“You could just give me your insurance info.”
Her insurance.
But that one hadn’t been her fault. The snake she’d been transporting had gotten loose and startled her, and she’d accidentally aligned her front bumper with the mailbox.
But today, this one-definitely her fault.
“Let me guess,” he said dryly when she sat there nibbling on her lip. “You don’t have insurance.”
“No, I do.” To prove it, she reached for her wallet, which she kept between the two front seats. Except, of course, it wasn’t there. “Hang on, I know I have it… ” Twisting, she searched the floor, beneath the box of puppies and piglet, in the backseat…
And then she remembered.
In her hurry to pick up Mrs. Swanson’s animals on time, she’d left it in her office at the kennels. “Okay, this looks bad but I left my wallet at home.”
His expression was dialed into Resignation.
“I swear,” she said. “I really do have insurance. I just got the new certificate and I put it in my wallet to stick in my glove box, but I hadn’t gotten to that yet. I’ll give you my number and you can call me for the information.”
He gazed at her steadily. “You have a name?”
“Lilah.” She scrounged around for a piece of paper. Nothing, of course. But she did find five bucks and the earring she’d thought that Abigail had eaten, and a pen.
Still crouched at her side, the man held out his cell phone. Impossibly aware of how big he was, how very good looking, not to mention how he surrounded her still crouched at her side balanced easily on the balls of his feet, she entered her number into his phone. When it came to keying in her name, she nearly titled herself Dumbass of the Day.
“You fake numbering me, Lilah?” he asked softly, still close, so very close.
“No.” This came out as a squeak so she cleared her throat. And, when he just looked at her, she added truthfully, “I only fake-number the jerk tourists inside Crystal’s, the ones who won’t take no for an answer.”
“Crystal’s?”
“The bar down the street. Listen, you might want to wait awhile before you call me. It’s going to take me at least an hour to get home.”
He paused, utterly motionless in a way that she admired, since she’d never managed to sit still for longer than two minutes. Okay, thirty seconds, but who was counting. “What?” she asked.
“I’m just trying to figure out if you’re for real or if you’re a master bullshit specialist.”
That surprised a laugh out of her. “Well, I
He studied her face for another long moment, then nodded. “Fine, I’ll wait to call you. You going to ask my name?”
Her gaze ran over his very masculine features, then dropped traitorously to linger over his very fine body for a single beat. “I was really sort of hoping that I wasn’t going to need it.”
He laughed, the sound washing over her and making something low in her belly quiver again.
“Okay, yes,” she said. “I want to know your name.”
“Brady Miller.”
A flicker of something went through her, like the name should mean something to her, but discombobulated as she was, she couldn’t concentrate. “Well, Brady Miller, thanks for being patient with me.” She reached for Abigail’s leash, attaching it to the collar around the duck’s neck.
“Quack.”
“Shh.” Then she grabbed the box of babies. It was damn heavy, but she had her dignity to consider so she soldiered on, turning to get out of the Jeep, bumping right into Brady’s broad chest. “Excuse me.”
He straightened to his full height and backed up enough to let her out, helping her support the box with an ease that had her envying his muscles now instead of drooling over them.
Actually, that was a lie. She managed both the envying and the drooling. She was an excellent multitasker.
“You’re really going to walk?” he asked, rubbing his chin as he considered the box.
“Well, when I skip or run, Abigail’s leash gets tangled in my legs.”
“Smart-ass.” Brady peered at the two puppies and potbellied piglet. To his credit, he didn’t so much as blink. “They potty trained?”
“No.”
He grimaced. “How about the duck?”
“She’d say yes, but she’d be lying.”
He exhaled. “That’s what I was afraid of.” He took the box from her, the underside of his arms brushing the outside of hers.
He was warm. And smelled delicious. Like sexy man and something even better-breakfast wraps and coffee.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving you a ride.” He narrowed his eyes at the duck on the leash. “You,” he said, “behave.”
“Quack.”
Without another word, Brady strode to his truck and put the box inside.
Lilah looked down at Abigail. “You heard him,” she whispered, having no choice but to follow. “Behave.”
Two
B rady wasn’t an impulsive guy. Years on the streets as an untethered, unwanted kid had taught him a certain innate caution-which had saved his life on more than one occasion. A stint flying for the army and then Special Forces had only hammered it home.
But it hadn’t been until he’d left the military and became a pilot for hire in places that weren’t safe for so much as a cockroach that he’d really learned to appreciate his instincts.
And yet those instincts abandoned him in a blink as he offered his Danica Patrick wannabe a ride.
Luckily, she was smarter than him.
She was still standing by her Jeep, watching him carefully, clearly unwilling to just hop into his truck.
“I don’t bite.”
She laughed a little. Nervous, he realized. He made her nervous. She walked to his truck and peered cautiously inside. He wasn’t sure what she was looking for; signs that he was a murderer or rapist maybe, and he looked into the truck as well. She straightened, gasped at how close he now was, and stumbled back a step.
Reaching out, he steadied her with a hand to her hip-which, he couldn’t help but notice, was nice and curvy and warm beneath his palm. Her eyes were a clear, deep mossy green. She had a few freckles across her pert nose and the hint of a sunburn. Beneath her blue knit cap, her straight brown hair hit her shoulders, with long bangs shoved off to the side as if in afterthought. Her mouth was full but naked. No makeup for this pretty little felon. She wasn’t model beautiful, but there was something undeniably arresting about her features, something that drew him right in… Probably it was the blatant mistrust she had all over her face. “I’m not a kidnapper. Or a woman-napper.”
“And yet you do have candy in your pocket.”
“If I promise not to offer it to you, or say ‘Hey, little girl’ in a really creepy voice, will you get in?”
Her gaze was locked onto the Snickers sticking out of his pocket, and into the silence her stomach once again rumbled with shocking vehemence.
He actually felt a smile curve his mouth. “Or maybe I
