Barbara Dunlop - Overheated

It’s not like somebody was likely to adopt him. The pound was full of bright, lively puppies. Who would choose an old, gray-whiskered dog with a bad ear?

The girl balled up a second scoop, while Crystal felt an impulse growing within her.

“If I give you my name,” she said, half her brain telling her to shut up, the other half urging her on. “Will you tell the pound people I’ve got the dog?”

The girl stopped mid scoop, staring blankly at Crystal.

“I’ll take care of him until they check for relatives,” Crystal explained. How sad would it be if somebody put the dog down, then a relative showed up later? She knew the pound didn’t keep stray animals for long.

“You’re taking the dog?” the girl asked, clearly confused.

Crystal nodded. “Do you have a pen?”

The clerk seemed to remember she was in the middle of making a cone. She added the second scoop and handed the cone to Crystal. Then she pulled a pen from under the counter.

Crystal quickly jotted down her name and number on one of the Treatsy-Sweetsy napkins and handed it to the girl. “Tell them to call me if they find a relative.”

The clerk nodded bemusedly, while Crystal turned for the exit, telling herself she hadn’t lost her mind. There was nothing wrong with occasionally being a Good Samaritan.

Out on the hot sidewalk, she gingerly petted the dog. He sighed and gazed up at her, giving his tail only a cursory wag. But his round eyes closed while she scratched between his ears.

Okay. That was one question answered. It didn’t look like he’d bite her.

Carefully balancing the melting cone, she untied the rope from the shrub and coiled a few loops around her free hand.

“There we go, doggy,” she crooned. “You want to go for a car ride?”

Predictably, he didn’t answer, but stared silently up at her with an expression of benevolent patience. He seemed confused when she started to walk. But after a moment, he came willingly enough.

Across the parking lot, she opened the passenger door. Again, he gave her a curious stare.

“Up you go,” she prompted.

He jumped onto the floor of the truck.

Crystal patted the seat.

He gave her a look that questioned her wisdom, his brows knitting together. But when she patted it a second time, he gamely hopped up, curling into a little ball.

She shut the door, refusing to examine the logic of her actions. It was a temporary fix, just until the old man’s family could be contacted. And if no relative showed up, well, she’d deal with that later.

On the way around the cab, she licked a dribble from the back of her hand, then she swiped her tongue across both scoops a few times, making her way down to the solid ice cream before hopping into the truck.

She turned the key in the ignition.

“Okay, dog,” she said aloud, with a forced note of bravery in her voice. “Looks like it’s you and me for a while.”

She gave the dog the rest of her ice cream, then put the truck into Reverse.

RUFUS, AS CRYSTAL HAD decided to call the black Lab, slept soundly on the soft seat, even as she maneuvered the Softco truck in front of the Dean Grosso garage. Engines fired through the open bay doors, compressors clacked and impact tools whined as the teams tweaked their race cars in preparation for qualifying.

As always, when she visited the garage area, Crystal experienced a vicarious thrill, watching the technicians’ meticulous, last-minute preparations. As the daughter of a machinist, she understood the difference a fraction of a degree or a thousandth of an inch could make in the performance of a race car.

She muscled the driver’s door shut behind her and waved hello to a couple of familiar team members in their white and pale-blue uniforms. Then she rounded to the back of the truck and rolled up the door. Inside, five boxes were marked Cargill Motorsports.

One of them was big and heavy; it had slid forward a few feet, probably when she’d braked to make the Treatsy-Sweetsy parking lot entrance. So she pushed up the sleeves of her canary-yellow shirt, then stretched forward to reach the box. A couple of catcalls came her way as her faded blue jeans tightened across her rear end. But she knew they were good natured, so she simply ignored them.

She dragged the box toward her, over the gritty, metal floor.

“Let me give you a hand with that,” a deep, melodious voice rumbled in her ear.

“I can manage,” she responded crisply, not wanting to engage with any of the cat-callers.

Here in the garage, the last thing she needed was one of the guys treating her like she was something other than, well, one of the guys.

She’d learned long ago that there was something about her that made men toss out pickup lines like parade candy. And she’d been around race teams long enough to know she needed to behave like a buddy, not a potential date.

She piled the smaller boxes on top of the large one.

“It looks heavy,” said the voice.

“I’m tough,” she assured him as she scooped the pile into her arms.

He didn’t move away, so she turned her head to subject him to a back off stare. But she found herself staring into a compelling pair of green…no, brown…no, hazel eyes. She did a double take, as they seemed to twinkle, multicolored, under the garage lights.

The man insistently held out his hands for the boxes. There was a dignity in his tone, and little crinkles around his eyes that hinted at wisdom. There wasn’t a single sign of flirtation in his expression, but Crystal was still cautious.

“You know I’m being paid to move this, right?” she asked him.

“That doesn’t mean I can’t be a gentleman.”

Somebody whistled from a workbench. “Go, Professor Larry.”

The man named Larry tossed his own back-off look over his shoulder. Then he turned to Crystal. “Sorry about that.”

“Are you for real?” she asked, growing uncomfortable with the attention they were drawing. The last thing she needed was some latter-day Sir Galahad defending her honor at the track.

He quirked a dark eyebrow in a question.

“I mean,” she elaborated, “you don’t need to worry. I’ve been fending off the wolves since I was seventeen.”

“Doesn’t make it right,” he countered, attempting to lift the box from her hands.

She jerked back. “You’re not making it any easier.”

He frowned.

“You carry this box, and they start thinking of me as a girl.”

Professor Larry dipped his gaze to take in the curves of her figure. “Hate to tell you this,” he said, a little smile coming into those multifaceted eyes. “Odds are,” Larry continued, a teasing drawl in his tone, “they already have.”

Something about his look make her shiver inside. It was a ridiculous reaction. Guys had given her the once-over a million times. She’d learned long ago to ignore it.

She turned pointedly away, boxes in hand as she marched across the floor. She could feel him watching her from behind.

He was just like the rest.

But then, she remembered his apology for the team member’s ribald remark. She couldn’t help but smile at that. When was the last time anyone cared how she felt about being the subject of sexual overtures?

“Hey, Crystal.” Dean Grosso greeted her as she set the boxes down on the workbench. “I see you met my brother, Larry.”

Crystal glanced back at the tall man who still stood beside her truck. Dean’s brother? Really? She would have pegged Larry as much younger than Dean.

“Is he really a professor?” she asked, dusting off her hands and tucking her chestnut hair behind her ears. In the past couple of months, her hair had grown out to a nondescript style. But until she figured out her economic life, she didn’t want to spend any money on a haircut. Plus, anything she could do to look plain and boring was a good thing in her world.