Page 30 of Puppy Kisses

“It’s fine. I handled it. But there’s an eensy-weensy chance he’s lying in wait somewhere along that stretch of highway looking for us, so tread warily.”

Zeke slammed the car door shut and stalked back up to the house. Dawn cast a nervous glance behind her, fearful that Adam would overhear, but neither he nor the puppies had come in from the barn yet. “Dawn, you idiot. What happened?”

“Nothing, I swear!” She held up her hands as if proving her innocence. “He flashed his lights at me and gunned his engine a few times, but he was easy enough to outrun. I doubt he’ll recognize you in your own car.”

“You’ve been outrunning criminals on your own?”

“Just theonecriminal, and he’s hardly a mastermind of villainy.”

“That’s it. We’re going to the sheriff’s office and telling him what’s going on.” Zeke planted his feet in a stance that made the most of his physique. He wasn’t as tall as Adam and didn’t have the same cowboy leanness, but his shoulders were wide and powerful. With his arms crossed like that, he looked as though nothing and no one could ever argue with him.

Dawn did anyway.

“No way. Sheriff Jenkins will drag us in on theft charges. Or, worse, make us give Gigi back.”

Zeke released a snort. “Of those two possibilities, you think losing a dog is worse?”

Dawn thought of that sweet little puppy, her round little belly finally starting to swell with good meals and better care, and nodded. “Yes. And if you go to the authorities behind my back, I’ll deny everything. I’m a very good liar. I can even pass lie-detector tests. I dated an FBI agent once.”

“Of course you did.”

“Hemighthave been making that up to impress me, but he was definitely affiliated with law enforcement in some way. Lila thinks he might have been the guy they hire to serve papers to deadbeat dads trying to avoid paying child support.”

Zeke tossed up his hands. “I don’t know why anyone even tries talking to you.” He cast a quick look around, though whether he was checking to see if his brother was around or if No-Pants Shotgun was hiding behind one of the bushes framing their front porch, Dawn couldn’t say. “If you won’t let me go to the police, what’s the point of telling me? Am I supposed to start carrying a shotgun, too?”

Dawn shook her head. “Of course not. He doesn’t actually know where you live. I was careful to lead him off the scent so he won’t know where to find us.”

“Is that a trick you learned from your FBI agent boyfriend, too?”

“He wasn’t my boyfriend,” Dawn clarified, “and no. It’s a trick I learned from being a woman living in the twenty-first century. The first rule is never to lead the murderers directly to your house. If they want to turn you into a skin suit, they’re going to have to do it in the street where the witnesses are.”

Zeke looked as though he had plenty to argue with in that statement, but he didn’t give voice to any of his feelings. He glanced at his phone and sighed instead. “I’d stay and try to talk some common sense into you, but I’m already late for open swim.”

“That’s good, because I don’t need you to treat me like I’m a child. I’m sorry that I dragged you into this, but I’m not sorry I did it.” She crossed her own arms and did her best to glare Zeke into submission. “Some things are worth the risk.”

“I have half a mind to tell Adam and let him deal with you,” Zeke muttered, but he didn’t make good on the threat. “Please be careful when you leave here tonight,” he said instead. “And for the love of everything, try not to steal any other highly valuable animals. One of these days, you’re going to end up getting us both killed.”

Dawn wasn’t sorry to see him go, and not just because his departure meant that she and Adam were alone in the house. She liked Zeke, she really did, but she didn’t always like that he saw her as a person to be humored—a person to behandled. There was nothing she hated more than that.

Doing things her own way didn’t make her wrong. It just made her Dawn.

The house was eerily silent when she stepped back inside. Adam should have returned by now, not to mention the two puppies who’d become his shadow. There was no sound of any of them scuffling around, but as she moved into the kitchen, she noticed that a bottle of Adam’s weird butterscotch-flavored liquor had been set out along with two glass tumblers.

With that, Zeke and No-Pants were all but forgotten. That bottle was a declaration of Adam’s intent, a promise that he planned on delivering. He really was like the silver-screen Clint Eastwood that way. A man of few words, yes, but one who could be trusted to keep them once they were uttered.

“Gigi?” she called, since the fastest way to find the man was to find the puppy who adored him. She probably should have called out Methuselah, since Adam was doing his best to confuse the poor animal, but she refused to give him the satisfaction. “Uncle? Where are you two hiding?”

The answer came as the thump of Uncle’s long, gray tail on the hardwood floor. Dawn turned down the hallway where the bedrooms were located to find both animals lying in a tangle of limbs in front of Adam’s closed door. Gigi blinked up from her comfortable position curled next to Uncle’s stomach before emitting a tiny, pink yawn.

“Oh, Gigi. You’re killing me.” Dawn squatted down and offered the smaller dog her hand, but she’d already fallen back asleep. “You can’t go falling in love with Uncle. That’s not how this is supposed to work. He’s a hardworking service animal and you’re… Well.Not.”

Uncle yawned, too, an almost apologetic look in his sleepy gray eyes as he tucked his head possessively over Gigi’s resting form. Dawn should have been delighted to see him taking such a deep and unprompted interest in his malnourished protégé, but she mostly wished she’d never brought Gigi here in the first place. It would be almost impossible to separate these two now that they’d become a bonded pair. Impossibleandcruel, and that was the one thing she was determined not to be. The poor animal had suffered enough already.

It was with conflicted emotions that she rose to her feet and dropped a light knock on Adam’s door. The sound elicited no response, so she clicked the handle and pushed the door open a crack.

“Hello?” she called. “I know you’re in here. Your watchdogs are keeping a vigilant lookout.”

The only answer was the distant patter of water over tile. It took Dawn all of two seconds to place that sound, and only one more to suck in a sharp breath at Adam’s audacity.