Not Just The Girl Next Door. Stacy Connelly

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      “Don’t you worry, though,” she told the dogs. “You guys come first.”

      She’d get around to those repairs soon enough and—

      Mollie braked a bit harder than she’d intended as she caught sight of a familiar sleek black sedan parked off to the side of her house. Her heart instantly skipped a beat. She hadn’t expected to see Zeke today. She’d texted him after Birdie asked her to swing by the shelter. So for him to show up unannounced, at a time when he knew she wouldn’t be around, only meant one thing.

      Her pulse picked up as she opened the driver-side door, and Mollie had to remind herself that she was annoyed with him. How many times did they have to have this conversation?

      “Hey, Moll.” Walking around the side of her house like he owned it, Zeke Harper greeted her with a smile. “How did it go at the shelter?”

      Mollie tried to glare at him. She really did. But as he lifted a muscled arm to wipe the sheen of sweat off his forehead, annoyance wasn’t exactly the emotion sending a blast of heat through her body. Dressed in a navy T-shirt and well-worn jeans with—heaven help her—a leather tool belt around his narrow hips, Zeke Harper looked more like the hot host of a DIY show than like the respected psychologist he was.

      Trying to keep her voice, her blood pressure and her hormones from blasting sky high, she asked, “What are you doing here, Zeke?”

      He hitched a thumb over one broad shoulder. “I thought I’d get a jump on replacing those rotted steps on the back porch.” A smile he didn’t try all that hard to hide tugged at his lips. “You were off to such a good start, tearing them out like you did.”

      Mollie’s face heated. She’d felt quite proud of herself as she’d torn out the rotting wood steps, risers and stringers. Since then, she’d made several unsuccessful attempts at cutting the new stringers but could never quite get the angle right. So she had moved on to another project and contented herself with knowing she was getting her lunge work in every time she came in from the backyard.

      “I was going to finish them,” she said.

      “Sure you were, kid,” Zeke said happily as he threw an arm around her shoulders. “But what are friends for?”

      Mollie cringed a little, enough so Zeke noticed and quickly removed his arm. “Sorry, I guess I am kind of sweaty.”

      “You know I’m not afraid to get dirty,” Mollie challenged.

      As their gazes met, for a brief second the atmosphere around them seem to change, to shimmer with an electric charge like the air right before a storm. His hazel eyes, normally so full of teasing and laughter, darkened, and Mollie’s heart fluttered in her chest.

      But then he blinked, and whatever she thought she’d seen disappeared. “You had a three foot drop-off at the edge of the porch. That’s not safe.”

      Overprotective concern. Now that emotion she immediately recognized and the curious flutter sank to her stomach like a stone.

      Kid, she reminded herself as she swallowed hard. Friend. That was how Zeke thought of her. The little sister he’d never wanted.

      He had teasingly dubbed her with the title long ago, and even though she’d never thought of him as a big brother, a part of her clung to the designation like a shield. Anything to keep the man she’d fallen in love with years ago from ever learning about her hopeless crush.

      “You could at least wait for me to ask for help first,” she argued.

      “I would.” He pinned her with a knowing look. “But you never ask.”

      Maybe she did have a habit of digging deeper when she was already in over her head. But she wasn’t a kid anymore, and the woman in Mollie longed for the day when Zeke Harper would see her as someone other than his best friend’s little sister...always in need of rescue.

       Chapter Two

      “Two dogs?” Zeke demanded as he followed Mollie around the side gate to her backyard. Though her property extended far beyond the fence line, the wooden structure that surrounded the large grassy area was one of the first remodeling projects he’d helped her with.

      Before taking on the leaky faucets. Before putting in the new water heater. Before tearing out the decades-old carpet. Because the fence was important to the dogs and the dogs were more important to Mollie than anything.

      He admired her huge heart when it came to the animals, he really did. But he was starting to worry that she was dedicating too much of her life to the dogs she rescued and the ones she trained.

      “Your text said that you were going to the shelter to evaluate a dog. You never said anything about bringing two of them home with you.”

      “I did go to evaluate him.” She tossed the words, along with her reddish-blond curls, over her shoulder as she glanced back at him. “And my evaluation was that Chief needed to be in a foster home and out of a kennel.”

      Mollie had introduced him to both dogs—the happy, playful seventy-pound puppy named Charlie and the shy, scared Chief.

      The poor guy did look terrified. He’d been cowering in the back of the crate in Mollie’s SUV, and it had taken quite a bit of coaxing from Mollie and some encouraging barks from Charlie to get him to come out. And even then, he’d crouched so low that his belly was practically brushing against the grass.

      “Look, I get it, but don’t you think this is a lot to take on? Between the house, volunteering at Furever Paws, your job, your own dog...” He waved a hand to the house, trying not to cringe at the sound of Arti howling like mad inside. Mollie loved the long-eared hound like a kid, but Zeke wasn’t sure he’d ever met a goofier, clumsier, crazier dog.

      “I can do this, Zeke. The house is fine. I’m perfectly capable of handling my volunteer work and my job, and Arti is, well, Arti.” Unleashing both of the new dogs to explore a backyard filled with various dog toys and agility equipment, Mollie said, “I’ll introduce the three of them later today, but I’m sure they’ll get along.”

      Though Zeke didn’t dare say so out loud, it wasn’t the house, the shelter, her job or her dogs he was worried about. It was Mollie herself. She worked hard, probably too hard, and while he knew she kept in good physical shape—she couldn’t possibly keep up with the rigors of dog training and agility if she didn’t—she spent too much time alone with only canine companionship.

      But whenever he encouraged her to go out more often, Mollie would only laugh. “What can I say?” she’d joked more than once. “I get along better with animals than I do with people. I wear my ‘crazy dog lady’ title with pride!”

      Zeke didn’t think Mollie was crazy—not as a friend and not as a psychologist. He had noticed, though, that she’d isolated herself more and more over the past two years. That worried him. When he saw a problem, his first instinct was to find a solution, and he quickly decided Mollie needed to get out more, to go on a date or two. She’d need a bit of encouragement, of course, which was where he came in. Fixing her up would be no different than fixing her back steps.

      Okay, maybe it was a little different...

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