Pies and Prejudice Read Online Free

Hugh Dylan had to fetch it for me. He was the cutest boy in the entire school, but he never even looked at me until the one day I wanted to be invisible.”
    Chewy was too busy soaking in the sights and smells to listen to Ella Mae’s remembrances. At eight months old he was still a puppy and, so far, had been exposed to greenery only at Central Park. Now there were trees and lush undergrowth as far as the eye could see. Squirrels teased him from the canopy, and everywhere he looked there were sticks. Hundred of sticks. Thousands of them.
    Sensing his delight, Ella Mae rubbed his head. “We’ll find you a fine stick at the swimming hole. You’ll love getting your paws wet.”
    The pair faced forward as the bike tore downhill, wind whipping through Chewy’s fur and lifting Ella Mae’s ponytail into the air like a kite’s tail.
    When the ground leveled out, Ella Mae dismounted and leaned her bike against a tree. She told Chewy to jump out of the basket. Amazingly, he obeyed, running in circles around her ankles as she edged toward a clump of blackberry bushes concealing the edge of the rock and the fifty-foot drop to the cool water below.
    Ella Mae heard a splash and, for some reason, felt as though she had invaded someone’s privacy. The swimming hole was known to all the locals and she’d bathed in its waters hundreds of times, but her seven-year absence made her feel like an intruder and she quickly hid behind a tree, peeking around the rough bark to catch a glimpse of the swimmer.
    She saw his head and shoulders first, bursting from the water with the power of a breaching whale. He held hismuscular arms outward as if he might embrace the hillside above him, grab onto the billowy clouds, and pull the maize-colored sun from the sky. His hair was dark and clung to his neck in wet curls, and his broad back was rippled with muscles.
    Unaware that he had an audience, the man flicked a coin high into the air and then watched as it fell into the deepest part of the swimming hole. Ella Mae saw the coin catch a sunbeam and wink once before it was swallowed by blue.
    Chewy wagged his tail and raced down the path. Just as he let out an excited bark, the man dove under the water. Ella Mae followed her dog, keeping one eye on the uneven terrain and another on the surface, waiting for the man to come up for breath.
    But he didn’t come up for breath.
    “Oh, Lord,” she whispered, feeling her heart pound against her ribs. He’d been under for over a minute by the time she caught up to Chewy. He was sniffing a pile of clothes—khaki shorts and a Mountain Dew T-shirt—with gusto.
    “Stop it,” Ella Mae hissed, her fearful gaze on the water.
    After another thirty seconds, she decided to dive in after the swimmer. She ran back up the hill, preparing to jump straight into the deepest part of the pool, when the man suddenly appeared fifteen feet away from where he’d gone under. Now he was near the narrow stretch of shore, breathing hard and smiling.
    He dropped the coin onto a flat stone, water streaming down his chiseled and tanned torso. Ella Mae couldn’t tear her gaze away. He was like a merman, slick and streamlined, powerfully built and ethereally handsome.
    “Dante!” he called out, and Ella Mae crouched low, not wanting to be caught spying. She grabbed Chewy by the collar and pressed his muzzle to her chest and he bucked to break free, but at the moment, something very large crashed through the undergrowth on the opposite bank, drawing the attention of both Chewy and Ella Mae.
    “Hey, boy!” The man stood, his arms opened to greet thebiggest dog Ella Mae had ever seen. He was white with black spots but was way too large to be a Dalmatian. With a resounding bark of joy, he jumped on his master and the two crashed into the water, the man’s laughter floating up to Ella Mae.
    She picked up Chewy and hurried to her bike. “We’ll come back later,” she promised her squirming terrier. “I don’t have a swimsuit