Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 90598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
What if I have to call animal control or something? Worse, what if someone else does? I can’t lose Shiloh. He’s the only good thing about this town. We live together in my tiny, one-room apartment. I splurged for the first floor and a place with a dog park to make it easier on both of us, but I’m struggling to make rent every month. If things don’t pick up at Frills LA, I might be moving home despite Abby’s assertion that I stick around. I’m not about to be homeless in Los Angeles.
Shiloh stops to sniff a tree, and I blow out a relieved breath. I approach him slowly.
“Good boy, Shiloh! We’re going to finish our walk now, okay?”
Just as I’m reaching for his leash, he takes one look at me and thinks we must be playing a fun game of chase. He takes off again, and I fall over, missing his leash handle by just an inch.
“No, come on, buddy, not anymore …”
I get myself up, ignoring the scrapes on my knees and wishing I’d worn longer leggings instead of the workout shorts I put on before leaving the apartment. It feels good because of the heat, but my legs are bloody from the fall.
“Shiloh, please …” I call after him. I look around in a panic, not seeing his golden fur anymore. “Shit, shit, shit …”
His familiar bark around the bend catches my attention, and I run in that direction, catching him jumping on a man with a black baseball cap and sunglasses. The man is holding Shiloh’s leash in his hand, preventing my dog from causing any more trouble in the park.
“Shiloh, no!” I say as I approach. The man looks at me through his sunglasses with a cute smile. He’s got the most adorable dimples, and I’m struck by how strong his arms are. Abby always said I would fall in love with a man’s arms before I fell in love with him, and she’s absolutely right. This guy looks like he follows Abby’s upper body routines, the ones I can’t get through more than a few minutes before I’m too sore to continue.
“Don’t worry about it,” the man says. “He’s just being friendly.”
I blow out a grateful breath. “Thank you so much for grabbing him. If only someone else had been that kind when he first ran off … Come to think of it, at least ten of those people easily could’ve stopped him.”
Annoyance rises up in me, and I push it back down. There’s no use getting angry at the strangers who didn’t help when I have a cute one who did right in front of me.
“I’m Leila, and this is Shiloh.”
He pets Shiloh, still holding tight to the leash. I try to get my dog to stop jumping on the handsome stranger, but the guy doesn’t seem to mind. He’s scratching Shiloh’s head vigorously while my dog’s tongue lolls out of the side of his mouth.
“You’d think he never gets any attention, but I definitely pet him constantly.”
“These guys can be high-energy. I don’t mind giving him a little love and attention. I’m sure he’ll sleep great tonight after all that running around.”
“Here’s hoping. He’ll probably still wake me up early for his morning walk, though. He’s my alarm clock.”
The guy looks at me again, but I can’t make out his eyes. There’s something oddly familiar about him, but he very well might just look like every other man in the universe. I tend to have a type, and Abby would call it ‘plain’, but I think it’s just the right amount of hot. My heroic stranger fits the bill, at least from what I can see of him.
I keep quiet for a few moments, thinking maybe the man might finally introduce himself since I told him my name, but he doesn’t say anything. He keeps scratching Shiloh’s head until my dog jumps down and starts sniffing the ground again.
“Here, I guess I have to give you your dog back.”
I take the leash and grip it nice and tight in my hand. “Thank you so much, seriously. You saved my ass by catching him. I am sorry he jumped on you. He got your shirt all muddy!”
His blue V-neck T-shirt has two distinct paw prints right over the man’s rock-hard chest. I've learned that it doesn’t rain much in this part of the country, but it did sprinkle yesterday, and apparently, the ground was still wet enough for Shiloh to track mud around.
“Don’t worry about it; I have other shirts.”
“Are you sure? I can pay to have it dry cleaned or whatever. I hear that’s what people in Los Angeles do.”
The guy chuckles. “You don’t sound like you’re from around here.”
“Maybe she should go back to wherever she came from,” an older man says as he approaches us. “Do you have any idea what trouble you could’ve caused with that dog of yours? It should be locked up!”