Page 13 of Puppy Kisses

Uncle responded by licking his palm. The animal’s tongue was huge. As Adam ran a hand over the top of his head, he realized that Dawn hadn’t been exaggerating about the rest of him, either. Already larger than a newborn calf, this puppy would grow to be an enormous creature.

And probably a helpful one. Now that the idea had been planted in his head, Adam was starting to realize that he could use a companion like this one. Of all the things he did around the ranch, the most difficult was walking around outside. The orientation and mobility classes he’d taken as a kid and his cane made him confident in public places, but the great outdoors was the one thing he couldn’t control. Rabbit holes, rocky paths, even one goddamn stick in the way could make a short walk into a hazard of the worst kind. Having someone the size of Uncle to keep him company would go a long way in making it possible for him to do things like routine perimeter checks on his own.

But “I’m sure that Methuselah will be more than capable of handling the workload as soon as she’s feeling better” is what he said. “She’s doing well, by the way. I left her in the office with Phoebe. She still doesn’t like being alone for any period of time.”

“She and I have that in common,” Dawn said. “A lady likes to have an appreciative audience every now and then. Speaking of, what time is Marcia stopping by today?”

“She’s not,” Adam said, taking much more perverse joy in thwarting Dawn than a grown man should. It would have been so easy to accept a replacement puppy, this olive branch of Dawn’s offering, but he wiped his hands on his jeans and rose instead. “She came by first thing this morning and pronounced herself pleased with the puppy’s progress.”

“Drat,” Dawn said. At Adam’s lifted brow, she hastily added, “About Marcia having come and gone already, I mean. I was hoping to see her again. I liked her.”

The feeling had been mutual, but Adam wasn’t about to tell Dawn that. She already had an ego the size of a small planet.

“I’m afraid we keep early hours in these parts,” he said, his voice taking on a marked drawl. He even hitched his thumb in the loop of his belt for good measure. The only thing he was missing was a piece of hay between his teeth. “None of your fancy city living out here. If you want to get anything done, you have to get up with the sun.”

“Phoebe would sleep in until noon every day if she had the chance,” Dawn retorted, unmoved. “Zeke too. In fact, he was getting up when I peeked in his room. He made me promise to tell you that he’s been organizing the shed since eight.”

Adam didn’t point out the obvious—that Dawn’s discretion left something to be desired. That woman had never been able to keep anything to herself. She said and did whatever the hell she felt like, consequences be damned.

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. As far as he could tell, she’d never once told any member of his family—or hers—about the things they’d done under cover of night. And morning. And afternoon. And once, when both Zeke and Phoebe had visited friends on the other side of the state, an entire sordid weekend.

“They’re terrified of you, you know.” Dawn’s voice came from closer than it had a moment ago, although he hadn’t heard her take a step. “The big, bad giant, stomping around his castle. Or ranch, as the case may be.”

“They are not.”

“They don’t dare contradict you or tell you what they’re really thinking.”

She was closer now, not just her voice but her presence growing stronger. Adam wanted to put a hand out toward the Great Dane, to reassure himself that the animal was providing a necessary barrier between them, but he tucked his hands firmly behind his back. Otherwise, there was a good chance he’d reach out and touch Dawn, and that was definitely not what he wanted right now.

And not just because he’d been hefting hay bales for over an hour, smelling of sweat and straw. In one of her more determined moods, she wouldn’t let a pesky thing like that stop her.

“They contradict me all the time,” he protested.

“They warned me that you were in a mood this morning. ‘Don’t do it,’ Phoebe said. ‘You and that puppy are too nice to die like this,’ Zeke said.”

“Please. I would never hurt a puppy.”

Dawn’s laughter sprang up in the air between them, as warm as the sun on his back. Today would turn out to be another scorcher, he was sure. That was part of the reason he was up so early, why he was working so hard before most people had poured their first cup of coffee.Life on a ranch is hard. Life on a ranch isn’t for the reluctant.

Life on a ranch also wasn’t for a sweet, emaciated puppy or for a woman whose idea of physical labor was to walk the two blocks from her house to her favorite latte stand. Clearly, he wasn’t doing so great at boundaries.

“Give Uncle a chance,” Dawn said. “A two-day trial, that’s all I’m asking. If you don’t like him after forty-eight hours, I’ll take him home and you’ll never hear the words ‘Great’ and ‘Dane’ from my lips again.”

Mentioning her lips had to have been some kind of tactic. Just the word—lips—had him remembering their shape and size, the way the bottom one was so much plumper than the top, how good they felt when pressed against his bare skin. She always warned him to scrub hard before he met up with any other women, since she left a trail of lipstick all over his body.

He wasn’t seeing any other women, but there was no way he was telling her that. She already had him under her spell. He didn’t need to be under her power as well.

“Thank you for the offer,” he said tightly. “But I already like—”

“The one you can’t have,” Dawn finished for him. She was definitely closer now, the unmistakable nonscent of her mixing with the hay and dirt to whirl his senses. “That seems to be a sort of thing with you, doesn’t it?”

He ran his hands through his hair, since it seemed suddenly important that he do something with them. It was also important to do something with this situation. If he let her continue like this, unchecked and uninhibited, there was good chance neither one of them was getting any work done today.

“As I recall, I’ve had you plenty of times already,” he said, a challenge in his voice. “In fact, I bet I could have you right here and now.”

Adam didn’t know if he was the one who’d drawn closer to her or if she’d stepped up to him, but there was no longer anything between them. Not a puppy, not air, definitely not common sense. The jut of her breasts pressed softly against his chest, the toes of her shoes touching the tips of his work boots.

His hands suddenly decided they had minds of their own. Moving forward to clasp her around the waist, they touched silky fabric and heat and a patch of skin where her shirt didn’t quite reach her waistband. That alone should have been enough to stop him—what kind of a person wore a tiny, silken shirt to a working ranch?—but of course it didn’t. That touch of skin set off something inexplicable inside him.