Chapter Ten
After mere minutes of casually strolling around the town square, he and Cara acquired the target.
A dog-loving woman.
She nudged his shoulder and dropped her voice to a whisper, tipping her forehead to a ponytailed blonde half a block away. “There. At two o’clock on the other side of town square. She just spotted you and Henry. I’ll hang back.”
“I’ll pretend I don’t even know you.” He winked at her.
“That’ll be easy, since I’m about to disappear that-a-way,” she said, pointing her thumb at one of the benches on the grass.
As she settled onto the green slats, lowering her shades, he continued walking the feisty pup. Frisky today, Henry pulled hard on the leash, launching himself to the far end of the leather, determined to be the lead man, evidently. “Heel, Henry,” he said in a firm tone, then gave a quick tug to pull the tan and white guy back by his side. The dog peered up as if to say, This good enough for ya?
Travis bent down to administer a quick pat on the head as Henry panted in the late afternoon heat. “Good boy.”
Promptly, the dog darted back ahead, his heel having lasted all of five seconds.
Travis tried again and met the same result.
Damn. Henry was a stubborn boy. Once more he followed Cara’s earlier instruction for teaching a dog to heel, tugging him back next to him and praising him, but the dog lunged forward.
Only fifteen pounds, Henry still packed a punch. What he lacked in size, he made up for in pure determination.
“Let’s try again,” Travis said in an even tone, but as they neared the corner, the target came into range—the blond woman who’d zeroed in on the two of them from across the square was a few feet away. This was the first test of the dog’s wingman skills. At the Bachelor Fireman’s Auction, Henry would have to be onstage with Travis and the emcee of the event. The dog would need to be on his best behavior to achieve winning dog-and-fireman status. Travis glanced back at Cara, who was perched on the bench, watching, ready to give notes. He wanted to impress her with Henry’s quick learning, and Travis hoped the dog could pull this off—
Nails scratched against the sidewalk.
The dog panted loudly.
Then barked happily.
And he made his first attempt to achieve his dog flight wings, launching himself airborne at the blonde.
Wait.
No.
That wasn’t his plan at all.
Please, lord. Henry wasn’t doing that, was he?
But he was. Yes, he was.
Travis grappled at the leash, cringing as he tugged, while Henry wrapped his paws around the woman’s leg and went to town humping it, all fifteen pounds of him intent on making puppies with this stranger’s bare leg. Travis yanked quickly, freeing her from the unwanted advance. But then the woman stumbled and grabbed hold of the rimmed edge of a garbage can for balance.
He’d have blushed, if he were a blusher. “I’m sorry about that. He’s just a puppy,” Travis said, offering her a hand and helping her steady herself.
“Perhaps it’s time to get him neutered,” she said, shaking her finger at the dog, as if Henry understood such admonishments.
“He is neutered,” Travis muttered as the woman scurried away.
He shrugged, swiveled around, and caught Cara’s gaze. She mirrored him, as they both held up their hands in a chorus of what can you do?
Travis cut across the emerald green grass of the square as Cara met him in the middle.
“Evidently I’m going to need to change his name to Randy,” Travis said, deadpan.
She flashed him a warm smile. “It’s okay. We’ve got two weeks,” she said, her voice calm and even. “We’ll get him there. He’s not going to be perfect the first time. We need to see how he behaves naturally to know what to work on.”
“Not quite sure he’s a chick magnet. More like the wild humper. Can we call him that on stage?” He affected the deep, warm tones of an announcer. “And now, up for auction is our next bachelor fireman, Travis Jansen, and his dog. You might know him better as…The Wild Humper,” he said, then launched into a pretend drum roll.
Cara laughed. “As long as it’s not you they’re introducing as The Wild Humper, I think we’ll be okay.” She kneeled down to scratch Henry’s ears. One ear drooped down, and one popped up. “You’re learning how to reel ’em in, right, little fella? But maybe try some cuddling and sweetness first, before you break out the wood.”
Henry panted in answer, and somehow almost seemed to be smiling for Cara. Such a flirt, that dog was. A ladies man in training.
Cara rose, held out her hand, and asked for the leash. “Allow the master to show you how it’s done,” she said, raising an eyebrow and speaking in a pretend-haughty tone.
“Ah, I knew it. You were just setting me up.”
She bumped him with her hip. “Yup. Setting a trap. That’s my style.”
A barely audible groan rumbled through his chest as her body made the barest bit of contact. “Just like you did with me the other night,” he said, unable to resist teasing her back. Come to think of it, he was barely able to resist much of anything with her. She had his number; she knew how to play him, from her sexy lingerie ensembles, to her out-of-the-blue challenges, to her boldness in spelling out all her desires. Cara Bailey was sexy, witty, and sweet, all wrapped up in one absolutely delectable package of womanhood. No wonder Henry was making googly eyes at her.
“So I trapped you into having me as a snack on your table?” Cara said, staring down the slope of her nose at him. He wanted to nibble on that nose.
He laughed and shook his head, resisting the powerful urge to touch her in some way that very second. Draw her in for a kiss. Brush his fingertips across the bare skin of her arm. But they weren’t having that kind of fling—the kind where they were allowed to be practitioners of PDA in the middle of their hometown. A hot kiss on a nightclub floor in San Francisco was one thing; a sweet, possessive kiss, as if he were claiming her as his, for the whole town to see, was another. “No. I meant trapped me into something else you know I can’t resist. In addition to you, that is.”
She furrowed her brow. “What’s that?”
“Your car needs a little tinkering.”
She swatted him on the arm. “Are you still doing that?”
His eyes went wide. He acted surprised. “Doing what?”
“You are the king of car tinkering. Remember when the headlight went out that night my dad let me borrow his car so we could go bowling?”
He nodded as the memory of one of their dates from years ago resurfaced. The headlight had winked on and off as they drove to the alley, but on the way home, it gasped its last breath. Travis had always been handy, so he fixed it, and her dad had even thanked him profusely for not only bringing his daughter home on time, but for repairing the car. He laughed quietly, remembering how he’d wanted to impress Mr. Bailey, probably because he liked Mr. Bailey’s daughter so much and wanted to earn the respect of her dad, too.
“What can I say? I was blessed with the handy genes,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “Indeed you were. So what’s wrong with my car that calls for your mad tinkering skills? Since you somehow think I trapped you into fixing it.”
“That’s a trap I like. Anyway, I noticed the dashboard lights were pretty dim when I drove it to your house the other night. I think an alternator cable might be loose, but it was dark out and I wasn’t able to fix it then.”
“So you want to play mechanic with my car?”
“I would very much like to get under your hood,” he said with an over-the-top groan, wiggling his eyebrows as she chuckled loudly, clasping a hand on her belly, her pretty laughter sounding like a tinkling bell. Damn, this woman was under his skin. Even the way she laughed made his heart thump a little harder.
What the hell was going on with him? Must be the heat. Yeah, that had to be it. That explained the speed of his heart right now.
“You’re on.” She tipped her forehead to Henry. “But first, let’s get this boy ready for the stage. We’ve got a mission. Henry and I are going to make sure you raise the money for the firefighter’s charity. Right, Henry?”
The dog panted in answer.
Cara turned back to Travis. “Don’t worry. I know this is important. I’ll do everything I can to help you secure that matching donation.”
“Thank you. I really appreciate it,” he said, looking her square in the eyes. He hoped his expression conveyed his gratitude for her effort, because he didn’t know if he had all the words. Of course, what he really wanted to tell her, too, was how much he liked that he could make dirty comments about wanting to get his hands on her one minute, and then serious ones about a cause that mattered deeply to him the next. She was easy to talk to, and they seemed to move seamlessly from one topic to the next.
“I also have an idea for a special little thing we can have him do at the end of your stage time.”
“Like a trick?”
She nodded. “Exactly. We need to get the basics down first, but if he does well, I have a”—she stopped to noodle on the words—“pièce de résistance, if you will.”
“I’m all ears,” he said, and she told him her plan.
“Love it. But let’s make sure he can walk with me first.”
Henry reined in his urges to mate with women’s legs, and for the next thirty minutes he was much better at walking in stride next to Travis, though he did growl and lunge at a squirrel who had the audacity to nibble on an apple core in the middle of the sidewalk.
“We’re making progress,” Cara said with a smile, and for the briefest of seconds he wanted to say Yes, we are, as if she’d been talking about the two of them. But she meant the dog, of course.
…
As they walked along the town square on the way to her nearby home, Cara swore Travis was about to hold her hand just outside his mom’s bookstore.
“I’ll pop in later to say hi to her,” he said, nodding to An Open Book. As they strolled past the “Gifts for Grads!” display of Oh, the Places You’ll Go, she was certain he started to reach out to lace his fingers through hers.
A flicker of a smile worked its way across her lips, and she moved her hand closer.
But then he looped that hand around Henry’s leash. In the blink of an eye, she jammed her hands into the pockets of her shorts, as if she were erasing the possibility that had dared to touch down in her mind.
She wished he would hold her hand or drape an arm around her shoulders. She’d always loved his sweet affection in public, as if he’d wanted the world to know she was with him. Maybe he wanted that now, too. True, she didn’t harbor any illusions that their fling would extend beyond two weeks, but she couldn’t deny how much she thoroughly enjoyed the special little things he did—replacing the stolen biscuits, offering to fix her car, or even his trips down memory lane. They felt special and she relished them.
A woman with a sleek bob a few stores up waved to her. Alycia, of the newly trimmed brunette hairdo, was locking up the Silver Pine tasting room for the afternoon.
“Hey, Alycia. The pinot was to die for,” Cara said as she stopped to chat briefly.
Alycia beamed. “Excellent. I’m so glad you liked it.”
“I enjoyed every single sip.”
“I thought it was pretty damn good, too,” Travis interjected. Cara glanced at him. His eyes were twinkling; he hadn’t touched the wine at his house. He’d simply enjoyed the effect it had had on Cara. The fact that he was making an inside joke had her heart pittering and pattering the slightest bit.
“Even better,” Alycia said.
Travis nodded to her storefront, and to the shelves of wines beyond the glass window displays. “Your shelves holding up okay, Alycia?”
She gave a thumbs up. “Perfect. Thank you for fixing them for me. What would I do without the town handyman?” The brunette patted his shoulder in thanks, and a strange burst of jealousy ripped through Cara. She clenched a fist, trying to ignore the unpleasant sensation. It was foolish for Cara to think she was special. Travis didn’t do “special.” He was straightforward about what he could give a woman, and the things that made her feel special were simply part and parcel of who he was. He was a good guy. He’d helped Alycia. He was about to help Cara with her car. That was good enough.
Case closed.
Alycia flipped her keys up and down in her hand as she peered at Travis, then at Cara, as if she were fitting the puzzle pieces together. “You two together again?”
The resounding no tumbled out of both their mouths at the same time. Cara looked at Travis and forced out a laugh. Good thing they both agreed resolutely on that point.
“I’m just training his dog,” she answered.
“Of course. Sorry. Looked like you were…” She let her voice trail off, then waved her hand as if she were dismissing a crazy idea. “I need to be on my way. See you around.”
As they resumed the walk to her house, Cara filed the encounter in her head as a useful reminder to refrain from superimposing her future dreams and wishes onto a relationship that had a countdown attached to it.
She intended to enjoy every single moment of their brief time together. That was the point of their tryst, after all—to make the most of this time, so she could get him out of her system once and for all.