Puppy Love. Kelly Moran

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СКАЧАТЬ to retire to do…whatever it was the Battleaxes did. Eat small children, update Redwood Ridge's Twitter page with town gossip, matchmaking…

      He batted his eyelashes. “How could we ever replace you, Aunt Rosa?”

      “Can the cuteness. Save it for the ladies.”

      Right. “No, we haven't replaced you yet.” He'd have to get an ad in the paper, which would bring out all the crazies or every single woman in a thirty-mile radius. Damn it. He should make Flynn handle the hiring. As the middle brother, he was the most organized. Except he was their traveling vet and wasn't in the office much. “I'll get on it right away.”

      She narrowed her hazel eyes and tilted her head, her unnaturally red hair not moving with all the shellac she'd sprayed on it. “You said that more than a month ago.”

      Well, how was he to know she was serious? It was hard to tell with her. “I mean it this time. Now can I go to lunch? Pretty please?” There were only three people on earth he'd bust out the “pretty please” for, and one of them was right in front of him.

      “Brent's already at lunch. Go ahead.” She smacked his ass and waved him off.

      Brent being his vet tech. Why didn't Rosa smack his ass? Brent would enjoy it. “It's really pervy when you do that.”

      She feigned innocence. “Love tap your rear end? It's a nice one.”

      He bit back a sigh. “You're relation. It's pervy.” He was two steps from freedom when he remembered something. “Can you get a hold of Justine from that clothing store down the way? She came in with a tourist who had the injured lab—”

      “You mean Avery Stowe? She's not a tourist. She's Justine's daughter. Just moved to town with her daughter. Bad divorce. They're staying up at one of Justine's rentals until they can find a place.”

      Perhaps he should've been nicer to her, but she'd caught him at the tail end of a crappy day and the fact remained, she hadn't taken very good care of her pet. Even without the injury, the puppy was malnourished.

      Pulling on his coat, he reached for the door. “Can you get a number for her and let her know Seraph is recuperating nicely?” Not that she seemed to care. She hadn't visited the puppy.

      “No need. Avery called three times this morning to say she'd be in after lunch. Apparently, there was a problem with their moving truck getting lost. Poor woman. No good luck. Plus, the daughter, Hailey, was pretty upset over finding the stray, so it took Avery awhile to calm her down after they left here. They slept in.”

      Cade locked in on one word in that whole rant. “What do you mean, stray? It's their dog, isn't it?”

      She offered him her classical duh look. “It is now, but not when they found it. Can you imagine that poor little girl coming across a scene like that?”

      He called to mind the exhaustion edging the woman's chocolate eyes, the way the daughter never spoke, and the way he'd all but jumped down her throat. He'd assumed the worst, which wasn't like him. The woman—Avery?—had rescued Seraph from bleeding out into the snow, alone and scared.

      And he'd been curt with her for doing the right thing.

      Shit. He was an asshole.

      * * * *

      Avery wiped her hands on a dish towel and went to answer the incessant knocking. Hoping it was the moving van, she pulled the door open to find Seraph's vet. “Oh.” She took a step back and blinked. “It's you.”

      The Jerk, she'd begun to call him in her head.

      Looking just as attractive as he had the night before, sans the irritation, his hands framed the doorway as he leaned into them, taking up the whole space. Sandy blond hair, a little on the longish side, curled around his ears and nape. Blue eyes damn near the color of the Pacific in June warily stared at her. A little gray mixed in to keep them from being too potent. His jaw had a day's worth of scruff and the man rocked a set of powder blue scrubs under an open leather coat.

      God. He was an eye-gasm if she ever saw one.

      When he didn't say anything, her heart started to pound. “Oh, no. Is…Seraph all right?” She turned to peek at Hailey, who was doing a numbers app game on the iPad at the kitchen table.

      “He's doing fine. Recuperating very well.”

      His voice had her pausing, just like the night before, but today it wasn't as angry. It wasn't quite coarse or too deep, but there was a melodic rhythm when he spoke. Great. So his voice was an ear-gasm on top of his too handsome looks. Crap on a cracker.

      She caught herself wrapping the towel around her hand in nervousness and stopped. “Then why are you here?”

      Pushing off the frame, he towered over her five-six height to what had to be six feet. “I came to apologize. May I come in?”

      “Um, sure.” She held the door open wider and glanced at Hailey. If he got upset again or had a naturally loud voice, it could upset her. “Sweetie, why don't you do that in your bedroom for a few minutes? I'll be in soon.”

      Hailey grabbed her device and headed down the hall.

      “She doesn't talk much, does she? For a girl, I mean. Thought they were all chatter boxes.” He laughed uncomfortably and rubbed his neck.

      The guy had adorable charm in spades.

      His nervousness calmed her a bit. “She's a nonverbal autistic. Pretty high functioning in other areas, though.”

      He stilled and pinned her with round eyes. “I'm fu…mucking this up.”

      She smiled, more at ease with this version of him. Pretty sweet how he'd caught himself upright before cursing. “You didn't know. It's okay.”

      Gazing heavenward, he crossed his arms. His leather jacket strained against his muscles and movement. “Look, about last night, I'm sorry. I was rude. I thought you were a negligent owner. I'd had a bad day and took it out on you.”

      At the risk of sounding like a parrot, she said the only thing that came to mind. “It's okay. You didn't know.”

      The flutter in her belly hadn't happened in so long, she was unnerved. Plus, people didn't often apologize to her, and she'd spent so long in the shadow of her ex-husband that she didn't know what to do with Cade's intense stare.

      One corner of his mouth quirked. Too cute to be sexy, but head-tripping just the same. “You never corrected me. You could've put me in my rightful place in the exam room. Why didn't you?”

      She glanced at the hallway and back to him. He was still staring as if trying to figure her out. “Hailey gets nervous around raised voices. I figured we'd sort it out later.”

      He nodded slowly, a wrinkle forming between his brows. “Did I upset her?” He took a step forward and paused as if wanting to reach for her and thinking better of it. He seemed genuinely concerned about Hailey, the look in his eyes sincere.

      “I don't believe so. She was worried about the dog, but I think she filtered everything else out.” They stood awkwardly for a beat. Now what? “Can I get you something СКАЧАТЬ