at Rex and said, “Good thing y’all weren’t on horses, huh?”

Rex’s jaw muscles jumped double-time. He climbed off Hope muttering under his breath.

“I think she’s talking to you, Rex,” Max said.

In Rex’s silence, Hugh said, “We’ll be sending this wreck to your neighbor’s garage.” Jimmy Palen owned the best body shop in Weston, and he lived on the other side of the Johnsons’ property.

“Jimmy’ll be glad to hear that.” Jade’s smile promptly disappeared when she glanced at Rex, who was now glowering at her. “See y’all around,” she said with a wave, then galloped down the road.

Once she was out of earshot, Treat smacked Rex’s leg. “What’s with you? You didn’t have to be so rude.”

“I’ll talk to a Johnson when pigs fly.” Rex turned away.

“What was that all about?” Max asked, still touching her engagement ring. She hadn’t stopped since Treat slid it on her finger.

“Hatfields and McCoys,” Savannah teased. “Rex loves her.” She lowered her voice and said, “He just doesn’t know it yet. Braden boys are thick that way.”

“Not this Braden,” Treat said as he swept Max into his arms.

Max whispered, “You’re thick all right, but not in the head.”

Her cheeks flushed, and he said, “Have these clothes turned my sweet girlfriend into my naughty fiancée?”

“It’s what’s under the clothes,” she whispered naughtily.

Heat soared through his veins. “What’s under your clothes?”

Her gaze turned sinful, and she put her finger over her lips. “It’s a secret. I’d take you to my apartment and show you, but we don’t have a vehicle to drive and I’m pretty sure you can’t charter a plane for this.”

He grabbed her hand and headed for Rex and Hope. He lifted Max up in one fell swoop and planted her on the horse, earning the sexiest squeal-giggle he’d ever heard, then climbed on behind her.

“Where are we going?” she asked with a beautiful smile.

“I may not be able to charter a plane, but I can sure as heck hijack a horse.”

He wrapped his arm around her, and she turned, pressing her lips to his. As he deepened the kiss, his siblings cheered them on.

They both came away breathless, and Max said, “Take me away, cowboy.”

With a gentle nudge of his heels, he urged Hope to carry them off to celebrate their engagement properly, and Treat thanked his lucky stars that he’d chartered that plane and gotten his girl.

Chapter One

REX BRADEN AWOKE before dawn, just as he had every Sunday morning for the past twenty-six years—since the Sunday after his mother died, when he was eight years old. He didn’t know what had startled him awake on that very first Sunday after she’d passed, but he swore it was her whispering voice that led him down to the barn and had him mounting Hope, the horse his father had bought for his mother when she first became ill. In the years since, Hope had remained strong and healthy; his mother, however, was not as lucky.

In the gray, predawn hours, the air was still downright cold, which wasn’t unusual for May in Colorado. By afternoon they’d see temps in the low seventies. Rex pulled his Stetson down low on his head and rounded his shoulders forward as he headed into the barn.

The other horses itched to be set free the moment he walked by their stalls, but Rex’s focus on Sunday mornings was solely on Hope.

“How are you, girl?” he asked in a deep, soft voice. He saddled Hope with care, running his hand over her thick coat. Her red coat had faded, now boasting white patches along her jaw and shoulders.

Hope nuzzled her nose into his massive chest with a gentle neigh. Most of his T-shirts had worn spots at his solar plexus from that familiar nudge. Rex had helped his father on the ranch ever since he was a boy, and after graduating from college, he’d returned to the ranch full-time. Now he ran the show—well, as much as anyone could run anything under Hal Braden’s strong will.

“Taking our normal ride, okay, Hope?” He looked into her enormous brown eyes, and not for the first time, he swore he saw his mother’s beautiful face smiling back at him. The face he remembered from before her illness had stolen the color from her skin and the sparkle from her eyes. Rex put his hands on Hope’s strong jaw and kissed her on the soft pad of skin between her nostrils. Then he removed his hat and rested his forehead against the same tender spot, closing his eyes just long enough to sear that image into his mind.

They trotted down the well-worn trail in the dense woods that bordered his family’s two-hundred-acre ranch. Rex had grown up playing in those woods with his five siblings. He knew every dip in the landscape and could ride every trail blindfolded. They rode out to the point where the trail abruptly came to an end at the adjacent property. The line between the Braden ranch and the unoccupied property might be invisible to some. The grass melded together, and the trees looked identical on either side. To Rex, the division was clear. On the Braden side, the land had life and breath, while on the unoccupied side, the land seemed to exude a longing for more.

Hope instinctively knew to turn around at that point, as they’d done so many times before. Today Rex pulled her reins gently, bringing her to a halt. He took a deep breath as the sun began to rise, his chest tightening at the silent three hundred acres of prime ranch land that would remain empty forever. Forty-plus years earlier, his father and Earl Johnson, their neighbor and his father’s childhood friend, had jointly purchased that acreage between the two properties with the hopes of one day turning it over for a profit. After five years of arguing over everything from who would pay to subdivide the property to who they’d sell it to, both Hal and Earl took the hardest stand they could, each refusing to ever sell. The feud still had not resolved. The Hatfields’ and McCoys’ harsh and loyal stance to protect their family honor was mild compared to the loyalty that ran within the Braden veins. The Bradens had been raised to be loyal to their family above all else. Rex felt a pang of guilt as he looked over the property, and not for the first time, he wished he could make it his own.

With a gentle nudge, Hope trotted off the path and along the property line toward the creek. Rex’s jaw clenched as they descended the deep hill toward the ravine. The water was still as glass when they finally reached the rocky shoreline. Rex looked up at the sky as the gray gave way to powdery blues and pinks. In all the years since he’d claimed those predawn hours as his own, he’d never seen a soul while he was out riding, and he liked it that way.

They headed south along the water toward Devil’s Bend. The ravine curved at a shockingly sharp angle around the hillside and the water pooled, deepening against the rocky lip just before the creek dropped a dangerous twenty feet into a bed of rocks. He slowed when he heard a splash and scanned the water for the telltale signs of a beaver, but there wasn’t a dam in sight.

Rex took the bend and brusquely drew Hope to a halt. Jade Johnson stood at the water’s edge in a pair of cutoff jeans shorts, cut just above the dip where her hamstrings began. He’d seen her only once in the past several years, and that was weeks ago, when she had ridden her stallion down the road and stopped at the top of their driveway. Rex raked his eyes down her body and swallowed hard. Her cream-colored T-shirt hugged every inch of her delicious curves, a beautiful contrast to her black-as-night hair, which tumbled almost to her waist. Rex noticed that her hair was the exact same color as her stallion, which was standing nearby with one leg bent at the knee.

Jade hadn’t seen him yet. He knew he should back Hope up and leave before she had the chance. But she was so impossibly beautiful that he was mesmerized, his body reacting in ways that had him cursing under his breath. Jade Johnson was Earl Johnson’s feisty daughter. Jade Johnson was off-limits. She always had been and always would be. But that didn’t stop his pulse from racing, or his body from heating up at the sight of her. Fifteen years he’d forced himself not to think about her, and now, as her shoulders lifted and fell with each breath, he couldn’t stop himself from wondering what it might feel like to tangle his fingers in her thick mane of hair, or how her body would feel pressed against his bare chest. He felt the tantalizing stir of the forbidden wrestling with his deep-seated loyalty to his father—and he was powerless to stop himself from being the jerk of a man that usually resulted from the conflicting emotions.

JADE JOHNSON KNEW she shouldn’t have ridden Flame down the ravine, but she’d woken up from a restless, steamy dream before the sun came up, and she needed a release for the sexual urges she’d been repressing for way too long. Stupid Weston, Colorado. How the heck was a thirty-one-year-old woman supposed to have any sort of relationship with a man in a town when everybody knew one another’s business? She’d thought she’d had life all figured out; after she graduated from veterinary school in Oklahoma, she’d completed her certifications for veterinarian acupuncture while also studying equine shiatsu, and then she’d taken on full-time hours at the large animal practice where she’d worked a limited schedule while completing school. She’d dated the owner’s son, Kane Law, and when she opened her own practice a year later, she thought she and Kane would move toward having a future together. How could she have known that her success would be a threat to him—or that he’d become so possessive that she’d have to end the relationship? Coming back home had been her only option after he refused to stop harassing her, and now that she’d been back for a few months, she was thinking that maybe returning to the small town had been a mistake. She’d gotten her Colorado license easily enough, but instead of building a real practice again, she’d been working on more of an as-needed basis, traveling to neighboring farms to help with their animals without any long-term commitment, while she figured out where she wanted to put down roots and try again.

She heaved a heavy rock into the water with a grunt, pissed off that she’d taken this chance with Flame by coming down the steep hill. She knew better, but Flame was a sturdy Arabian stallion, and at fifteen hands high, he had the most powerful hindquarters she’d ever seen. Flame’s reaction time to commands, and his ability to spin, turn, or sprint forward was quicker than any horse she’d ever mounted. His short back, strong bones, and incredibly muscled loins made him appear indestructible. When Flame stumbled, Jade’s heart nearly skipped a beat. He’d quickly regained his footing, but the rhythm of his gait had changed, and when she’d dismounted, he was favoring his right front leg. Now she was stuck with no way to get him home without hurting him further.

She bent over and hoisted another heavy rock into her arms to heave more of her frustration into the water. Her hair fell like a curtain over her face, and she used one dusty hand to push it back over her shoulder, then picked up the rock and—she dropped the rock and narrowed her eyes at the sight of Rex Braden sitting atop that mare of his.

The nerve of him, staring at me like I’m a piece of meat. Even if he was every girl’s dream of a cowboy come true in his tight-fitting jeans, which curved oh so lusciously over his thighs. She ran her eyes up his too-tight dark shirt and silently cursed at herself for involuntarily licking her lips in response. She tried to tear her eyes from his tanned face, peppered with stubble so sexy that she wanted to reach out and touch his chiseled jaw, but her eyes would not obey.

“What’re you looking at?” she spat at the son of the man who had caused her father years of turmoil. When she’d first come back to town, she’d hoped maybe things had changed. She’d ridden by the Bradens’ ranch while she was out with Flame one afternoon. Rex and his family were out front, commiserating over an accident that had just happened in their driveway, resulting in two mangled cars. She’d tried to see if they needed help, to break the ice of the feud that had gone on since before she was born, but while his brother Hugh had at least spoken to her, Rex had just narrowed those smoldering dark eyes of his and clenched that ever-jumping jaw. No way would she accept that treatment from anyone, especially Rex Braden. Despite her best efforts to forget his handsome face, for years he’d been the only man she’d conjured up in the darkest hours of the nights, when loneliness settled in and her body craved human touch. It was always his face that pulled her over the edge as she came apart beneath the sheets.

“Not you, that’s for sure,” he answered with a lift of his chin.

Jade stood up tall in her new Rogue boots and settled her hands on her hips. “Sure looks like you’re staring to me.”

Rex cracked a crooked smile as he nodded toward the water. “Redecorating the ravine?”

“No!” She walked over to Flame and ran her hand down his flank. Why him? Of all the men who could ride up, why does it have to be the one guy who makes my heart flutter like a schoolgirl’s?

“Taking a break, that’s all.” She couldn’t take her eyes off of his bulging biceps. Even as a teenager, he’d had the nervous habit of clenching his jaw and arms at the same time—and, Jade realized, the effect it had on her had not diminished one iota.

“Lame stallion?” he asked in a raspy, deep voice.

Everything he said sounded sensual. “No.” What happened to my vocabulary? She’d been three years behind Rex in school, and in all the years she’d known him, he probably hadn’t said more than a handful of words to her. She narrowed her eyes, remembering how she’d pined over each one of his grumbling syllables, even though they usually came after a dismissive grunt of some sort, which she had always attributed to the feud that preceded her birth.

“All righty, then.” He turned his horse and walked her back the way he’d come.

Jade stared at his wide back as it moved farther and farther away. What if no one else comes along? She looked up at the sun making its slow crawl toward the sky, guessing it was only six thirty or seven. No one else was going to come by the ravine. She cursed herself for not carrying her cell phone. She wasn’t one of those women who needed to be accessible twenty-four-seven. She carried it during the day, but this morning she’d just wanted to ride without distraction. Now she was stuck, and he was her only hope. Getting Flame home was more important than any family feud or her own conflicting hateful and lustful thoughts for the conceited man who was about to disappear around the corner.

She shook her head and kicked the dirt, wishing she’d worn her riding boots. The toes of her new Rogues were getting scuffed and dirty. Could today get any worse?

“Hey!” she called after him. When he didn’t stop, she thought he hadn’t heard her. “I said, hey!”

He came to a slow stop but didn’t turn around. “You talking to me? I thought you were talking to that lame horse of yours.” He cast a glance over his shoulder.

Jerk. “His name is Flame, and he’s the best horse around, so watch yourself.”

His horse began its lazy stroll once again.

“Wait!” She gritted her teeth against the desire to call him a nasty name and shot a look at Flame, still favoring his leg, softening her resolve.

“Wait, please.”

His horse came to another stop.

“I need to get him home, and I can’t very well do it myself.” She kicked the dirt again as he turned his horse and walked her back. He stared down at Jade with piercing dark eyes, his jaw still clenched.

“Can you help me get him out of here?” Up close, his muscles were even larger, more defined than she’d thought. His neck was thicker, too. Everything about him exuded masculinity. She crossed her arms to settle her nerves as he waited a beat too long to answer. “Listen, if you can’t—”

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” he said, calm and even.

“You don’t have to be rude.”

“I don’t have to help at all,” he said, mimicking her by crossing his arms.

“Fine. You’re right. Sorry. Can you please help me get him out of here? He can’t make it up that hill.”

“Just how do you suppose I do that?” He glanced at the steep drop of the land just twenty feet ahead of them, then back up the ravine at the rocky shoreline. “You shouldn’t’ve brought him down here. Why are you riding a stallion, anyway? They’re temperamental as a baby with a bee sting. What were you thinking? A girl like you can’t handle that horse on this type of terrain.”

“A girl like me? I’ll have you know that I’m a vet, and I’ve worked around horses my whole life.” She felt her cheeks redden and crossed her arms, jutting her hip out in the defiant stance she’d taken up throughout her teenage years.

“So I hear.” He lowered his chin and lifted his gaze, looking at her from beneath the shadow of his Stetson. “From the looks of it, all that vet schooling didn’t do you much good, now, did it?”

Ugh! He was maddening. Jade pursed her lips and stalked away in a huff. “Forget it. I can do this by myself.”

“Sure you can,” he mused.

She felt his eyes on her back as she took Flame’s reins and tried to lead him up the steep incline. The enormous horse took only three steps before stopping cold. She grunted and groaned, pleading with the horse to move, but Flame was hurt, and he’d gone stubborn on her. Her face heated to a flush.

“You keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll be back in an hour to get you and that lame horse of yours.”

An hour, great. She was aching to tell him to hurry, but she knew how long it took to hook up the horse trailer, and she had no idea how he’d get it all the way down by the ravine. She watched him ride away, feeling stupid, embarrassed, angry, and insanely attracted to the ornery jerk of a man.

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Chapter One

THE TIDE LAPPED at the sandy shore beyond the deck of the cedar-shingled bungalow where Kurt Remington sat on the deck of his cottage, fingers to keyboard, working on his latest manuscript. Dark Times was due to his agent at the end of the month, and Kurt came to his cottage in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, to hunker down for the summer and complete the project. He lived just outside of New York City and he wrote daily, sometimes for ten or twelve hours straight. In the summers, he liked the change of scenery the Cape offered and was inspired by the Cape’s fresh air and the sounds of the sea.

He’d bought the estate of a local painter a few years earlier with the intent of renovating the artist’s studio that sat nestled among a grouping of trees on the far side of the property. Initially, Kurt thought he might use the studio as a writing retreat separate from where he lived, with the idea that leaving the cottage to work might give him a chance to actually have a life and not feel pressure to write twenty-four-seven. What he found was that the studio was too far removed from the sights and sounds that inspired him, and it made him feel like even more of a recluse than he already was. He realized that it wasn’t the location of his computer that pressured him. It was his internal drive and his love of writing that propelled his fingers to the keyboard every waking second. The idea of making the studio into a guest cottage crossed his mind, but that would indicate his desire to have guests, which would mean giving up his coveted writing time to entertain. So there it sat, awaiting…something. Though he had no idea what.

The cottage was built down a private road at the top of a dune, with a private beach below. A curtain of dense air settled around him. Kurt lifted his eyes long enough to scan the graying clouds and ponder the imminence of rain. It was seven twenty in the evening, and he’d been writing since nine o’clock that morning, as was his daily habit, right after his three-mile run, two cups of coffee, and a quick breeze through the newspaper and email. Once Kurt got into his writing zone each day, other than getting up to eat, he rarely changed his surroundings. The idea of moving inside and breaking his train of thought was unsettling.

He set his hands back on the keyboard and reread the last few sentences of what would become his thirteenth thriller novel. A dog barked in the distance, and Kurt drew his thick, dark brows together without breaking the stride of his keystrokes. Kurt hadn’t risen to the ranks of Patterson, King, and Grisham by being easily distracted.

“Pepper! Come on, boy!” A female voice sliced through his concentration. “Come on, Pepper. Where are you?”

Kurt’s fingers hesitated for only a moment as she hollered; then he went right back to the killer lurking outside the window in his story.

“Pepper!” the woman yelled again. “Oh geez, Pepper, really?”

Kurt closed his eyes for a beat as the wind picked up. The woman’s voice was distracting him. She was too close to ignore. Get your mutt and move on. He let out a breath and went back to work. Kurt craved silence. The quieter things were, the better he could hear his characters and think through their issues. He tried to ignore the sounds of splashing and continued writing.

“Pepper! No, Pepper!”

Great. He was hoping to squeeze in a few more hours of writing on the deck before taking a walk on the beach, but if that woman kept up her racket, he’d be forced to work inside—and if there was one thing Kurt hated, it was changing his surroundings while he was in the zone. Writing was an art that took total focus. He’d honed his craft with the efficiency of a drill sergeant, which was only fitting since his father was a four-star general.

More splashing.

“Oh no! Pepper? Pepper!”

The woman’s panicked voice split his focus right down the center. He thought of his sister, Siena, and for a second he considered getting up to see if the woman’s concern was valid. Then he remembered that his sister often overreacted. Women often overreacted.

“Pepper! Oh no!”

Being an older brother came with responsibilities that Kurt took seriously, as had been ingrained in him at a young age. That loud woman was someone’s daughter. His conscience won over the battle for focus, and with a sigh, he pushed away from the table and went to the railing. He caught sight of the woman wading waist deep in the rough ocean waves.

“Pepper! Pepper, please come back!” she cried.

Kurt followed her gaze into deeper water, which was becoming rougher by the second as the clouds darkened and the wind picked up a notch. He didn’t see a dog anywhere in the water. He scanned the empty beach—no dog there, either.

“Pepper! Please, Pep! Come on, boy!” She tumbled back with the next wave and fell on her butt, then struggled to find her footing.

Come on. Really? This, he didn’t need. He watched her push through the crashing waves. She was shoulder deep. Kurt knew about the dangers of riptides and storms and wondered why she didn’t. She had no business being out in the water with a storm brewing.

Drops of water dampened Kurt’s arms. He swatted them away with a grimace, still watching the woman.

“Please come back, Pepper!”

The rain came in a heavy drizzle now. For the love of… Kurt spun around, gathered his computer and notes and took them inside. He checked to see that he’d saved his file before pushing the laptop safely back from the edge of the counter, then turned back to the French doors. I could close the doors and go right back to work. He eyed his laptop.

“Pepper!”

She sounded farther away now. Maybe she’d moved on. He went back out on the deck to see if she’d come to her senses.

“Pep—” Another wave toppled her over. She was deeper now and seemed to be pulled by the current.

“Hey!” Kurt hollered in an effort to dissuade her from going out any deeper. She must not have heard him. He scanned the water again and saw a flash of something about thirty feet away from her. Your stupid dog. Dogs were smelly, they shed, and they needed time and attention. All reasons why Kurt was not a fan of the creatures.

The rain picked up with the gusty wind. Good grief. He grabbed a towel from inside and stomped down the steps, Dark Times begrudgingly pushed aside.

LEANNA BRAY WAS wet, cold, and floundering. Literally. She’d been floundering for twenty-eight years, so this was nothing new, but being pummeled by rain, wind, and waves, chasing a dog that never listened? That was new.

“Pepp—” A wave knocked her off her feet and she went under the water, taking a mouthful of saltwater along with her. She tumbled head down beneath the surface.

Now Pepper and I will both drown. Freaking perfect.

Something grabbed her arm, and she reflexively fought against it, sucking in another mouthful of salty water as she broke through the surface, arms flailing, choking, and pushing against the powerful hand that yanked her to her feet.

“You okay?” A deep, annoyed voice carried over the din of the crashing waves.

Cough. Cough. “Yeah. I—” Cough. Cough. “My dog.” She blinked and blinked, trying to clear the saltwater and rain from her eyes. The man’s mop of wet, dark hair came into focus. He held tightly to her arm while scanning the water in the direction of where she’d last seen Pepper. His clothes stuck to his body like a second skin, riding the ripples of his impressive chest and arms as he held her above the surface with one arm around her ribs.

“Come on.” She coughed as he plowed through the pounding surf with her clutched against his side. She slid down his body, and he lifted her easily into his arms, carrying her like he might carry a child, pressing her to his chest as he fought against the waves.

She pushed against his chest, feeling ridiculous and helpless…and maybe a little thankful, but she was ignoring that emotion in order to save Pepper.

“My dog! I need to get my dog!” she hollered.

Mr. Big, Tall, and Stoic didn’t say a word. He set her on the wet sand and tossed her a rain-soaked towel. “It was dry.” He pointed behind her to a wooden staircase. “Go up to the deck.”

She dropped the towel and plowed past him toward the water. “I gotta get my dog.”

He snagged her by the arm and glared at her with the brightest blue eyes she’d ever seen—and a stare so dark she swallowed her voice.

“Go.” He pointed to the stairs again. “I’ll get your dog.” He took a step toward the water, and she pushed past him again.

“You don’t have t—”

He scooped her into his arms again and carried her to the stairs. “If you fight me, your dog will drown. He won’t last in this much longer.”

She pushed at his chest again. “Let me go!”

He set her down on the stairs. “The waves will pull you under. I’ll get your dog. Please stay here.”

Her heart thundered against her ribs as she watched him stalk off and plow through the waves as if he were indestructible. She stood in the rain on the bottom stair, huddled beneath the wet towel, squinting to see him through the driving rain. She finally spotted him deep in the sea, wrapping his arms around Pepper—the dog who never let anyone carry him. He rounded his shoulders, shielding Pepper as he made his way back through the wild waves.

She ran to the edge of the water, shivering, tears in her eyes. “Thank you!” She reached for Pepper and the dog whined, pressing his trembling body closer to the guy.

“You have a leash?”

She shook her head. Her wet hair whipped across her cheek, and she turned her back to the wind. “He doesn’t like them.”

He took her by the arm again. “Come on.” He led her up the stairs to a wooden deck, opened a French door, and leaned in close, talking over the sheeting rain.

“Go on in.”

She stepped onto pristine hardwood. The warm cottage smelled of coffee and something sweet and masculine, like a campfire. She reached for Pepper. Pepper whined again and pressed against the man’s chest.

“He…” Her teeth chattered from the cold. “He must be scared.”

“I’ll get you a towel.” He eyed the dog in his arms and shook his head before disappearing up a stairwell.

Leanna scoped out the open floor plan of the cozy cottage, looking for signs of crazy. How crazy could he be? He’d just rescued her and Pepper, and Pepper already seemed to be quite attached to him. He went into the water in a storm without an ounce of fear. The man was crazy. It dawned on her that she’d done the same thing, but she knew she wasn’t crazy. She’d had no choice. To her right was a small kitchen with expensive-looking light wood cabinets and fancy molding. A laptop sat open beside two neatly stacked notebooks on the shiny marble countertop. The screen was dark, and she had an urge to touch a button and bring the laptop to life, but she didn’t really want to know if there was something awful on there. He could have been watching porn, for all she knew, although he hadn’t checked her out once, even with her wet T-shirt and shorter-than-short cut offs. She couldn’t decide if that was gentlemanly or creepy.

She shifted her thoughts away from the computer to the quaint breakfast nook to her left. Her eyes traveled past a little alcove with two closed doors and a set of stairs by the kitchen to the white-walled living room. There was not a speck of clutter anywhere. A pair of flip-flops sat by the front door, perfectly lined up against the wall beside a pair of running shoes. She located the source of the campfire smell. A gorgeous two-story stone fireplace covered most of the wall adjacent to an oversized brown couch. There was a small stack of firewood in a metal holder beside the hearth. The cottage was surprisingly warm considering there wasn’t a fire in the fireplace. Dark wood bookshelves ran the length of the far wall, from floor to ceiling, complete with a rolling ladder. The room was full of textures—a chenille blanket was folded neatly across the back of the couch, a thick, brown shag rug sat before the stone fireplace, and an intricately carved wooden table was placed before the couch. Leanna had a thing for textures, and right now she was texturing the beautiful hardwood with drops of water. She snagged a dishtowel from the kitchen counter as the man came back downstairs with Pepper cradled in his arms like a baby and wrapped in a big fluffy towel.

The possibility of him being crazy went out the door. Crazy people don’t carry dogs like babies.

He shifted Pepper to one arm and handed her a fresh towel. “Here. I’m Kurt, by the way.”

Pepper sat up in his arms, panting happily. Show-off.

“Thank you. I’m Leanna. That’s Pepper.” She tried to mop up the floor around her. Every swipe of the towel brought more drips from her sopping-wet clothing. “I’m sorry about this. For the mess. And my dog. And…” She frantically wiped the floor with the dishrag in one hand, using the fisted towel in the other to scrub her clothes, trying desperately to stop the river that ran from her clothes to his no-longer-pristine floor. She lifted her gaze. He had a slightly amused smile on his very handsome face. She rose to her feet with a defeated sigh.

“I’m so sorry, and thank you for rescuing Pepper.”

He glanced at his laptop, and that amused look quickly turned to pinched annoyance. His lips pressed into a tight line, and when he glanced at her again, it was with a brooding look, before stepping forward and closing his laptop.

“You should have”—Pepper barked in his ear; he closed his eyes and exhaled—“had the dog on a leash.”

The dog.

“He hates it. He hates listening, leashes, lots of things.” Pepper licked Kurt’s cheek. “Except you, I guess.”

Kurt winced and set Pepper on the floor. “Sit,” he said in a deep, stern voice.

Pepper sat at his feet.

“How did you do that? He never listens.”

He dried Pepper’s feet with the towel, apparently ignoring the question.

“Labradoodle?”

You know dogs? She was intrigued by the dichotomy of him. He was sharp, brooding, and maybe even a little cold, yet Pepper followed him to the fireplace as if he were handing out doggy biscuits. Leanna couldn’t help but notice the way Kurt’s wet jeans hugged his body. His very hot body. He crouched before the fireplace, his shirt clinging tightly to his broad back, his sleeves hitched up above his bulging biceps, and she made out the outline of a tattoo on his upper arm.

“Yeah, Labradoodle. How’d you know? He looks like a wet mutt right now.”

He shrugged, expertly fashioning a teepee of kindling, then starting a small fire. “Where’s your place?” He slid an annoyed look at Pepper and shook his head.

“Um, my place?” she said, distracted as much by Pepper’s obedience as by Kurt’s tattoo. What is that? A snake? Dragon?

He looked at her with that amused glint in his eyes again. “House? Cottage? Campsite?”

“Oh, cottage. Sorry.” She felt her cheeks flush. “It’s about a mile and a half from here. Seaside. Do you know it? My parents own it. I’m just staying for the summer. I’ve known the other people in the community forever, and Pepper likes it there.”

He looked back at the fireplace, the amusement in his expression replaced with seriousness. “Come over by the fire. Warm up.”

She tossed the towels on the counter and joined him by the fire, shivering as she warmed her hands.

He kept his eyes trained on the fire.

“Did you drive here?” He picked up a log in one big hand and settled it on the fire.

“No. I biked.”

“Biked?”

“I bike here a couple times each week with Pepper, but we usually go the other way down the beach. Pepper just took off this time. I left my bike by the public beach entrance.”

His eyes slid to Pepper, then back to the fire. “I don’t know Seaside, but let me change and I’ll drive you home.” He headed toward the stairs with Pepper on his heels. Kurt stopped and stared at the dog. Pepper panted for all he was worth. Kurt looked at Leanna, as if she could control the dog.

Fat chance. “He’s not really an obedient pet.” She shrugged.

Kurt picked up Pepper and brought him to Leanna. “Hold his collar.”

Okay, then. She looped her finger in Pepper’s collar and watched Kurt go into the kitchen and wipe the floor with the towel he’d given her. Then he wiped the counter with a sponge before disappearing into the alcove by the kitchen. He returned with a laundry basket, tossed the dirty towels in, and then returned the basket to where he’d found it and climbed the stairs.

“Guess he doesn’t really like dirt…or dogs after all,” she said to Pepper.

Pepper broke free and ran up the stairs after Kurt.

Leanna closed her eyes with a loud sigh.

Just shoot me now.

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