Playing for Keeps (Heartbreaker Bay #7)(17)

Reaching over, he patted her on the head—the dog, not Sadie—and started driving again.

Lollipop immediately began whining and trying to get back into Caleb’s lap.

Without taking his eyes off the road, he reached out to pet her. This helped until he stopped touching her. Soon as he did, Lollipop held up a paw in his direction like, keep petting me!

Caleb took her paw in his big hand and kept driving.

While holding the dog’s paw.

Lollipop relaxed, even smiled as she turned in Sadie’s lap to face the windshield, now appearing to enjoy the ride.

“Are you serious?” Sadie asked.

“I think she is.”

“I meant you,” Sadie said.

“Hey, she stopped crying, didn’t she? Do me a favor and shift into third gear when I ease into the clutch so I don’t have to let go of her hand.”

Huh. Over the past year or so since Caleb Parker had first come into her orbit, she’d amused herself by coming up with all sorts of stories about him; like he probably only dated supermodels, maybe even two at a time, and she bet he didn’t leave tips when he ate out, things like that.

But the stories were starting to crumble beneath the weight of the truth.

He was actually kind of a really good guy, one who fed people he thought needed feeding and risked an allergic reaction to rescue a scared, lonely, abandoned dog. She glanced over at him. He was still holding Lollipop’s paw.

“What?” he asked, catching her staring. “Want me to hold your hand next?”

“Funny, but I’m not whining, so . . .” she quipped with a teasing tone that was in complete contrast to the way her heart kicked hard at the thought of a physical connection to him.

What the hell was happening to her?

“You nervous about something?” he asked.

“No. Why would I be nervous?” And how was he reading her at all? She had a world-class poker face that she’d worked her entire life to perfect.

“I don’t know, but I smell something burning.” He pulled into the underground parking for the vet center. “What’s got you thinking so hard?”

“Maybe I’m just a quiet person.”

He laughed softly and she had to smile. “Okay,” she admitted. “So I’m not quiet. I’m opinionated and stubborn and I like to think I know what I’m doing at all times.”

“All excellent qualities.”

Not where she’d come from. Her parents had tried all her life to squelch those very tendencies, to no avail. She’d never met anyone who could handle her at her best, much less her worst, so his comment really threw her. “Look, we’re barely acquaintances, much less friends. You don’t have to say things that aren’t true just to be nice.”

His smile faded at whatever he saw in her expression. “I never say things that aren’t true,” he said.

Sensing a serious moment, Lollipop squeezed her face in between theirs and barked.

Caleb smiled. “You want attention too, I take it. But your mama first.” He hadn’t taken his eyes from Sadie. “We good?”

Was he kidding? Her head was spinning, but she nodded. It was her automatic response, one that she gave without even thinking because she’d never admit to not being good.

He called her out on her lie. “Now who’s saying things that aren’t true?” he chided.

“How do you do that?” she demanded, baffled. “Read me like that?” No one else had ever been able to, she’d seen to it.

Lollipop barked again and jumped from her lap to Caleb’s and he opened his door and got out.

She followed. The vet center looked very expensive and she went back to worrying about that. But not as worried as Lollipop, who up till now had been trotting happily along on her new black patent leather Hello Kitty leash alongside of Caleb. He should have looked ridiculous. Instead, he looked incredibly sure of himself and damn. That was sexy.

At the door, Lollipop stopped short and froze, and then flattened herself to the ground, refusing to go another step.

“Someone just realized she got played and is at the vet,” Caleb said and picked her up.

Lollipop licked his chin and together they entered.

The vet who owed Caleb a favor turned out to be a tall curvy brunette with a sweet, welcoming smile for Caleb that had Sadie rolling her eyes. But Dr. Vicki Consuela gave Sadie the same sweet, welcoming smile and was so kind and good with Lollipop, Sadie got over herself and the fact that clearly these two had been lovers at some point—or maybe even still were.

Okay, so she didn’t get over herself, not even close. But she could keep that close to the vest. In fact, she could hold a grudge until the end of time if she wanted, and she’d come by that ability naturally from her mother, but even she wasn’t bitchy enough to do so against a woman who was genuinely a pretty great person.

Turned out, Lollipop had been born with only three legs, so she didn’t know anything else and she had no idea that she was disabled. She was a bit undernourished, but otherwise healthy. She didn’t have a microchip. Dr. Consuela got her up to date on her vaccinations, administered a deworming treatment among a few other things, each making Sadie more panicked than the last because . . . The Cost.

But watching Caleb with Lollipop, clearly enjoying his first real connection with a dog, was oddly . . . intense, and not in a negative way, much as she’d like it to be so.