All I Am

Sometimes the prices scared people off, but mostly people couldn’t resist buying at least one treat for their furry companion.

He’d never be known as an outgoing, charming salesman. But he managed, because it wasn’t small talk or flirting or navigating difficult emotions. It was explaining how he made his treats, what benefit the ingredients offered and possibly complimenting a dog or two.

All things that came naturally to him, when so little did. It damn near made him cheerful.

Until a bright and cheery voice interrupted all the peace and quiet of people asking about the necessity of organic dog treats.

“’Morning, Wes.”

He tried to muster up some kind of armor for facing her outside the prescribed boundaries of work and his house. This was the market. It was still work, even if Cara wasn’t technically working for him at this very second.

“’Morning,” he offered, not at all pleasantly. He couldn’t help it. She had a short-sleeved shirt on, baring those long, slender arms and the occasional freckle. And she never had the decency to wear a shirt with one of those collars that went all the way up to the neck. No, always a deep V, an expanse of smooth white skin with a little beauty mark on her collarbone.

He wanted to touch her. He wanted his palms on her skin, and he knew that it couldn’t happen. He’d self-destruct even if it would. He couldn’t do it, and he knew he couldn’t do it, so fantasizing about it was becoming torture.

Except that he might die of lust, and he’d never felt that way before. Not with anyone. So, he mainly just scowled and ordered her around, because that was his default. His armor.

“What’s Sweetness’s favorite?” she asked, poking around one of the buckets of treats.

“I...I don’t know. She’ll eat anything,” he grumbled, trying like he tried every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday to ignore the way the colorful polish on her fingers was mesmerizing. He wrenched his gaze away from her fingers amidst his dog treats and looked around. “Where is she?”

“Aww. Missing your baby?”

She had a way of smiling that made him want to smile back. It warred with his determination to keep his expression void of emotion so no one dared pry or ask him about anything.

Cara remained completely unbothered. She kept...poking at him. Not that she harassed him at work or incessantly asked questions or hovered. She was simply relentless cheerfulness with an offbeat sense of humor that continued to catch him off guard. Worse, he didn’t feel uncomfortable around her, half the time. The other half the time, his brain got away from him and thought about sex.

Not conducive to a professional work environment, that half.

But he still wanted to smile the other half the time. So he crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “No.”

“If you say so,” she said in a way that was teasing, and yet he didn’t feel teased, he felt in on the joke. How did she do that? He wanted it to stop.

He wanted it to go on forever.

He was sick in the head.

“Let’s try one of the sweet potatoes. You made that with Mia and Dell’s sweet potatoes, right?” She smiled up at him, the sun glinting off the shades of red in her brown hair, the dark pink color of her shirt offsetting the bright blue-green of her eyes.

Maybe the nerve damage had spread to his brain. “Yeah. Take whatever you want.” When she started digging cash out of her pocket, he waved her off. “Just...take whatever. You don’t have to pay me.”

She cocked her head.

“Employee discount.”

“Discount isn’t the same as free.”

“I’d be giving them to the dog anyway if she was mine.” He shoved a bag at her so she could collect her treats.

She took it but studied the plain brown paper.

“You should name the treats.”

“Huh?”

“Instead of the labels of what’s in them, you should give them names. Sweet Pup-tato or Carrot-alls. Have a label on your bags.” She shook the little paper bag he’d handed her. “Have a saying on them, like ‘have a tail-wagging good time.’ You know, cutesy dog stuff.”

He shook his head, scowling. It wasn’t anything his mother hadn’t gently suggested, but he wasn’t the frilly sort, and neither were his treats. Adding all that...window dressing was wholly unnecessary, and he was tired of people suggesting it to him. Damn tired of Cara suggesting all manner of things, not always with words. But with looks and...