LITMIR.BIZ

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dog hadn’t been able to find her own way to the ground from his pickup. He doubted she’d been able to track her way back to the firehouse. Bloodhound was probably the only breed not in her family tree.

      “No...” Stanley reluctantly admitted. “I broke her out.”

      “Why?”

      “Because her time was almost up,” Stanley said.

      “What do you mean?” But Cody was afraid that he knew. As if sensing his distress, Annie turned her attention from the kid back to him. She bounded down the porch steps and jumped up on him. Her jowly face and almost soulful brown eyes nearly on the same level as his, she stared at Cody. He pushed her huge paws off his chest, but then patted her head gently.

      “They only keep the animals for so long. Then, if nobody adopts them, they put them down, Cody,” Stanley slowly explained—as if he were the adult and Cody the kid who didn’t understand. The eighteen-year-old’s voice cracked when he added, “If they did the same thing with people...”

      Cody and Stanley would have been dead long ago, since they’d spent most of their lives in foster homes. That was how they’d met. Cody had been forced to leave their group home when he turned eighteen, but he’d kept in touch with Stanley.

      Cody had been adopted once, but adopting him had put a strain on the young couple’s marriage, and after a few years they had returned him to the system—like someone might a dog to the pound. He’d been so young that he didn’t even remember them.

      Stanley had been born premature and addicted to crack, so no one had been willing to take a chance on a child who might have lifelong physical and mental disabilities. That was probably why Stanley felt such a kinship with the dog.

      Annie whined and pushed her head harder against Cody’s hand. He had a kinship with the damn dog, too. The puppy had been abandoned at the firehouse—just as he had been abandoned as an infant at a firehouse in Detroit. The guys had named her Orphan Annie.

      “That sucks,” Cody agreed. “But I don’t know where we’re going to keep her.”

      “We’re going to keep her?” Stanley asked, his brown eyes wide with hope.

      Cody knew better than to make any promises. “I don’t know if we can...” He didn’t have a place to stay himself, let alone room for a dog. Unless...

      As if Stanley had guessed what Cody was thinking, he said, “Miss Serena already told me Annie can’t stay here ’cause she’s not housebroken.”

      “Is that why you brought her to the firehouse?”

      The kid nodded, and some blond curls fell into his face. He really needed a haircut; Cody would have to bring him by the barber. “Yeah...”

      “She can’t stay there either,” he said. “She peed in Superintendent Zimmer’s office.”

      Stanley’s brown eyes widened. “How mad was he?”

      Braden had actually laughed. But he’d also told Cody to take the dog with him when he left. “I don’t think she’ll be welcome there again.”

      “But if we have no place to keep her...” Stanley’s voice cracked with emotion. “And we bring her back to the humane society...”

      “Maybe she’ll be adopted this time,” Cody said.

      Stanley shook his head. “She’s too big. Nobody wants a dog that big, they said.” His brown eyes filled with tears.

      “She can stay.”

      Cody’s body tensed at the sound of the husky, female voice. He braced himself before turning to where Serena had stepped out onto the porch. She was so damn beautiful. Ever since the first moment he’d met her, he’d been having fantasies about her long, thick hair—about tangling his fingers in it, about...

      His mind went blank as his gaze focused on her. It was so hot that he shouldn’t have been surprised she was wearing shorts. But he hadn’t pictured her as the type to wear cutoff Daisy Dukes, and he’d pictured her in a lot of different things—and nothing at all—since he’d met her. Her legs were long and tanned or maybe that was just the natural hue of her honey-toned skin. With the cutoffs, she wore a pale pink tank top, probably in deference to the heat. Her hair was down, reaching nearly to her narrow waist.

      “Annie can stay?” Stanley asked hopefully.

      Cody was surprised the kid had enough wits about him to pose a question. His tongue was tied. But she had that effect on him. She was the first woman he’d met that he hadn’t been able to flirt with.

      “She can stay outside and in the enclosed porches,” Serena allowed. “I don’t want her peeing in my house. Or chewing up any of my great-grandmother’s antiques.”

      Stanley nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

      Ma’am? Cody winced. He was twenty-seven and didn’t like to be called “sir” yet. Serena had to be a few years younger than he was—way too young to be called “ma’am.”

      “You should get her some water now,” Serena told Stanley. “With all that hair, she must be overheated.” As she said it, she lifted her own hair from the back of her neck. Her face was flushed; she was hot, too.

      So hot...

      And sexy...

      Nearly tripping over his feet in his anxiousness to obey her—or maybe to please her—Stanley hurried into the house.

      Cody could understand wanting to please her. He’d like to try himself. As all the naked images popped into his head, his throat thickened with desire. He cleared it to say, “Thank you.”

      Serena nodded.

      “What about me?” he asked, even though he knew it was a bad idea. “Can I stay, too?”

      Her dark eyes widened in surprise.

      He should have asked her for a room weeks ago instead of crashing at the firehouse. But with the arsonist on the loose, he’d thought it was smart to stay close—and there wasn’t any place closer than the house itself. When those hot spots had flared up again with the arsonist’s help, he’d been the first one ready to go.

      But the guys wanted him to have a softer bed so he could get more rest. When they were on the job—sometimes for weeks at a time—they got very little sleep.

      Another reason he’d decided to crash at the firehouse instead of getting a room here was because of Serena, though. He wasn’t sure how much sleep he would actually get with her so temptingly close.

      Her lips parted, but she said nothing—her hesitation obvious. She didn’t seem to want him in her house any more than she wanted the dog.

      So he promised her, “I won’t pee in your house or chew up your great-grandmother’s antiques.”

      She hesitated another long moment before replying, “Then I guess you can stay.”

      * * *

      WHAT THE HELL had she been thinking?

      Sure, she needed more tenants to be able to show the bank that the boardinghouse could be a profitable business. She’d even hoped that Cody was bringing her another boarder. She hadn’t thought he would be that boarder, though.

      Grandma would’ve said it was like letting a fox into the hen house. Of course, she and Mrs. Gulliver were the only hens. And Mrs. Gulliver was eighty-six.

      And despite all the things Serena had heard about Cody Mallehan being a shameless womanizer, he hadn’t really even flirted with her. Of course she wasn’t his type. Guys like him loved fun-loving, lighthearted women. She was too serious for him, too stressed thanks to that damn lawsuit. She also didn’t care about makeup and clothes, about dressing to attract men.

      Not that she didn’t want a man. But she didn’t want just any man; she wanted one who was as serious

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