Defensive Line (The Unlovabulls #1)

Chapter Six

The sexiest thing a woman can do is have her shit together.

Brody

I sat on a park bench outside my apartment building staring over the man-made pond, with CC’s leash wrapped around my wrist. CC amazed me with how smart she was. The commands Lily had given us to learn, she had down in two or three repetitions. She also hadn’t had an accident since she started letting me take her out on a leash.

The dog could be deceptively calm. While we waited on Lily, CC lay on my foot in the grass. Her watchful eyes missed nothing, ears twitching with every new sound. Today, we were going to see how she reacted with other dogs.

I was worried. Everything I read about Corsi said they weren’t good dogs for first-time owners, which is exactly what I was. She was big, and strong, and had a powerful set to her jaws, neck and shoulders. If she decided to get aggressive with another dog, she could inflict serious damage, and the last thing I wanted was for another dog to get hurt, and/or CC put down because of it. As a guardian breed, Corsi didn’t always do well with other dogs or strangers if not properly socialized. In inexperienced, or the wrong hands, they could be ticking time bombs. Which was how the breed got a bad reputation. They were on a lot of banned breed lists. Early and continuous socialization and proper training methods were essential. They also needed a human that didn’t lose their cool—apparently, the fastest way to make a Cane Corso obstinate was to act irrationally. Scream and yell, and they assumed you were a head case and not fit to lead. Also, you should never hit.

I was fairly certain someone had taken that approach with my girl.

Any quick movements toward her, or over the top of her, and she’d cower. It hurt my heart and made me want to commit murder at the same time.

I’d spent plenty of time after that first appointment researching puppy mills, too.

Jesus Christ, they were abhorrent. Dogs crammed into kennels in the worst conditions imaginable, infested with disease. Puppy farmers didn’t give a damn about the dogs, only the money they brought.

“Hey, there. Lost in thought?” Lily had stopped about ten feet away. Damn, every time I saw her it hit me in the chest and knocked the air out of my lungs. She was pretty. But I didn’t have nearly enough time to admire her.

CC got to her feet, checking out Lily’s dogs with wariness. One of them was a little gray fireplug of a thing. His ears were cut like CC’s and his stub tail was going so fast his whole ass-end wiggled. A wide scar over one eye and several small scars on one side of his neck and shoulder made him look like a dog you didn’t want to piss off. His build reminded me of a running back who’d pound the ball up the middle with brute strength play after play. And the jaws...this dude could tear your arm off if he wanted, yet his lips were split into a mammoth doggy smile as he wiggled and snorted.

He was kind of adorable.

The other dog was gorgeous. Dignified and refined. I’d never seen a dog appear feminine before, but this one had to be female with her delicate features. She was about forty pounds, her fluffy white coat stippled with red, brown, and gray patches. Ears set high on her head were folded over forward. She stood tall and relaxed on her front feet, a curious expression on her face as she checked out CC. Regal was the word.

Lily watched CC’s reactions.

“That a Border Collie?”

“Australian Shepherd. This is Jet. She’s a confident dog. You’d be amazed how much one confident dog can teach another about how to behave. Right now, Jet is super curious about CC and how she’s going to reac—ah, see? There it was. CC looked away.”

I watched my girl, who I was keeping on a very short leash. She’d turned her head to avoid Jet’s eyes.

Lily went on. “In dog language, prolonged eye contact is a challenge. When CC glanced away, she deferred to Jet. I think we’re good to introduce them one at a time. Mack first.” Lil turned to Jet. “Sit, girl. Stay.” The dog did as she asked and Lily dropped Jet’s leash and started toward us. Damn if I didn’t admire those yoga pant thingies she had on. The woman had powerful thighs. The kind I wanted to feel wrapped around my waist.

Shit. Knock it off, Shaw. I was doing a piss-poor job of not thinking about Lily and all manner of dirty things I’d like to do to her.

Standing, I put a hand up to keep Lily from coming closer. “What about that dude?” I eyeballed the running back.

She glanced at the Pit Bull then back to me. “Trust me, big guy, you and CC have nothing to fear from Mack Truck. He doesn’t have a fight response.”

As Lily neared with Mack, CC’s ears dropped back against her head. When he went to sniff her rear, my girl jumped, letting out a little growl. My heart hurtled into my throat, but Mack dropped down to his belly and rolled to his back right under CC’s chin.

CC sniffed his junk, sans jewels. Her own tongue lolled in greeting. I couldn’t help my smile when both of their nubs began to wiggle. It made my chest warm in a way I hadn’t experienced in a long time. After Mack got to his feet, the two dogs danced around each other, sniffing.

I patted CC’s head, then Mack’s. “Hey, buddy. Aren’t you just a little meatball?”

A soft grin spread over Lily’s face. “I’m going to call Jet over, okay?”

My shoulders tensed and Lily paused.

“Brody, CC takes her cues from you. If you relax, she will, too.”

I rolled my neck, tried to let go of the tension, but I couldn’t help but think of the damage my enormous dog could do to the little Aussie.

Lily turned to her dog. “Jet, come.” The animal rose from her sit with grace, her neck elongated and her weight over her toes as she trotted forward to Lily. “Sit.” The dog did as she asked. It piqued CC’s curiosity. My girl pushed forward to the end of her leash and sniffed at Jet’s mouth. However, when Jet stood to sniff CC’s rear, my girl spun around and let out a low growl and my heart jumped. “CC...”

“Brody, let them be,” Lily whispered.

Jet quickly flipped around to face my much bigger dog as she met CC’s stare. As soon as the bigger dog looked away, Jet continued over to me to sniff as if CC didn’t exist.

Lily smiled, patted her dog’s fluffy butt. “They’re going to be just fine.”

Letting go of some of my tension, I turned to say hello to the Aussie. She allowed me to touch her for only a few seconds before walking to the end of her leash in the opposite direction as if to say, Well, are we going or not, humans?

“Did...did she just give me the brush-off?”

Lily chortled. “First female to give you the brush-off, Shaw? Don’t take it personally. It’s Jet’s world. We’re only living in it.”

I held up two fingers. “Second. Second woman to give me the brush-off.” My gaze made a slow trip from Lily’s heart-shaped face to her curvy legs and back up. “Of course, her owner’s given me the brush-off several times.”

Her cheeks turned pink.

Dammit, why couldn’t I stop flirting with this woman? I was in enough trouble. Besides, one night was my limit, and Lily Costello definitely wasn’t one-night-stand material.

I liked her, found her brain fascinating. I wanted to get to know her better. Find out why she was so guarded, and that was relationship talk. I’d learned the hard way that as long as I played football, I couldn’t have my cake and eat it, too. Relationships were a no go when you didn’t know who you could trust.

It didn’t matter how much I liked Lily; she had a direct line to the man who could ruin my career. Pursuing her would be monumentally stupid. This whole arrangement was too tangled up with my career for me to be sure Lily could like me for me instead of the number 58 on my back.

I shook off all the thoughts, pushed them to the back of my brain and pasted an affable smile on my face. “Let’s not keep Jet waiting, shall we?”

As we set off down the path around the pond and into the wooded area, CC stayed tight to my leg on Jet’s side.

When a squirrel took off across our path, CC lunged after it, and Jet emitted a little growl. My big girl shrank back to my side.

My surprise must have shown because Lily chuffed out a laugh. “It’s okay. Jet’s telling her to behave herself.”

“Jet is the alpha.”

Lily grinned. “No. Technically, I am. I prefer the term leader to alpha since dog pack behavior is a lot more watered down than their wolf ancestors. Jet is a dominant dog. Most dogs defer to her, but she takes her cues from me. It’s fairly simple, really. If Jet trusts me, she’ll follow me. The other dogs follow her. I only need to be in charge of one dog, Brody. But it has to be the right one.”

“I mean, how do I do that? Become CC’s leader?”

“First off, you’re lucky. She already watches you for cues. She’s wary of her surroundings, but you’re okay with them, so she’s trying to be okay with them, too. You have to keep that up by making her feel safe anywhere you two are. It’s like running the defense. If you’re confident in your abilities, and in control of your emotions and reactions, the other players will be confident in your ability to lead them. If you’re indecisive or worried, panicked all the time, so are your teammates. They won’t trust you to lead them anymore. You and CC are a team, too.”

Lilly was putting it into language I understood. “I did a lot of research on Corsi.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t want to screw up with her, you know?”

“I’m glad you’re taking being a responsible dog owner seriously. What did you learn?”

I observed Lily’s profile. Her creamy skin had a pink glow. Soft, full lips I wanted to nibble on. Lily’s nose turned up just the slightest. My granny would have said God made it that way to keep the rain off her lip. She even had cute ears—tiny little things that might’ve belonged to a fairy.

I mentally slapped myself in the nuts. “I know they have a bad rap. That people think they’re dangerous and there are certain cities that have outlawed the breed. But it seemed to me that most incidents happen because of the people involved. Like, let’s get the dog, then slap it on a chain in the backyard where the trash man throws rocks at it, and hell yeah, I’d bite somebody, too.”

“Mmm. Truth is, every breed has bad owners, but as bully breed owners, we have to be diligent and put more time into training and socialization because of breed bias.” She blew out a long sigh. “Because, honestly, Brody, you should know, if CC were to bite, whether it’s a dog or person—even if she were defending herself against an attack—it will always be her fault. Whether she is or not, people will say she was the aggressor.”

“That’s bullshit.” I felt the lines in my forehead deepen. “I mean, I get it why we need to be cognizant, but it’s—”

“Unfair?” Lily pulled to a stop. I could see both the frustration and resolve on her face.

“Yeah.”

She nodded, continued walking. “It is.”

Stopping at a fenced area, she swiped a card. An electronic gate buzzed open and Lily led Jet and Mack inside, unclipping their leashes. I followed, hesitant to do the same with CC. Particularly after the conversation we’d had.

“It’s okay. Let her off leash. Leaving her on will make her feel vulnerable because she can’t run if something happens.” Bending at the waist, she unhooked CC’s leash and gave her a scratch on the head before she told Jet and Mack to go play.

“I know about dog parks. I just worry she’ll hurt another dog, and that will be the end of CC.”

Lily began to saunter through the grass. “First, this isn’t really a dog park. It’s a training area. The Unruly Dog owns it. Second, we’re the only ones here. I signed the area out just for CC. Next time we’ll introduce her to more dogs, but today it’s just us.”

“Ahhh. Controlled environment.”

“Exactly. Now, we’re going to let CC be a dog and explore her surroundings.” Lily meandered through the short grass as Jet led Mack and CC around the perimeter of the park at a trot.

CC sniffed at everything. Sticks. Holes in the ground. Bushes. A bird carcass. Eventually, she even broke away from Jet and explored on her own with Mack following her like a mooning teenager.

I knew the feeling. “How did you get into dog training?”

“I used to work with my own dog all the time. As I was finishing up my master’s degree in kinesiology, I went through an ugly breakup with a cheating asshole who got borderline obsessed. I needed to hit the reset button on life. Do what made me happy. I love the mechanics of the human body, but dealing with people all day... I have a low threshold for bullshit and my bedside manner is similar to my level of road rage during rush hour. Teaching my dog became my sanctuary. My escape from the people I had to deal with daily. That time with my dogs was wholly satisfying and made me happy in a way working with human subjects never had. So, I got certified.

“Besides, I never wanted to work for the Bulldogs anyway, and I knew that’s where things were headed.”

“Why not? With who your dad is, it seems like a natural progression.”

She shrugged. “I don’t get along with Dick, and football is...complicated for me.”

I could understand that. Lots of people in the league speculated on Billy Costello’s death, and some guys played too long because football was all they knew. Billy’s accident came only a couple of years after he retired, and long before the league recognized concepts like Concussion Protocols and CTE.

I nodded, watched CC sniffing a tree. “I get that. If I could just play, I might feel differently about football now, if I didn’t have to deal with all the extra shit. The media and the politics. It’s lost a lot of the appeal for me.” I shook my head. “The celebrity thing makes me a target. Like with the pet sitter. And I have no desire to be famous. My goal is to retire when my contract is up. To go out on top in my hometown before my body gives out and get away from that aspect of it.”

Lil nibbled on her lip. “That’s a smart plan. So, tell me what else you learned in your googling? Did you do any research on mills?”

“Besides pictures that made me so mad I had to go for a run before I put a hole in the drywall?” Remembering had my stomach turning.

“Yeah, they can get pretty graphic. It’s an uncomfortable rabbit hole to go down, but an important one, too, to understand what a mill is and the difference between mills and reputable preservation breeders.”

“I can’t believe these things are legal in Texas.”

“They’re legal in most every state. In Texas, as long as they stay in compliance with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, it’s perfectly on the up-and-up. Texas passed a bill in 2012 to regulate and exact penalties if they fall out of compliance. The problem is, they’re supposed to inspect the facilities and dogs every eighteen months. One, that’s too long between inspections—more than enough time for a breeding operation to spiral. Two, there are too few state inspectors to actually do the job. The mills often go longer than the eighteen months without actually being inspected. Plus, there are plenty of inspectors who will look the other way in exchange for a big fat wad of cash.”

I could see the frustration on Lily’s face. As my own frustration started to build, CC wandered over to me, pushing her massive head into my leg. I scratched her ears to calm us both. “If mills have to register, shouldn’t it be easy to find this one?”

“You’d think. There’s a public list of breeders who register and don’t meet the appropriate standard of care. There are also countless mills that choose to operate illegally. They never register with the state to save themselves the hassle. Why do that if they can do everything below board? I’m certain we’re dealing with one of those.”

I glanced down at my girl. “Why don’t people just adopt?”

“That’s the right answer for many folks, but there are also reasons people started breeding dogs for specific traits, too. Huskies are bred to pull, Labs to retrieve, Corsi for guarding the castle, Aussies for herding sheep. You can’t always guarantee what traits or possible physical issues you’ll get with a mixed breed. Even purebred rescue dogs like Mack and CC can come with a ton of baggage. Not every owner is capable of retraining, or perhaps they have reasons for wanting the dog to come without baggage. For me, I’ll always have a rescue dog in my house. I work with a few rescues to rehabilitate dogs to increase their chances of being adopted, too. But I also understand the inclination to purchase a specific breed from a reputable breeder.”

Lily raised her eyes and that violet hue hit me in the chest. “When I got Jet, I’d just lost my dog Joker. I’d finished my training certification and I needed a highly intelligent dog confident enough that she could do anything I asked of her. She needed to be an example to my students of what they can accomplish with their own dogs. I also love dog sports and wanted a dog I knew would be physically sound and fast as hell so we could compete.”

“But how do you tell if a breeder is legit?”

“First things first, study the breed you think you want and make sure it’s the right breed for your lifestyle. You’re active, Brody, so you’re fine with a Cane Corso, but you can’t exactly take a Basset Hound running with you, can you?”

“Actually, I kind of run like a Basset Hound.”

Lil’s laugh was a quick burst. “I know for a fact you don’t run like a basset.”

I waved her off. “I get what you’re saying. One of the reasons dogs end up in shelters is because people don’t research. There are people who want dogs like Mack and CC, so people think they are badasses, but when they don’t understand the breed’s traits, the dogs end up with the bad rep, and overcrowd shelters.”

Her face brightened. “Exactly. Same goes for health issues, exercise needs, grooming, how much time you can dedicate to the dog. I tell people to check out the breed’s national dog club to find reputable breeders. Talk to potential breeders; ask to see the litter’s parents. Ask for references. Do your due diligence. Dogs should never be an impulse purchase, either. Jet’s breeder had me provide references. She called my regular vet and two of my instructors to make sure my dogs were healthy, happy, and that I trained with positive reinforcement.”

Lily’s voice was vehement. “Most people aren’t worried about where a dog came from when they see the adorable French bulldog puppy at the pet shop.” Mouth forming a small frown, she flashed a shadow of pain on her face.

“The puppy mill thing... I imagine in your line of work you see a lot of pups that come from mills. Is that how you got involved with rescue?”

She nodded, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Puppies gotten from mills cause so much heartache for people who don’t know any better.

“Pups people buy in pet stores or from internet ads, odds are high they’re coming from dogs that shouldn’t be bred for health reasons at best. At worst, they’re mass produced, born in filth, inbred, and predisposed to a host of serious health problems. Both genetically and because of exposure. They’re never healthy, and they die young.” She fiddled with her napkin as regret passed over her features.

“What happened, Lil?”

Exhaling, she leaned back in her seat. “Before I decided to go into dog training, my ex gave me a French bulldog puppy for my birthday one year. It was an adorable little baby with a round tummy and ears too big for its head. His name was Joker. The ex bought him from a pet store. When I took him to the vet the first time, I learned he came from a mill.” Her face softened. “Joker was—it was heartbreaking. He had a ton of health problems. The older he got, the worse it was. Serious joint issues, constant respiratory problems. Really bad allergies. Then we discovered the hole in his heart.”

Glassy eyes caught the sunlight. “He was six when I lost him. A dog that size should be capable of living into its teens. Plus, the vet bills and procedures trying to help him be a healthy dog. So many dogs end up in shelters because owners aren’t informed. There are lots of legitimate reasons for surrendering a dog to a shelter or rescue, but owner inconvenience and a lack of due diligence shouldn’t be among them. It’s not the reputable breeders’ fault shelters are overcrowded. It’s the mills and unprepared owners.” Glancing down, she wiped at her cheeks. “I know the heartbreak unsuspecting owners go through when they pay a small fortune for a mill puppy and unwittingly line some puppy farmer’s pockets.”

It hit home for me. This was personal for Lily. She wasn’t judging. She was trying to educate people to stop others from experiencing the pain she’d been through with her own dog and the fallout that became the unwanted dogs in shelters. My heart hurt for her. I could tell this dog meant the world to her, and she’d lost him too young.

“I’m sorry you went through all that, Lil. I haven’t had CC long at all, but I already know my life is richer, fuller with her in it. I’d be crushed if I lost her now. The love she gives me, it’s pure. Uncomplicated. Unfailing.”

Of its own volition, my hand drifted to her arm and slid until her tiny palm was in mine. “Unconditional.”

“Yes. Inherently good. People don’t...”

I stepped in closer and her eyes drifted up my chest, landing on my face. “Most people either don’t or can’t offer that kind of love.”

Taking a step back, Lil pulled her hand away, crossing her arms over her chest, and the moment was gone. “Look.” She tipped her head in the direction of the dogs.

Jet and CC were running together, playfully nudging each other with their shoulders while Mack tried to insert himself in the middle.

“Poor dude. They’re totally ignoring him.”

Lily grinned. “Oh, don’t you worry about Mack. They’ll come around.”