Chapter One

Zach Sullivan stared with disgust at the bundle of fur chewing on his shoelace.

"No way." He shifted his foot to try and get the little bugger off, but for such a tiny thing, it was tenacious. It growled a little and shook its tail as it renewed focus on his shoe. His new shoe. "Sophie loves dogs. Ask her."

He looked up to see Gabe smirking at him. Clearly, it had been way too long since he'd wiped a grin off his little brother's face.

"Sophie's got enough to deal with lately, between her pregnancy and marrying Jake," Gabe told him. "Chloe and Chase are going to have their kid any second now. Marcus and Nicola are always on the road. Ryan is practically living at the stadium for baseball season. And I wouldn't trust Lori with a dog if she was the last person on earth. Trust me, you were at the end of my list for someone to watch the puppy while we're away on vacation, but Summer insisted you needed to have Cuddles."

Zach almost hurled. "Cuddles?"

"Summer named her." They both looked down at the puppy. "I think the name fits pretty well."

Gabe was incredibly protective of Summer, his fiancee Megan's daughter. Zach knew better than to insult the dog's name, even if it was, hands down, the worst one ever.

"Look," Gabe said, "Summer is convinced you're the perfect person to keep the puppy. For some reason none of us can figure out, she thinks you can do no wrong. Don't disappoint her, Zach."

Zach had thought Summer was pretty great for a seven-year-old. Until now, when she was trying to stick him with a dog he didn't want for two weeks. Especially since there was no way a puppy was going to fit into his life for even two days.

His daily—and nightly—schedule was all about fast cars and pretty women. What the hell was he going to do with a puppy?

Shaking his head, Zach said, "You've really lost your touch, Gabe, letting two girls lead you around."

Zach was still surprised by how smitten his brother was—not only with Megan, but with her daughter, too. And it wasn't just Gabe who had fallen way down deep in the bottomless pit of "true love." Chase, Marcus, and Sophie had tripped into it, too.

Their mother was beyond thrilled knowing there were babies and more Sullivan weddings on the way. Zach was happy she was happy. Just as long as she had no false expectations about him falling in love.

Because it was never going to happen.

But Gabe clearly didn't care if he'd lost his touch, or that he'd never be able to pick up a stranger at a bar for hot sex again. If anything, his brother looked disgustingly happy about it.

"I'm not asking you to dress the puppy up in frilly doggy clothes or to spend all day rolling around in the grass with her. I just need you to keep her fed and watered and walked while we're on our trip. So, will you do it or do I have to break Summer's heart by telling her she's wrong about you being a good guy?"

As if to punctuate his brother's request, Cuddles finally let go of her grip on Zach's shoelace and looked up at him with oversized brown eyes, her little pink tongue licking at her whiskers as if she'd just finished a truly tasty meal.

Damn it, he'd always been a sucker for puppy-dog eyes.

He wasn't happy about it, but he supposed he could suck it up for a couple of weeks while Gabe, Megan, and Summer took a European vacation to see castles and princesses and whatever else it was Summer had been going on and on to him about at the last Sunday lunch.

His reputation as a player with women was well deserved, and it was exactly how he liked things: no deep connections to have to deal with down the road, no woman to disappoint or leave behind one day. But his family was different. His brothers and sisters meant everything to him.

"Fine." He scowled down at the dog. "I'll do it. What is she, anyway?"

His brother grinned, not bothering to hide his evil pleasure at Zach's capitulation. "A Yorkshire Terrier. Evidently, she's a big one."

"Big?" He bent and picked her up by the ruff with two fingers before putting her back down by his shoe. "She can't weight more than a couple of pounds."

"Closer to three," Gabe said as he headed for Zach's front door and came back a few seconds later with a huge cardboard box. "Here are her things."

Zach knew what the food and bowls were for, but everything else looked like it belonged in the toy box at a preschool. "Why does a three-pound puppy need all of this for just two weeks?"

He had a bad feeling about this whole thing, sensing how easily fourteen days could turn into way longer than that if he wasn't careful.

Gabe shrugged. "We've only had her a couple of days and Summer has mostly been taking care of her so far. Timing kind of sucks on having to leave her so soon, but I know Megan really appreciates you stepping up to the plate like this."

It grated that they all thought he was such a done deal with the puppy before ever talking to him about it, but not nearly as much as it did when Cuddles chose that exact moment to squat down over the toe of his shoe and empty her bladder.

Her surprisingly large bladder.

"You'd better be back for her in two weeks," Zach warned in a low voice, "or she's going straight to the pound."

Gabe's laughter rang out as he wisely hightailed it to his car.

* * *

Heather Linsey was just finishing up with the students in her preliminary-level dog trainer certification class when her cell phone buzzed. She pulled it out, but when she saw the name on her screen, she quickly shoved it back into her pocket.

"I can handle giving everyone the information for the next set of classes if you need to get that," her assistant, Tina, said.

Heather forced a smile. "I've got it."

But her brain was only half on her students as she congratulated them on a job well done and let them know she was available to help them if they had any problems setting up their businesses. After finishing up with a quick reminder about the big Bark in the Park fundraiser at the baseball stadium that coming Friday, and the auction the following Saturday night, she headed back to her office with Atlas, her Great Dane, close beside her.

Heather closed the door before pulling the phone back out and putting it on her desk. She wished she could just delete the message, but she knew from past experience that it would be smarter to find out what her father wanted.

"Sweetheart, I was hoping I'd get you rather than your voice mail," he began, and she was amazed at just how strong his denial was. Didn't he realize she hadn't picked up a call from him in years? She rubbed her hands over her arms as he continued, "I have a business trip to San Francisco next week and I'm thinking of bringing your mother with me. It's been too long since we've seen our girl and we both miss you."

The skin on Heather's arms started to tingle, and then burn, across the pattern of criss-crossed scars that went from her wrists up past her elbows, all around her arms. Nearly ten years later, the scars were faint enough that she probably didn't need to wear long sleeves all the time to cover them up. But even though the cuts were long since healed, every time she had to deal with her father, she felt this phantom pain. Almost as if she was seventeen years old again and locking herself into her room to try to deal with her out-of-control emotions by making small cuts across the surface of her skin with a razor and watching them bleed.

At the sound of her father's voice, Atlas hadn't gone to his huge dog pillow in the corner. Instead, he'd stuck right with her and put his big head in her lap. She stopped rubbing her arms and stroked his head instead.

"Let me know your schedule so we can plan our evening with you. Your mother sends her love."

The message ended and she stared blankly at the phone on her desk, her hand absentmindedly moving over Atlas's short, soft fur. She couldn't believe how long they'd been playing this game, the one where her father tried to act like everything was normal and they had a perfect relationship. Especially when he knew that she knew for a fact that everything wasn't perfect, that his "perfect" marriage to her mother and his "loving" relationship with his daughter was just a big, stupid lie.

A knock came at her door, jarring her out of her dark thoughts. "Come in."

Agnes Mackelroy, a pretty middle-aged woman whom Heather liked a great deal, poked her head in the door. "Good morning, Heather. I was hoping you had a few minutes." Despite Heather's smile, the woman seemed to sense something was wrong. "Is everything all right?"

Heather nodded quickly. "It's always so lovely to see you."

And it was true—she couldn't be happier to see Agnes and her dog, Joey, especially if it meant she didn't have to think about her father anymore.

Agnes had been one of Heather's first clients at Top Dog when the ink was still drying on her business cards. Over the past few years, she'd made dozens of referrals for Heather to work with her family's and friends' dogs.

Heather knelt to say hello to Agnes's Chow Chow. "Look at you with your fancy new knee," she said as she scratched the dog under his chin, right where he loved it. Atlas soon bumped her out of the way to say hello. "I take it he's been doing well since surgery?" she asked Agnes.

"Just splendidly! He's back to his old self, out digging up my garden morning, noon, and night."

Heather had to laugh at that, even though stopping that behavior was something she'd worked on long and hard with Agnes and Joey last year. "Would you like me to drop by later this week see if we can get him to celebrate in a different way?"

"No, I'm perfectly happy to let Joey have his fun. I didn't much care for the color of the begonias anyway," Agnes said with a toss of her hand. "I'm actually here on behalf of a very good friend with a new puppy."

"Perfect timing. I've just finished up a group training class and have several new trainers who would love to get their feet wet. Why don't I give you a few of their numbers?"

"I was hoping," Agnes said, "that you would be available to help him personally."

Heather's business and dog-training staff had grown so much over the past three years that she spent most of her time managing the business. While she still loved to pop out of her office to play with the dogs that came in and out of her training campus, at this point she rarely took on one-on-one training clients. But she couldn't possibly say no to Agnes, who was responsible for so much of her early success.

Mentally reshuffling her busy schedule, Heather said, "What's your friend's name?"

"His name," Agnes said, "is Zach."

Something akin to a warning skittered down Heather's spine at the woman's almost worshipful tone. Then again, she knew Agnes was happily married.

"And I know how much he'd appreciate it if you could meet with him this morning at the garage where he works. I'm afraid the little Yorkie is running the poor man in circles."

Heather wrote down the address for Sullivan Autos, then gave both Agnes and her dog hugs as they said goodbye.

She couldn't imagine a mechanic's boss being too happy about a madcap puppy running around in an auto shop. Not to mention that it definitely wasn't the safest environment for an untrained dog.

"Ready to go play with a puppy?" she said to the dog lying at her feet.

Atlas's ears perked up at his favorite word. It had always amused her how much her two-hundred-pound Great Dane loved to play with puppies, even though they tended to nip at him with their sharp little teeth and use their sharp nails to climb onto his broad back with no concern whatsoever for their own welfare.

She suspected the reason had to do with the fact that the early part of his own life hadn't been at all carefree. Clearly, he thrived on being around a puppy's untamed wildness.

It was a warm day out and she pulled her long hair up from her neck into a ponytail as she grabbed her training bag and headed out to her car. Atlas bounded into the backseat, immediately sticking his head out of the window in anticipation of wind in his fur, his tongue flying free.

Ten minutes later, Heather pulled up outside Sullivan Autos and slipped on Atlas's leash. She could see a half dozen men onsite and even though her dog was worlds better around men than he had been when she'd first taken him home four years ago, she was concerned that so many big men in one place might overwhelm him. She wasn't surprised when he stuck close to her, the stiffness of his ears and tail a telltale sign that he wasn't entirely relaxed.

"Everything's fine," she soothed him, rubbing gently between his ears. "We're just going to play with a puppy, remember?" His tongue plopped out at that happy news and she grinned in response. "That's right, we've got nothing to worry about at—"

"Where the hell is that damned puppy!"

Chapter Two

The frustrated roar split apart the otherwise normal sounds of the sprawling auto garage and both Heather and Atlas went on red alert. She immediately began to scope out the hiding places a puppy would be likely to go in a place like this...especially if it were afraid of its new owner.

Her Great Dane tugged her toward a hedge at the edge of the parking lot and she followed his lead. If anyone could find a lost and helpless little one, it was Atlas. He stopped in front of a thick hedge on the edge of the parking lot, sniffed at the bush, then whimpered and pawed at the dirt.

Heather dropped his leash to get down on her hands and knees to peer inside. Ah yes, she could see black-brown fur between the leaves and branches.

"Hey there, cutie," she crooned softly. "Want to come out and meet a friend I've brought to play with you?"

Unfortunately, just then, the man yelled again. "You'd better get your furry little butt back here!"

Of course the puppy didn't come any closer. And why would it, if all it had to look forward to was more yelling, or maybe even worse?

Hoping she wasn't going to end up with fierce little teeth clamped around her hand or ankle, she started to push in through the branches. The sharp tips scratched at the bare skin of her legs in her shorts, but she was too intent on the puppy to pay much attention to the cuts and scrapes.

A large branch snagged on her long-sleeved T-shirt and she realized she couldn't go any further. Breaking through a few of the branches, she finally managed to squat so that she could get down on the puppy's level. Reaching into her pocket, she prayed she had a small crumble of a treat left over from the last time she'd worn these shorts.

Giving thanks that she hadn't actually remembered to do the wash last night, she pulled out a small piece of sausage.

"Mmm. Doesn't this smell yummy?"

She'd thought the puppy was trembling in the bushes, but now that she was closer, she realized it wasn't scared.

It was playing.

And, clearly, the way its whole body was vibrating with glee, the puppy thought her little predicament of being stuck in the bushes with it was hilarious.

Despite her jammed-in position between a bunch of sword-sharp sticks and branches, she had to agree that it kind of was.

Knowing at this point that it was a matter of waiting for the little guy or girl to get tired of the game, she sat back on her heels and looked up through the branches and leaves. The clouds slowly changed shape above her in the blue sky. Huddled in a bush might not be the standard place in the world for a breather from her often hectic workday, but she found she was glad for a moment's respite.

Unfortunately, she could still hear the owner yelling for the dog and vowed to deal with him appropriately once she had the puppy.

"I wouldn't want to come out either, if I were you," she told the puppy in a soft voice. "But don't worry, Atlas and I won't let anything happen to you."

She ran a training business, not a rescue, but if she found that an owner and a dog weren't compatible, she did any and everything she could to take care of the dog.

"Doing okay out there, big guy?" she asked Atlas.

She heard the loud thump of his tail on the pavement in response.

"Quite the little adventure Agnes sent us on, isn't it?"

Which didn't make sense. How could the man who was yelling and cursing at the puppy be a close friend of a lovely woman like Agnes? Having seen the woman interact with the dog she adored, Heather had thought her training client was more perceptive than that.

Heather wrote down the address for Sullivan Autos, then gave both Agnes and her dog hugs as they said goodbye.

She couldn't imagine a mechanic's boss being too happy about a madcap puppy running around in an auto shop. Not to mention that it definitely wasn't the safest environment for an untrained dog.

"Ready to go play with a puppy?" she said to the dog lying at her feet.

Atlas's ears perked up at his favorite word. It had always amused her how much her two-hundred-pound Great Dane loved to play with puppies, even though they tended to nip at him with their sharp little teeth and use their sharp nails to climb onto his broad back with no concern whatsoever for their own welfare.

She suspected the reason had to do with the fact that the early part of his own life hadn't been at all carefree. Clearly, he thrived on being around a puppy's untamed wildness.

It was a warm day out and she pulled her long hair up from her neck into a ponytail as she grabbed her training bag and headed out to her car. Atlas bounded into the backseat, immediately sticking his head out of the window in anticipation of wind in his fur, his tongue flying free.

Ten minutes later, Heather pulled up outside Sullivan Autos and slipped on Atlas's leash. She could see a half dozen men onsite and even though her dog was worlds better around men than he had been when she'd first taken him home four years ago, she was concerned that so many big men in one place might overwhelm him. She wasn't surprised when he stuck close to her, the stiffness of his ears and tail a telltale sign that he wasn't entirely relaxed.

"Everything's fine," she soothed him, rubbing gently between his ears. "We're just going to play with a puppy, remember?" His tongue plopped out at that happy news and she grinned in response. "That's right, we've got nothing to worry about at—"

"Where the hell is that damned puppy!"

Chapter Two

The frustrated roar split apart the otherwise normal sounds of the sprawling auto garage and both Heather and Atlas went on red alert. She immediately began to scope out the hiding places a puppy would be likely to go in a place like this...especially if it were afraid of its new owner.

Her Great Dane tugged her toward a hedge at the edge of the parking lot and she followed his lead. If anyone could find a lost and helpless little one, it was Atlas. He stopped in front of a thick hedge on the edge of the parking lot, sniffed at the bush, then whimpered and pawed at the dirt.

Heather dropped his leash to get down on her hands and knees to peer inside. Ah yes, she could see black-brown fur between the leaves and branches.

"Hey there, cutie," she crooned softly. "Want to come out and meet a friend I've brought to play with you?"

Unfortunately, just then, the man yelled again. "You'd better get your furry little butt back here!"

Of course the puppy didn't come any closer. And why would it, if all it had to look forward to was more yelling, or maybe even worse?

Hoping she wasn't going to end up with fierce little teeth clamped around her hand or ankle, she started to push in through the branches. The sharp tips scratched at the bare skin of her legs in her shorts, but she was too intent on the puppy to pay much attention to the cuts and scrapes.

A large branch snagged on her long-sleeved T-shirt and she realized she couldn't go any further. Breaking through a few of the branches, she finally managed to squat so that she could get down on the puppy's level. Reaching into her pocket, she prayed she had a small crumble of a treat left over from the last time she'd worn these shorts.

Giving thanks that she hadn't actually remembered to do the wash last night, she pulled out a small piece of sausage.

"Mmm. Doesn't this smell yummy?"

She'd thought the puppy was trembling in the bushes, but now that she was closer, she realized it wasn't scared.

It was playing.

And, clearly, the way its whole body was vibrating with glee, the puppy thought her little predicament of being stuck in the bushes with it was hilarious.

Despite her jammed-in position between a bunch of sword-sharp sticks and branches, she had to agree that it kind of was.

Knowing at this point that it was a matter of waiting for the little guy or girl to get tired of the game, she sat back on her heels and looked up through the branches and leaves. The clouds slowly changed shape above her in the blue sky. Huddled in a bush might not be the standard place in the world for a breather from her often hectic workday, but she found she was glad for a moment's respite.

Unfortunately, she could still hear the owner yelling for the dog and vowed to deal with him appropriately once she had the puppy.

"I wouldn't want to come out either, if I were you," she told the puppy in a soft voice. "But don't worry, Atlas and I won't let anything happen to you."

She ran a training business, not a rescue, but if she found that an owner and a dog weren't compatible, she did any and everything she could to take care of the dog.

"Doing okay out there, big guy?" she asked Atlas.

She heard the loud thump of his tail on the pavement in response.

"Quite the little adventure Agnes sent us on, isn't it?"

Which didn't make sense. How could the man who was yelling and cursing at the puppy be a close friend of a lovely woman like Agnes? Having seen the woman interact with the dog she adored, Heather had thought her training client was more perceptive than that.

He gestured over his shoulder and she looked to see a half-dozen women in bikinis standing around waiting for a photographer to finish setting up lights.

She blinked at him, unable to believe he could possibly have thought that. "God, no," she said, and then, "You asked Agnes Mackelroy to call me about some special training sessions." She paused before asking, "Didn't you?"

He shook his head. "I always knew I loved that woman for more than just her killer Aston Martin collection." The smile he gave her was clearly intended to melt her into a puddle of lust at his feet. "Trust Agnes to also send the prettiest dog trainer on the planet my way."

Absolutely, positively refusing to melt for him, she arched her eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

Atlas reacted to the icy tone of her voice by letting out a low whine. She couldn't believe this man was talking to her like this, trying to flirt with her by saying she could be one of the models. Especially when she knew exactly what she looked like in her ripped, sweaty shirt, muddy shorts, and skinned knees.

If only she'd trained Atlas to be an attack dog...

A man holding a large camera called out to them. "Hey Zach, the models need to know how you want them on the cars?"

"Don't let us stop you from your important work. Atlas, let's go." She picked up his leash as her big dog rose to his feet beside her.

She was heading to her car when Zach said, "Hey, I thought you were going to stay to train me?"

How, she wondered, did he manage to make her job sound quite so filthy? Deciding not to dignify his obnoxious comment with a reply, she didn't even break stride.

At least until he said, "Forget something?"

Darn it. She'd been hoping to make a quick getaway while he was distracted by tiny bikinis and spray-on tans.

Steeling herself for the confrontation—and for looking at him again without reacting like a teenage girl hit with her first burst of hormones—Heather turned around slowly. "I heard you yelling earlier. We both know you're not interested in having a puppy." She looked down at the fluff in her arms, deceptively innocent as it snored softly. "Especially one that can be so playful."

He crossed the distance between them and she had to fight the urge to take a step back. "I'll get one of those crates for it for the next couple of weeks."

Heather didn't stop the snarl from erupting from her lips. "You use a crate for specific training purposes, not to imprison a dog all day." She should have just turned and walked away from him, but she had to know. "Why would you get a puppy if you don't even want one?"

"My seven-year-old niece-to-be dumped her on me this morning, to take care of while she's on vacation. She'll crucify me if anything happens to it." She was surprised to see a hint of fear hit his eyes. "I remember just how vicious my little sisters could be when I made them mad."

Even as she tried to steel herself against liking anything about this man, she couldn't miss the deep affection in his voice as he spoke about the women in his life. She shouldn't care how good-looking he was, or how electric it had felt when he'd taken her hand or held her to keep her from falling.

And she certainly shouldn't care if he had a soft spot for seven-year-old girls and little sisters.

Still, it explained why he wasn't the least bit equipped to deal with a puppy. Heather sighed as she realized that perhaps walking away from him with his puppy in tow wasn't going to be quite as easy as she'd thought.

"Damn it," he said, his eyes darkening as he suddenly squatted down and ran one hand over her thigh.

She jumped back. "What are you doing?"

"You're bleeding." He looked incredibly pissed off by this fact. "What the hell were you doing crawling in there in shorts?"

"Saving the dog you lost," she shot back at him, even as a part way down deep inside warmed at the fact that he even cared about her skinned knees...not to mention the shockingly seductive feel of his hands on her skin.

She'd been taking care of herself for so long that she couldn't remember the last time someone had worried about her.

"Come inside the shop and I'll clean you up."

The thought of him touching her again had her swallowing hard. She'd always thought there was something so sexy about a mechanic's hands. The fact that they were so skilled at building and fixing things made it difficult not to wonder what else those hands were good at.

No!

She knew better than to wonder something like that about this mechanic. Talented hands did not make the man, unfortunately.

"You should get back to the models. I can take care of it myself."

But judging by the look on his face, for a moment she thought he was going to pick her up and carry her over to the garage against her will. Instead, he said, "You hurt yourself saving my dog. It's my fault you're bleeding. Let me take care of you—" He stopped, cursing softly. "You saved my dog and I don't even know your name."

"Heather."

"Heather." He held the seven letters on his tongue as if he was savoring them, and she was held spellbound despite herself. "That's a pretty name. I'm Zach."

It shouldn't have felt so intimate just to tell him her name. But when he'd repeated it in a low, husky tone, just hearing it fall from his gorgeous lips had been practically better than full-blown sex with any other man. And she definitely shouldn't want to savor his name on her tongue, too.

"What's the puppy's name?"

He winced, giving her another flash of normal that was so unexpected given the perfect package it was in. "Do you really need to know?"

"Trust me, I've heard a lot of crazy dog names over the years." But something told her this one was going to take the cake. At least she hoped it would. "And you know, she might have actually come back to you if you'd called for her by name instead of 'Dog.'"

A muscle jumped in his jaw right before he muttered, "Cuddles."

Heather pressed her lips together to try to keep her giggles from erupting, but she couldn't stop the laughter from shaking her shoulders.

* * *

There were half a dozen girls in bikinis waiting in Zach's garage, but the woman laughing with his dog in her arms, wearing a sweaty, long-sleeved T-shirt and muddy shorts, with a messy braid trailing down her back, put them all to shame.

He couldn't think of a time he'd ever seen eyes that color, brown with so many flecks of gold that he couldn't look away. And, Jesus, that mouth of hers, rosy and full, made a man want to do crazy things...like grab the puppy and kiss it all over its drooly, disgusting little face for bringing Heather here today.

He'd been pissed off at Gabe and Summer for dumping the dog on him for two weeks. Now he realized he should thank them, instead.

Unlike most women, however, he could tell Heather wanted nothing to do with him. Fortunately, her dog didn't seem to have any of the same qualms, especially when he sniffed the glazed sugar on Zach's fingers from the donut he'd been eating for breakfast.

"Hey, mutt," Zach said, thinking fast, "I left the rest of my donut on the counter inside. You want it?"

The huge dog's ears twitched as if he understood, but he didn't move. Instead, he looked up at Heather for approval.

Clearly, she was gearing up to refuse. But, man, that huge dog could play up the puppy dog eyes when he wanted to. Zach was impressed. He'd have to remember how to do that in the future.

Her dog let out a low whine and Heather finally sighed and said, "Okay, fine. Go." As she let go of his leash and the enormous dog loped off toward the garage, she followed him, still carrying Cuddles.

"I get that you weren't prepared for a puppy, but I can't leave her with you if you're going to put her in a crate all day. She needs to understand how to stay with you so she doesn't get hurt by something in the garage. You're going to need to work on training her to understand your commands. And you're going to have to do it without yelling at her." She shot him a hard look. "Ever again."

He would agree with whatever Heather said just as long as she stayed long enough for him to convince her to give him a chance. He couldn't remember ever wanting a woman this bad, this fast.

"Hey Chase," he told his brother, "I've got to call off the shoot."

The models looked at his brother in confusion and Chase told them to take five before saying, "Chloe is going to have the baby any day now, and then I'm out of commission for a while. You sure you want to reschedule?"

Despite her ongoing protests that she was fine, Zach was already kneeling in front of Heather and gently wiping at the open skin on her knee with an antiseptic wipe from a nearby First Aid kit.

"I've got to clear my schedule for puppy training."

"Seriously?" Heather blinked at him like he was driving on three wheels. "That's why you're sending everyone home? Isn't your boss going to be mad?"

"Agnes didn't mention my last name, did she?"

Her eyes widened with disbelief as she looked from him to the sign on the wall, then back again. "You're the Sullivan in Sullivan Autos? This is your garage?"

"Don't worry, I know cars a lot better than I know dogs."

But he knew women best of all. And, he thought as he slid a Band-Aid strip over her left knee, he couldn't wait to get his hands on more than Heather's knees. Because even as he cleaned and bandaged her cuts, her skin was so warm, so soft, so responsive to his touch.

After he slid another Band-Aid strip over her silky smooth skin, he held out his arms. "Now that the shoot's off, I'm all yours to train."

Most women would have been pleased by the sensual undertones in his words, or would at least have blushed, but she simply glared at him with icy cool eyes.

Cuddles yawned and curled closer into her chest. What Zach wouldn't do to be where the puppy was.

She shifted her legs out of his reach. "You can't cancel your photo shoot. You'll lose too much money." She stood up and grabbed her dog's leash again. "Atlas, it's time to go."

Damn it, she was going to leave. Panic gripped him, even though he'd only just met her, even though he could easily find another woman to have sex with. "Heather—"

She frowned as she looked down at where he was still kneeling on the cement floor. "Since you can't keep Cuddles here while you're—" She paused to look at the models chain smoking and talking on their cell phones in the parking lot. "—working, I'll take her to my office. When she wakes up, she can play with Atlas until you get there for our first session."

She told him the address, then made a clicking sound that had her huge dog following her out of the garage with an adoring look on his furry face.