10

ASIDE FROM THE moose nearly causing a multicar collision, the day had gone well. Too well. Ian could recall with excruciating detail what it had been like to catch Kelsey falling out of the trailer—how soft her flannel shirt had felt in his hands, the way her cheek had brushed his, the lightly fruity scent of her hair. She was so short that her body fit against his perfectly, and he’d been unable to stop fantasizing since about what it would have been like if he’d slid his hands lower and cupped her ass. If she’d wrapped her legs around his waist. If he’d tasted those pouty lips with Kelsey’s body clinging to his.

Not only were these thoughts he didn’t want, they’d distracted him most of the drive home. And so did the way he’d melted down after he caught her.

Well, perhaps melted down was an exaggeration, but aside from his brain short-circuiting, he had no excuse for flirting with Kelsey. It wasn’t the first time unintended words had slipped out of his mouth around her either. Every time they seemed to be getting along, he forgot that he didn’t want to like her.

As such, it wasn’t until Kelsey pulled her SUV into a driveway that Ian realized he had a problem. He hadn’t only offered his services to load the trailer but to unload it as well. But unloading it meant going into her house. And going into her house meant there would be dogs. This was the second time today he’d forgotten all about the dogs.

Oy, he was an idiot, lulled into complacency by a flannel shirt and a perfect backside.

By some miracle, though, Kelsey had already planned for this part. “Do you want to come in for a second? Kevin was supposed to stop by and let the dogs out earlier, but they’ll be desperate to to be let out again. I’m going to have to leave them in the backyard while we unload.”

Ian hoped his relief didn’t show, but he felt a bit like he had right after Kelsey had avoided an accident with the moose. “Actually, I need to make a quick call to Micah while you do that.”

Ian got out of the SUV and made a point of playing with his phone while Kelsey went inside. He had no true need to call Micah, but so as to not be a complete liar, he did it anyway. Micah didn’t pick up, so Ian left a message that he was back in town.

Kelsey reappeared a couple of minutes later as Ian was wondering whether it was finally safe to go looking for her. “Ready?”

“If you are.” He stepped aside from the trailer so she could unlock it.

It became clear immediately that they hadn’t escaped the moose incident as unscathed as he’d thought. The furniture had shifted, and the upturned table that had sent Kelsey crashing into his arms earlier had been punished for its transgression. One of the bookshelves had fallen to the side and snapped a leg.

“Oh no.” Kelsey climbed onto the trailer, her face fallen in dismay.

“I might be able to fix it.” The words tumbled out before Ian could think them through.

Here he was, being rash again. He didn’t owe Kelsey anything else, and it wasn’t as if they were friends. But his animosity toward her had evaporated today. It could have been that she no longer wore the SHS pin, or it could have been how cute she looked in her oversize flannel. Honestly, it was best to blame it on something superficial like that. But the truth was, talking to her had been interesting and had left him with the sense that there was a lot more to her than met the eye. He wanted to talk to her again, to learn what else she hid behind her acerbic tongue.

“You think?” Kelsey sounded doubtful. The leg hadn’t been snapped completely in half, but it was too badly cracked for the table to be of use as it was.

Ian made a closer inspection, acutely aware that she was crouched inches away. Close enough that he could feel the heat radiating off her. “Probably. My grandfather’s a woodworker. It’s his hobby, but he taught me a bit. A dowel to stabilize the leg and some good wood glue should do the trick.”

“That would be amazing, but really, you’ve more than repaid me for anything I’m writing for your website.”

He suspected that was true. He also suspected Kelsey did not easily accept help from other people. She might be tiny and angelic looking, but she clearly had adamantine bones and muscles to match. He’d been impressed watching her lift furniture today. Despite her size, she could hold her own, and she struck Ian as the sort of person who would be determined to do everything for herself.

For some reason, though, that attitude made him want to help all the more, and Ian told himself it was to prove to her that he was just as capable as she was, since she clearly thought otherwise. If he had other motivations, it was better to ignore them.

“Like I said, I don’t think it’ll be hard. I have the tools.”

Kelsey looked like she was going to protest a second time, but the moment passed. “That would be great. Thank you.”

It sounded like saying the words had cost her something, so Ian just responded with “No problem” and suggested they get to work.

Unloading took far less time than loading had, since they didn’t need to cram furniture into unyielding spaces and tie it down. They did have to carry a few items up the stairs, however, and that proved challenging. Kelsey’s stairs were tall and narrow, and she grumbled about how she’d just painted the upstairs walls so they needed to be careful.

They maneuvered the second of two bookcases into the room to the right of her staircase, and Kelsey let go and stretched her muscles. Ian averted his gaze, because lugging furniture around had done nothing to subdue his body’s reaction to hers. Quite the opposite. With his testosterone flowing from the exercise, watching Kelsey was sure to be a bad idea.

The room wasn’t large, and there was barely enough space left along the walls for the bookcase. There was a desk against one of the other walls that looked like it had come from IKEA and had nothing but a laptop on it. A couple of boxes that appeared to contain books sat next to it. Presumably they were waiting for their shelves.

While he studiously ignored Kelsey rolling her neck, Ian tested the shelves’ stability. “The floor’s uneven. You might need to wedge something under the front of this.”

Kelsey stuck her hands on her hips as he demonstrated the bookshelves’ wobbling. “Paint stirrers should work. I have a few left downstairs. Give me a sec?”

“Sure.” He wasn’t in a rush to leave, and if he was going to help her move stuff, he might as well do it right.

Kelsey disappeared down the stairs, and Ian glanced out the window. It overlooked the backyard, and her three dogs were running around without leashes. Which, of course they were, since they were fenced in. But it was enough to trip his pulse, and Ian quickly looked away.

Wandering over to her boxes of books seemed like a safer bet, and Ian absently pulled back the flap on the top one for a better view, curious what sort of books Kelsey read and any insight that gave him into her head. Oddly, they were all identical. For some reason, she had a box filled with multiple copies of the same book.

Confused, Ian pulled one out—A Dog in the Fight by Summer Austen. The cover showed a rugged man, his shirt unnecessarily unbuttoned, and a large husky against a backdrop of snow-covered mountains. The description on the back talked about a pack of shifters, their mates, and mortal enemies. Ian had never read a romance novel before, but his sister and bubbe did, and he knew enough to know one when he spotted one. The only question was, why did Kelsey have an entire box of this particular book?

Searching for clues, he flipped through the pages, listening to Kelsey curse as she rummaged around downstairs. Apparently A Dog in the Fight was the sixth book in a series called Dog Days. Ian found a listing of all the books in the front. Turning one more page backward, he scanned the dedication and copyright information.

And did a double take. Although the author was listed as Summer Austen, the copyright was to Kelsey Porter.

Ian had just enough time for the implications of that to sink in when Kelsey reappeared in the room. He’d been so absorbed in searching the book that he hadn’t heard her climb the stairs.

“Found some,” she announced, and her gaze landed on the book in his hand. Her entire body froze like someone had halted time around her. Then, just as quickly, she unfroze. Seemingly making up for that lost half second, she dropped the paint stirrers and snatched the book away.

“Did you write this?” Ian asked.

Kelsey didn’t respond. Ian had heard the expression “like a deer in headlights” before that moment, but he’d never experienced it on someone’s face in real life. It was alarming, to say the least. Kelsey’s eyes were wide and her face pale and blank, as though she were staring down a barreling tractor trailer and unable to move.

And he was the tractor trailer.

Obviously, he’d asked a bad question, and Ian’s immediate urge was to apologize and take it back. But that was silly. He couldn’t say Never mind and pretend he hadn’t asked the question, and he couldn’t unsee what he’d seen.

“Never mind.” Ian cringed. It appeared he was going to say the silly thing anyway. Oy. “I’m sorry I asked.”

Kelsey wet her lips and tucked the book back into the box with its clones. “Summer Austen wrote it.”

“You’re Summer Austen.”

Slowly she nodded as she closed the box flaps. “Look, just pretend you don’t know that, okay? No one’s supposed to know that. Shit.”

Her reaction unnerved Ian. Tough-as-nails, take-no-shit Kelsey should be cursing him out for stumbling onto something he wasn’t supposed to see. Instead she was acting petrified.

He was the one who should have been petrified. He’d have expected her to be planning to feed him to her dogs and bury his remains in the yard. Hell, a few minutes ago, he would have thought her not turning on the snark suggested an improvement in their relationship. Now he’d have welcomed snark and outright hostility. A Kelsey out of snappy comebacks made him feel like a complete schmuck, and he hadn’t even been trying to piss her off.

Maybe understanding the situation better would give him some idea of how to make it right? It didn’t seem like he could make it worse. “No one knows that? The cover says you’re a best seller.”

Kelsey swallowed and gripped the back of the chair behind her. “People know who Summer Austen is. They don’t know I’m her. And yes, I realize my name is on the copyright page. In my experience, most people don’t check the copyright page, unlike you.”

Ian smiled sheepishly. “I was trying to figure out why you had so many copies of the same book. If you don’t want people to know, I won’t tell anyone. That’s easy.”

---

*   *   *

THAT’S EASY? GOD, he was naive. In Ian’s head, this was simple, not a situation fraught with complications and the makings of a potential disaster.

The key word was potential. Kelsey had survived disasters before. She could certainly survive a pre-disaster. So even as her pulse raced and her stomach churned, she sought a way to survive the situation. She’d always been daring and fast on her feet. A warrior, to use her father’s language. She wouldn’t panic.

As far as she could tell, she had two possible plays. The first was to let Ian believe he was right. The situation was simple and not a big deal. She only had to agree with him and hope he thought so little of her secret that he never had any temptation to mention it again. It was possible that would work. Ian didn’t really know her, and he had no reason to care. And who did he know who might be interested in this random tidbit about her, anyway? It wasn’t like she was secretly Stephen King or something. The name Summer Austen would mean nothing to him, and he might even forget it by the time he left her house.

Or he might not. If he didn’t know how badly she wanted this kept quiet, he might have no qualms about mentioning it casually to someone—like to her father when he asked about her work on the website or the newspaper article. Thanks for suggesting Kelsey would help, but she’s not really qualified to write this sort of thing since she’s a romance author.

She wanted to throw up just thinking about it.

So no, as much as she disliked option number two, it was a better choice than option number one. She was going to have to swallow her pride and throw herself on Ian’s mercy, then pray to whatever god was listening that he wouldn’t betray her, either on purpose or by accident. So far, nothing had suggested that Ian was a total dick, or at least that he was more dickish than anyone of the male variety. There was a chance this could work, but it did mean she had to stop purposely antagonizing him.

That was going to suck, since purposely antagonizing Ian might have been the only thing that saved her sanity when she was otherwise tempted to fantasize about him.

Kelsey took a deep breath. She hated appearing weak, but there was nothing to be done about it. In a way, this was her fault. She’d forgotten the box with her author copies of A Dog in the Fight was sitting out in the office. She’d have shoved it in the closet before allowing Ian into the room if she’d remembered.

“You don’t understand.” Kelsey’s voice quivered, suggesting she was closer to panicking than she wanted to believe. “Even my family doesn’t know. That’s why my father told you I could write stuff for your website. He thinks that’s what I do for a living. You can’t talk about this to anyone, not even them.”

Especially not them.

Ian frowned. He was so clearly not getting it, but he hadn’t mocked her yet or dismissed her anxiety. Under the circumstances, she should be grateful. Yet it was so hard to be grateful for small miracles when she could have used a bigger miracle that would have prevented this situation in the first place.

“If that’s what you want, sure.” Ian stepped away from the box, as though subconsciously distancing himself from her secret. “Can I ask why not? You’re obviously successful.”

Despite her blood pressure driving up her body temperature, Kelsey wrapped her arms around herself. She wanted her dogs. She needed comfort, and they had the added advantage of not being able to spill her secrets to anyone.

“Not everyone appreciates such a ‘frivolous’ occupation as writing novels.” She picked up the box and stuffed it into the closet like Pandora ruing her mistake. “Especially not romance novels. I’m sure you’re aware of the stereotypes about women who read them or write them. Now imagine that kind of fuel in the hands of the Lipins—people who would love to cause me grief. I can’t give them that kind of ammunition to use against me or my family.”

Kelsey couldn’t tell if Ian was looking at her with pity or if she’d just blown his mind by relating her need for secrecy to the feud. Since today had shown he was still trying to wrap his mind around the feud, she’d choose to believe the latter. Pity would make her want to kick him in the shins, and as she’d already realized, being nasty to Ian was now dangerous in new and exciting ways. She wanted to hate him for putting her in this position, but once again, Ian hadn’t actually done anything to earn her ire.

He was extra aggravating for it. Kelsey preferred enemies whom she had a right to dislike. It made the morality—and absurdity—of having enemies easier to handle. But lately, nothing about her life had been easy.

Ian held up his hands. “That’s sad. I think writing books is actually very cool, and something you should be able to brag about. But you know best. Since it’s not, you have my word that I won’t tell anyone.”

His word. Kelsey didn’t like that. Words were easy; she ought to know. Unfortunately, making Ian swear a blood oath was something only the characters in her books might get away with. “Promise?”

“I promise. I swear. However you want me to say it.” Ian crossed his heart and offered her a small smile. “Everyone has secrets they deserve the right to keep.”

If her emotions hadn’t been a whirlwind of bees buzzing through her bloodstream, that statement would have been worth following up on. Between it and Ian’s reaction to her comment about family issues in her car earlier, she suspected he was hiding some interesting secrets of his own.

“Kelsey?” Ian sounded concerned.

She must have spaced out. Those damn bees were potent. “Sorry. Yes, thanks. It’s just, no offense, we haven’t exactly gotten along to this point, and I’m trying to decide whether I should trust you.”

Ian raised an eyebrow. “And if you decided you couldn’t trust me, what would you do? Sic your dogs on me?”

It should have been impossible, but the comment managed to provoke a tiny laugh from her. The idea of her three babies killing Ian with anything other than love was hilarious. “It’s not a bad idea.”

Ian sat on the edge of her desk. For a second, the room fell silent. With blood oaths out, she had to suck it up and trust Ian, but she couldn’t let it happen so easily. Her brain turned over every word in her vocabulary, every phrase, as though seeking something she could say to give herself some assurance.

Ian seemed to be turning over something in his head as well. In spite of her anxiety—or maybe because she was so focused on Ian at the moment—Kelsey noticed the moment he reached a decision.

He rubbed his chin and braced himself. “Would it make you feel better if I gave you something to hold over me so we’re even?”

It would. She didn’t want it to, but it would anyway.

Before she could figure out how to respond, Ian continued. “I have a phobia of dogs. It’s the most ridiculous and embarrassing thing in the world, and I’ve been trying to hide it from you, but there it is. I try to hide it from everyone, actually, because it makes me feel like an ass, so . . .” He spread his hands. “I won’t tell your shameful secret if you won’t tell mine.”

Kelsey gaped. Shock finally wiped out the low-key (almost) panic running through her. When Ian had implied that he had secrets, this was not what she’d been expecting. That said, it put his odd behavior into sudden focus. Ian snubbing Josh over the summer. The way he’d slammed the door on her. His refusal to come over to her that day outside the coffee shop. She’d assumed it was his way of showing that he disliked her, but it hadn’t been her he disliked. It had been her dogs.

But no, not dislike of her dogs. Something irrational that he couldn’t control. That was just sad. Logically, Kelsey understood that not everyone was a dog person, but everyone should have the opportunity to decide if they were, and a phobia prevented Ian from gathering all the facts. She could happily dislike and distrust someone for not liking dogs, but she couldn’t do that to someone who had a phobia of them.

“Um, Kelsey?” Ian’s voice sounded as taut as hers had. “Are we even?”

Even? Of course not. He’d learned something that could screw up her life and possibly her career, and he’d told her he was afraid of dogs. Embarrassing to him, obviously. Ruin-your-life embarrassing—obviously not.

But.

But.

Kelsey appreciated the gesture. It was evident from the expression on Ian’s face that he’d expected something from her besides silence. Derision or outright laughter, maybe? She wasn’t sure, but Ian considered his phobia shameful, and sharing it had cost him something. And he’d done it for her. To make her feel better. He hadn’t needed to, since she’d already chosen to put her trust in him, but he’d done it anyway, and damned if it wasn’t getting under her skin.

He was such a puppy.

“I’m sorry.” Those words didn’t answer Ian’s question, but telling Ian they weren’t even wasn’t a good choice, and she was sorry. Sorry not just because he had to live with a phobia, but sorry that he was missing out on all the good things dogs brought into someone’s life.

Ian shrugged. “It’s fine. Well, not fine, but I’ve been living with it for most of my life, so it’s normal. Just do me a favor and leave your dogs in the backyard until I leave, okay?”

“Of course. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have brought them along when we met before.”

“I might have appreciated that.” He laughed a little shakily. “I guess it would make your life easier if you could be honest about your career, and it would make my life easier if so many people in this town didn’t have dogs.”

“We do like our dogs around here.” Her family in particular. Reputedly, the feud had started because of dogs, but Kelsey considered any feud tales set before her time suspect at best. History was only one good storyteller away from fiction. “Have you ever seen a therapist about it?”

“I’ve thought about it. It’s never been a high enough priority, and I’m better than I used to be. Small dogs don’t freak me out anymore. Getting bigger helped with that. Dogs the size of yours are another story.”

Again, the thought of her dogs hurting Ian was laughable, but this time Kelsey knew to hold in her smile. “My dogs would never hurt you. Jump on you, possibly. Lick you, absolutely. But that’s only because they’d want to be your friend. Not because they were trying to decide whether you’d taste better with ketchup or mustard.”

Ian did laugh at that. “I believe you and yet . . .”

“That’s what makes it a phobia.”

“Exactly.”

“What about exposure therapy?” Was that what it was called? She’d taken an intro psych course to fulfill an elective in college, but that was the extent of her background.

Ian frowned at her, and, right—he had said he hadn’t tried therapy. She couldn’t believe she was suggesting this, but she plowed on before her better sense could kill her inner marshmallow.

“I could help. My dogs are super sweet, and if we met again so I could interview you for the newspaper article, we could figure something out. You got over your small-dog fear on your own, so maybe we could do this together.”

Part of her hoped he’d say no. She was best off not seeing Ian again. If you didn’t want to adopt the puppy, you didn’t play with the puppy.

Bad choice of words. She would not be playing with Ian.

But the point remained. Kelsey had no idea what had gotten into her, except she did—it was the man’s damn dimple, and the way he lifted furniture, and the fact that he’d confessed something embarrassing to make her feel better. That last one was the biggest problem.

“That . . .” Ian might have been struggling with the same internal war as she was.

Say no.

“Can I hate the idea but also appreciate it and want to do it anyway?”

Yes!

Shit!

“Under the circumstances, that’s probably logical.” Kelsey glanced at her closet, surprised how long she’d gone without feeling like panicking.

She was positive the not-quite-panic would return later, just as she was positive she was going to kick herself after he left for offering to help Ian. She was also positive she was going to spend far too much time thinking about the man and what all his muscles had felt like pressed against her body earlier.

Absolutely positive she was going to hate herself for it too.

But if Ian got over his phobia, that wasn’t only good for him, but for dogs. There would be one more person on the planet to pet them and dote on them. Honestly, this was like a public service she was doing for the canine community. She was being utterly selfless.

She’d been too fast to choose distracting as her word for Ian. Confounding was a better choice. Maddening, perhaps.

“Just so we’re clear,” Kelsey said, “I’m doing this for the dogs’ sakes as much as yours.”

“That’s what I assumed.” Ian delivered the line with no hint as to whether he meant it.

Uh-huh. Confounding it was.