Read, Write, Love at Seaside(3)

“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.