“Sorry,” he rasped, turning his back to the rambunctious retriever. “I’ll hold Charley while you try and get a look at your son’s throat.”
Ignoring the stuff of his nightmares, Matt held out his arms. Sara shifted her son over. Oblivious to Matt’s private grief come to life, Charley wailed even louder.
Whatever questions she had—and she seemed to have plenty—could wait.
On task once again, Sara cupped her son’s chin in her hand and shined the flashlight in that direction. While the puppy gave up trying to escape, opting instead to pick up a squeaky toy and then roll happily around with it in the pen, Charley twisted his head to the side, buried his head in Matt’s chest and firmly clamped his lips shut.
Sara seemed even more nonplussed.
“Why don’t you hold him? I’ll look,” Matt said.
Nodding in frustration, Sara set the flashlight down and took Charley back in her arms. The moment she had him, he glared at her, as if he blamed her for whatever was bothering him, and began to howl again, even more vociferously.
Matt hunched so he was at eye level with Charley—and trained the light low, so it only hit the lower half of her son’s face. He surveyed the back of his throat. “Looks fine,” Matt said in surprise. The way Charley was carrying on, he’d expected to find it beet red. “A healthy normal pink.”
“No spots? Even on the roof of his mouth? Red or white?”
Matt looked again, as Charley began to cry in earnest once again. “Not a one.”
“Oh, Charley, honey, what’s wrong?” Sara said, swaying her little boy back and forth.
Noting the puppy was now drinking water, and vastly relieved his own unexpected memories were now subsiding, Matt whipped out his phone. “How old is Charley?”
Sara shifted her son onto her shoulder and walked over to the puppy pen. She reached down to give Champ another toy to occupy him. Turning back to face Matt, said, “He turned six months old ten days ago.”
Figuring the sooner he was able to get out of there, the better, he punched in a number.
Sara came closer, a still-whimpering Charley cradled in her arms. As she attempted to see what he was doing, her shoulder bumped up against the center of his chest. “Who are you calling?”
“Cullen’s wife, Bridgett.”
His brother’s wife was a neonatal nurse at Laramie Community Hospital, and a mother to a one-year-old boy, with another child on the way. Luckily, she answered right away. “Hey,” he said. “I’m at Sara Anderson’s ranch, and we’ve got a little problem...”
While Matt described what was going on, Sara carried Charley into the kitchen and got a bottle of apple juice out of the fridge. She offered it to the baby. Still sniffling, he took it in his chubby little hands, put it in his mouth and started to sip, then let out another wail and pushed it away.
Matt came back. He hated to pry, but Bridgett needed to know if she was to help. “Are you still nursing?”
As he spoke, his eyes slid to her breasts. Although it was a natural reaction on his part, Sara flushed self-consciously.
“I switched him to formula when I had the flu last month.”
Averting his glance, Matt relayed that, too.
By the time he’d turned back to her, Sara had composed herself once again. “Bridgett said to check his gums to see if they are red or swollen or if there is any sign of a tooth pushing through. She said sometimes they can teethe for a few days or weeks before the tooth actually shows.”
Sara ventured a look, but Charley pressed his lips shut again. With maternal resolve, she eased the tip of her index fingertip along the seam of his lips, trying to gently persuade him to open up. Eventually he did. Just enough so she could get her finger between his gums.
With a scowl, Charley clamped down tight.
“Ouch!” Sara winced in surprise.
“Feel a tooth?”
“No.” She shifted Charley a little higher in her arms, so they were face-to-face. Now that he’d bitten her, he was beginning to look a little more content. Satisfied he’d gotten his point across, maybe? Matt wondered.
“But,” she mused as she pulled his lower lip down, “his gum does look a tiny bit swollen here on the bottom. Right here in the middle.”
Matt relayed the information then said, “Bridgett wants to talk to you.” He set his cell phone aside while he eased Charley from her arms. “I can’t believe I didn’t even think of that,” Sara told his sister-in-law.
He walked the little boy back and forth, while the two women talked. Eventually, Sara hung up. She walked into the kitchen and took a children’s medical kit from the cupboard. “Bridgett said their son Robby’s first tooth caught them by surprise, too.”
“I remember.”
“She said to try numbing medicine.”
“Hear that, little guy? Your mommy is going to fix you right up.”
Charley lounged against his broad chest. Tears still gleaming damply on his cheeks, he gazed up at Matt adoringly. Sara turned back to Matt as she worked the protective seal off the numbing cream. “You’re good with little ones,” she remarked.
He shrugged, aware that was a talent he came by naturally. “You know the McCabes. Lots of little ones around. Seems like someone is always putting a baby in my arms.”
Sara regarded him skeptically. “You could say no,” she pointed out wryly.
Lately, he usually did. Trying not to wonder why he hadn’t in this particular case, Matt shrugged again and turned his attention to sparring with his old friend. “Actually, darlin’,” he drawled, “I believe I do refuse things every now and again.” He lifted his brow, reminding. “Like your repeated requests to recruit me for the therapy-puppy training program?”
She came close enough to rub a little medicine on Charley’s gum. Her son wrinkled his nose, too surprised to protest. As the moment drew out, Charley’s jaw relaxed and his little shoulders slumped in relief.
So his mouth had been hurting, Matt thought. Poor little fella.
Without warning, Charley held out his arms to his mommy. Reluctantly, Matt transferred the little boy, surprised to find how bereft he felt when he was no longer holding him.
Wordlessly, he watched Sara cuddle her baby boy. They were the picture of bliss. Enough to make him want, just for one ill-advised second, a wife and child of his own to love and care for...
Sara tossed him a wry glance. “Speaking of the WTWA therapy-puppy raising program...if you gave yourself half a chance, I bet you would be really good with our puppies, too.”
Just like that, his genial mood faded. “No,” he said firmly. “I won’t.”
* * *
Once again, Matt noted, he had disappointed Sara. Deeply.
Seeing the puppy circling in the pen, Sara handed Charley back to Matt and rushed to pick up the sleek little black Lab. She carried him outside to the grass next to her ranch house.
“Then why are you here, if not to volunteer to train a puppy as I asked?”
Matt positioned Charley so he could see outward, and then held him against his chest, one of his forearms acting as the seat for the baby’s diaper-clad bottom, the other serving as a safety harness across his tiny chest.
He shrugged. “I wanted to give money. You said you needed more volunteers, especially military. I want to fund an effort to recruit and train more puppy handlers.”
He expected her to immediately jump at his offer. She didn’t.
“For someone who has been adamantly opposed to becoming involved in any way with the therapy and service dog program, this is quite the turnaround,” Sara stated, looking him up and down with the same savvy she’d exhibited in years past. “What’s the catch?”
Of course she would figure out he had an ulterior motive. Matt proposed, “You let my family know that I’ve become ‘involved’ so they’ll stop haranguing me.�
��
Sara sent a glance heavenward. “I’m not sure they’ll consider writing a check involved, cowboy.” She mimicked his deadpan tone. “But you do have a good idea. Especially if we were to combine the recruiting efforts with the first annual WTWA service-dog reunion picnic we’re hosting in a few weeks.”
Aware that sounded like more than he could handle, without triggering a whole new slew of nightmares, Matt lifted his hand. “Listen, I’ll help out with anything that needs to be done organizationally...”
Her eyes glittering with disappointed, Sara seemed to guess where this was going. “But you still don’t want to help in the hands-on socialization of Champ.”
“No.” Aware the pup had finished peeing and was hopping around his feet, begging to be picked up, Matt steadfastly ignored him. “Not my thing.”
Sara picked up a ball and threw it, then watched Champ bound off to retrieve it. “What’s happened to you? I don’t remember you having an aversion to animals growing up.”
The truth was he hadn’t.
“Did you get bit or attacked by a dog or something?”
Once again she knew him too well. Despite the time that had elapsed since they’d been friends.
“No.”
She peered at him in concern. “Lose one you cared about so deeply that you can’t bear to be around another?”
Comforted by the feel of Charley snuggled up against him, Matt pushed away the unwanted emotions welling up inside of him. “I told you. I don’t have the patience to train a puppy.”
“Really?” she echoed skeptically. “Because you seem to have a lot of patience with my son.” Her gaze drifted over him and Charley before she tossed the ball again.
He turned his attention to the close fit of her white yoga pants over her spectacular legs, and felt his body harden. “It’s different.”
She continued to study him as Champ raced off.
His gaze drifted up to her peach knit tunic top. The fit was looser, but it still did a nice job of showing off her luscious breasts and trim midriff. He liked the half-moon necklace and matching earrings she wore, too.
In fact, liked everything about her. Maybe too much.
“Something’s going on with you,” she persisted.
He cut her off brusquely. Not about to go down that path. “I don’t have PTSD, if that’s what you’re inferring.”
She regarded him with steely intent. “Sure about that? I heard your last tour was pure hell. That’s why you quit the army when your commitment was up.”
He shrugged. “I came back. I’m alive.”
Another telling lift of her delicate brow.
“Maybe the question, then, is,” she countered softly, “who didn’t?”
Again, right on point.
Silence fell.
Wondering if it would always be like this between them—her challenging, him resisting—he said nothing more.
The puppy came over, panting. Sara gathered him in her arms. “Time to eat, buddy.”
Matt followed her inside. Figuring it was his turn to question her on her choices, he said, “I’m surprised you took on a puppy when you already have your hands full with Charley.”
She filled a food bowl and set it back inside the whelping pen, next to the water bowl and the puppy. “I didn’t plan to, but Alyssa Barnes, the soldier who was going to raise Champ and help with his training, had a setback.” She straightened and went to the sink to wash her hands, then came back to him and took Charley in her arms.
“She’s going to be in the hospital another week, and then a rehab facility here in Laramie for about twenty-one days after that,” she explained. “But she still wants to do it, and I’m not about to take that away from her, when this is all she’s been looking forward to. And since you wouldn’t even consider helping me, cowboy, even on a short-term basis, I volunteered myself.”
Guilt flooded Matt. Along with the surprising need to have her understand where he was coming from. He trod closer, appreciating the sight of Charley nestled contentedly against her breasts. Noting how sweet they looked, he spread his hands wide. “Look, it’s not that I’m selfish or heartless.” He drew a deep breath and confessed what he had yet to admit to anyone else. “I just don’t want to be around dogs, okay?” Even one as technically cute and lively as little Champ.
She settled Charley in his high chair, persistent as ever. “And again I have to ask... Why is that, Matt? What’s changed?”
Annoyed, he watched her snap a bib around Charley’s neck. Wishing he didn’t want to haul her against him and kiss her again. Never more so than when they sparred.
Working to keep his emotional distance, he let his glance sift over her in a way he knew annoyed her, then challenged, “Why do you care?”
Especially after she’d already told everyone she was giving up on him. And walking away...
A fact that had somehow irked him.
“I don’t know.” She plucked a banana from the bunch. Looked over at him and sighed. “Maybe it’s because I feel disrespected by you.”
Disrespected! “In what sense?” He’d come here to extend the olive branch. Not drive her away with bad behavior the way he had a week ago. And yet here they were, bringing out the worst in each other...again...
Setting the peeled banana on a plate, she frowned and said, “In the sense that people tend to not tell me sad or upsetting stories since Anthony died.” She raked a hand through her hair, pushing it off her face. “It’s as if they’re afraid that I’m so fragile, if they say or do the wrong thing, they’ll push me over the edge.”
He lounged against the counter, opposite Charley. He empathized with her. “I’m familiar with the walking-on-eggshells part.”
She wheeled her son’s high chair closer to the breakfast table, sat down and began to mash the fruit with a fork. “Then you can also understand my frustration at having apparently been tasked with getting your help and yet simultaneously been cut out of the loop. Because there is clearly something more going on here than what I’d been told.”
He could see she felt blindsided, when all she’d been trying to do was help. The wounded vet, Alyssa Barnes. Him. Champ. And in that sense, he did owe her. So...he drew up a chair on the other side of Charley, sat down and said, “You want to know what happened?”
She nodded, expression tense.
Matt gulped. “I saw a dog get blown up right in front of me.” And worse... “His death was my fault.”
Chapter Three
Sara stared at Matt, hardly able to comprehend what he had just said. “And your family knows you were a part of such a terrible tragedy?” she asked, aghast. Or more horrifying still, that he felt personally responsible?
His expression closed and inscrutable, Matt watched her begin to feed her son. “I’m not really sure what they know.”
Sara spooned up a bit of mashed banana from Charley’s chin. “But you haven’t told them,” she ascertained quietly.
As he exhaled, his broad shoulders tensed, then relaxed. “It would freak my mom and dad out to know how close I came to dying. So no, I didn’t give them any specifics other than what was reported in the news. That our base was hit by suicide bombers in the middle of the night. And there were no injuries or fatalities among our soldiers.”
Thank heaven for that, she thought. Resisting the urge to jump up and hug him fiercely only because she thought such a move would be rejected, she asked, “Was it a bomb-sniffing dog who saved you?”
“No,” Matt said hoarsely. “Mutt was one of a half dozen strays we picked up over there and took in.”
Sara caught the note of raw emotion in his voice. She slanted Matt another empathetic glance, then rose and got two bottles of water from the fridge. “The army lets you do that?”
He tilted his head. “It depends on the commanding officer and the situation.�
�� Matt relaxed when Charley turned and grinned at him. He stuck out his hand, and Charley latched on to his palm, banging it up and down on the tray. “Our CO thought having dogs around was good for morale. Reminded us of home. Gave us something other than the war to think about.”
Sara could see that. Relieved that he was finally confiding in her, she walked back to join Matt and her son at the breakfast table.
“So he let us keep them and train them, but no one person was allowed to adopt any one dog. The deal was the pets belonged to the unit, and we had to rotate their care,” Matt related. “Anyone who was interested could sign up, and on the day and night you were assigned, you fed and walked a dog, and got to sleep with that particular dog next to your bunk.”
Sara knew full well the healing power of animals. “Sounds nice.” Their fingers brushed when she handed him his water.
For the briefest of seconds, Matt leaned into her touch. “It was.”
Still tingling from the casual contact, Sara uncapped her water, took a sip, then resumed feeding Charley. She needed to hear the rest of the story, as much as Matt needed to tell it. “So what happened to make you feel responsible for Mutt’s death?”
Matt gently extricated his palm from Charley’s fingers. He looked away a heartrending moment, then took a long drink. “You really want to hear this?” he finally asked.
Her heart went out to him, and again, it was all she could do not to stand up and hug him. “I really do,” she answered softly. It was the only way she’d begin to understand him and what he’d been through. The only way he’d begin to heal, too.
Wearily, Matt scrubbed a hand down his face. He seemed reluctant, but began to relate: “I had Mutt that night. He woke up around two in the morning, and he was nosing my hand, signaling he needed to go out.”
Made sense.
“It seemed urgent, and I thought it was a routine potty break, so I stumbled out of bed and opened the door to our barracks. Then all hell broke loose.”
Sara’s heart lurched as she pictured the scene.
McCabe's Baby Bargain Page 3