Black Heat by Ruby Laska

difference.
    "Yes," she said. "I have to pay the full amount."
    "Well, what about Mimi? You said she still has your mother's jewelry. How about if you just ask her for it?"
    Roan was already shaking her head; she had that bitter taste in her mouth that always appeared when she thought about her stepmother. "Forget it," she mumbled, opening the door and dropping her keys on the table. She went straight over to Angel, who was mewling happily to see her even as she struggled to rise from her bed.
    She placed her hands on the soft underbelly where practice had taught her she would cause Angel the least pain as she helped the dog to stand. So intent was she on the task that she didn't realize that Cal had followed and knelt down next to her until his voice in her ear made her jump.
    "Did it ever occur to you to give Mimi another chance?"
    She didn't answer. Once Angel was standing, Roan headed back out the door she'd just come in, Cal hot on her heels with Angel between them. She tried to pull the door shut behind her but he put his hand on it and wedged his way through, following her.
    She shivered in the misty air—now that the adrenaline of her escape had worn off, she was cold in her thin sweater—and crossed her arms over her chest, watching Angel walk around the backyard, sniffing at all her favorite bushes and trees. The yard was fenced, but there was no danger of Angel running off. She wasn't a runner, and besides, she didn't move fast enough to put herself in danger.
    "People change, Roan," Cal muttered. "Mimi may have changed. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has regrets. For all you know, she'd like to have a closer relationship with you. According to Matthew, she doesn't have any other family."
    Other than the men who constantly streamed in and out of her life , Roan thought bitterly.
    "Thank you for the lecture," she snapped. "Wow, I never thought of it that way. If it wasn't for you, I probably would have ended up making bad choices."
    "I'm not afraid of your sarcasm," Cal said quietly.
    He was standing much too close. She could feel the warmth of his skin on her bare wrist, and it made her hands twitch with the desire to touch him, to drink in his heat and the sensations she remembered from the day before, when he had kissed her.
    Instead, she stepped away. "Come on, Angel," she said, more harshly than she intended, and her dog looked up at her with her ears cocked, a question in her big brown eyes. She tried again, softening her voice. "Sweetheart. Let's go in now. Cal was just leaving."
    But he didn't leave. He waited until Angel padded past him, into the house, and then he came back in, too, wiping his feet on the mat.
    "I didn't ask you to stay. You need to leave now," Roan hissed, standing in the middle of her front room. She had waited until Angel was settled into her bed, keeping her voice low so the dog wouldn't sense that anything was wrong.
    "And I'm not afraid of your anger," Cal said. "It's not me you're mad at."
    How dare he? Roan felt her fury build and take over her body, the way it always did. It was like a hot flame erupting from the hurt that smoldered, always, inside her. When she was younger, she would run—through the fields and along the stream, or down Pedersen road to the abandoned house where she could spend the afternoon licking her wounds. But now she was an adult and there was nowhere to run to. What she had was here. This home. This dog. These few possessions.
    This stubborn man.
    She lifted her hand, fingers curled into a fist. She wasn't really going to hit him—at least, probably she wasn't—but the fury needed somewhere to go and he was standing there and her body was electric with the need to beat something, destroy something, crush something. Anything to get rid of the rage, to dull the pain.
    He caught her fist in his hand.
    He pulled her to him.
    "I'm not afraid," he repeated, a whisper now, his eyes slitted and unreadable, and then she was kissing him, hard.
    He didn't