Page 10 of Puppy Kisses

“I mean, I don’tnotwant one…”

Adam did his best not to laugh as Dawn released another grunt of frustration, this one accompanied by an unladylike oath. “Let’s try that again. Do you or do you not intend to let me take the puppy thatIrescued home with me?”

“That one I can answer. No.”

“Because Marcia said so?”

“Sure. That seems as reasonable an excuse as any.”

He couldn’t say for a certainty that Dawn threw up her hands, but it sure sounded like that. She sighed and leaned so close that her lips were only a few inches from his own. He could practically taste the waxy lipstick she always wore.

“You’re a real pain in my ass. You know that, Adam Dearborn?”

He did. He also knew that being a pain in Dawn’s ass was one of the only ways to keep her coming back. A woman who’d traveled with the circus and dated cult leaders wasn’t likely to find much else to entertain her in a place where cows outnumbered humans fifty to one.

“The feeling is mutual, Dawn Vasquez,” he replied. And because he couldn’t help himself: “Are you going to kiss me now?”

She laughed and pulled away. “I was thinking about it, but you don’t deserve to be rewarded for your behavior. That’s how good puppies get ruined.”

“What about good men?” he asked. “Is that also how you ruin them?”

For the longest moment, Adam was afraid he’d said something wrong, misjudged the situation. It wouldn’t be the first time in his life that had happened, since he could only rely on verbal cues to read a room, but it would be the first time it had happened with Dawn. Most of the time, she was refreshingly honest about what she wanted and expected out of their not-relationship.

This time was no different.

With a laugh that he was more relieved to hear than he was willing to admit, she said, “If I ever find a good man, I’ll let you know.”

Chapter 3

“Dawn, you can’t go around stealing people’s dogs—even if they have been severely maltreated. There are protocols for these things,rules. We could lose our license if you got caught.”

Dawn’s older sister, Lila, stood shaking her head at the top of the kennel stairs. Her hands were on her hips and a look of concern furrowed her brow, but Dawn didn’t let either of those things bother her. She never did. Lila was the best of big sisters, and there was no one Dawn would rather turn to in a pinch, but there was no denying that Lila loved rules more than was good for her.

“But I won’t get caught,” Dawn promised. The first thing she’d done when she got home was head out to the kennel to find Adam a more suitable puppy. She was still deciding between the boxer to her right and the stately Great Dane to her left. Her instinct said Great Dane, since he’d already started the training to become a visual support dog, but the boxer had a weirdly oversized tongue that lolled out at the least provocation. Surely even impenetrable Adam Dearborn wouldn’t be able to resist that? “I mean, I had a police escort as I fled the scene of the crime. It doesn’t get much more official than that.”

“Dawn…”

With a decisive nod, Dawn decided on the Great Dane. Every other human being on the planet might be resistless against a wet, sloppy puppy tongue, but not Adam. If he could have been won over with one of those, she’d have subdued him a long time ago. Alas, neither tongue nor lips nor any other body part had power over that man.

Not anyrealpower, anyway.

“I think I’ll take Uncle,” she said and reached down to clip a leash on the Great Dane. Even though the puppy was only six months old, he was already shaping up to be a mammoth of a dog. She didn’t trust her ability to lift him out of the half-walled pen he called home, opting instead to lead him out on his long, sturdy legs. “He’s practically a cow anyway. He’ll feel right at home on the ranch.”

“Dawn.”

She turned to her sister with a sunny smile, pushing back a wayward lock of dark-brown hair from her face. She’d pulled it into a short ponytail, but wisps kept springing free around her cheeks. “Lila,” she said, her tone matching her sister’s.

“Dog theft.”

“Dogrescue.”

“Criminal charges.”

“Criminalabuse.”

Lila sighed. Her own hair was pulled back in an intricate coil of braids that met at the nape of her neck, nary a strand out of place. It was as good of an indication of their differences as anything. Dawn could have made a list of all the ways her older sister was smarter, better, and more organized than her, but that would have defeated the whole purpose of the exercise. Lila was the list-maker in the family. She had hordes of them on her person at any given time. If Dawn were to snatch her sister’s purse right now, she was sure she’d find at least half a dozen, all of them clipped together and stored in a manila envelope.

“I don’t know why I bother,” Lila said and dropped her hands from her hips. “The least you could have done after stealing the poor thing was take her to our own vet. It wasn’t very nice of you to leave her to become someone else’s problem.”