Page 3 of Puppy Kisses

“I’ll have to see the lady’s license, if you please,” the sheriff added in a clipped tone. “Seeing as how she’ll be the one driving you home. If she’s unable to take the wheel, then I’ll be happy to escort all three of you in the back of my car. This ID is no longer valid.”

“But, Harold, you can’t—” Zeke began with an agonized glance at Dawn. She knew what that look meant. He spent nine-tenths of his life working on his family’s ranch and the other tenth at his triathlon training sessions. To lose his driver’s license would be to lose his only means of transportation in and out of here—his only escape. He freaking loved those triathlons.

“We’re not taking her to Marcia’s,” Dawn said, grasping at the only straw she could see. And she meant that literally. They were so far from civilization that not even a Google and Apple Maps baby could save them. “We’re taking her to the ranch.”

“The ranch?” Sheriff Jenkins echoed doubtfully. He paused, though, which was the most important thing, the driver’s license hanging fatefully in the air. “What for?”

“Well…you see…the thing is…” Dawn heaved a deep breath to give herself strength. This next part was going to hurt, but she had to do it. “This is Adam’s dog.”

Despite the pang that filled her at such blasphemous words, she had the benefit of seeing a flicker of hesitation in Sheriff Jenkins’s eyes. Of course, that flicker then moved to the puppy, taking in that hunched, traumatized form with a disbelieving chuff of air.

“Mr. Dearborn ownsthisdog?” he asked. “What for?”

“She’s a service animal.” Zeke was quick to pick up on the train of Dawn’s thoughts. “To help Adam around the ranch and stuff when Phoebe and I can’t be there.”

The idea that this starving bundle of a puppy could be of service to anyone was ludicrous, but Zeke went on, driven by the silence greeting him on all sides. “Dawn here is a dog trainer,” he said. “Didn’t I mention that? She owns a company—a real business that trains and places puppies for the blind. You have some business cards on you, right, Dawn?”

Dawn saw nothing for it but to pull out her wallet and extract a business card. She was, in fact, exactly what Zeke was making her out to be. She worked with her sisters Lila and Sophie to take bright, eager puppies and train them to provide services to people of all kinds. Hearing service dogs, vision service dogs, emotional support animals—if a dog could do the work, they found a way to make it happen.

“Here you go,” she said as she handed over the business card. It was a little ragged around the edges from being wedged in her wallet for so long, but the gist of it was there. “Our company is called Puppy Promise. We specialize in training young dogs so we can make sure they grow up to be a perfect fit. My sister Lila is the brains behind it.”

Sheriff Jenkins took the card and eyed it carefully, almost as though he suspected her of carrying them around in case she someday got pulled over for speeding while caring for an emaciated golden retriever. “That so?”

Zeke held up three fingers in a Boy Scout salute. “On my honor.”

For a long, suspended moment, Dawn thought it was going to work. The sheriff glanced back and forth between them, taking in the driver and the passenger, the puppy and the card.Let us go, Dawn willed him.Send us on our way.

Her hopes reached their zenith when Sheriff Jenkins gave a curt nod and returned her business card. He even handed Zeke back his ID. “Then of course you’re free to go.”

“Thank you, Sheriff,” Zeke said, not wasting a moment as he turned the keys in the ignition. “And it won’t happen again, I promise. You won’t regret—”

Sheriff Jenkins coughed, cutting Zeke short. “I’ll go ahead and follow you two to the ranch. You’ll want a police escort. An animal like that should be seen right away. We wouldn’t want you to run into any more setbacks on the road.”

Dawn could only open her mouth and close it again, watching as the sheriff turned on his heel and walked away. She continued following his progress in the rearview mirror. He lowered himself into the driver’s seat of his patrol car, said something into his handset, and checked his mirrors.

And then waited—patiently and calmly—for Zeke to pull out onto the road.

“We’re in for it now,” Zeke accused. The engine gave an ineffective roar as he stepped on the accelerator before he remembered to remove the car from park. “Have you lost your ever-loving mind? We’d be better off going to jail than facing Adam. What in the hell made you introduce my brother into the conversation?”

Dawn gently massaged the puppy’s silken fur, struggling to come up with a reasonable excuse.Desperation. Stupidity. An overwhelming desire to see Adam again.

“I’m sorry,” she eventually said. “I panicked.”

“Yeah, well, you might want to hold on to that panic a little bit longer.” Zeke glanced over his shoulder before pulling out onto the highway. The sheriff was visible behind them, keeping an exact six car lengths back. “The second we walk in that door with your stolen puppy and a sheriff in tow, Adam is going to eat me alive. No—he’s going to eatyoualive while I’m forced to stand by and watch. Isn’t that how torturers do it?”

“Don’t be so dramatic. I’m not scared of your brother.”

Zeke snorted on a laugh. Now that no one was pointing a shotgun at him and his ID was safe in his wallet, he was back to his usual carefree self. “Yes, you are. You’re terrified of him. That and bees—the only two things in the world capable of bringing you down. And at least you have an EpiPen to fight the bees.”

“I could probably use the EpiPen on Adam, too,” she pointed out. “If it came down to hand-to-hand combat.”

He snorted again. “My brother? Felled by one tiny needle? You’ve got some strange ideas, Dawn, but I draw the line at that one.” He cast an obvious glance down at the puppy. “One of these days, those ideas are going to be the death of you. And me, probably.”

“I’m not scared of your brother,” she echoed, more firmly this time. “I can handle him.”

“The same way you handled Sheriff Jenkins?”

She didn’t bother answering. Okay, so the good officer had proven impervious to her charms. It happened sometimes. Not often, but sometimes. Zeke, for example, regularly told her that he’d rather sleep with a tiger on fire than get anywhere near the disaster that was her romantic life. Clearly, the honorable Sheriff Jenkins was formed from the same mold.