His Strings to Pull by Cathryn Fox Page B

the whipper snapper.” He reached for the nearest towel and began spinning it. The boy screeched and jumped into the water.
    Jenny smiled and shook her head. Ving looked so tough and rugged, but underneath all that tattooed hardness it was easy to tell he was a softie at heart. “You’re a good dad.”
    “I’m not—” Before he could finish his youngest girl came along and snapped him with her towel. He yelped and turned. “Hey,” he said, taking off after her as she shrieked and chuckled loudly.
    “No running,” Jenny called out, and as they slowed to a fast walk, Ving tossed a sheepish smirk her way. Jenny wagged her finger. “Or you’ll all be getting my whipper snapper.”
    Something that looked like intrigue moved over his face, and his grin turned playful when he turned back to her. He arched one brow and said, “When you put it that way, it makes me want to run all the more.”
    Jenny laughed and waved him off, not about to go there with him. She turned her attention to the kids playing in the deep end, all the while trying to calm her overexcited body and forget she ever met Ving Duncan.
    God, why were all the good ones married?
    “What the hell is the matter with you?” Garrett Andersen asked as he shaded the late afternoon sun from his eyes.
    Ving stood inside the gates of the old abandoned base where his comrades were training service dogs, and snatched a tennis ball off the ground. He squeezed it in his palm, then tossed it. The shaggy dog he’d picked up earlier at the shelter—and decided to take under his wing—ran after it as he turned his attention to his buddy, Garrett.
    “What?” Ving asked.
    “Don’t ‘what’ me. You’ve been walking around all afternoon with a stupid ass grin on your face.”
    Ving feigned innocence, even though he knew Garrett was right. He couldn’t stop smiling since he left the pool earlier that morning. “I am?”
    “Yeah, you are.” Garrett’s glance moved to Ving’s shaved head, then his gaze dropped to the tattoos decorating Ving’s shoulders. “Don’t you think this whole village idiot thing is kind of contradictory to the image you’re going for?” Garrett asked.
    Ving laughed. “Why don’t you tell me what you really think?”
    “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
    When the dog came back, Ving took the ball from her mouth. “Good girl,” he said, and as he tossed it again, his mind went back to the hot lifeguard he’d met earlier that day. She was so sweet, the kind of girl he could bring home to his mother. Christ, where the hell had that thought come from? He’d only just met her, and even though he didn’t believe in love at first sight—lust maybe—he couldn’t get her out of his thoughts.
    She was good with Andy after he’d knocked her into the pool, and he didn’t miss the way she kept smiling down at him when he was playing with Marley and Kate. Nor did he miss the way she was looking at him with those big sapphire-blue eyes he could drown in—eyes not at all unlike the ones glaring at him now.
    “Ah, shit, it’s a girl, isn’t it?” Garrett asked.
    “Yeah,” he said, tenting his fingers like he always did when in deep thought.
    Just then Luke Phillips, former army security specialist, stepped up to them and patted Ving on the shoulder. He took one look at Ving’s face, furrowed his brows and said, “Okay, what’s her name?”
    The dog came back and Ving bent forward to give her a pat on her head. “I don’t know. I thought I’d let the kids name her.”
    “You know that’s not who I’m talking about,” Luke said.
    Ving straightened and decided not to make this too easy on them. “Then who are you talking about?”
    “The girl who’s got you all tied up in knots, that’s who.” Luke said. “Now stop fucking around and tell me who she is.”
    “What makes you think a girl’s got me all tied up?”
    “Because you can’t stop smiling and you’re walking around like a love-struck dumb