Page 42 of Puppy Kisses

He didn’t dare finish that statement. Dawn had introduced Gigi into his life and, well, he’d fallen in love. He had the feeling that when it came to this particular woman, love was the worst possible thing to admit.

Chapter 9

“Uh, Dawn? Is there any chance you’ve been seeing another cult leader?”

Dawn glanced over at Sophie, who sat in the passenger seat of her car with a takeout pizza balanced on her lap. She’d managed to convince her sister to spend the evening at the kennel with her…though, honestly, that was never a difficult task where promises of hot food and melted cheese were concerned.

“Not to my knowledge, no,” Dawn said. “But you can’t always tell if someone is a cult leader right away. They’re very charismatic, you know. That’s how they lure people in.”

The response had been meant as a joke—the only waytorespond when someone who shared your blood knew all of your darkest dating secrets—but Sophie’s expression grew thoughtful. “Huh. I guess I never thought of it that way.”

Most people didn’t. That was the one benefit of experience as vast and scattered as hers. You learned that charisma wasn’t a trustworthy trait and sisters rarely said what they were really thinking.

Dawn decided to save Sophie the trouble. “Besides, you know very well that I’ve been sleeping with Adam Dearborn. There’s no way Lila didn’t call you the second she got off the phone with me the other day.” She poked her sister in the arm. “Admit it. You guys gossiped about it for hours.”

“Nothours,” Sophie admitted, her brow lightening a little. “It was twenty minutes at the most. Unless you count the ten minutes after that spent trying to finding a picture of him online.”

That made Dawn laugh. It was no less than what she would have done in similar circumstances—haddone countless times before, in fact. She was quite good at Google stalking her sisters’ former beaux.

“And did you?” she asked.

“Yes. His brother and sister both have public Facebook profiles. Adam appeared in a few of the pictures they’d posted. He’s very, um, nice-looking.”

Nice-lookingwas one way to put it. Dawn would have said something more along the lines ofstern, striking, orsexy as all hell…but some things didn’t need to be explained.

“Okay, but if you aren’t dating a cult leader, have you broken any federal laws lately?” Sophie cast an anxious look into the rearview mirror. “This is going to sound silly, but I could almost swear we’re being followed.”

“Oh balls,” Dawn said, choosing a milder oath than she normally would have. She didn’t want to send Sophie—or that hot pizza—into a flutter. “Is it a big truck that was once blue but is now mostly rust? Looks like it probably has Confederate flag stickers in the back window and a pair of fake testicles dangling from the hitch?”

Sophie peered closer at the mirror. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Friend of yours?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call him a friend. He’s the guy I stole Gigi from.”

“Dawn!” Sophie’s eyes widened.

“I know. But he can’t go very fast in that thing. I’ve already outrun him twice. Well, Zeke did it the first time, but you know what I mean.” She made a quick survey of the highway before stepping down on the gas. “Sorry, Soph. This might not be very fun for you.”

“But itisfun for you?”

Dawn laughed, though the sound was shaky around the edges. This wasn’t the same part of the highway where No-Pants had followed her before, which was a worrisome development. Either he was covering more extensive ground in his search, or he was learning which routes she was most likely to be on. She couldn’t decide which option was worse.

“I’ll head in the direction of the sheriff’s office. He won’t follow me there.” She paused, thinking of the audacity of a man who’d chase a woman in the broad light of day, and amended her statement. “Well, he mightfollowme there, but he won’t kill me there. At least, I hope not. Cult leaders I’m familiar with, but rural psychopaths are a new one for me.”

Sophie offered the shaky laugh this time. “I don’t know why I find that comforting, but I do.”

“It’s because it shows how resourceful I am,” Dawn said with confidence she was far from feeling. “This isn’t my first time running away from an angry man, and I’m sure it won’t be my last.”

Concentrating on the road took up most of her energy, so she didn’t spend too much time chatting with Sophie after that. Fortunately, it was a sunny and clear Saturday afternoon, which meant there were lots of families heading out to enjoy the weather. No-Pants might be scary, what with the way he was gunning his engine at her and weaving on and off the graveled edge of the road, but she wasn’t the only one who objected to his style of driving. Several cars honked warnings at him, and one oversized SUV even moved to the middle of the highway to prevent him from passing.

“God bless giant cars and the people who drive them,” Dawn said as No-Pants got caught behind a truck with wheels so big they belonged on a semi. She caught sight of an opening in the passing lane and zipped neatly toward it. She had to push her car up past eighty, but she managed to put several car lengths behind them. Either No-Pants gave up after that, or his truck decided it could no longer maintain such high speeds, because he dropped from sight.

Dawn waited only until she was sure he was gone before she let up on the gas. “One of these days, No-Pants is going to learn that I don’t give in that easily.”

“No-Pants? His name is No-Pants?”

“Technically, I’ve been calling him No-Pants Shotgun, but I didn’t want to scare you with that last bit.”

Dawn glanced over to make sure Sophie wasn’t going to fall into a maidenly swoon. Far from showing signs of collapse, her younger sister was sitting bolt upright in her seat, her hands clutching the pizza as though she were prepared to hit someone over the head with it.