Outside, Zep stepped back and gave Cal a wave. His shoulders were ridiculously broad but his body was lean. He had a swimmer’s build, with long arms that wrapped around her and made her feel oddly safe.
“He’s good at helping,” Lila said over the line. “I know he’s got this terrible reputation, but he didn’t earn it. Watch him. Helping is how he shows he cares.”
She barely heard the words because he’d turned and was walking up the path that led to her half of the duplex. Daisy walked alongside him, far more sedate than she’d been on the way out. She trotted without the crazed pulling she’d done when he’d first started around the block. He stopped and she tried to keep going, but after a moment she calmed and came back to his side. He reached into his pocket and gave the dog a treat before resuming the walk.
“Well, I would like to see you for a follow-up tomorrow.” Lila’s voice reminded her that she was supposed to be doing something beyond staring at the gorgeous man who was about to come through her door. “If you don’t stop by, I’ll track you down, and I won’t be in a good mood. Have a nice night.”
The line went dead. Sometimes Lila’s big-city, no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners attitude was soothing. More and more lately, it was kind of annoying. If anyone else wanted to bend her to their will, they showed up with cookies or a casserole, and only then did they make their very polite demands.
Lila got straight to the point and threatened. She really would show up. Lila LaVigne took her job seriously, and was especially serious about her husband’s employees.
The door opened and Zep and Daisy walked in. Daisy took one look at Roxie and acted like they’d been separated for days instead of the fifteen minutes it had taken for Zep to walk her around the neighborhood. Her whole body shook and she barked, trying to get into Roxie’s arms.
She got to one knee and gave the puppy some enthusiastic pets. “Hey, sweet girl.”
Zep groaned. “She’s never going to calm down if you give her attention when she’s all riled up.”
She frowned at him, narrowly avoiding Daisy’s sloppy kisses. “You want me to ignore her when she’s happy to see me?”
Zep got to one knee beside her. “I want her to behave, but I like that you don’t mind she’s hyperactive. But seriously, we’ve got to train her and part of that is training you. She’ll modify her behavior to please you.”
She ran her hands over the puppy’s body and up to her ears, looking into those deeply trusting eyes. “I don’t mind her being happy to see me. But hopefully you’ll work with me this week on the potty training. She already seems to be walking on a leash better.”
“Oh, she’ll forget it all by morning, but then we start it over again,” he said, his lips in a wistful smile. “I can teach you how to train her over the next couple of days. If you’ve decided you want to foster her for a while.”
She really wanted to keep her. But she shouldn’t. She shouldn’t get attached to anything here. Armie was trying to get her on at New Orleans PD or one of the bigger suburbs. She’d told him she would do three years here to help him get his deputies trained, and then she would get serious about hiring on at a bigger department.
She wouldn’t be allowed to keep Daisy with her. Daisy would be in a crate or she would need a pet sitter. That was an option. But she had a plan and it was almost time to put the plan in place. Papillon was a bump in the road.
“Yeah,” she heard herself saying. “I mean, unless you don’t think it’s a good idea. Like I said, I work a lot.”
Maybe he would save her from herself. If he told her she could be bad for Daisy, she would let the puppy go.
“And like I said, you can take her with you,” Zep reassured her. “Or have someone watch her. Once she’s trained, she can be on her own for a while. Dogs sleep a ton during the day, too. All she wants from you is love and food. Dogs don’t require much more.” His voice had gone husky, as though he’d been talking about something other than Daisy. “Now that we’re done with the evening, you want to tell me how you think it went? I hope I held up my end of the bargain.”
They had a bargain? From what she could tell, he’d done all the work and gotten nothing out of it but trouble. He’d upended his whole life to help her for a week.
What had Lila said? Zep showed he cared by helping. But shouldn’t he get something out of it, too? She could think of a few things she would like to give him.