Mission: Cavanaugh Baby by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online Page B

one, Albert’s not a mutt, he’s a Jack Russell terrier.”
    “Whatever.” He shrugged it off. To him, dogs came in just three varieties. Small dogs, medium dogs and large dogs.
    “Number two, I have an alternate suggestion for you. How about I take Albert to the lab, have them do their tests and then, when they’re finished with him, I’ll come back and talk to you afterward.”
    “Are you just trying to be difficult?” he asked.
    The way she saw it, she was doing her best to be cooperative. “I promised Albert that I wouldn’t leave him alone at the lab.” And then she smiled innocently at Shane. “Making things difficult for you is just an added bonus.”
    “You promised Albert,” he repeated incredulously, fairly certain—although, given who he was dealing with, he wasn’t positive—that she had to be kidding.
    “Yes. And I don’t want him not to trust me,” she told him. She could tell by his expression what Cavanaugh thought of that, but then, the detective really wasn’t her first concern. The traumatized dog was. “If I break my word, Albert will just become that much harder to deal with.”
    He stared at her, stunned. “Do you actually believe what you are saying?”
    So now he was accusing her of making things up as she went along? “Of course I do,” she answered firmly. “Why wouldn’t I?”
    “Because,” he responded, “for one thing, you make that mutt sound as if he had more intelligence than the average person.”
    “I told you, he’s not a mutt,” she informed him tersely. “He’s a Jack Russell terrier, and as for having more intelligence than the average person, he probably does.” She punctuated her statement with a toss of her head. This man obviously knew nothing about dogs. “Jack Russell terriers are extremely intelligent canines. They’re also rather temperamental—” she shot Shane an accusing look “—also like some people I know.”
    Shane let her walk to the building entrance ahead of him, then reached around her to hold the door open for her. He saw the suspicious look that immediately crossed her face.
    The woman probably thought he was trying to make a move on her.
    “Don’t worry, I’m just holding the door open for you, Officer St. James, nothing else. Speaking of being trusting, you’re not, are you?” Shane asked, his eyes meeting hers.
    Ashley met his scrutinizing glance head-on just before she walked into the main lobby. “No, I’m not.”
    He took a guess at the most logical reason she’d be distrusting. “What happened, you found out your boyfriend was cheating on you?”
    There was no way she was about to let him know a single personal thing about her life. “I just haven’t found people in general to be trustworthy,” she replied coolly. “That’s why I like animals better. They don’t lie.”
    There was something about the way she said it that caught Shane’s attention. He found his curiosity aroused. “Who lied to you, St. James?”
    Her eyes narrowed. He could tell that it took everything she had not to tell him to butt out, that her personal life was none of his business. Instead, she apparently decided to play along. “Do you want that chronologically, alphabetically or arranged by height?”
    He assumed she was just exaggerating, but there was no way he was going to accuse her of that. “Ouch, that many?”
    “That many,” she confirmed, her expression remaining impassive.
    Ignoring the detective, Ashley was about to sweep past the front desk and head directly to the elevator.
    “Hold on a minute,” the sergeant manning the front desk called out. He looked uncertainly at the terrier in her arms and directed his question to Ashley. “Shouldn’t you be using the rear entrance, heading toward Animal Control with that mutt?” He nodded his head toward the terrier.
    She could actually feel Cavanaugh’s grin as the sergeant referred to Albert as a mutt, just as he had. She ignored him.
    At the sound of the new voice,