He looked up to see Heather staring at him as if she’d never seen him before this very moment. Damn it, he’d never had a problem with flapping his lips around women before. It was usually the other way around, when they couldn’t stop telling him how excited they were to be with him, how much they were hoping to meet his famous brothers.

“I thought there were eight of you?”

“Mom was pregnant with my brother Gabe in this picture. Lori and Sophie came a couple of years later.” He decided to break the ice for her, just in case she’d been holding out on him. “Smith is that one. And there’s Ryan.”

She looked at the picture again. “Who are the other two?”

He frowned. Didn’t she care that Smith was one of the biggest movie stars in the world and Ryan was the star pitcher for the Hawks?

“Marcus and Chase.” He studied her face carefully to make sure she wasn’t putting him on. Sure, if she wasn’t a sports fan she might not know who Ryan was, but she’d have to live under a rock to not know who Smith was. “You watch movies, right?”

“Of course I do.” She got up, picked up their empty plates, and took them over to the sink. “Seen anything good lately?”

Atlas pawed at the screen door and Zach got up to let the Great Dane go take care of business. Of course Cuddles went with him. He hoped she’d learn something about using the grass rather than his hardwood floor in the near future.

“You really don’t care that Smith Sullivan is my brother?”

He didn’t know why he was pushing her so hard on it. But he didn’t want to be disappointed later when it turned out she’d been secretly angling for an invitation all along.

She paused with a plate in one hand and a sponge in the other. “He is?” She laughed at herself. “I should have put two and two together earlier, shouldn’t I? I’ve been so busy with my business this past year that I guess I don’t get out as much as I used to.” She shot him a look as if she was afraid she’d offended him by not caring about Smith’s fame. “But I hear your brother has been really great in his recent movies. Is there one I should make sure to see?”

He joined her at the sink, drying the dishes she’d just washed. “Seen one, you’ve seen ’em all.”

“I can tell from the way you talk about all of them how much your family means to you,” she said softly.

“I’d take a bullet for any one of them.”

“You would?”

He didn’t have to think about it. “We’re family.”

“Family.” She was silent for a long moment. “They’re lucky to have you.”

Wanting to erase the shadows that didn’t belong in her pretty eyes, he said, “That’s what I’m always telling them.”

She shook her head. “Go check on the dogs, would you? I think we should get away from the scene of the crime for a bit to do more training. I’ll finish up in here.”

He was heading out of the kitchen when he realized he’d forgotten something important. He walked back to where she standing on her tippy-toes to put the clean plates back in his cupboard.

Before she realized what he was doing, he kissed her on the cheek.

“Thanks for breakfast, Heather. And for coming to help with Cuddles. I’d have been completely lost without you.”

Her skin was so soft, and she smelled so good, he wanted to do so much more than kiss her cheek. Instead, he forced himself to step away and head toward the backyard. He hadn’t given up his quest to get her into his bed, but just then it didn’t seem right to try to seduce her the way he normally would have.

But as he walked away, he couldn’t stop himself from turning to look back at her.

She was standing in front of the cupboards, her hand on her cheek where he’d kissed her...looking just as shell-shocked as he felt.

Chapter Seven

Heather wasn’t used to people surprising her. It had taken her a while to learn how to read people, how to separate the honest from the deceitful, the real from the fake, but ever since the age of seventeen, she’d made sure not to let anyone slip through her filter.

She’d thought she had Zach Sullivan pinned from that first moment. But the way he’d looked at the black and white photo and talked about his family, with such deep love and affection...it made her wonder if she’d been wrong in her first impressions of him.

On the surface, a man like Zach didn’t seem to need anyone else. Not when he looked so perfect, so untouchable, and certainly not when it was obvious that he’d spent his whole life with strangers falling all over themselves to please him just for the barest scrap of his attention.

Standing that close to him in the kitchen, with the heat of his palm across her lips, had her on the verge of begging him to kiss her. No doubt she would probably have done just that and more had it not been for Cuddles’s very well-timed barking.

But in the end, it was the kiss he’d given her on her cheek that had taken her aback the most.

She actually found herself wishing he would stick to his original game, and be the charmer with only one thing on his mind. Because more than anything, she needed to shut her emotions down before things went any further inside her.

She couldn’t feel anything for the charming man with the adorable puppy...not when she already knew how it would all end up after she’d watched the live show between her mother and father play out in her childhood home for seventeen years.

There was a good park that allowed dogs only a couple of blocks from Zach’s house, close enough to walk to. Of course, that was plenty of time for at least two dozen complete strangers to waylay them with exclamations over the amazingly cute puppy—or more specifically, the owner and his puppy.

If she heard the words so cute and adorable one more time she was going to make Cuddles and Zach wear masks the next time they went out in public together.

Not, of course, that she was planning on any future public outings. These were extenuating circumstances, after all, not the beginning of any kind of foursome around town.

Poor Atlas, she thought as he nudged Cuddles with his nose and the puppy let out a happy bark. He was going to be heartbroken when she found another trainer for his new friend.

Then again, if she could be tough enough and trust herself around Zach, then she could make some additional concessions to her daily schedule to continue working with them directly. Surely she had enough self-control to keep their relationship on a professional level for the next two weeks, didn’t she?