Deathtrap by Dana Marton

followed him out. The morning was pretty nice, the back of her house facing southeast, full sun, but she didn’t want to take any chances.
    He set his coffee on the patio table before he squatted and patted the dog. Then he straightened and pulled a tennis ball from his pocket and threw it. Peaches took off racing after it, his ears flopping in the wind.
    The display of unbridled joy put a smile on her face.
    “Had a couple of these in the garage. I thought I’d bring one over for him,” he told her as he sat in one of the chairs. And when Peaches brought the ball back, he threw it again. “How are you doing with the dog?”
    His long legs stretched in front of him. There was no getting around the admission that he was one sexy cop. “We’re getting used to each other.”
    “Still no calls?”
    She shook her head. “I even put up a notice on Craigslist and a couple of other places online. Called the vets and let them know too. Put up posters at the grocery store and the post office. How can someone have a pet that’s gone missing for three days and not be driving around looking for it? They don’t even deserve him.”
    “You’re getting attached.” He grinned at her.
    Holy heavens. Her coffee went down the wrong way. She coughed as she choked a little. The uniform and the grin were too much. She shifted in her seat.
    Peaches ran back to them. This time, instead of giving the ball to Bing, the dog dropped it at her feet, then stepped back and tilted his head at her expectantly.
    She glanced between the dog and Bing. “See that puzzled look? He does that all the time. As if he doesn’t know what to make of me. He doesn’t do that with you.”
    “He can probably read your ambivalent body language.”
    Way to go to make her feel even more self-aware. She picked up the ball and threw it, making a mental note to wash her hands with antibacterial soap as soon as she went back inside.
    “So when is the landscaper coming?” he asked.
    “Haven’t found the right one yet.” The right price, actually. She was still paying off her astronomical medical bills. It didn’t leave much for extras.
    “I could swing by tonight and drag them back behind the fence. Might be safer there than sitting by the road,” he offered.
    There he went with wanting to save her again. “Only if I can pay you for it.”
    He stared at her for a moment, then narrowed his eyes. “You said you were good with design?”
    “Do it for a living.”
    He rubbed the back of his neck, his bicep making an interesting bulge under his shirt. “How about this? I put your garden into the ground tomorrow. I have the day off, since I have some weekend shifts. Then, when you have the time, you design my front yard. I’m putting the house up for sale.”
    He’s moving away.
    The thought shouldn’t have hit her as hard as it did. Okay, she was, on some level, attracted to him, but she didn’t want to be. And, fine, the thought that he watched out for her made her feel safer, but it shouldn’t have been that way.
    As an independent, self-sufficient woman, she shouldn’t need a handsome cop to make her feel safe. She had a dog; she had locks on her doors. She needed to work on feeling that she, all by herself, could handle whatever life threw her way.
    Yet a wave of disappointment and dismay hit her anyway. Part of her kind of liked the thought of him so close to her.
    She had to force her mind to what he was saying. Right. Yard work. The trade seemed like a good deal, one that would solve her landscaping problems. She wouldn’t have to hire someone for a ton of money and, once the plants were in the ground, hopefully they would stop disappearing.
    She drew a deep breath. “Okay.”
    “Progress being made. I like it.” He grinned again.
    So unfair. Jeremy was a good-looking guy. But he was still a kid, somehow, at thirty. Bing was a man in every way—older, with some hard edges to him. This was the guy who’d walk up to a stray Rottweiler and