And that explained why she was so personally invested in trying to help him. It was because he was such a good guy. Because he deserved the help. With all that he’d done for her over the years, he’d earned her respect.

  It was not because of any personal feelings she had for him. No, surely not.

  She reminded herself of that a couple of hours later when her home was once again consumed by Greg’s broad shoulders stretching the boundaries of his white shirt as he immediately squatted down in those perfect-fitting black shorts to put himself on eye level with Jedidiah for their first introduction.

  She was only fulfilling a bargain, not falling for the guy.

  “Hey, Jedi.” His soft male tones sent tingles through her. Jedi.

  He had given the dog a nickname. That meant something.

  “Jedi?” she said aloud, because she had to keep herself firmly on track. “Like in Star Wars?”

  “Exactly. He’s one of the good guys,” Greg said, half over his shoulder without taking his eyes off the dog. “Jedis are warriors,” he told the dog. “They save the world and fight bad things, but only with peace, never violence. And that’s you, isn’t it?”

  Tears sprang to her eyes.

  Wendy excused herself to use the restroom.

  And was relieved when it appeared that neither of the male entities invading her space seemed to notice.

  * * *

  “You ever have pets growing up?” Wendy’s question, coming in the middle of her tutoring session Friday evening, with him focused on learning Jedi’s schedule and specific needs, had him answering without filtering.

  “No. My sister was allergic.”

  “You have a sister?”

  “Two of them.”

  “Younger or older?”

  “One of each,” he said, looking over the sheets she’d handed him. One had a monthly calendar through July, with scheduled times written in, asterisks by the days that were flexible if he needed a particular day off, and stars by the days she could work from home if she had to, with the caveat that those starred days could change at any time.

  The other sheets stapled together were Jedi’s training instructions.

  He was keeping his mind on the things that he’d chosen to become involved with and off the way Wendy’s V-neck tank top dipped, offering a discreet peek at her cleavage. The way her fingers trailed lightly, almost unconsciously, over Jedi’s head and neck, back and forth, back and forth. The way he could almost feel those fingers on his skin...

  “What about your parents?” she asked.

  “What about them?”

  “Are they close by?”

  “They retired to Arizona.” And why was he the one on the witness stand? “What about you? Did you have pets as a kid?”

  “For a while.”

  Didn’t tell him much. Probably for the best.

  “We had a dog and a cat,” she elaborated. “Then just a cat.”

  He nodded, an image flashing across his brain of what she might have looked like as a kid. “Did you wear your hair in a braid then, too?”

  “Always. My mom’s choice to begin with, but then mine.”

  “Is she close by?” Jedi’s gaze turned to him as he spoke.

  Was that his way of reminding Greg that the dog was supposed to be the topic of conversation?

  It would be good to know if family members could be stopping by while he was in Wendy’s home, he silently answered the nosy shepherd. Good to know whether she’d mentioned him to them—if they knew he’d be there, and why.

  “She died when I was sixteen,” she told him.

  The words delivered a bit of a gut punch. A girl losing her mom at sixteen... That couldn’t have been easy. “What about your dad?”

  “He and my stepmom live in Raleigh, but they’re on a six-month cruise around the world right now.”

  Interesting. The mom dies. The dad is distant...

  Told him more about Wendy in a minute than he’d learned in all the years he’d known her.

  Or explained some of the things her actions had told him. Her independence, for one.

  And nothing else he needed to know. They’d been through his complete training session. Time for him to go.

  “I’ll call him Jedidiah if you feel that I should,” he said, mentioning the small thing that had been on his mind since she’d abruptly left the room after he’d nicknamed the dog. “The whole movie franchise, including the Jedis, had me hooked as a kid...”

  “Well, with your love of flying, it makes sense.”

  Right. Felt kind of...comfortable...her knowing him that well.

  Her grin hit him in the stomach. In a sinfully delicious way. “Jedi’s fine,” she said, drawing the dog’s gaze up to her, his nose nudging her thigh, as he heard his name.

  “See, he knows it already,” he told her, like he could somehow take credit for that.

  She nodded, her gaze colliding head-on with Greg’s, when they both looked up from the dog at the same time. Like cars with locked bumpers, they stood there, blue eyes hooked to green, as though neither of them knew how to get them apart.

  A prod at his thigh pulled Greg’s attention a bit, but it wasn’t until Wendy stepped back and he glanced down to see the dog that had insinuated himself between them that he finally escaped the woman’s allure.

  Saved by the dog.

  And Greg wondered, as he said good-night, if he was there to teach Jedi or if the dog was there to teach him.

  Either way, lesson learned.

  He had to make certain that, over the next weeks of helping train a service dog, he kept his distance from Jedi’s foster caregiver.

  Chapter Eight

  What was that?

  In bed, eyes still closed, Wendy came slowly to consciousness, aware that she’d heard something. It took a moment before she remembered that she had another living being in the house.

  Jedi must be awake.

  Eyes popping open, she focused on the spot beside the bed where the dog had been lying when she’d awoken at some point during the night. Their third night together.

  She hadn’t slept through any of the three, still adjusting to having breathing in the house other than her own.

  The spot on the floor was empty. And when she felt a shove against her calf as the bed dipped, she knew why. Jedi had been on the bed with her.

  “Jedi?” She heard the voice...had no time to comprehend...

  The dog barked and then jumped down, just as Greg came down the hall toward her.

  Grabbing the covers up to her neck as she saw him, she knew she hadn’t acted in time. He’d seen her.

  And seen the way the tank top she was wearing had got twisted up in her sleep to show way more than she ever would have intended. Her body grew a little warm inside her panties.

  She heard his muttered “Oh, God...” too, as he turned his back, heading in the opposite direction.

  “Oh, God,” she reiterated right back at him.

  And then, “Traitor,” she muttered under her breath when the dog she’d spent the weekend welcoming into her home trotted down the hall after her intruder.

  What the hell? Monday’s schedule clearly stated that Jedi’s first session started at ten. A glance at the clock on her bedside table showed that it was only eight. She dressed quickly, pulling on a bra, a T-shirt and some shorts—a favorite pair of old cut-off sweatpants that hung to her knees.

  Not bothering with a toothbrush, not caring that little hairs stuck out like bristles from her night-tousled braid, she traipsed down the hall.

  For coffee.

  To find out why in the hell Greg Martin was at her house two hours early.

  To see if he’d already run out on them the morning of his first official day as Jedi’s helpmate.

  But no, she already knew that he hadn’t run. She’d have heard the door if he had. And anyway, Greg wasn’t a runner. So she wasn’t surprised to find him standing at the living-room window, back straight, hands in the pockets of his jeans, facing the street. The stance might have been less...haunting...if the curtain had been open.

  The blame she’d been about to heap upon him—mostly propelled by the heightened emotion swarming through her—froze on her lips.

  “What’s wrong?” Had he had another accident with the plane? Or tried to go up and panicked again? Had he come to her for help?

  “Your schedule clearly states that you started work at eight this morning,” he stated, shooting an arm behind him to show her a piece of paper with fold creases.

  Right. She’d put her work times down just for full disclosure. So he’d know how long Jedi had been alone when he arrived. So he’d know whether she’d be around, in case he was going to be late.

  He hadn’t come to her—or Jedi—because he needed them. He’d merely come to work early, assuming she’d already be up, dressed and gone.

  “I had a client who received an IRS audit notice on Saturday. Other than tending to Jedi, I’ve been working pretty much nonstop ever since, so I decided to go in a little late this morning.”

  Whether it was the shaky tone in her voice, or her acknowledgment that she hadn’t done what she’d written she’d be doing, or something else entirely of which she was unaware...Greg finally turned around to face her.

  “I’m sorry.” For pointing out her mistake? Invading her home when she was asleep? Seeing way more than expected of her breasts?

  “Me, too.”

  “He was sleeping on your bed.” What? Who?

  Greg’s hand reached for Jedi, who’d been standing there nudging him.

  Right. The dog.

  “He’s been kennel-sleeping his whole life. Once he’s put into service, he’ll be on call night and day with his owner—alert to the onset of migraine symptoms, for instance—so he can wake his owner in time to take a pill before the headache gets severe.” She was rambling, but she didn’t know how to stop. “Part of training him includes keeping him close enough, even when he’s sleeping, or I am.”

  Jedi’s nudges against Greg were growing more insistent.

  “I have frozen symptomatic saliva from a migraine patient,” she carried on. “We’ve been using it to train Jedi.” If he went into service with a PTSD veteran who suffered from migraines, he’d be introduced to the scent of his new person’s saliva during a headache so he’d know how to respond.

  “As you said on Friday,” he calmly pointed out.

  “I’ll introduce it during the night at some point...”

  He looked so...hot...standing there with his longish hair adding more sexy to his rugged, bearded look.

  He looked so...showered.

  While she stood there definitely at her worst.

  Jedi nudged again.

  “He’s probably hungry,” she said then, before leaving the two males to fend for themselves in her home. She walked back to her room, shut the door and fell back against it.

  What in the hell had she done to herself?

  * * *

  Greg texted Wendy before using his key at her house from that first day on. And didn’t even so much as look down the hall toward her bedroom.

  He’d been a little het up on Monday morning, had made the mistake of heading to Spring Forest early, particularly eager to be of service, to be needed in person, having just come from the airstrip where, for the third morning in a row, he’d taxied his plane.

  And where, for the second morning in a row he’d logged a flight and then hadn’t taken off.

  His personal program stipulated no panic preflight before taking off.

  He’d made it out to the runway Monday morning.

  And again Tuesday.

  Still hadn’t lifted off.

  But a curious thing had happened both times. Monday morning, when he’d gone down the hall in Wendy’s home, seeking Jedi, already uptight from his failure to lift off, his tension level had skyrocketed after seeing Wendy barely dressed in her bed. He’d known she had breasts, of course, but having actually seen them...having that memory seemingly on instant replay in his head...most definitely not a good thing.

  Knowing that he’d made her supremely uncomfortable added another decibel to his tension level.

  He’d stood there in her living room, needing to get out of there and back to his own life, his breath getting short, and Jedi had nudged him. Not once but again and again, until Greg had paid attention to him and pet his head.

  Wendy had mentioned that the dog was probably hungry, but when Greg had gone to feed him, Jedi hadn’t eaten a bite. Instead, he’d nudged Greg, who, not knowing what else he could do to help the young dog, had sat on the floor and played with him.

  Which had distracted him.

  And by the time Wendy had come out, he’d had himself back under control—and Jedi had stopped nudging him.

  On Tuesday, when he’d come into the house alone, after Wendy went to work, as scheduled, he’d intended to get to work with Jedi right away. And yet, it had been a struggle to concentrate since he had been on the verge of panic every time he thought about his flight failures.

  And Jedi had been there. Nudging his hand.

  While Greg didn’t need a service dog for himself, Jedi’s attention and his ability to sense tension in Greg had shown him firsthand Jedi’s remarkable talent. He’d be a great gift for some other vet. And that started him thinking a whole lot more about Wendy’s Pet for Vets program.

  Thinking about it beyond delivering dogs.

  He gave himself a break from the airfield on Wednesday. He’d made an early-morning breakfast visit to Duke, had a quarterly virtual meeting with the office manager of a nonprofit young pilots’ organization and then headed to Spring Forest. Wendy was still involved with a charter-school audit, which had her putting in crazy hours. That meant that, other than Jedi’s scheduled care, the dog had been spending a lot of time having to entertain himself.

  She was at the office from midmorning on Wednesday and had a late afternoon meeting at the school with the auditor, who needed to see that government funds were being properly allocated. Wendy hadn’t told him many details, but from her tone, it was clear she expected the meeting to be grueling.

  And he’d decided, to help her out, he’d have dinner ready for her when she got home. She could eat it, or not, as she chose, but at least she’d have the option. By his own account, he’d perfected chili over the years, and by trial and taste had found the best boxed corn bread recipe to go with it. In between sessions with Jedi, he got to work preparing both.

  “I know this seems a bit sappy,” he told the German shepherd, who sat watching him with soulful brown eyes as he chopped. “But I have a favor to ask.”

  That didn’t come out right. He’d be making dinner regardless of the favor...

  And that wasn’t right, either, he interrupted his own thought. They’d arranged for him to be there to look after Jedidiah. Looking after Wendy had never been part of the agreement. Certainly making dinner wasn’t part of the training he was on-site to provide to the dog.

  But Wendy was a friend. Had been for years.

  Just because he’d seen her nearly bare body, salivated over it in his dreams the past couple of nights, didn’t change the reality of their situation.

  With the cooking-dinner-for-a-friend situation worked out in his brain mostly to his satisfaction, he stirred the ground beef that was browning—in somewhat large chunks because he’d determined they made for better chili—and turned back to the dog.

  “You need time among people, bro,” he started in as he chopped an onion. “Not my call. Regulations say so. And I have an idea...”

  Better not to mention it to Jedi yet, though, not until he had Wendy’s approval.

  She was, after all, the boss around there.

  He and Jedi...they were just two cogs in her wheel.

  Equal cogs.

  Friends to her, each in their own way.

  Except that, when she came home tired and hungry that night and tilted her nose up and sniffed the air filled with the scent of chili, her gaze searching—probably for him, since he had texted to let her know he was waiting around with a favor to ask—when her gaze met his and he saw the emotion welling there...for that second, he didn’t feel like just a friend.

  * * *

  Dropping the leather satchel she used for carrying her laptop and paper files, Wendy almost tripped over the strap in her haste to get to Jedi. To pet the dog and say hello to him. To cover up any hint of the surge of turmoil raging through her at the sight of the gorgeous helper standing in her kitchen looking all domesticated.

  He wasn’t wearing an apron or holding a spoon. Didn’t appear any different than he had any other time she’d seen him. But with the pot of chili on the stove, the aroma in the air...the man just there, in her home, a fellow human being greeting her after a long day at work...

  The sensory stimulus was a bit...overwhelming.

  She could be forgiven for wanting to walk straight over and give him a hug. To lift her lips to his.

  Instead, she said, “Hey, Jedi, did you have a good day?”

  Taking the dog’s wagging tail as an affirmative, she then reached immediately for the stack of bowls in her cupboard. Ceramic, colorful, just as her mama’s had been. She snagged two.

  “I’m not eating.” She didn’t turn around when Greg made the pronouncement. Didn’t want to give him any chance to see that his response had disappointed her.

  “Why not?”

  “I made it for you.”

  Well, that just made no sense. There was enough chili in the pot to serve eight people. At least. “It’s after seven o’clock. What are you going to do for dinner?”