Her Valentine Sheriff

“So we’re good, then?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.” His voice was low and gruff, and his gaze turned so dark that his stormy blue eyes took on an almost black hue to them.

She wasn’t going to solve any of their problems this way. Maybe the best thing to do was to bring out the big guns—

—or more specifically, the Bullet.

Chapter Two

Eli’s chest tightened almost painfully as he followed Mary through the front room and into the den. In his opinion, it was more of a kennel than a living space. There were several crates, the smaller stacked on the larger, but they were all empty. The dogs who’d greeted him at the door were lounging on fluffy pillows of various shapes, colors and sizes, all of which looked as if they had been haphazardly tossed around the room. Chew toys, ropes, tennis balls and rawhide bones littered the floor.

The whole place was messy. Lived-in. And distinctly feminine. Everything from Mary’s choice of floral wallpaper to the soft pastel curtains screamed woman, unlike his own apartment, which was meticulously clean and simply furnished with only the bare necessities in mahogany and stainless steel. Not much in the way of decor, other than a couple of family pictures on the wall. Eli didn’t require too many things to live comfortably.

Besides, he liked clean. Uncluttered. Mary apparently felt differently.

He didn’t know what he’d expected the inside of Mary’s house to look like, since he knew she shared her space with all her dogs. He supposed he hadn’t really considered it at all.

In any respect, this wasn’t it. These pups looked as if they were living the lives of royalty, not as if they were working animals. He surveyed the dogs. The Chihuahua wasn’t a K-9, formidable attitude notwithstanding, but he supposed some of the other dogs could be.

In addition to those he’d seen in the front room, there were three other large canines—one a creamy yellow color but otherwise identical to Sebastian, a gray dog with whiskers and a lot of fluff on its legs and another that looked a little like Lassie from the old television show.

He wondered which of them would be his. To his relief, they were not overly intimidating. None of them seemed as if they could be a police-trained K-9, either, not that he really knew how to assess one.

“If you’ll follow me to the back patio, I’ll introduce you to your new partner. He’s in the yard getting some exercise with some of the other pups.”

“There are more?” The question was half tongue-in-cheek jesting and half utter bemusement. “How many dogs did you say you have again?”

Mary glanced back and smiled. “Too many. I’ve lost count.”

Eli shook his head and chuckled. “I’m not surprised.”

She stopped at the sliding glass doorway and turned to face him, gesturing back toward the den. “You’ve met Goliath,” she said, pointing to the Chihuahua. “The gray one is a standard schnauzer—Periwinkle. I call her Perry.” Upon hearing her name, the schnauzer pricked her ears. “And of course I have my SAR dog, Sebastian. He’s a Labrador retriever, and he pretty much never leaves my side.” She took a breath and smiled, making a sweeping gesture that encompassed both the den and the yard. “The rest of this sorry lot I’m either fostering or training.”

“SAR?”

“Search and rescue,” she elaborated.

“I see. And my dog?”

“Bullet. He’s a Dutch shepherd. That’s him right there,” she said, aiming her finger to the far corner of the yard.

Eli’s gaze shifted to where she’d pointed, his shoulders tensing as he silently observed Bullet, a mostly black-furred dog with a bit of tan on his face and legs. He was trotting around the perimeter of the wooden security fence as if he were staking his claim on it. The dog circled a few of the obstacles in the yard—a balance beam, a chute and a couple of jumps—punctuating his sniffing with an occasional ominous bark.

Bullet was definitely more what Eli had imagined in a K-9, both in aggression and demeanor. Eli was pretty sure bad guys wouldn’t want to run into the sharp-toothed end of this dog. He wouldn’t.

He steadied his breath, trying not to think of another dog, another time, a terrifying episode that had resulted in permanent bite marks and gashes on his right forearm and shoulder. He had many scars on his body, everything from the sharp edges of an angry bull’s horn across his ribs to the ragged pucker of a knife wound on his chin. Yet comparatively, those had been easier to heal, emotionally speaking. He didn’t dwell on them.

Not like his inexplicable, irrational fear of dogs. Experts even had a scientific name for it—cynophobia—which didn’t help him a bit. He couldn’t get over it, no matter how hard he tried.

He swallowed hard, his muscles rigid as Mary called for the K-9 to come forward.

“Bullet, volg.”

Bullet obeyed the command immediately, coming to heel next to Mary’s left side and sitting on his haunches, looking up at her expectantly for his next instruction. She reached down and scratched him under the chin. “Who’s my good boy?”

That was apparently code for at ease, for the dog bounded forward, barking playfully. After a moment, he approached Eli, circling his legs and sniffing him. Eli stood perfectly still, staring down at the dog and waiting for him to—

What? Chomp his leg off? Go for his throat?

His imagination was getting the best of him, and it certainly wasn’t helping him with this situation. He had to get over his nerves.

Like yesterday.

“Can I touch him?” Eli asked tentatively.

“Absolutely. He’s yours, you know.”

Eli reached forward, allowing Bullet to sniff at his fingers before he scratched the dog behind the ears.

“Good boy,” he said to the dog, and then paused abruptly as Mary’s words penetrated his muddled brain. “Wait. What do you mean, he’s mine?” He straightened, mental alarms pealing in his ears. “He belongs to the police department, right?”

Mary’s gaze widened, and her lips pursed, accentuating her cheekbones. She must have realized he was staring at her, because she immediately dropped her gaze. Her heart-shaped face turned a pretty shade of rose.

“The department paid for him, yes,” she answered after a tentative pause.

“Good, then.” Relief washed through him. For a moment he’d had the unnerving picture of having to take the dog home to live with him. Thankfully that wasn’t the case. “So now what?”

“Now we train.” Mary straightened, resuming the professional demeanor with which she’d met him at the door. “Since it’s Friday afternoon, I suggest we break for the weekend and pick this up first thing Monday morning.”

“Train? I was given the impression that the dog already was trained,” he said, cautiously running a palm down Bullet’s neck. Eli jerked his hand back when Bullet raised his head. “Isn’t he a certified K-9?”

“Oh, Bullet’s trained,” Mary replied, her chuckle softened by the kindness mingling with the amusement in her gaze. “I was talking about you.”

* * *

Mary paced the front room, glancing out the window every few minutes, waiting for Eli to arrive for his first official training session with Bullet. It seemed as if the weekend had dragged on for a lifetime, but Monday morning had finally come, and Eli was due soon. They’d agreed on eight o’clock to start, and it was only half past seven, so it wasn’t as if he was late. She was just anxious to see him again—to get started on the real training process. It was an exciting moment for her and for her newly established Rapport Kennel.

If nerves over her business weren’t enough to make her antsy, she couldn’t seem to be able to get Eli out of her mind. It bothered her more than she cared to admit—because if she were being honest, this wasn’t all about work. It was about the man she was working with.

Eli. The man who for years had filled her dreams, as hopeless as they were. Mooning over a man who hardly knew she even walked the planet. But that was long ago, when she was an awkward teen. She’d been over him for years.

He was her past. Except now, he wasn’t.

He was very, very present.

If she could have framed the expression on his face when she’d teased him about training him and not the dog, she would have hung it over her fireplace, where she could appreciate his handsome mug every time she walked by. Of course that might be a little problematic to explain to visitors, since it was none other than her very own sister who had jilted him for another man only a week before their wedding.

Not exactly the kind of picture a woman ought to place on the mantel, even in her mind and even in jest.