His laugh is an easy, sexy rumble that slips and slides along my skin. Yet still, all I can think is that he did this to see me. All this. For me.
“How did you know this is where I’d be?” I ask, assuming Mona is the guilty party.
“What makes you think I came here to see you? This is my thing—going around to parks and renting strange dogs for a few hours. I find it very relaxing,” he explains. His face is so sincere, his words so matter-of-fact that I assume he’s serious.
“Really?” I ask, not meaning to wrinkle my nose in disdain.
“No, not really,” he confesses, rubbing his index finger down my curled-up nose. “I most definitely came here to see you.”
My heart patters excitedly in my chest and I press my face into Dozer’s fur to escape the appreciative look in Rogan’s eye.
“Buuut, since you didn’t bring your glass, you’ve ruined my whole plan. Fido here is very disappointed.”
I glance down at the dog again. He’s sitting in the grass, tail wagging furiously, ears perked, staring at Dozer. “Sorry, Fido,” I whisper. “How can I make it up to you?”
The dog’s tail wags even harder.
“Now you’re on the right track,” Rogan exclaims with a suggestive half-grin. “I think if you invite us over to your house for a glass of wine, he might find it in his heart to forgive you.”
“Oh, is that what it’ll take?”
“Jump if you want Katie to take me home with her, Fido,” Rogan says, snapping his fingers. Fido’s ears twitch and he leaps straight up into the air.
“Wow! You’re great with rented dogs.”
“Thank you, but the real question is: How am I with beautiful makeup artists who walk their cats in the park?”
I look up into twinkling eyes, now the color of moss, and I answer honestly before I can think twice. “Better than most, dog whisperer. Better than most.”
I carry a still-shaken Dozer back to the park entrance, where Rogan drops off his rented dog. I can see the bedazzled look on Fido’s owner’s face when Rogan smiles his thanks. I know just how she feels. That smile is a showstopper for sure!
“So,” he says, putting his hand on the small of my back as we resume our walk to the parking lot, “which one is you?”
“Right there, but I don’t have any wine at my house,” I admit as I point to my blue convertible.
“What?” he exclaims, his expression stricken. “It’s a good thing I got here when I did. This could’ve ended badly. Luckily, I have just the thing. A sweet, aromatic red that will make your wineglass very happy.”
I stop before I step off the curb, sliding my eyes up to Rogan’s. He’s so close I can see the flecks of silver around his pupils, spraying out into the deep green of his irises like spilled mercury. The sparkling orbs drop to my lips and stay there for several seconds, forcing me to lick their dry surface. Almost without meaning to, he mirrors my action, the tip of his tongue trailing just along his bottom lip.
“I’ll follow you,” he rumbles quietly. I nod, tucking my chin as I start off across the lot. “And yes, I’ll be watching your ass as you walk away.”
I neither turn nor comment, but my butt feels suddenly warm and I smile all the way to my car.
FOURTEEN
Rogan
I’m not the least bit surprised by the little house that Katie pulls up in front of. It suits her perfectly. It’s cute and pretty in a quiet, understated way. It looks calm and soothing, a place I can easily picture Katie unwinding each night.
I pull to a stop behind her convertible. When she gets out, she casts an odd look my way. I know what she’s thinking. It’s about my form of transportation.
I grab the bottle of wine and extra glass that I brought and get out to follow her up the neat sidewalk, through a wrought-iron gate and onto an even neater walk that leads to her front door. I bet Katie pulls every weed that comes up within sight of her house. She strikes me as the type who likes things tidy and in order, but that’s not what makes me smile. What makes me smile is the image of her in some tiny shorts and a tiny tank top, hair piled up on top of her head, pulling weeds.
Down on her hands and knees.
Mother of hell!
“What are you smiling at?” she asks as she shifts her cat to finagle her key into the lock.
I don’t tell her exactly what I was thinking, of course. I go back a thought or two until I find something that wouldn’t send her running like a frightened deer. “Just wondering if I was right about what you were thinking.”
When she misses the hole the second time, I take her keys from her and let us in. She pauses in the doorway, blocking my entrance with her small body. “And just what do you think I was thinking?”
“That you wouldn’t have pictured a guy like me driving a minivan.”
She looks sheepish and I know I was right. “I guess I am a little surprised.”
“I figured,” I admit as she finally moves inside, allowing me to follow. The instant I close the door behind me, the cat jumps out of her arms, walks about ten steps into the living room, flops down on its side and goes straight to sleep.
“Damn, does the cat always do that?”
Katie catches my eye and follows it back to the cat. She grins. “Yep. That’s how he got his name. I call him Dozer because he dozes off in four seconds or less.”
My laugh is a short bark. “I love the way your mind works,” I confess impulsively.
She turns her big blue eyes back to me, pink infusing the apples of her cheeks. I love that she gets all shy and flustered over something so simple. She tucks her chin, just like she does at work, like by doing so she can hide. I reach forward and hook my finger under it to lift her face back to mine.
“And I love that me telling you that embarrasses you.”
“So you do that on purpose?” she asks, mildly accusing.
“Maybe. Those blushes are awfully addictive.” She smiles, a hesitant spread of her lips, prompting me to add, “Almost as much as your smiles.”
She gets all fidgety and nervous and adorable under my scrutiny, so I release her. Albeit reluctantly.
“So, a minivan,” she says, dropping her eyes and clearing her throat. I love that I put her off balance. I doubt much gets under this girl’s skin and I’m happy as hell that I appear to be making my way in, slowly but surely.
“A minivan,” I confirm, raising the wine bottle and glass questioningly.
“Oh, sorry. Kitchen’s through there.” Katie points to the most obvious doorway and I head in that direction. She follows after a few seconds. When I stop at the small island, she breezes past me, setting down the glass that I brought her and keeping her face averted. Makes me think she might be blushing again. After she rummages through a drawer for another minute, she turns her composed self back to me, a corkscrew in one hand. “There has to be a story behind it.”
“Behind what?” I ask, content to just watch her rather than talk. Or think.
Her grin is more pronounced this time. “Behind the minivan.”
“Oh, right. The minivan. I have a brother who came with me. He’s handicapped. I dropped him off at the gym on the way to the park.”
Her expression softens. Visibly. “Y-you have a handicapped brother?”
“I do.”
“And you . . . you take him places with you? You take care of him?”
I shrug. “Well, I don’t know about that. I mean, he’s grown, so . . .”
“Does he live with you?”
“For the most part.”
“That’s . . . that’s . . .” Katie is looking at me like she’s just now seeing me. Really seeing me. After several seconds, she glances down at the counter, at the glasses she’s arranging in a straight line with the bottle of red. “That’s very kind of you. I’m sure he appreciates it.”