by Lora Leigh
Pushing the memory aside, she focused on preparing for her workday. She moved about in her usual routine, checking her tools, restocking her inventory of dog treats inside the glass case from the fresh shipment, and getting the cash box out of the small safe. Her cleaning service had done a terrific job as always. A brother-and-sister Fae team ran the cleaning business, and she had engaged their services on the barter system. The two Fae owned four excitable Dalmatians, and the dogs wouldn’t let anyone but Brynn, whom they adored, give them baths. In turn, Brynn always got a kick out of seeing the haughty Fae brought low by a quartet of canines.
As she prepped for the hundred-pound golden retriever mix scheduled to arrive soon, she caught herself humming. She froze, automatically glancing at the giant red clock on the wall, and was shocked to realize that she’d spent at least five minutes rearranging the same three brushes on the table.
Sean.
He’d invaded her fountain, her solitude, and her dreams. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had so much fun doing something as ordinary as eating breakfast, and the tingle of sexual attraction had added a zing to every minute. If only she could be normal for once, then maybe . . .
Maybe nothing. Maybes and if onlys were for fools. She could never have a man like Sean O’Malley, and she shouldn’t even want him. She’d promised herself that she’d never fall in love, never take the chance of getting pregnant and subjecting another generation—her own daughter—to the curse of the black swan.
The bell over the door rang, and Brynn flashed her biggest smile to welcome tiny old Mrs. Mastroianni and her dog. Peaches, as far as Brynn could figure out, was golden retriever crossed with moose. The friendly dog easily outweighed his owner, and could have pulled Mrs. Mastroianni across town—or carried her on his back, if he’d wanted to do it. But he was extraordinarily gentle with his tiny owner and saved all his boisterousness for the Bordertown dog park.
“Let’s trim his fur this time, dear,” Mrs. M. said, patting her dog’s shoulder without needing to lean down even a little. “And please use that apple-scented conditioner that leaves his coat so shiny. He’s looking a little scruffy.”
Brynn smiled, knowing her line. “Then he’s in the right place, isn’t he? We’re here for all the dogs who don’t want to be scruffy anymore.”
Mrs. M. chuckled, as she always did, and toddled off to meet “the girls” for tea and gossip. As Brynn watched her go, a trace of worry shadowed her mood. Her favorite client was walking just a little bit slower than usual. A little bit stiffer.
“But she’ll outlive us all, won’t she, Peaches?” Brynn ruffled the silky fur behind the dog’s ears, and Peaches, who never seemed to mind his silly name in the slightest, grinned his happy openmouthed doggy smile up at her as if agreeing.
* * *
Four hours later, Brynn, tired but content, swept up dog hair and disinfected the grooming table. In addition to Peaches, she’d bathed and groomed a pair of huskies, a chunky little pug who hated to have his nails trimmed, and a young wolverine who’d fallen into a vat of pickles. It had taken three shampoo-rinse-repeats with her special herbal shampoo for Brynn to remove the pungent aroma, and the faint scent of dill still infused the air.
Mrs. Mastroianni graciously had insisted that Brynn take a two-dollar tip, as always, and Brynn had given in, as always, never once letting on that she only charged a fraction of her usual fee for Peaches. Mrs. M. was pretty clearly on a fixed income, and it probably took a good portion of that just to keep Peaches in dog food. With her arthritis, there was no way the elderly woman would have been able to bathe and groom the enormous dog on her own, and it boosted both her pride and her dignity to add in the small tip. Brynn made sure that Mrs. M. never discovered that the shop’s other clients generally tipped ten times that amount.
“Hey, it’s two dollars I didn’t have this morning,” Brynn told the framed photograph of the original Scruffy, a two-hundred-pound Irish wolfhound who’d wandered over to the fountain one night, wounded and limping. He’d curled up at the edge of the water and watched Brynn swim around for the next several hours.
Almost as if he’d been standing guard.
As soon as she’d turned back into human form, Brynn had taken him to Dr. Black, the best vet in town. She’d said Scruffy had probably been hit by a car. After he’d recovered from his injuries enough to leave the animal hospital, Scruffy had lived with Brynn for another three years before he’d died peacefully in his sleep. He’d been the best friend she’d ever had, and although it had been several years since he’d gone, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to get another dog.
The bell over the door rang just after she knelt down behind the grooming table to retrieve a nail file that Theo the pug had kicked off during his valiant struggles to escape.
“I’m sorry, but we’re closed,” she called out without bothering to look up.
“I’ve got an emergency.” The man’s voice was deep, rich, and a little desperate. It was also the voice that had murmured to her in her dreams a few short hours before. She slowly stood up, sure that her mind must be playing tricks on her.
It wasn’t. Sean O’Malley stood, large as life—and that was pretty darn big, considering those incredibly broad shoulders—in the middle of her shop, holding a hissing Persian cat.
“You!” Sean and Brynn said at the same time, and then they both laughed.
The cat didn’t appreciate the humor, apparently, because it lashed out with one paw and scratched the back of Sean’s hand. Sean didn’t even flinch, and he didn’t say a word of reprimand to the cat. Brynn liked him even more for that. Most creatures were jumpy when they came into a place that, no matter how clean, would always hold the scent of other animals.
“Do you work here?” Sean glanced around. “Nice place.”
“It’s mine.”
Brynn felt a moment of fierce pride over her neat little shop. The rows of colorful dog and cat accessories behind the counter gave the place a festive air, and framed photos of happy customers and their pets lined the walls. She’d made a success of her business in spite of the challenges that came with the swan curse.
“I was just closing, but you said you had an emergency?” She let the question ring in her voice. “Must be my day for it. I had a baby wolverine with a pickle problem earlier.”
He grinned. “Sounds like an interesting story.”
The cat in his arms yowled and lashed out again, leaving a second red stripe next to the first on Sean’s hand, and Brynn decided she’d had enough of that. She marched over to Sean and took the cat out of his arms before he could protest.
When the cat hissed at her and started fighting in earnest, Brynn pulled it more tightly against her chest, wrapping the squirming bundle in her arms.
“Stop it right now,” she said firmly, and the cat’s eyes widened at her tone, and then the tension seeped out of its body as it relaxed against her.
Sean’s mouth dropped open. “What did you do? I’ve never seen Barty calm down like that for a stranger. He hates most people. Well, pretty much all people except for my mother.”
Brynn smoothed a hand down the cat’s fur and crooned at him. “Barty isn’t a bad boy, are you, my beautiful one? Just a little misunderstood.”
The beautiful white Persian closed his brilliant blue eyes and began to purr, and Brynn almost laughed at Sean’s stunned expression.
“It’s a gift,” she confided. “If animals didn’t like me, I’d go out of business.”
“Makes sense,” he said.
His gaze swept her from head to toe and she suddenly flushed, realizing how she must look. Sweaty hair, no makeup, her Scruffy’s apron covering her T-shirt and jeans; she was no fashion plate, that was for sure. Of course, she’d been wearing feathers the first time he’d seen her, so it was all relative. Sean was wearing a dark green shirt and a pair of well-worn jeans and, even though the dark shadows under his eyes told her that he hadn’t slept much, he was still absolut
ely gorgeous.
It was entirely unfair.
“Your emergency?” she prompted.
“Oh, right. He has a big wad of gum stuck in his tail. Neighborhood kids probably dropped it on his favorite spot on the stone wall in front of the house. My mom wouldn’t let me chop it out with scissors.”
Sean dragged a hand through his own silky dark hair, which needed to see a pair of scissors, too, but Brynn kept that observation to herself.
“You live with your mother?” It was none of her business, but she was curious.
He laughed. “No, but we all go visit her a lot. She’s rattling around in that big house by herself now, and we worry. I caught some shut-eye and then arrived just in time for the cat emergency this afternoon.”
“Let’s have a look,” she said, carrying Barty over to the table.
The little cat started to protest again when he saw the grooming table, but Brynn took a clean, soft towel from a shelf and placed it down first, then set him on top of it.
“Nobody likes a cold metal table,” she told Sean.
He was watching her again—studying her as if she were a puzzle he needed to solve—and she didn’t like it.
“Don’t stare at me.”
“I can’t help it. You’re beautiful,” he said, and she was caught off guard by the sincerity in his voice.
She covered up her flustered reaction by reaching for the tools she needed. A fine-toothed comb and a little oil should do it.
“I’m not beautiful. You must not get out much,” she snapped, before pointing to the shelf behind him. “Please hand me that bottle of sesame oil from the shelf.”
When he silently gave her the oil, she winced at the sight of the scratches on his hand.
“There’s a first-aid kit under the counter. You should clean up those scratches.”
“I’m fine. I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. I’m not really good at small talk,” he said, his face grim as if he’d had to force out the words.
She rolled her eyes and started combing the edges of the gum out of Barty’s tail. “You practically grew up in the most popular bar in Bordertown, and you have four brothers. How can you not be good at talking to people? If you’d had my childhood, I could understand it. I spent most of my time alone.”
He shrugged, but she was almost sure he’d flinched a little. Interesting. Deep cat scratches didn’t bother him at all, but questions about his social skills made him uncomfortable. Yet another thing they had in common.
“Please go tend to those scratches. I’ll be stressed out about it until you do.”
His gaze caught hers as if demanding her attention, startling her into perfect stillness. A spark of deep red-orange color pulsed in his pupils for an instant, and then was gone so fast she wasn’t sure she’d really seen it. When he turned toward the counter, she exhaled a shaky breath.
Barty let out a particularly loud meow, startling Brynn into almost knocking over the uncapped bottle of oil.
“Yes, baby, I’m sorry. Let’s try a little oil to work that gum out, okay?” As she started to carefully work the oil into the fur around the gum, she glanced up at Sean, who was disinfecting and bandaging his hand. “He has quite a loud meow, doesn’t he?”
“That’s how he got his name.”
“Barty?”
Sean grinned. “Nope. Bartholomeow, if you can believe it.”
“That’s a good one,” she had to admit. “I’ve heard a lot of funny pet names, as you can imagine. Today I had one of my favorite dogs in here; an enormous golden cross named Peaches. He’s quite an elegant, dignified dog, so I always wonder if he’s a little embarrassed by his name.”
“I think I know that dog,” Sean said, after he put the first-aid kit away. “Tiny little Mrs. Mastroianni?”
“That’s the one. Bordertown is a small place, isn’t it?”
“Mrs. M. is a friend of my mother’s. They used to go for tea, before . . . before.”
Brynn recognized the pain that stamped his face. She’d worn the same expression after her mom had died.
“She’s gone?”
“No. She’s—no. Cancer. She doesn’t have much time left. Maybe three or four months, they tell us.” His eyes were dry, but his voice was rough with the unshed tears that she knew must be clogging his throat.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, wanting to do something—anything. Reach out to him, give him a hug, offer some comfort. But she knew better. Getting involved was dangerous.
Caring about someone was worse. Look what had happened to her mom.
She worked diligently to remove the rest of the gum, and then she washed the oil out of the beautiful Persian’s fluffy tail. He was purring now, lying on his side and enjoying the attention.
“I can’t get over how calm and happy he is for you,” Sean said, gesturing to Barty. “He hates everybody.”
Brynn gently rubbed the cat’s belly, and a thought occurred to her. “Has he always been like this? Persians are one of the best-tempered of all the cat breeds. It’s unusual to hear of one hating people.”
“Come to think of it, he hasn’t. He was a perfectly good cat for the first couple of years she had him. Cute as a button when he was a kitten, too. It’s just for the past year or so—”
Brynn knew what was coming when his voice trailed off. “When did your mom get sick?”
“Right about the same time, I think, although she didn’t get her diagnosis until several months ago,” he said, his eyes widening. “Do you think Barty knew?”
“It’s very common for animals to react when their people get sick,” Brynn said. “There are even doctors who use dogs to detect cancer in humans. They can smell the tumors or the difference in the bloodstream, or something like that, I think. I’m sure cats can do the same, only I haven’t heard of anyone trying to train a cat to do the job.”
“I’ll be damned,” Sean said, lifting the now-clean and gum-free cat up off the table and staring into his eyes. “Are you just worried about Mom, Barty?”
The cat meowed plaintively and quite loudly, and Sean smiled at him. Brynn’s heart stuttered in her chest at the sight of the big, masculine firefighter sharing a moment of compassionate understanding with the beautiful little creature, and the feeling rang every warning bell she had.
“Oh, boy, you should be on a poster,” she muttered, going to wash her hands and drop the comb in the disinfectant.
“What was that?”
She turned around, and he was standing way too close to her, even though she hadn’t heard him move.
“You,” she said, almost accusingly, backing away. “You’re like a movie poster. Hot guy rescues people from burning buildings and saves kittens from trees in his spare time. You don’t own a spandex suit, do you?”
A slow, deliciously wicked smile spread across his face. “Hey, if you’re into that kind of thing, I’ll see what I can find.”
SIX
Sean watched the intriguing rosy glow rise in Brynn’s face, and the blood in his body rushed straight to his cock. He’d never been so glad to be holding Barty, whose fluffy sweep of a tail hung down and concealed Sean’s enormous erection. Damn, but he was suddenly acting like a teenager at his first sight of cleavage, although Brynn couldn’t be more covered up.
His memory, though, was happy to rush in and supply her image, in full-color detail, from the night before. Her incredibly beautiful body, naked and gleaming in the moonlight, wasn’t a picture he was likely to forget anytime soon. His throat went dry, and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to pull Brynn into his arms and kiss the breath out of her. He could put poor Barty in one of the roomy crates lining the back wall—just for a few minutes, or an hour or two—and see if kissing her would quench the need that had been simmering at a slow burn ever since he’d first seen her.
His cock strained against its denim confinement, and Sean knew the answer was a resounding no. Kissing wouldn’t do anything but make him want more and more of her. Long, slow, powerful ki
sses. Naked kisses. Long, slow, hard thrusts into her hot, wet, welcoming body, maybe right there up against the glass counter.
He groaned, and Barty hissed at him, snapping him out of the fantasy and into the reality in which Brynn was staring at him like he was a lunatic, and they were standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass front wall of her shop.
With people walking by outside.
So, maybe not.
Instead, he took a deep breath and told her a different truth. “It’s pretty impressive that you own and run your own business, when you have to deal with the curse.”
She blinked, clearly not having expected him to say that.
“I—it’s—thank you. I’m very proud of my little shop, actually,” she admitted, and her cheeks turned pink again.
He caught himself staring at her like an idiot, and tried to come up with something to say.
“Dinner,” he finally said desperately.
“Excuse me?” Brynn looked around, probably wondering if she had a bigger pair of scissors nearby so she could use them to protect herself from the crazy man. He tried again, but this time he attempted to channel his brother Oscar, who was charming and funny and great with women.
It didn’t work.
“Dinner? With me? You?”
Her lips quivered, and he realized with relief that she was trying to fight back laughter instead of yelling at him to get out of her shop.
He hoped.
“Is this a thing with you? One-word invitations to meals?” Her smile faded quickly, though. “Sean, I told you, I can’t get involved. The curse—”
“It’s only dinner. You have to eat, right? Eat with me.”
She glanced down at Barty, who seemed to be bored with the entire conversation, and then back up at Sean’s face. “Well. I do have to eat. How can I refuse an eloquent invitation like that?”
“Tomorrow? No, I have the night shift. The day after tomorrow?”
A shadow passed through her winter-blue eyes, and he remembered that she’d have to do swan duty then.
