Page 36 of Puppy Kisses

There was a short, shuffling sound before Zeke spoke up. His voice was more subdued than before, a hesitation in the way he chose his words. “You don’t like her, do you?” he asked.

Adam noted his error at once. Where Dawn was concerned, his best route—no, hisonlyroute—was to have no emotional response. Too little enthusiasm was as dangerous as too much enthusiasm, too little interest worse than no interest at all.

“Oh, she’s fine,” he said as neutrally as possible. “A little high maintenance for my tastes, but she seems to know what she’s talking about when it comes to dogs. I was just thinking that if Bea murdered someone and we could prove it, she might finally be willing to sell us her land.Andat a discount.”

Zeke chuckled obligingly, but he wasn’t finished with the topic. “Dawn’s not a bad person, Adam, when all is said and done. I mean, I’d never date the woman, but you have to admit that she’s generous with her time.”

Adam’s only response was a grunt. She was generous with her time, all right. Her time, her laughter,andher body. The only problem was, he had no idea what he was supposed to give her in return.

“Whydon’tyou date her?” Phoebe asked. “I’ve always wondered that. She’s super fun and drop-dead gorgeous—and she seems to like you, which is pretty rare in someone with a functioning nervous system.”

Phoebe cried out as Zeke either punched her playfully in the arm or flicked her ear—his go-to ways of antagonizing his twin. “Because I value my sanity too much, that’s why,” he replied. “The man who ends up with that woman will be called upon to lie, cheat, and steal every day for the rest of his life—when he’s not already busy trying to keep up with all her other demands. Between the ranch and my training, I’m exhausted enough as it is.”

Adam felt a twinge of guilt. Zekediddo a lot around here, especially considering how many other things he had going on his life. Maybe he should look into giving his brother a few extra days off in the near future—Phoebe, too. Grandpa Dearborn had worked hard. His father had worked hard. Adam would spend the rest of his life working hard.

But that didn’t mean they had to suffer the same fate.

“Dawn doesn’t lie!” Phoebe protested. “She’s one of the most honest people I know.”

Zeke snorted. “If you mean, does she tell the truth, then yeah—I guess you could call her honest. But if you want to avoid someday finding yourself stranded in a third-world prison or explaining why you had to go ninety miles an hour down Highway 395 in the full light of day, then lying becomes a necessity.”

There was something about that second example that caught Adam’s attention. “You were doingninetydown the highway?”

Zeke quickly changed the subject. “One of us should probably head over to Bea’s house to make sure she’s all right. I’d volunteer, but I was just about to check on the new calf and then move that huge pile of fertilizer. Unless you’d rather switch, Adam? Personally, I find piles of shit much less daunting than trying to tackle Bea and Dawn at the same time.”

It was on the tip of Adam’s tongue to point out that there was a good chance Dawn had already tackled Bea, hog-tied her, and turned her house into a bed-and-breakfast, but he refrained. He wasn’t supposed to know about how much energy and enthusiasm that woman had, how easily she transformed people and made their lives better simply by being near. Even this—standing in the kitchen eating breakfast pastries with his siblings before their shared day’s work—was almost unheard of.

Yet here they were. Laughing. Talking. Enjoying one another’s company. Dawn wasn’t even in the house, but she’d somehow managed to make that happen.

“Don’t worry—I’ll go after I make my morning rounds,” Adam said. He did an admirable job of making it sound like a chore, too. “I’d like to stop by, if only to make sure that Dawn hasn’t run off with my dog.”

“Which one is your dog, again?” Phoebe asked. There was enough irony in her voice that Adam didn’t miss her real meaning. “The one that’s actually fit for work out here, or the cute one you want for no real reason?”

It’s not “no real reason,” Adam wanted to tell her. Okay, so an undernourished puppy who was rapidly developing a taste for footwear wasn’t the ideal guide dog. And, yes, he’d been doing some research into early canine trauma, and there was a chance the golden retriever would never fully overcome whatever had led to her abandonment.

But he liked her, dammit. He liked how affectionate she was, how playful. He liked how she made him feel—not like a hard taskmaster, the way Phoebe and Zeke saw him, and not like some staid and boring ranch owner, the way the rest of the world saw him.

To Methuselah, he was just someone to love.

“As of right now, I consider them both mine.”

“If you want tokeepboth dogs, she’ll make youpayfor both dogs,” Zeke warned.

Adam shrugged and popped another bite of pastry into his mouth. “I’m not worried about the money.”

“Money isn’t what I meant,” Zeke said with a knowing chuckle. “When it comes to Dawn, you can expect to pay in blood.”

* * *

“Oh God. Sheisdead.” Phoebe pulled her Jeep to a sudden stop, propelling Adam against the seat belt. “Bea probably forgot all about their agreement and shot her on arrival. She has about fifty guns in her bedroom, you know. She told me she likes to keep them in case of invasion.”

Adam didn’t find that hard to believe. Bea also regularly stopped by the town hall meetings to warn the community about chemtrails and unidentified lights in the night sky. She had some strange theories.

“Unless you’re looking at an actual body lying in the driveway, I’ll thank you not to exaggerate,” he said. Then, more sharply, “Please tell me there isn’t an actual body lying in the driveway.”

Phoebe giggled. “No, but there’s no sign of anyone doing any yardwork out back. In fact, it looks as though the garden is an evenbiggermess now than it was last week.”

Adam held back a sigh and pushed the car door open, reaching for the telescoping cane he kept under the seat before swinging his legs out. He didn’t spend enough time at his neighbor’s house that he was willing to tackle it without aid. “Define ‘bigger mess.’ How can anything be worse than the disaster Dawn leaves wherever she goes?”