Michael dropped his arms to his sides and she slid hers from around his neck, leaving him feeling cold somehow.
She stepped back and scanned him head-to-toe, then grinned. The dog yipped from the end of the hall, barely audible over the still-pulsing alarm.
“Hey little pup!” she called. “Come here. Want a treat?”
The dog stopped running in a circle at the stairwell door and faced her.
“Yeah, treat,” she called, and the beast came running, hair flying out to the sides as it bolted toward them.
Son-of-a-bitch. There was a magic word to make the thing obey. Treat. Yeah, well, he might come running if she called him, too. He shook his head. No. That’s absurd. He had no time in his life for that kind of nonsense. He didn’t run when called.
“I’m Mia,” she said, extending her hand.
He took her hand, surprised by her firm grip. “Michael.”
“Well, Michael, I tried to remove the battery from the smoke detector, but I can’t figure out how to take the cover off,” she said, voice a bit loud in order to carry over the still-shrieking alarm. She picked the dog up and held it against her chest, which was covered by a sports bra that matched her shorts.
Lucky dog.
“Do you think you could help me out and give it a try?” she asked.
“Sure.”
She stepped back and he entered what looked more like the inside of a spin-art machine than a living room. The floor was covered with a bright blue tarp, and a large canvas, covered in brilliant splatters, sat propped up against the tarp-covered sofa. One thing at a time, he reminded himself. At least the smoke had dissipated for the most part. “Do you have a step-stool?”
“Nah.” Dog in her arm, she grabbed what appeared to be an authentic eighteenth century mahogany Hepplewhite shield chair. “Just use this,” she shouted over the alarm as she dragged it under the smoke detector above the entry door.
Grimacing, he stepped up onto the leather cushion. The Braxton woman was going to have a fit if she ever found out her fine antique had been abused like this. The smoke alarm cover slipped right off after a quarter turn, and the battery was no problem either, resulting in sweet silence.
When he stepped down, she was feeding the dog something from her hand.
“I promised a treat, and I deliver on promises.” She rubbed the dog’s head and straightened the bow holding the hair out of its eyes. “Hey, thanks for helping me out. Sorry about the noise.”
Yeah, like the noise was anything new. “No problem.” He set the battery on a display table near the door.
“He’s really cute. I love Shih Tzu’s. What’s his name?”
Shitzoo? More like shit head. Yeah, Shit Head was the perfect name for that pillow-murdering thorn in his side. “Dog.”
“His name is Dog?” She fiddled with the heart-shaped tag on Shit Head’s collar. “No, it’s not. It’s Clancy.” Her brow furrowed. “This isn’t your dog.”
“You’re right. I’m taking care of it for a friend,” he said, not wanting to discuss dog therapy. Clancy? Who puts bows and nail polish on a boy dog and names it Clancy? “How did you know it was a boy before you read the tag?”
Looking up at him with her cinnamon-colored eyes, she stated very matter-of-factly, “Boys have penises.”
At that moment, Michael was very aware that he, himself, was a boy. He cleared his throat. “Good to know.” And he felt silly, which was an unfamiliar sensation. How had he not noticed the dog was male? Well, because it was covered in ridiculous hair that hung to the floor, for one thing. And when he’d picked it up, he wasn’t doing a gender check, he was getting the hell out—which brought him to the issue of why he was there in the first place. “Burned bread?” he asked.
“Yeah. I forgot to start a timer.” She set the dog aside and pushed to her feet. “I do it all the time”.
Somehow that didn’t surprise him.
She tucked some strands of shiny black hair behind her ear that had slipped from her ponytail.
Damn, she was gorgeous. And different than anyone he’d met. She wasn’t self-conscious at all and seemed so comfortable, not only about disclosing her forgetfulness, but with her own body. Hell, she was practically naked in that skin-tight outfit, but her mannerisms revealed no discomfort at all. In his years of negotiating antique deals, he’d become an expert at spotting weaknesses and hang-ups that would give him an advantage. This woman appeared hang-up free, which, by his logic, reduced his advantage and upped the challenge. And Michael Anderson loved a challenge.
“Come on, Clancy. Let’s make sure I turned the oven off,” she said. And as if he were the most obedient dog on earth and not a devil that disemboweled a completely innocent and utterly docile down pillow, Shit Head followed Mia into her kitchen, tail wagging.