Paws for a Kiss (Canine Cupids Book 1)

by Stephanie Rowe

  He nodded at her, and she suddenly realized she was staring at him. Heat flared in her cheeks, and she dragged her gaze off him and back to Emily. "We need to be top secret, Em." The Stocktons were well-known in Rogue Valley, and she didn't need the sheriff, or anyone else, alerting them that two out-of-towners were talking about being their long-lost family before Jaimi had a chance to figure out how she wanted to handle it. "We might or might not introduce ourselves, remember? We're spies right now, until we decide whether we want them to know who we are. If they aren't worthy, they don't get to know us, right?"

  Emily met her gaze. "They'll be worthy." There was absolute conviction in her voice, which alarmed Jaimi.

  She realized the little minx was planning to take control of the situation. No way. Some things in life were far more complicated than a six-year-old could grasp, and this was one of them. Curses to Gram for bringing Emily into this! Jaimi grasped her daughter's hands and squeezed gently. "Sweetie, I need you to make me a promise. Some people in this world aren't so nice. We don't know if the Stocktons are nice, and we don't know whether they would fit us. So, promise me you won't mention their names again unless we're alone, and you won't introduce us, until we both decide together that it's the right decision. We're a team, remember?"

  Emily sighed, but nodded. "I promise, but Mom, it'll be okay. Gram said you'd be scared, and I had to keep telling you it would be okay so your inner wimp wouldn't win out. So, it will be okay, 'kay?"

  Jaimi's brows shot up. "My inner wimp?"

  "Yes, Gram says we all have one, but yours is really loud and obnoxious and it sometimes needs to be smacked around to make it shut up."

  Jaimi burst out laughing at her mom's words coming out of a six-year-old's mouth. "God, I love you, kiddo."

  Emily beamed at her. "I love you, too, Mom." She reached her hand into her parka pocket and pulled out a photograph. She held it up, and scanned the crowds passing by them. "I brought Chase's photo. Do you see him? Let's start spying—"

  "You brought one of the photos Gram had?" Jaimi snatched it out of her daughter's hand. Good God. They were going to look like stalkers! "I'll take that." She looked around, needing to distract her daughter. They were on the edge of the grounds of the Rogue Valley Christmas Festival, and there were people everywhere, tromping through the snow, wearing Santa hit, and overflowing with happy laughter on this opening afternoon of the three-day celebration. "Oh...look! Reindeer!"

  "Where?" Emily spun around, her eyes widening when she saw the pen of reindeer across the way. Christmas lights twinkled on the fence, and two of Santa's elves were giving out food pellets for the children to feed the animals. "Do you think Rudolph is there? Can we see?" She took off in a sprint, not even waiting for Jaimi.

  Jaimi sighed, and sat back on her heels, watching her daughter dart across the dirt road, effortlessly dodging crowds until she reached the fence around the reindeer pen. Emily grabbed the middle bar and climbed right up, moving with alarming speed and determination. Dear God, was she going to climb into the pen? "Em! Get down!" Jaimi jumped and started running toward her. "Emily!"

  Suddenly, she heard a horn blast, and she glanced to her right. A huge tractor was bearing down on her, only feet away. "Oh, shit—"

  Something suddenly hit her hard from the side, thrusting her out of the path of the tractor. She landed hard on the frozen ground, gasping as two strong arms dragged her across the gravelly earth, jerking her trailing feet out of the way of the massive tires just as they crunched by.

  She gasped, frozen, as she watched the massive tractor roll by, towing a trailer filled with hay bales and curious people, who were leaning over the side, gawking at her. Dear God. She'd almost been crushed. That would have made for an extremely sucky first-Christmas-without-Gram, positive attitude notwithstanding.

  Her lungs heaved, trying to catch her breath, as she became gradually aware that she was lying on top of a warm body, not the hard ground, and that those arms were still locked around her waist.

  She looked down at the hands clasped around her belly, and saw the worn black cuffs of a certain calf-length jacket she had just been gawking at a few minutes ago. Oh, crap. The hot sheriff had saved her? Heat rose in her cheeks as she twisted around to look behind her.

  Sure enough, playing the role of her landing pad, was the same untamed, intensely male sheriff who had been watching her so carefully just a moment ago. It was his hard, hot body beneath her, and his booted foot between her calves. He grinned, flashing her a smile that made heat tingle all the way to her frozen toes. "Welcome to Rogue Valley. My name's Sheriff Wilson…" He paused. "But you can call me Dane."

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  Sneak Peek: A Real Cowboy Never Says No

  Chase Stockton knew he'd found the woman he'd come to meet.

  There was no mistaking the depth of loathing in the gaze of AJ's dad when he'd glared at the woman in the pale blue sundress. There was only one woman Alan could despise that much, and it was Mira Cabot, AJ's best friend from childhood.

  Chase grinned. After more than a decade, he was about to meet Mira Cabot in person. Hot damn.

  Anticipation humming through him, Chase watched with appreciation as she ducked into the last row of pews, her pale shoulders erect and strong as she moved down the row. She was a little too thin, yeah, but there was a strength to her body that he liked. Her dark blond hair was curly, bouncing over her shoulders in stark contrast to the tight updos of the other women in the church. He'd noticed her flip-flops and hot pink toenails, a little bit of color in the chapel full of black and gloom.

  Chase had hopped a plane to attend the funeral, but it hadn't been just to honor AJ. He could have done that from his ranch in Wyoming. Nope, he'd come here to meet Mira, because he'd had a feeling this was going to be his only chance.

  He ignored the line of churchgoers waiting to be seated. Instead, he strode around the back of the last pew to the far side, where his quarry was tucked away in the shadows. As he approached, someone turned up the lights in the church, and the shadows slid away, casting her face in a warm glow, giving him his first view of the woman he'd been thinking about for so long.

  Chase was shocked by the raw need that flooded him. Her eyes were the azure blue as in her photos. Her nose had that slight bump from when she and AJ had failed to successfully install a tire swing in her front yard, resulting in her crashing to the ground and breaking her nose. Her lips were pale pink, swept with the faintest hint of gloss, and her eyelashes were as long and thick as he'd imagined. Her shoulders were bare and delicate in her sundress, and her ankles were crossed demurely, as if she were playing the role that was expected of her. Yet, around that same ankle was a chain of glittering gold with several blue stones. He knew that anklet. He'd helped AJ pick it out for her twenty-first birthday.

  She was everything he'd imagined, and so much more. She was no longer an inanimate, two-dimensional image who lived only in his mind. She had become a real, live woman.

  Mira was eyeing the crowd with the faintest scowl puckering her lips and lining her forehead, just as he would have expected. She didn't like this crowd any more than AJ had.

  Chase grinned, relaxing. She was exactly what he'd imagined. "You don't approve?" he said as he approached her.

  She let out a yelp of surprise and jumped, bolting sideways like a skittish foal. "What?"

  Chase froze, startled by the sound of her voice. It was softer than he'd expected, reminding him of the rolling sound of sunshine across his back on a warm day. Damn, he liked her voice. Why hadn't AJ ever mentioned it? That wasn't the kind of thing a guy could overlook.

  She was sitting sideways, her hand gripping the back of the pew, looking at him like he was about to pull out his rifle and aim it at her head.

  He instinctively held up his hand, trying to soothe her. "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." He swept the hat off his head and bowed slightly. "Chase Stockton. You must be Mira Cabot."

  "Chase Stockton?" Her fro
wn deepened slightly, and then recognition dawned on her face. "AJ's best friend from college! Of course." She stood up immediately, a smile lighting up her features. "I can't believe I finally get to meet you."

  He had only a split second to register how pretty her smile was before she threw her arms around him and hugged him.

  For the second time in less than a minute, Chase was startled into immobility. Her body was so warm and soft against him that he forgot to breathe. He had not been expecting her to hug him, and he hadn't had time to steel himself. He flexed his hands by his sides, not sure how to react. It had been so long since anyone had hugged him, and it was an utterly foreign experience. It was weird as hell, but at the same time, there was something about it that felt incredible, as if the whole world had stopped spinning and settled into this moment.

  When Mira didn't let go, he tentatively slipped his arms around her, still unsure of proper protocol when being embraced by a woman he'd never met before. As his arms encircled her, however, a deep sense of rightness settled over him. He could feel her ribs protruding from her back, and he instinctively tightened his grip on her, pulling her into the shield of his embrace. In photographs, she'd always been athletic and solid, but now she was thin, thinner than he liked, thinner than he felt she should be.

  She tucked her face in his neck and took a deep breath, and he became aware of the most tempting scent of flowers. It reminded him of a trail ride in the spring, when the wildflowers were beating back the last remnants of a stubborn winter.

  The turbulence that constantly roiled through his body seemed to quiet as he focused on her. He became aware of the desperate nature of her embrace, reminding him that she was attending the funeral of her best friend, and she was no doubt being assaulted by the accompanying grief and loss.

  He bent his head, his cheek brushing against her hair. "You okay?" he asked softly.

  She took another deep breath, and then pulled back. Her blue eyes were full of turbulent emotion. "It's just that seeing you makes me feel like AJ's here again." She brushed an imaginary speck of dust off his shoulder. "You were his best friend, you know. You changed his life forever."

  He wasn't used to anyone touching him with that kind of intimacy, especially not a woman. Women never got familiar with him. Ever. He simply didn't allow it. But with her, it felt okay. Good even. He shrugged, feeling completely out of his depth with her. "He changed mine," he said. "He did a hell of a lot more for me than I ever did for him." AJ had been a lifeline in an ugly existence that had been spiraling straight into hell. He knew exactly where he'd have been without AJ: dead, or in prison. It was a debt he could never repay.

  She nodded, still not stepping away from his embrace. She lightly clasped his forearms, still holding onto him. "He was like that, wasn't he?"

  "Yeah, he was." Unable to make himself release her, Chase studied her face, memorizing the curve of her nose, the flush of her cheeks, and the slope of her jaw. "You were his rock, you know. The only person in this world he truly trusted."

  And that was it, the reason why he'd wanted to meet her. He was bitter, tired, and cynical, and he'd needed to see if the Mira Cabot his friend had always talked about actually existed. He needed to know whether there was someone in this world, anyone besides his brothers, who a man could actually believe in. Hearing that AJ had died had derailed Chase more than he'd expected, and he'd needed something to hold onto, something that connected him back to AJ and to some dammed goodness in his life.

  Her cheeks flushed, and she smiled. "Thanks for telling me that. We didn't keep in touch much over the last few years, but he's always been in my heart."

  He stared at her, uncertain how to respond. Who talked about things in their heart? And with strangers? But he knew the answer to that. Mira did, and that's why he'd wanted to meet her.

  She finally pulled back, and he reluctantly released her, his hands sliding over her hips. She moved further into the pew and eased onto the bench. "Sit with me," she said, patting the seat beside her.

  "Yeah, okay." Instead of taking the aisle seat, he moved past her and sat on the other side of her, inserting himself between Mira and AJ's dad. The old man was across the church, but he hadn't stopped shooting lethal stares in her direction. AJ wasn't there to protect her, so it was now Chase's job.

  He draped his arms across the back of the pew, aware that his position put one arm behind Mira's shoulders. Not touching, but present. A statement.

  He looked across the church at AJ's dad, and this time, when the man looked over, he noticed Chase sitting beside her. The two men stared at each other for a brief moment, and then Alan looked away.

  Satisfied, Chase shifted his position so he could stretch his legs out, trying to work out the cramps from the long flight. He was glad he'd come. It felt right to be there, and he'd sent the message to AJ's dad that Mira was under his protection.

  He glanced sideways at her as she fiddled with her small purse. Her hair was tumbling around her face, obscuring his view of her eyes. Frustrated that he couldn't see her face, he started to move his hand to adjust her hair, and then froze. What the hell was he doing, thinking he could just reach out and touch her like that?

  Swearing, he jerked his gaze away from her, a bead of sweat trickling down his brow as he realized the enormity of what was happening. He was attracted to her. For the last decade, Mira had simply been AJ's best friend, an angel of sorts that Chase had idealized from a distance, never thinking of Mira as anything more personal than simply a bright light in a shitty world.

  But now?

  He wanted her.

  He wanted to brush her hair back from her face. He wanted to run his fingers over her collarbone. He wanted to feel her body crushed against his again. He wanted to sink his mouth onto hers, and taste her—

  Hell. That spelled trouble, in a major way.

  Suddenly, he couldn't wait to get on the plane and get out of there, and back to his carefully constructed world.

  He hadn't come here for a woman. He'd come here for salvation, not to be sucked into the hell that had almost destroyed him once before. Mira Cabot might be the only woman on the planet worth trusting, but that wasn't reason enough for him to risk all that he'd managed to rebuild.

  Nothing was worth that risk. Nothing.

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  Sneak Peek: Unexpectedly Mine

  Clare was lifting the box of cupcakes off the front counter when she became aware of the utter silence of the general store. Even at the funerals of her parents, she hadn't heard this kind of silence in Birch Crossing.

  Awareness prickled down her arms, and she looked at Norm, who was in his usual spot behind the front register. She could have sworn that there was amusement crinkling his gray eyes when he nodded toward something behind her.

  Clare spun around, and there he was.

  Griffin Friesé.

  Her mystical knight in shining armor from last night.

  Her heart began to race as she met his gaze. His stare was intense, penetrating all the way to her core. She was yanked back to that moment of his hands on her hips, of his strength as he'd lifted her. The power in his body as he'd emerged from his truck during the thundering rain and raging wind. Her body began to thrum, and his expression grew hooded, his eyes never leaving hers, as if he were trying to memorize every feature on her face.

  He was wearing a heavy leather jacket that flanked strong thighs and broad shoulders. His eyes were dark, as dark as they'd been last night in the storm. Whiskers shadowed his jaw, giving him a rough and untamed look. His boots were still caked with mud, but his jeans were pressed and clean. His light blue dress shirt was open at the collar, revealing a hint of skin and the flash of a thin gold chain at his throat. His hair was short and perfectly gelled, not messy and untamed like it had been last night. A heavy gold watch sat captive on the strong wrist that had supported her so easily.

  Today, he wasn't the dark and rugged hero of last night.

  Well, okay, h
e still was. His power transcended mud, storms, nice watches, and dress shirts.

  But he was also, quite clearly and quite ominously, an outsider, a man who did not fit into the rural Maine town of Birch Crossing.

  Then he smiled, a beautiful, tremendous smile with a dimple in his right cheek. "How's your daughter?"

  A dimple? He had a dimple? Clare hadn't noticed the dimple last night. It made him look softer, more human, more approachable, almost endearing. Suddenly all her trepidation vanished, replaced by a feeling of giddiness and delight to see him. She smiled back. "She's still asleep, but she's okay. Thanks for your help last night rescuing her."

  "My pleasure." His smile faded, and a speculative gleam came into his dark eyes. "And how are you?"

  No longer feeling like a total wreck, that was for sure. Not with Griffin Friesé studying her as if she were the only thing he ever wanted to look at again. Dear God, the way he was looking at her made her want to drop the cupcakes and her clothes, and saunter with decadent sensuality across the floor toward him, his stare igniting every cell in her body. "I'm fine." She swallowed, horrified by how throaty her voice sounded. "Thank you," she said. "I owe you."