Romancing My Love(53)

“A house call?”

“Sure. With farm animals, it’s easier for everyone and less stressful for the animals.”

So much for him feeling the heat.

“Um, anytime is good, I guess. I’m still getting settled and trying to figure out Aunt Cora’s business and the whole farm thing.”

He ran his eyes down her body, deliberately this time. Okay, maybe he does feel the heat after all. She felt her insides melt. Oh, yes, Ross Braden definitely had a sexual edgy side that probably landed any woman he wanted beneath him.

“You don’t have much experience with animals, do you?” His lips curved up in a sexy smile.

She was still hung up on that seductive stroll of his eyes down her body. His remark startled and mildly offended her.

“I have a lot of experience with dogs and cats. I ran a pet bakery and pet spa in Los Angeles, thank you very much.” She pocketed her phone.

“Pet bakery and…Never mind. I meant farm animals.” He reached for the door and shook his head. “I’ll be right back.”

She let out a frustrated breath. No experience with animals. Please. I love animals.

He returned with the piglet safe and secure in a cat carrier. “I’ll carry him out for you. This is safer than letting him run around your car while you drive, but don’t leave him in this once you’re back home. It’s too small.”

Still disgruntled at the way he’d dismissed her business, she snapped, “I would never leave him in there.”

If he noticed her attitude, he didn’t show it as she followed him out of the exam room. Two Labradors, one black and one tan, were waiting by the exam room door. She pet them as they followed Ross out to the car. She hadn’t had any contact with dogs and cats since leaving LA, and she missed them. Petting them helped calm her agitation.

Ross opened the back door and set the crate on the seat, then opened the driver’s side door for her.

Surprised by the gesture, she settled into the car. “Thank you for all your help.” Mr. Tall Dark and Confusing.

Ross rested one arm on the roof of the car and leaned down so they were eye to eye. He wore a pair of tan slacks with a black Trusty Veterinary Clinic polo shirt. She tried not to notice the impressive bulge in his pants just below his leather belt.

“Take my number in case you have any more emergencies.” A dog sat on either side of him.

She pulled out her phone and tried to act nonchalant as he rattled off his phone number and she put it into her contact list. She didn’t ask if it was his office number or personal number. She couldn’t. His eyes were boring a hole right through her. It was a wonder she could process anything at all. Surely he was just being nice, anyway. She was new in town, and he…Oh God. He made the smell of animals and antiseptic soap sexy. Elisabeth imagined women probably followed him around just like his dogs. The thought gave her pause and intrigued her at the same time.

Down, girl.

She set her phone on the passenger seat and turned to thank him again. His face was so close she could see every whisker on his square jaw and three sweet lines in his lower lip that she wanted to run her finger over. He smiled, and her mind turned to mush again.

Jesus, what am I? A dog in heat? These types of thoughts surprised her. She wasn’t looking for sex, and even if she had been actively searching for a man, she wanted a relationship, not just sex. Anyone could have sex, but it took two people who were really in love to have a meaningful, lasting relationship, and that’s what she dreamed of.

“Ross,” Kelsey called from the porch of the clinic. “Luke’s on the phone for you.”

Ross held Elisabeth’s gaze for a minute longer. “Welcome to Trusty, Elisabeth. I’ll swing by when I’m free.”

It took her a minute to breathe—and to remember why he was stopping by. To check out the piglets. She needed to get a grip. Maybe he could give her a shot of Ross repellant, because she had a life to build and a business to maintain, and a man like Ross would probably chew her up and spit her out.

But, oh, would the chewing up be delicious.





(End of Sneak Peek)





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FLIRTING WITH LOVE, The Bradens

Love in Bloom series





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Seaside

Hearts





Seaside Summers, Book Two





Love in Bloom Series





Melissa Foster





Chapter One


THERE SHOULD BE an unwritten rule about drooling over construction workers, but Jenna Ward was damn glad there wasn’t. She sat on the porch of the Bookstore Restaurant, soaking up the deliciousness of the three bronzed males clad in nothing more than jeans and glistening muscles that flexed and bulged like an offering to the gods as they forced thick, sticky tar into submission. Their jeans hung low on strong hips, gripping their powerful thighs like second skins and ending in scuffed and tarred work boots. What red-blooded woman didn’t get worked up over a gorgeous shirtless man in work boots?

God help her, because she needed this distraction to take away her desire for Peter Lacroux, which went hand in hand with summers on the Cape and consumed her in the nine months they were apart. She zeroed in on one particularly handsome blond construction worker. His hair was nearly white, his jaw square and manly. She wanted to march right out to the middle of the road that split the earth between the restaurant and the beach and be manhandled into submission. Right there on the tar. Wrestled and groped until all thoughts of Pete evaporated.

“Wipe the drool from your chin, chica.” Amy Maples handed Jenna a margarita and, pointedly, a fresh napkin, as she settled into the chair across from her. “Good Lord, woman. What’s up with you this summer? I swear you’re in heat. I can practically smell your pheromones from over here.”

Jenna gulped her drink and righted her red bikini top, which was trying its damnedest to relieve itself of her enormous breasts. Even her bikini top was ready for a man. A real man. A man who craved her as much as she craved him.

Jenna reluctantly turned away from Testosterone Road and faced her best friends. The women she had spent her summers with here in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, for as long as she could remember and the women she hoped would help her through her most important summer ever.

Okay, she’d self-defined it as such, and it was probably a poor excuse for most important, but that’s how it felt. Huge. Momentous. Gargantuan. Great. Now she was thinking about other huge things…

“You’ve been here for a week, and you still haven’t told us why you’re all claws and hormones. Want to clue us in, or are we supposed to guess?” Bella Abbascia was a brazen blonde—and she, like Leanna Bray, the disorganized brunette of their bestie clan—had already found her true love. A feat Jenna only dreamed of. Ached for might be more accurate, and Bella was right; it was time to come clean.

Jenna downed the last of her drink and slapped her palms on the table.

“I don’t care what it takes; this is my summer. I’m done pussyfooting around. I want a man. A real man.” She slid her eyes to the construction workers again. Yum! She tried to convince herself to feel something more for the construction worker, but the only person her mind found yummy was Pete—and it didn’t seem to want to make room for others.

She wasn’t above faking it to pull herself through the charade. Maybe if she tried hard enough, she could talk herself into believing it.

“So, you’re going after Pete?” Leanna sipped her margarita and arched a brow. “How is that any different than every single one of the last five summers?”

“Oh no. Peter Lacroux can kiss my big, sexy ass.”

“Jenna!” Amy’s eyes widened. The sweetest of the group, she was perfectly petite, with kindness that sailed from her green eyes like a summer breeze.

“You do have a mighty fine ass, Jen,” Bella said. “But you’ve had a wicked crush on that man forever. If you’re going to focus your attention on someone—” Bella bit her lower lip and shook her head as one of the construction workers wiped sweat from his brow, pecs in full, drool-inciting view. Bella raked her eyes down his sculpted abs. “Um…Okay, yeah. They’re pretty damn hot. But why throw Pete away?”

Jenna had been over this in her mind a hundred times. She locked her eyes on her glass and exhaled. “Because I’m not going to spend another summer chasing a man who doesn’t want me. And this is a tough summer for me. I have to break up with my mother, and that’s enough heartache for a few short weeks.”

“Break up with your mom? Can a person do that?” Amy glanced around the table.

“I gather she’s not taking your dad getting remarried well?” Leanna asked. “I had such high hopes when she didn’t fall apart during the divorce.”

Jenna rolled her eyes. “So did I. You’d think that two years after her divorce, she’d be able to sort of compartmentalize it all, but, girls, you have no idea.” Jenna shook her head and held up her glass, indicating to the bartender that she needed another drink. She could have gotten up and retrieved the drink herself, but Jenna wanted the diversion of the sexy waiter who would deliver it to their table. She’d take as many diversions as she could get to keep from thinking of Pete.