The Has-Been and the Hot Mess - Isabel Jordan Page 0,24

from the dogs made most of the wild animals think twice about coming in here. They said it was perfectly fine for me to walk within the fence row.”

And they were right. If she were anyone else, he probably wouldn’t have thought twice about her going for a walk, within his fences, even at night. But this was Kendall. The woman who couldn’t find her way down a flight of steps without her glasses. The woman whose head only came up to his shoulder. The woman who probably only weighed one-thirty soaking wet.

The woman he suddenly wanted more than his next breath.

But he needed to dial this whole thing back a few thousand notches. Calling her names and yelling at her wasn’t going to fix his almost crazy, desperate attraction to her. And she didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.

He took a deep breath. “Kendall, you have to know it’s a bad idea to turn your back on a dog you don’t know. Especially a big dog who’s scared. He could’ve turned on you and really hurt you.”

Some of the fire in her eyes died down a little. But only a little. “You told me he wasn’t aggressive,” she argued.

“I said he hadn’t been aggressive. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t get aggressive when he’s cornered or scared. When I said you could come visit him, I assumed you meant outside the pen.”

That gave her a moment’s pause before she said, “But he’s not aggressive. You saw that, right? He’s a good dog. Very gentle.”

Then she bit down on her lower lip, and he had to fight back a groan. He wanted to bite down on that lower lip. “Yeah. I saw it.”

One corner of her mouth quirked up. “I did good, right?”

When he didn’t immediately answer, she added, “It’s OK. You can say it. I already know.”

There it was. The adorableness. How the hell was he supposed to keep his distance from that?

While her eyes sparkled and she bounced on her heels, awaiting the praise that was due her, he eventually sighed and told her what she wanted to hear. “Yes, Kendall, you did good. It was damn impressive.”

She squealed and jumped up and down, clapping her hands together like a little kid before doing a victorious fist pump. “I knew it! Thank you, Dog Whisperer!”

He just shook his head and walked away before he did something stupid. Like grab her and kiss the crap out of her.

If he made it another day without getting slapped with a sexual harassment suit, he’d be the luckiest fucking bastard on the planet.

Chapter 14

Jackson was avoiding her.

That much was obvious. It had been two days since that night outside Howard Hugh’s kennel, and he’d barely spent five minutes in her presence since.

She’d been trying to talk to him about his social media accounts and the rescue’s new website every chance she got, but he always waved her off like he had more important things to do than talk to her. Even though she was here to help him, for fuck’s sake.

If he really wanted to score that movie, you’d think he’d show her a little gratitude.

It was so annoying. And hurtful, if she was being honest. She’d been busting her butt for him and he couldn’t even give her two minutes of his precious attention to kiss her?

No. Not kiss her. Talk to her.

Geez, she was in trouble. Only people who were seriously messed up had Freudian slips in their own damn thoughts.

And she knew why she was slipping.

It was that damn look.

Before he’d turned away from her that night, she’d been sure he was about to kiss her. His gaze had shifted from her eyes to her mouth, and he gave her a look that clearly said he wanted to devour her.

She would have let him, too. At that moment, with the moonlight outlining his every chiseled feature, she would’ve given him anything he wanted. Professionalism be damned.

Then he’d turned away and left her alone, thinking she’d imagined the whole thing. He’d left her wanting.

That’s what she’d been since she met Jackson. Wanting. She felt like there was a void deep within her that only he could fill.

She blinked at her own thoughts. That had sounded really dirty, even in her own head.

And it wasn’t going to happen. There wouldn’t be any…void filling between them. Just a mutually beneficial, professional arrangement.

Which was really a hard thing to have when one of the two participants was avoiding the other.

“What in the fuck is