Free Baby, Hold On by Stephanie Bond

behind the brush pile, he barked excitedly. Lacey did her part, exclaiming happily and throwing her arms around him, praising him.
    Mike waited, then walked up, his chest welling with pride. “Good boy,” he said, then offered Sheridan a special treat. Sheridan took it and chomped away, his tail still wagging.
    Lacey rushed up and threw her arms around Mike’s neck. “We did it!”
    His initial surprise quickly morphed into something else as her touch brought his hormones raging to the surface. He lowered his head to claim the kiss he’d been wanting all week, keeping it PG-rated as his mouth scraped across those soft, plump lips, although his body was pushing for R. When he released her, her eyes were wide, and he felt like a heel for crossing the line.
    “Yes, we did it,” he said, pretending the kiss had been celebratory. “This is the best he’s been since Missouri.”
    Lacey angled her head. “I sense a ‘but’ coming.”
    “ But ,” he added, “these are perfect conditions, and Sheridan was working alone. A real-life crisis is much more demanding and distracting. Even the training facility will be more rugged than this little test.”
    “But it’s progress.”
    “Yes,” he agreed. “It’s progress.” Especially because Sheridan seemed to have forgotten about the toy. Mike wanted to throw the pink annoyance as far as he could, but he didn’t want to litter. Besides, Sheridan might perceive it as a game of fetch and then they’d be right back where they started. So instead he kept it out of sight under his T-shirt.
    The trek through the creek had stirred up the thick Georgia red clay along the bottom. When the three emerged on the other side to return to the cabin at a more leisurely pace, they all had mud and debris hanging from them. Sheridan shook himself repeatedly, but the mud had hardened his coat by the time they’d reached the yard.
    “Labs don’t need baths very often,” Lacey said, “but I think this is one of those occasions. We’ll see how he handles being immersed in water.”
    “I wouldn’t mind hosing off, myself,” Mike agreed. And considering the wayward direction of his thoughts since that kiss, the colder, the better. He’d hoped his curiosity would be sated, that there would be no spark between them.
    He was wrong.
    When they reached the cabin, there were only a couple of hours of daylight left. He found a tub in the utility room and set it in the yard next to his SUV. Lacey added pet shampoo from a grooming bag she’d brought with her, then he filled it with water from the hose. Sheridan eyed the suds warily, but Lacey coaxed him inside one leg at a time and began to brush him down while talking to him in that way of hers that seemed to cast a spell on Sheridan.
    Watching the lovely blonde, Mike knew exactly how his dog felt.
    “Want to help?” she asked.
    “Sure,” he said, and with a pang, he realized he agreed not so much to be able to tend to his dog but to be near Lacey.
    She handed him a brush and he got on the other side of the tub, plunging his hands into the slippery water, still warm from the hose having lain in the sun. He concentrated on cleaning the fur on his side, but didn’t mind when his hands encountered Lacey’s under the water. Between the humidity, the creek and the splashing dog bath, her hair had sprung back into corkscrew curls. Her green eyes were radiant in the fading glow of the sun, framed with a dark fringe of lashes. And that mouth…
    He wondered if she had any idea how beautiful she was. His body hardened at the thought of her pressed up against him, this time naked. Now that Sheridan was on the mend, Mike felt relaxed enough to tend to other parts of his life he’d neglected. He wouldn’t mind having a fling with the pretty woman for the remainder of the time he’d be in Sweetness.
    But would Lacey be willing? There didn’t seem to be a boyfriend in the picture—she’d even said she was a loner.
    Cute, hot and available.