Page 13 of Will Bark for Pizza
Even then, I might get a dog before I entertained getting tangled up with a woman again. Or maybe a plant. Wasn’t that the first step in proving you had your shit together? Make sure you can keep a plant alive for a year, or something like that?
“I bet the police chief is on his way,” I said, to reassure her and get my head on straight. Dana Wilcox’s fender bender probably took a back seat to a potential drowning. Once I got Red and her dog back to the shore, I’d shoot him a text. “I’d be arrested before I could dispose of your body.”
“Police chief,” she mumbled, a flash of panic in her eyes.
“Wait,you’renot a serial killer, are you?”
One corner of her mouth lifted so subtly I wouldn’t have noticed it if I weren’t staring.
Fuck, stop staring!
“Not a serial killer.”
“I hope that if you’re lying, you’ll let me live on account of me swimming all the way out here to save you.”
“I’ll take it into consideration.”
A hint of a full smile danced across her lips, but it was the shivering that most caught my attention. The water couldn’t be more than sixty-five degrees, and the sun had already dropped behind the mountain range. It’d be dark within the hour. Probably sooner. Though it might take awhile for hypothermia to set in, I didn’t want to test the theory.
“As long as you’re feeling generous, can we please head back to shore before my family jewels shrivel up and disappear?”
“The water’s notthatcold,” she scoffed playfully, a full-body shiver giving her away.
“Tell that to my future children.”
I gripped the nose of the board and tugged it toward the shore. Husker popped to his feet and stood at attention, as though he were the one steering us to dry land. Red held on by her elbows, pushing the board from the opposite end.
I focused on the red Jeep parked near the boat dock. The one with Nebraska plates. The name Husker made sense now, but not why she was out here in the first place. I hadn’t been in Bluebell Springs long, but Luke was pretty adamant: Ghost Lake was a private lake. How did she even know about it? The turn off the highway to Karl’s property wasn’t announced. It was overgrown, and littered with no trespassing signs. Hell, I drove past the turn the first time.
“Can you grab him until I can get his leash?” Red asked, wringing out her long hair that went past her shoulders, before she stepped out of the lake.
Noting the handle on the back of the doggie life vest, I slipped my hand through it. Not that he needed the anchor. Husker stayed still, watching his human with an unbroken stare as she retrieved the leash from the dock.
“Actually, give me just a second.” She hurried to herJeep, threw open the passenger door, and reached in. I shouldn’t stare at those long legs, butdamn.
A colorful tattoo snaked around one lower calf, but before I could make out what it was, my gaze zeroed in on the redness wrapped around her other leg. If I had any regrets about swimming out to her, they were gone now. If she hadn’t freed herself from the pondweed, she might have drowned.
“Will you hold him still?” she asked me, nodding at Husker as she held up her phone.
“Strange time for a photo op,” I pointed out.
She lifted the camera a little higher, letting me know I was captured in the frame. “In case youarea serial killer,” she said, a flirty flicker in her eyes that I may or may not have imagined.
She set the phone on a rock and stepped her toes into the water so she could clip the leash onto Husker’s collar.
The pup looked at the water between him and the shore and started to whine.
“Does he really not know how to swim?”
“Of course he does. It’s more of a preference.”
I held the board as still as I could until Husker hopped off. His back paws sank into the soft shore and a gentle wave rocked up to his hocks. He bolted forward as though he’d been bitten.
“That’s a pretty serious preference,” I noted, unable to blunt the chuckle that followed.
“There’s a reason he’s the dry one.” Our gazes met and held for several seconds, and something inside me stirred. It was possible it was the gas station quesadilla I had on the way out here, but it was far more likely the redheadand her far too enticing smile. Because I had to focus on her smile to ignore the way her wet T-shirt and shorts clung to her skin, revealing curves that could haunt me for days—probably longer. “Most huskies I know don’t like the water.”
“He’s a Husky?”
