LITMIR.BIZ

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her at first. He’d have barely remembered her back in high school.

      Not that he was particularly proud of that fact.

      Aaron held out his hand for a shake, then dropped it as he realized Melissa’s arms were wrapped around a shivering puppy. The dog looked up at him with scared brown eyes and let out a soft moan somewhere between a whimper and a howl.

      “Deputy Cooper and I have met,” Melissa said to Blake, though her gaze remained locked with Aaron’s. He felt an odd flutter in the center of his chest. “I thought you’d be off playing pro football somewhere.”

      He felt an old, bitter twinge of regret. “Blew out my knee first week of training camp, so I had to find another career.”

      She looked genuinely sympathetic. He wouldn’t have blamed her for indulging in a little pleasure at his downfall instead. High school social politics had been brutal, and people like Melissa Draper had always ended up outside the in-crowd.

      “What about you? What’re you doing these days?” he asked.

      “I’m a lawyer.” She didn’t bother to hide the touch of pride in her voice.

      Figured. She’d been voted most likely to succeed, hadn’t she? Something like that.

      The puppy whined again, drawing Aaron’s attention back to the present. The poor thing was shivering. Melissa didn’t look much warmer herself. Time to get his mind back on the job and get the two of them someplace warm and safe.

      He addressed the two firemen who’d continued examining the charred generator while he’d been talking to Melissa. “Any verdict yet, guys?”

      Perry Davis, the younger of the two and an old high school teammate, glanced at Aaron. “Still looking.”

      “How much longer before I can have my house back?” Melissa asked quietly. She was stroking the puppy’s head soothingly, shushing his occasional whimpers, and looked ready to pass out from stress and exhaustion.

      “The damage is limited to your kitchen, but the power company’s gonna have to reroute your power supply. You don’t have a generator anymore, and even if you did, it would still require pretty massive rewiring before you’d get any juice to your house.” Perry Davis gave her an apologetic look. “I figure it’ll be at least a week. Depends on how quickly the power company can get technicians on the scene and whether your insurance company will want a further investigation first.”

      Melissa looked ready to crumple into a heap right at Aaron’s feet. He reached out, cupping her elbow. She gave a start, pulling away to look at him with wary eyes.

      He dropped his hand away, guilty about giving her a fright. Her nerves were probably stretched to the snapping point at the moment. “You can probably call your insurance agent as early as seven,” he murmured, gesturing for her to follow him away from the damage site. “Meanwhile, let’s get you and Scooter here somewhere warm.”

      Her lips twitched at his words. “His name is Jasper,” she corrected softly. “And somewhere warm sounds wonderful.”

      “I’ll drive you to your folks’ place. They’re still out on Hickory Bluff Road, right?”

      “No,” she said quickly, darting him a look of dismay that caught him by surprise. “I mean, yes, they still live on Hickory Bluff Road, but I don’t want to go there. I can find a hotel near my office—”

      “Hotels won’t take Jasper.” A sudden image flashed through his mind, catching him off guard—a picture of himself taking Melissa home to his own house, filling her full of hot chocolate and tucking her and her whiny puppy beneath the warm covers of his bed. Ruthlessly, he pushed the surprising image aside.

      “I’ll find somewhere to stay,” she insisted, although he could see the wheels of her mind churning desperately for a solution to her problem.

      “You could stay at my folks’ place. They have a guest cottage they keep up for situations just like this.”

      She arched a dark eyebrow at him. “They take in a lot of house fire refugees?”

      “Okay, maybe not situations exactly like this.”

      “There’s still the problem of Jasper,” she said.

      “Is he house-trained?”

      “Yes, but—”

      “Not a problem.” He glanced at his watch. It was after five o’clock now. His parents were early risers. “I’ll give Mom a call, set it up.” He turned to Blake, who was looking at him with a puzzled expression. “What?”

      “Nothing,” Blake said, but the puzzled look didn’t go away.

      “Perry, is Ms. Draper okay to go upstairs and pack a bag for herself?”

      Perry looked away from his examination of the ground around the ruined generator. “Oh, yeah. The damage inside was limited to the kitchen, and the structural supports look like they avoided any major damage.”

      Aaron put his hand on Melissa’s shoulder. She flinched again, and he dropped his hand away. “Sorry.”

      “You just startled me.” She didn’t meet his eyes.

      “Why don’t you go pack a couple of bags—anything you’ll need for the next week or two—then I’ll drive you to the lake.”

      “I really don’t want to put your mother to any trouble—”

      “My mother lives for this kind of thing,” he said firmly.

      Melissa looked at him through narrowed eyes, as if gauging whether or not he was telling the truth. Finally she relaxed, giving a short nod as she tucked the puppy under her arm and headed around the house to the front entrance.

      “What the hell was that?” Blake asked as soon as she was out of earshot.

      “What?”

      “Since when do you take women home to your mother?”

      “She’s just an old friend.”

      “Y’all were never friends,” Perry shot over his shoulder.

      “She helped me with my calculus once,” Aaron defended. “What’s the big deal? Mom lives to take in strays.”

      “Strays? Nice, Cooper. Real nice.” Perry made a face.

      “You know what I mean.”

      “I’m beginning to think I do.” Blake flashed a grin at Perry. “Cooper’s homed in on a new target.”

      “Not his usual type, but maybe he’s in the mood for something different,” Perry agreed.

      Aaron walked away, leaving the pair of grinning idiots behind. Was that really how people saw him? Even his friends? Sure, he’d spent a lot of years viewing women as conquests, especially back in his football days. But those days were long over. Just because he avoided long-term relationships didn’t mean he was some sort of predator.

      Did it?

      He shook off the question as he neared the front of the house, flipping open his phone. His mother answered on the second ring. “Hi, Mom, it’s me. I need your help.”

      As he’d expected, his mother was happy to take in Melissa for as long as needed. “Be sure to tell her not to worry about buying a lot of groceries. I just stocked the pantry with staples last week,” Beth Cooper said. “And if she likes fish, Hannah and Riley just filled my freezer with a huge mess of winter crappie, so there’s plenty to go around.”

      Aaron grinned at the phone. “Okay. I’ll tell her.”

      As he hung up, he spotted Melissa coming out the front door, dragging two heavy-looking bags with her. Jasper was on a leash at her heels, dancing around her in a frenzy of puppy energy, threatening to trip her up.

      Aaron hurried

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