Dear Roomie (Rookie Rebels #5) - Kate Meader Page 0,14
into the back seat. Then she popped the trunk and took out a plaid blanket. As she closed the trunk, he could have sworn he saw a suitcase.
With great efficiency, she placed the blanket in the back seat of Reid’s car and stood back while he transferred the puppy to the new blanket and wrapped him up. The dog nuzzled his nose against Reid’s hand, a gesture that pleased him to no end. He was an affectionate little thing.
Reid shook out Kennedy’s coat, letting the sand fall to the icy ground, and draped it over the passenger seat.
“Your car is warm. Even the back seats.” She pressed her palm to the leather.
“I did it remotely when we started walking back. Get in.”
“Excuse me?”
He opened the car door. “Just for a second to warm up.”
With a quick glance toward her car, she shivered, and that seemed to decide it. She climbed in, he shut the door, then skirted the car to the driver’s side. The combination of wet dog, soaked humans, and frigid temperatures quickly turned the SUV’s interior into a steamy cave.
“This is pretty nice,” she murmured, her hand smoothing over the hand-stitched leather arm rest.
“Feeling a little better?”
“Could be worse. I could still be in that lake.” She chuckled, and the tone of it—sort of naughty—mixed with the sauna-like cocoon put his body on lust-alert. Of all the times …
“So tell me the truth,” he said.
“About?” Mon Dieu, there was something about those silver eyes that sent a pulse of desire through him. When he really should be feeling nothing of the sort after that unplanned dip.
“Should I take our friend to the vet?”
She twisted to take another look at the dog. “I think he just needs to get warm and fed. When you drop him off at the shelter, they’ll figure out what kind of care he needs.”
“The shelter?”
“You said you travel too much to care for a dog.”
He had said that. It seemed like a long time ago, but that was only … a couple of days?
“I’ll think of something.”
Suddenly her hand was on his jaw. “You’re injured! Did you hit a rock out there?”
He placed his hand over hers, only now remembering his ice-dance with Foreman. “No, this was something else. I got into a fight with someone.”
“I see.” She hesitated, then asked, “Did you deserve to get hit?”
There was that feeling he’d had back at the coffee shop, the sense that she knew something about him. But it wasn’t because she had witnessed his abruptness in pressers or heard some coach bawl him out. This was something more innate.
“Definitely.”
She grinned, and it made him want to smile back. He fought that impulse, but not the one to keep his hand covering hers. Sentimental, perhaps, but it was nice to have this connection. He usually forewent most human contact during the season.
Not just the season.
“Why do you think you deserved it?”
“I have a habit of provoking people.” They remained still, staring at each other, provoking, if you will. That chill he felt vanished in the heat of her touch.
“Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”
The grin he had fought finally found residence on his face, his muscles straining slightly at the unusual call to action. Good aim, this girl, calling him out on his emo posturing. Removing her hand from his jaw, he wrapped it in his to keep it warm.
“Are you busy right now?”
“Busy?” Her gaze dropped to his lips.
“I could do with some help.” He squeezed her hand, and instantly regretted it because until then she seemed to have forgotten he was holding it. She looked down at their joined hands, almost confused that they’d come so far, then back at his face.
“I have to take care of my charges. Get them back to their humans.”
Their humans. He liked that phrasing. The idea of the animal owning them instead of the other way around. There was something liberating in that unconditional love.
But love had no use for practicalities. He needed help, and while it went against every cell in his being to ask, he recognized it was necessary.
“I don’t want to take him to a shelter. He needs someone to care for him. Perhaps you’d want to …”
“No, I can’t. I walk them but then I give them back. My living situation is—it’s not suitable for a dog. I don’t even have a—” She broke off, her speech and the connection of their hands. Her eyes burned bright with something closer to annoyance.