Need You for Keeps (Heroes of St. Helena, #1)
Marina Adair
To Miss Peepers, Patches, and Princess, for a childhood full of furry hugs and unconditional love.
Someone will come for me,” Shay Michaels said, eyeballing her newest client—who looked as convinced by her statement as Shay felt. Maybe it was that she’d said the exact same thing over an hour ago or that she’d been saying the same thing her entire life without any success.
But this time Shay had faith that someone would come. Call it eternal optimism or romantic rebellion, but one of these days karma would stop flipping her the bird and pay it forward.
And that day was today.
Please say that day is today, she thought, looking down at the client in question.
Domino sat stoically, tail wrapped around his massive feet like a statue, gazing up at her with his wet, brown doggie eyes that were so big they could persuade anyone with a heart to do something colossally stupid. Like crawl into a dog kennel that locked from the outside.
Okay, to be fair, when Shay was tired she made questionable decisions. And today she was exhausted.
As the top stylist to the town’s most elite and furriest residents, she had been on her feet since the crack of dawn preparing the shop’s luxury kennels for the day’s long list of canine clients. She was hoping to leave on time to pamper her own four-legged kids.
In addition to her position at the pet spa, Shay was the resident saint at St. Paws Animal Rescue, a foster service she ran out of her home for a variety of animals that needed a little extra help finding their forever families. As much as she wished to keep every animal in need, her home—and the law—prevented her from having more than four animals in her residence at any given time. This weekend she had the chance to show off her foster dogs at the community park, so it was imperative they looked their best—which meant head-to-tail makeovers.
Only Domino had thrown a wrench into her already hectic schedule. So when he started whimpering as she steered him toward the kennel, which meant scooting all two hundred pounds of dog across the floor by his spotted Great Dane tush, she’d decided to climb in and show him that kennels at Paws and Claws weren’t scary, they were comfy, more chic than her rental, and almost roomy enough for a human to live in. In fact, with the right kennel mate, they could be fun.
Shay retracted that statement the minute the door slammed shut and locked behind her.
“You know, with your height and retrieval skills, you could grab me the keys off the counter over there,” she said, pointing to the neon-green lanyard that was a mere two inches out of reach.
Two inches!
“Woof.” Tail wagging, tongue lolling, Domino meandered over to the table, right past the keys, and stuck his head in a fifty-pound bag of kibble that sat in the back corner of the shop.
“That’s puppy chow. It will make your butt big, and no one wants to adopt a dog with a big butt,” Shay warned, then remembered the box of chocolate minidoughnuts she’d inhaled for lunch and made a mental note to run at least five miles tomorrow before work.
Domino, however, seemed unconcerned about his figure and stuck his head in until it disappeared in the bag. At the sound of the crinkling paper, all of the dogs ran to the fronts of their kennels, noses pressed through the bars, straining for a handout. When none came, they started barking—all dozen of them. Which did nothing for Shay’s headache.
She was just tired enough that she could sleep in a dog kennel, and since she was the only stylist on the Paws and Claws Day Spa’s schedule today, Shay figured this could easily become an all-nighter. Luckily her superpower was the ability to fall asleep anytime, anywhere, no matter what—something she’d learned by her third foster home.
When the dogs’ barks reached DEFCON 1, along with her headache, Shay closed her eyes and rested her forehead against her bent knees, needing a moment.
“If you ask me, small butts are overrated,” said a masculine voice with a rich grit.
Her eyes opened just as a pair of rugged, manly, steel-toed boots stopped at the edge of the kennel door. Shay lifted her head up, way up, and—gulp—found herself staring at the last man on the planet she wanted to see today.
Jonah Baudouin flashed her that department-issued smile and something low in her belly tingled. She would've liked to blame it on a natural reaction to the weapon holstered at his hip or quite possibly the badge he carried, but she had a sinking feeling it had more to do with the way he filled out that uniform.
Six feet two of hard muscle on a body that was built to protect and serve, he was the perfect catch if one was into brooding hero types. But Shay didn’t do brooding or heroes, and she most certainly did not do cops.
Ones who made her tingle or otherwise.
Not that it mattered, because the only reactions she seemed to inspire within him were irritation or amusement. Today he was packing both. He was also sipping on a giant-sized coffee cup that made her mouth water.
“Sheriff,” she said casually through the bars. This wasn’t her first time in the pokey.
“Deputy,” he corrected. “Still got a few months before the election.”
“If you’re here soliciting support, I have to be honest and say that I’m voting for the other guy.” It was a lie and they both knew it. Deputy “Do-Nothing” Warren could bring a snow machine into hell and still not win. He was lazy, shady, and only had a badge because his dad was mayor. “But since you’re here, could you hand me the keys off the grooming station behind you?”