leading the helm. “You might like him. Come on, it’s a couple of hours. What’s the big deal?”
The big deal was Elise didn’t want to like this Hank who came so highly recommended. She was afraid to meet some guy who might be perfect, because she wasn’t in a place in her life with room for a perfect man.
Her thumb rubbed at the fourth finger of her left hand, and that same twinge of bitterness and sorrow stirred at the feel of the bare skin there.
She simply didn’t have enough to give. Not yet. She was starting her own business. Trying to build something, not just for herself, but for all of them. And even once she got it going, she’d probably still need to hang on to one or two of her other jobs. Between that and the situation with her family, she’d be lucky to find herself with five minutes to spare. Let alone the requisite time for phone calls and dates it took to get to know someone.
Whoever this Hank was, he deserved more. Better. “I’m really not interested.”
Ally clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and shrugged. “But you’re going anyway. Later, sis.”
Six miles and Levi hadn’t found it yet. That quiet numb where thinking shut down and nothing registered but the repetitive slap of his feet hitting pavement. The quiet place where he could mentally disconnect. Recharge. Clear his head. Following the network of intersecting paths at the south end of Grant Park—the grassy lakefront oasis within an urban sprawl, proudly referred to as Chicago’s “front yard”—he pushed toward the pedestrian overpass and the far-reaching tracks that ran beneath. Tried to find some sort of Zen place within the gusty wind and rush of traffic, but he couldn’t quite get there.
Sweat stung his eyes and oxygen burned through his lungs with each hard pull of breath. Still he kept thinking about the call earlier that morning from his guy in Seattle. Another problem with the contractor. The kind that Levi could have resolved within thirty seconds if he’d been there, but now had them pushed back another day at least.
Turn it off. Turn it off. Turn it off—
“Bruno, heel!” The cry rang out, tugging Levi’s consciousness out of that middle space and settling it firmly on a remarkably familiar knot of blonde curls bobbing atop a tight little curvy package of a woman as she stumbled down the path, one arm tethered to a dog almost as big as she was.
Elise. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he followed her with his eyes.
Miss Exceptionally Distracting herself. She’d blown his mind with that crazy, bendy body and those soft, breathy cries at his ear. Her smart-mouthed teasing, nervous fluster, and broken rules.
They’d been good together and he liked her a damned lot. But he had his own rules regarding women like Elise—women who were all about commitment. To their families, their relationships, themselves. He left them alone—and he’d already broken his rules once just to get a taste of her. Only that taste merely whetted his palate for more and it had been a near miracle that he’d finally let her go. Which was why, as much as he might like another foray into the kind of compelling distraction she’d offered, he veered off to the opposite path from the one she occupied. Pushed his thoughts to the rising skyline reaching wide ahead of him. Michigan Avenue … still a good distance from Elise’s Printer’s Row apartment.
He didn’t remember a dog.
That one would have been tough to miss.
Turn it off, turn it off, turn it …
Of course, now that he’d seen her, now that he knew she was right over there, she was back in his mind, daring him to revisit the details of a night he hadn’t quite had enough of. Thinking how he’d gotten lost in her body … in her laugh … in that hellfire hot kiss when she’d been pinned against the steering wheel—
Damn. He was watching her again too, jogging backwards like a total jackass. His body reacting in a way that wasn’t wholly conducive to running.
He needed to run.
Only he didn’t really like the look of that Great Dane dragging her down the path.
What was it about these little women with dogs so big they couldn’t handle them?
And Elise definitely wasn’t handling this one.
The dog bounded right, nearly tripping her. Then cut back left, jerking her forward. Levi’s brow drew down as he headed toward the canine fiasco in action. If someone didn’t take control, Elise was going to get hurt—
That was when the dog stilled, head snapping around at the sound barely permeating Levi’s consciousness.
Fire truck.
The dog took off like a flash, his powerful haunches pushing beyond Elise’s strength and taking her down hard into the grass. She bounced once—damn, that couldn’t feel good. And whoa, was that mud?—before the leash jerked free of her wrist and then the dog was speeding away even as she scrambled to her knees. “Bad dog, Bruno!”
By then, Levi’d already pushed into a dead run. As distractions went, apparently, Elise was the kind that couldn’t be ignored.
CHAPTER TWO
HEART racing, Elise shoved up from the wet grass, taking off as soon as she’d found her footing.
Oh, yeah, she got a list, all right. And the dog was on it.
Just as soon as she got him back.
Only she was losing ground at a rate that didn’t bode well for capture. Bruno tore across the open grass, then raced headlong through the “Agora” sculptural installation, giving Elise an instant of relief. Of the one hundred and six nine-foot cast-iron pieces, one of those freaky sets of legs was bound to catch the leash whipping behind Bruno with every wild lope.
Except then he’d broken free and without any signs of slowing. Not even as he closed in on the street …
Oh, God.
The Roosevelt/Michigan Avenue intersection surged with six lanes of downtown city traffic—buses, taxis, and cars, all gunning it to make their turn, catch the light, get where they were going.
She was too far behind.
“Bruno!” she called, panic slamming through her with the knowledge there was no way she could get to him in time.
No. Please don’t let this be happening. Please, please, please …
And then, suddenly it wasn’t. Two feet from the curb, Bruno wheeled around, jerked back from the street by the man who’d snared his leash at the last second.
“Bruno, heel!” The harsh command boomed with enough force to cow the puppy beast to the ground at his feet.
She couldn’t believe it. Bruno was safe. Saved. By some stranger she hadn’t even seen coming.
“Thank you,” Elise wheezed, only her voice came thin through lips that had gone as numb as the legs that had carried her that final distance to where they’d stopped. Dropping into a crouch, she buried her face in Bruno’s neck, sucking air
