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“Eight?” Judi grabbed a flea-and-tick brochure off Mike’s veterinary cabinet to fan herself.

“Well, nine, but the cow doesn’t count since, technically, she’s livestock.”

This was about animals, not him and her, not dating, sex and the proclivities of his perverse love life. Geez, had she been wandering around the wrong bark park with that one. Thank heavens. Take a deep breath, Judi. Breathe, regroup, pick up the beat.

“So what’s it like owning a cow?” Brilliant recovery. No way he’d ever suspect she’d been on the verge of calling him a pervert.

“You thought I was talking about having eight women, didn’t you?” He chuckled.

Apparently not so brilliant. “Did not.” Not so brilliant again.

He leaned down and brushed Judi’s cheek with a circumspect kiss. “Believe me, I’m not even sure I can manage one, so you don’t have to worry about the competition. Look, I’ve got to go see a cat about a hairball right now, so we’ll talk about the details of good puppy care later. I’ll have someone bring Lucky back once we get the x-ray looked at. How’s his breathing, by the way? I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.”

“His breathing?” She was still feeling too silly to recoup with any kind of grace and aplomb.

“This morning you said he was breathing hard. I was going to stop by later to check him. Remember?”

Yeah, now she remembered. And she’d blown it. Durn that dog anyway. One munched-down juniper and her evening was shot. “I think he was just snoring,” she admitted. Might as well fess up, since he wasn’t coming over no way, no how, now.

“Snoring,” he repeated on his way out the door.

A minute later, Arthur brought Lucky back and handed him to Judi. “He’s fine, and the doctor said he’ll see you tonight. Would that be another dog with an emergency, or another emergency with this one?”

“Haven’t decided yet,” she said brightly.

Outside in the parking lot, before she climbed into her Expedition, Judi gave Lucky a kiss on the top of his wrinkly head. “Good boy. Next time you get the two of us together, though, let’s make it something where we don’t have to involve Arthur. Okay?”

Next time, lady? I really get a next time?

Judi was testing a pâté recipe when Mike showed up. This was the third pâté she’d gone through since this afternoon. First two were flops, but Lucky gobbled them right up. And no, a built-in flop disposer wasn’t a good enough reason to keep him.

“I’m hoping to cater the mayor’s daughter’s wedding,” Judi told Mike as she pulled the keeper batch of pâté out of the refrigerator. She scooped a spoonful onto a cracker and handed it to him.

“Goose liver?” Mike asked, turning up his nose. “Sorry, but I don’t eat anything I keep as a pet.”

“And you have a goose?”

“Several geese, on a pond.”

And he had a cow. No wonder he’d picked around the meatballs in her spaghetti sauce. And tonight... “Do you like grilled cheese?”

“Love grilled cheese. So, tell me what you love.”

“Meaning food?”

“Meaning anything...everything. I don’t know anything about you...yet. And I want to know everything.” He picked up a chocolate mint from a tray of them sitting on her counter, then brushed it across her lips. “Do you like chocolate?”

Judi shut her eyes, savoring the slight tingling. “I love chocolate,” she purred.

“And I’d love you in chocolate.”

Moving a step closer to him, Judi opened her lips to the chocolate, eating only half of it. Then she took it from his fingers and raised it to his lips. “And I’d love you in chocolate, too. Milk chocolate.”

“Dark chocolate.”

Their first argument. She couldn’t wait until the making-up part. “Milk, it’s sweeter.”

“Dark, it’s...sinful.”

Taking another chocolate, Judi slipped it between Mike’s lips, then raised her lips to his. Lip to lip, one chocolate between them. The possibilities were both sweet and sinful. She was like another Judi, the one she’d always wanted to be but was afraid to let loose. With Mike she wanted to let so many things loose.

In response, Mike crushed Judi to his body, where she could feel his instant hard need. Sinful was, indeed, the better chocolate and she was looking forward to finding out just how much.

“Aieeee! Aieeee! Aieeee!”

“Lucky!” they cried in unison.



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