Flirting with Love(18)

Chapter Eight


THERE WERE ONLY a few things that threw Ross for a loop, and women’s tears had always been one of them. An animal suffering at the hands of cruelty was another, and third on his list of things that knocked him off balance was the idea of his mother being treated so poorly by his father before his father had left them. He didn’t allow himself to think of that often, but even those painful memories weren’t as cutting as seeing Elisabeth standing before him silently weeping. Walking with her was about all he’d been able to do. Give him an animal and he knew exactly what to do. Women? They were a different story. And Elisabeth? She’d tugged at his heart from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, which probably made him pathetic, but what power did he have over his heart?

Exactly none.

No matter how much he tried to ignore the pull that drew him to her night and day, he was unable. He’d begun to wonder if his belief in love was a fantasy built in opposition to his father’s leaving. He’d wondered if he’d ever feel as drawn to a woman as Luke and Wes were to their girlfriends, or Pierce was to Rebecca. Now he knew it wasn’t only a dream. He was every bit as attracted to Elisabeth, taken with her personality, infatuated with her goodness—hell, he wanted to climb beneath her skin and become one with her.

He walked far out in the pasture and checked on Dolly, and he found Chip and Dale, always nearby, playing king of the mountain on the play equipment Cora had put in the yard for them. Give a goat a boulder and they’re happy, he’d told her. Yes, she’d said. But give them play equipment and they know they’re loved. Who was he to argue with that logic?

He stroked Dolly’s back, taking his time, trying to work through his feelings. He didn’t know how long he stood with Dolly, twenty minutes, thirty? Still he remained, thinking of the way Elisabeth had clung to him. The feel of her heart beating against his chest. Hell if it hadn’t taken every ounce of restraint to restrict his lips to her forehead, where he’d breathed in her scent and lingered a moment longer than he should have. He had no business kissing her forehead at all, much less lingering, but if it hadn’t been her forehead, it would have been those luscious lips, and he wouldn’t have stopped there.

He turned back toward the barn and saw her standing in the moonlight, kicking at the dirt with the toe of her boot, her fingers in her pockets, elbows out. She looked adorable in cutoffs that barely covered her ass. Then again, he had a feeling that Elisabeth could make a potato sack look sexy. Her hair curtained her face, and his dogs stood beside her.

All three of them.

His dogs usually stuck to him like glue.

Why on earth had it taken him this long to realize they weren’t with him?

The answer was kicking up tufts of dirt about a hundred feet away.

He pushed away his desires as best he could, and after taking care of the animals, they walked in silence back to her car in his driveway.

Sarge and Ranger ran ahead to the back of her car. Knight stuck to her like metal to magnet. Ross and Knight had a lot in common.

“Did Kennedy take the bottle okay?” he asked to cut through his need to touch her.

“Yeah. He’s the cutest little thing.”

“I brought you home something.” He went to his truck and retrieved the book on cows that he’d brought her. “I didn’t have time to get to the library, but this is one of mine. I think it’ll have just about everything you’ll need, and I’m here if you run into any more problems.”

She took the book and clutched it to her chest. When she smiled up at him, the urge to kiss her was so strong that he had to shift his eyes away. He focused on the dogs and cleared his throat to try to clear the mounting desire from his body.

“I think you made a few friends today.”

“That would make me a lucky girl. Thanks for letting me take them to the park. I’ve really missed spending time with dogs and cats.” She rubbed her arms against the dropping temperature.

Ross draped an arm over her shoulder and she leaned against him in that casual way friends did. That little nudge shouldn’t have sent fire through his veins, and when she gazed up at him, he shouldn’t have felt like an inferno, but he would be shocked if he didn’t have smoke pouring out of his ears.

“Thanks for being there for me, Ross.”

“Want to talk about it?” That was better than what he wanted to ask. Want me to kiss you until you can’t feel anything but a full-body shudder?

“I just need to figure out a new plan.” She pressed her palm to his abs and leaned against him as she rose up on her toes and kissed his cheek.

In the space of a breath, he debated turning in to her lips and taking her in a greedy kiss, but in that split second, she said, “I really needed a friend. Thank you.” It stopped him cold.

A friend.

Fuck.

How could he have totally misread her?





Chapter Nine


HOT, BOTHERED, AND upset with herself for being a wimp, Elisabeth paced her kitchen. If she’d been any other woman, she’d have pressed her lips to Ross’s and shown him exactly how much she appreciated him. The problem was, she didn’t just appreciate him. She liked him. A lot. She’d been attracted to plenty of men, but liking who they were was a whole different ballgame. And Ross…Ross made her body go ten different types of crazy.

She had to do something with all that sexual energy before she marched over to his house to see what else he could make her body do.

Focus, Elisabeth.

With a sigh, she thought about the predicament that had sent her tears flowing earlier in the evening. She went upstairs and slipped on her favorite fuzzy slippers and pulled on her favorite hoodie. She needed comfort as she pondered her quandary. She went back down to the living room and paced the hardwood floor. If she was going to fit in to this place, she had to show them just how much it meant to her. There was no way she was giving up on her dreams—any of them. There was more than one way to make her mark, and she’d just have to adapt. When she first opened her business in LA, she’d done all the same things she did in Trusty, only it was easier. In LA pampering pets went hand in hand with owning them, at least in the higher-income areas. There weren’t really higher-income areas in Trusty. She’d already checked that out. There were no elite developments, and there was no bad side of town, or any sort of divide at all, which was probably one of the reasons she’d always loved it there. When she and her aunt had gone into town, everyone said hello and took the time to chat with them. Why was she such a pariah now?

I’m not Aunt Cora. I’m not a real Trusty girl.

She rubbed her temples and glanced out the window in the direction of Ross’s house. It was pitch-black outside, but if she squinted, she could make out a faint light in the distance. Her mind drifted to his protective arm around her shoulder, the feel of his thumbs wiping away her tears.

Focus. Focus. Focus.

She forced his image from her mind, and in an effort to get her brain off of Ross and onto finding a solution to her problem, she ran through a list of questions that her mother asked her before she’d moved away. What do you like about that rinky-dink town? The sense of community and the easy pace of life. What makes you think you’ll ever fit in there? She hadn’t answered her mother honestly when she’d told her that it was because she’d fit in so well when she was younger. She hadn’t actually tried to fit in, or if she had, she didn’t remember it. She had no idea why she felt like she’d fit in. She sure wasn’t raised by a farm woman. She wasn’t ever in 4-H, and she had no idea how to country dance, though she did love dancing in general. The more she thought about it, the clearer the answer became. It wasn’t so much that she knew she’d fit in; it was that she wanted to fit in. It was the feel of being here that made her sense that it was where she belonged. The crisp, clean air, the way her aunt woke up wanting to bake the best pies she could for the customers and friends she couldn’t wait to see again, the way her aunt had always made time for friends and had only kind words to say about everyone.

The complete opposite of how I grew up.

Was she just running from becoming her mother?

No. Trusty was the foundation for all of her dreams. Every time she thought of a future, it included Trusty. She’d wanted to come back after graduating from college, but her mother had talked her out of it, and then she’d thrown herself into establishing her business. She hated that it had taken Aunt Cora’s death to bring her back, but she also felt that Aunt Cora left her the property for a reason. She wouldn’t have left everything she owned to Elisabeth if she didn’t think Elisabeth was supposed to be here.

This will be my community, too. I’m an outsider—Ross was right about that—but in my heart, I belong here. I’ll earn the community’s trust.

And she knew just the way to do it. She needed to give back to the community whose memory had pulled her through more handsy dates and stressful years than she cared to think about. She’d always been a Trusty girl at heart. She’d just have to show them that she really was one. That she deserved to be accepted, even if she wasn’t born there, because despite the rough beginning, she loved the small town as if it were her own.