Once Upon a Rescue

by Kait Nolan

  Hayden didn’t see that happening, but he wasn’t going to force the issue. “Fine. But at least consider it as a temporary solution this season.”

  “Now that I will absolutely do. Thank you.”

  “You can thank me by pouring me a cup of that coffee while I finish these pancakes.”

  “You got it.”

  As she turned away, rummaging in the cabinet for a mug, Hayden shot off a quick text. Let it not be said that he didn’t think on his feet.

  After breakfast, Brooke had a shower—a glorious, steaming shower that thawed her out all the way for the first time since yesterday—and finally felt ready to face the rest of the day. Once the roads were cleared, she and Hayden piled into his truck to go check on all the animals still at the rescue. He was quiet on the drive. Brooke glanced over at him from beneath her lashes, trying to gauge his mood. She felt bad for shooting down his idea, but generous though it was, it wasn’t practical. And if this attraction ended up being the product of forced proximity rather than something real, she didn’t want the strain on either of them of working where he lived.

  Brooke deflated, her pleasure in the morning waning. She didn’t want this to be just a fluke of shared space and body heat. Hayden was sweet and funny and interesting. He was a good man, which already put him leaps and bounds ahead of the last guys she’d dated. She wanted the chance to get to know him better. Wanted to pursue the chemistry between them to see where it led. She wanted to prove to herself that her judgment wasn’t permanently flawed.

  The driveway of the shelter hadn’t been cleared. Hayden’s truck bumped and slid down the road, coming to a stop beside her car, which was coated in a fluffy layer of white. Nothing interrupted the winter quiet but their footsteps as they trudged through the snow toward the entrance.

  “Generator’s off,” Hayden noted. “Either it ran out of propane or the power’s back on.”

  “Fingers crossed for the latter.” She unlocked the door and stepped inside. The interior was blessedly warm. Lights flickered on when she flipped the switch. “Hooray for power.”

  “I’ll go unhook the generator and load it up while you check on everything.”

  Dumping her purse, she opened the door to the back. A chorus of opinionated meows greeted her as she stepped inside.

  “Hey, y’all. Who’s hungry?”

  Relieved the cats had survived the night, no wiser to the severe winter weather, she lost herself in the routine of cleaning cages, dishing out food and water and offering up a few brief cuddles to those felines who were so inclined. She kept expecting Hayden to walk in. When he hadn’t materialized by the time she finished, she went in search of him.

  He was in the kennels, pacing around the outside edges.

  Shoving her hands into her coat pockets, she circled around to join him. “What are you doing?”

  “Thinking. You’ve got these aluminum carport covers over all the kennels. I’ve seen people make barns out of these. I think we could use the same concept to close this in and insulate it.”

  “Really?” The idea of it intrigued her.

  “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Taking her hand in his, he walked her through it, pointing out the steps to how the entire facility could be enclosed and weather-proofed. It would cost money—everything did—but what he proposed would cost a lot less than building something from scratch.

  Fresh stirrings of hope had her turning toward him. “This is a great idea. Certainly more affordable than new construction, but we still don’t have the money.”

  “You might be able to get Edison Hardware to donate some of the materials. Or maybe get a crew together to work on reclaiming some wood and other materials from condemned properties in the area. I think there’s a place up in Lawley that does that.”

  “Those are certainly options worth considering. I’m no stranger to drumming up donations. But I still doubt it would cover everything.”

  “You need a fundraiser.”

  It was the story of running a non-profit. “I’m sure we’d need several. The ones we’ve done in the past have barely been enough to manage the expenses of running what we already have. There’s definitely never leftovers for building anything.”

  “So you need to think out of your original box. What about a calendar?”

  “I’ve heard of other shelters doing that kind of thing. Everybody loves cute animal pics. But I have a hard time imagining that will raise enough to cover the cost of materials, let alone labor. The ones that make that kind of money usually involve hot guys.”

  “Like firefighters,” he supplied.

  “Yeah.” She’d succumbed to a few of those herself from various causes she’d seen online over the years.

  Hayden arched his brows, expectant. “You’ve got firefighters.”

  He was a firefighter. And apparently he was volunteering himself as eye candy. The idea of it made her grin. “I appreciate your willingness to help, Hayden, but I don’t know that we’d sell out of a calendar full of you. Although I’d certainly buy one.”

  Clutching a hand to his heart, he adopted a piteous expression. “You wound me, madam.” He sobered. “But no, not just me. I got a bunch of the other guys in the department to agree.”

  “You what?”

  “After our conversation over breakfast, I sent a text out to the guys about the plight of the shelter. We’ve got a bunch of animal lovers who want to help.”

  Brooke stared at him, not quite believing what she was hearing. “You got an entire calendar’s worth of guys from the fire department to volunteer to pose for a sexy calendar to raise money for the shelter?”

  “Well, I don’t know as I mentioned the sexy part. I figured we could pose with animals from the shelter. Maybe find homes for some of them while we’re at it.”

  She’d shot down his initial attempt to solve her problem and he hadn’t given up. Instead, he’d found another way to help, one that would, quite possibly, fund the entire endeavor. Sexy guys plus cute shelter animals would equal profits. Prospectively big ones if she could get a big enough social media campaign going. Her friend Cecily ran a marketing firm. She’d be all over that. But the idea had been Hayden’s. He’d come to the rescue of her rescue…again. The fountain, it seemed, had worked overtime to grant her wish.

  “You are amazing,” she told him, sliding her arms around his shoulders.

  Grinning, he tugged her closer. “I aim to please.”

  “Do you think they’d agree to something on the sexier side? Because sexy sells.”

  “I’m reasonably sure we can talk them into it, as long as nobody is expected to lose their pants.”

  She snorted. It was a reasonable enough request, but she couldn’t help messing with him, just a little. She arched a brow. “Nobody?”

  His grin turned wicked. “I volunteer as tribute, as long as it’s a private viewing.”

  Tipping her mouth up to his, she murmured, “I think we can work with that.”

  “Okay people!” Cecily Campbell, marketing genius, clapped her hands. “Let’s get this show on the road. Where’s our Mr. January?”

  “Hey buddy, that’s you.” Hayden’s firefighter buddy, Sean, had to actually kick him to drag his attention away from Brooke. In all fairness, Sean had his hands full of two kittens that were climbing from his arms to his fiancée, Delaney, and back again, so he didn’t have a hand free to swat Hayden on the back of the head. “You’re not jealous, are you?”

  Brooke was talking to Zach Warren, the photographer who was donating his time to do this shoot for the rescue’s fundraiser calendar. Hayden felt the tips of his ears getting warm and hot color flowing up the back of his neck. Really missing my shirt right about now.

  Delaney laughed. “That’s not jealous, that’s besotted. He doesn’t even see Zach.”

  “I’m going to go pose for this calendar now, since that’s less embarrassing than talking to y’all,” Hayden muttered as he walked away.

  “Besot
ted.” It fit. He wasn’t embarrassed about his feelings for Brooke, it was more about being caught mooning after her, and having Delaney nail it like that didn’t help. Neither did the fact that he was standing around in turnout pants and boots, suspenders chafing his bare nips. “Are you ready for your closeup, Miss Fluffington?”

  The puppy in his arms rubbed her ear and yawned hugely. Halfway to Zach’s staged area, Cecily took hold of Hayden’s arm and starting tugging him forward like she thought he was going to run. Maybe she’d forgotten that he was the one who’d come up with this idea and had bribed, browbeaten, and guilt-tripped seventeen of his closest friends and fellow firefighters to pose for the eighteen-month calendar that would go on sale in July.

  Maybe he had the look of a last-minute runner.

  But if he looked nervous, it wasn’t about being camera shy, or the thought of the Casserole Patrol and everyone else’s granny asking him to autograph his half-naked picture. He had more important things on his mind. Next level things.

  During the winter weeks, when the shelter had been temporarily relocated at the farm, Brooke had stayed on-site most nights. Because she’d felt a responsibility for the animals, but also because they’d been floating through those first heady weeks of a new relationship. He’d slid the rest of the way to head over heels in love with her over long talks in the barn, nights in sleeping bags, breakfasts in his kitchen.

  Once the weather warmed enough, the kennels had been moved back to the rescue proper. Without having the animals at the farm, there hadn’t been as many opportunities for sleepovers. They still spent as much time together as they could manage, but he’d missed that intensive one-on-one time over the past few months, missed her on those mornings he woke up without her. Hayden was hoping to do something about that today.

  “You need to wake up, Princess Flufferina,” he told the puppy in a low voice as Cecily left them. “Because after this, you’ve gotta help me carry out our plan, right?”

  Hayden swung the puppy up to face him. The ball of white floof looked back at him with one brown eye, one blue. He’d scoped her out at the shelter when she’d arrived with three other siblings a couple weeks before. She’d taken one look at him and crawled into his lap for a nap. The double dew claws on her back feet said she was part Great Pyrenees, and Hayden was betting the other part was lab. She was a chillaxed puppy, and liked to snuggle into his chest without a bunch of scrabbling claws that would’ve scratched him up. He’d tried to resist, but every exposure had his willpower weakening. Two of her littermates had been adopted, and each visit he’d been relieved she was still there. Eventually he figured out what that meant.

  “Okay, Hayden, time to get your cuddle on,” Zach said.

  Game for anything, Hayden followed all of Zach’s instructions for posing, most of which involved just playing with the puppy while flexing his abs or arms or shoulders to show them at best advantage. It was hard to feel too much like meat when he had such an adorable ball of fuzz in his arms.

  When he was finished, and it was Ben’s turn in front of the camera, Hayden wandered over toward the makeshift puppy corral where Brooke was overseeing things. She had that gleam in her eye, the matchmaking gleam that said more than one animal was going to find a forever home today.

  He loved that look. He loved all her looks. He especially loved the smile that spread across her face when she caught him watching her.

  He held his ground, wanting her to come to him, not wanting to have this conversation in the middle of the chaos of fur and firemen.

  Brooke strode over, giving him a knowing smirk. “You know you want to keep her.”

  The puppy wasn’t the only thing he wanted to keep. This was his moment. His stomach tightened as his heart kicked into gear. “Yeah. Yeah I do.” Hayden held the puppy up to meet her gaze. “What do you think, Fluffbucket? You wanna come live with me?”

  She licked his nose.

  On a grin he turned his head as if she was whispering in his ear. “What’s that? You’ll only come live here if your big buddy comes, too?”

  He could see Brooke thinking through that, trying to sort out which other dog at the shelter he wanted to adopt. Tipping his head toward the puppy, he endured a wet Willy without breaking into laughter as he “listened” again. “Oh, you mean Tiny Tim and his mommy. I see.”

  Brooke’s mouth dropped open, all traces of teasing gone. “Are you trying to coerce me into moving in with you by promising to adopt a puppy?”

  Hayden fixed an innocent expression on his face and pointed to his chest. Maybe it was fast, maybe she wasn’t ready for this step. He needed to keep things light. “Who, me? No. This is all Fluffernutter.” He held the puppy up cheek to cheek with him. “I mean, can you really say no to this face?”

  Her brows were knit. “Are you serious?”

  He’d learned a lot about Brooke over the past months, including that sometimes her reserve just meant caution. She was a woman who needed to analyze all the angles, didn’t just jump into things. So, he kept his tone casual, as if his heart wasn’t pounding ninety to nothing against his sternum. “Yeah. Why not? You hate that your landlord won’t let you have more than one animal. Tim loves it out here. So do you. Plus, think about how much faster you’ll pay off your student loans not having to pay a fortune in rent.”

  “Those are all very practical reasons,” she agreed.

  “I know how much you value the practical.” So he’d led with that, hoping it would make for a solid weight against the fact that this was all pretty fast. But maybe it was too fast. Maybe he should have waited for some kind of sign from her.

  Or maybe...maybe he was thinking too much. Maybe the cute puppy play and the practical considerations weren’t what she needed to hear.

  Hayden tucked the puppy in his arm and stepped into her space. He skimmed his fingers over the sun-warmed skin of her cheek, into her hair. “There’s also the fact that I’m crazy about you.”

  She looked up at him, the serious expression giving way to that wide smile he adored as she slid her arms around him, sandwiching the puppy between them. “That’s a better reason. It happens I’m crazy about you, too.”

  His heart gave a leap in his chest. “So is that a yes?”

  She bent to press a kiss to the top of the puppy’s head. “I don’t know, what do you think, Flufferella?” Angling her head as if listening, she said, “You want to bring your brother? I don’t know. Is that a dealbreaker?”

  It wasn’t fair. Hayden was so swamped with relief, he was a little lightheaded. Frankly, she could have asked for half a dozen dogs and he would have said yes just then. But he didn’t care. The way he saw it, this was the first step in his master plan. Joint house and joint dogs led to joint life on a permanent basis. He was in a bit of a hurry; he could admit that. He knew it was fast, but he also knew it was right, and sometimes he wanted the rest of their lives to start. Right. Now.

  But he could wait for more. He was learning he wasn’t such a patient man where she was concerned, but he could wait for her to catch up. For now, he cuddled them both close. “I think that can be arranged.”

  Eyes sparkling, Brooke tipped her mouth up to his. “Then I guess you’re getting a bunch of new roomies.”

  He kissed her, feeling the world spin just a bit, and then pulled her in close, knowing she’d be able to feel the hard thud of his heart that was still a little too fast. He bent his head, until his lips brushed the delicate shell of her ear. “Don’t worry,” he told her, soft and low, “you’ll always be my favorite.”

  Sneak Peek A Lot Like Christmas

  Book # 11 Wishful Romance

  Jaded Army medic Ryan Malone never expected his next mission would bring him back from Afghanistan to tiny Wishful, Mississippi. His great uncle's health is failing and the cantankerous old coot has pushed everyone in the family away. Ryan is their last resort to get Uncle Myron to move into assisted living before he breaks a hip--or something worse. He's looking to get in, get it done,
and get back out. That definitely doesn't include taking time out for a sweet-faced waitress with a heart bigger than the Atlantic.

  * * *

  Interior designer Hannah Wheeler is a long way from the high-powered clients of her old Atlanta firm. Despite the fact that she's currently spending her days waiting tables, she's discovered she really enjoys the small town life she found with her sister. This Christmas season, she's finally ready to introduce Wishful to her true capabilities by using her skills to spread some holiday spirit. But with the Malone men, she's definitely got her work cut out for her.

  * * *

  Will Hannah's evergreen cheer thaw their frosty hearts and remind the two that the most important part of the holidays is family?

  Chapter One

  * * *

  “Sugar, are you tying utensils on that Christmas tree?”

  Undeterred by the Girl, you crazy tone, Hannah Wheeler finished attaching the dessert fork to a branch with a short piece of jute and shot a look over her shoulder at Omar Buckley, official master of the kitchens at Dinner Belles Diner. Taking advantage of the mid-afternoon lull, he leaned against the counter and watched her with undisguised bafflement.

  “You can’t judge until I’m done. Trust me.” By the time she finished with the tree, the whole thing would be cute, kitchy, and scream “diner.” It was just the first phase in her holiday plan to introduce Wishful to the skills she had besides carting trays and taking orders. The phase that would hopefully prove to them—and to herself—that she had the chops to pursue the rest of her revised dream.

  Janelle Duncan, the other waitress on duty, was a lot more interested in checking out Omar and his former running back’s body than in Hannah’s efforts at decorating. Hannah wasn’t overly concerned with the lack of cheerleading. In her previous life, she’d had far more difficult clients to please, and she’d always come through in the end. She’d learned that people usually didn’t have any vision until someone showed it to them. And that was fine. Hannah had enough vision for all of them.