MATCH MADE IN WYOMING

by Patricia McLinn

  "Tell me again, Matty, why we couldn't have let the groomer wash him?" She rubbed suds behind his ears. The puppy half closed his eyes in apparent bliss. She smiled and kept rubbing.

  "I see no reason to spend Rescue League funds on dog-washing when we can do it ourselves." Matty reached for the animal's far hip.

  "That's because it's not your bathroom," Taylor said morosely, though she knew she had the better end of the deal – literally – at this moment.

  "Would you have wanted Baby Dog to stay here without a bath?"

  "No!"

  "Then start rinsing."

  Finally Matty sat back and announced grandly, "I believe we are ready for the first towel."

  "It's right here." Taylor reached behind her. "Just don't let him – oh, no!"

  Taylor turned back in time to get a dog-shaken spray full in the face. If any surface had previously avoided being spattered, it wasn't missed this time.

  "Don't you laugh, Matty Brennan Currick. Don't you dare laugh."

  "I can't help it. Sorry. It's just … I was thinking of what Grams used to call it – the most efficient water dispersal system known to man."

  Taylor stifled a chuckle, handed her friend a towel, and said sternly, "Dry."

  It took two more towels each.

  "He cleans up pretty good," said Matty. "He's past the ball of fluff, adorable stage, but he'll grab somebody's heart."

  The puppy trotted to a pile of old towels, curled up and promptly went to sleep.

  Taylor had an odd lump in her throat. "He's still adorable."

  Matty gave her a look, but Taylor shook her head. "Don't even think about it. Even if my landlord would let me, it wouldn't be fair to an animal in this tiny apartment." She looked around. "All we have to do now is clean up, then find a home for Baby Dog – and fast, before my landlord, Hugh Moski, finds out I'm keeping a pet."

  "You promised you'd deliver Baby Dog to the new owner, right?"

  "That was our deal. Why?"

  "You know who needs a dog? And doesn't have to worry about the landlord objecting?"

  "Who?"

  "Cal Ruskoff."

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  « ^ »

  "Matty—"

  "Collies are herding dogs, so that's perfect."

  "Sheep! They herd sheep, not cattle," Taylor said. Arguing about the animal kingdom seemed much safer than her real objection. She was not ready to face Cal again, especially on his turf.

  "He'll adapt," Matty said blithely. "Besides, Cal needs the company. With me living at the Slash-C, he lives all alone on the Flying W, and getting him out of there takes a crowbar, dynamite and a list of needed supplies a yard long. And don't get that look on your face. It's not because of you, so get that out of your head. New Year's might have made it worse—"

  Taylor gave an involuntary groan.

  "—but it wasn't the cause. Cal's been like this since he hired on. After Dave and I got together, I realized how solitary Cal keeps himself." Matty gave her a serious look. "It's not right. He's a good man, but he keeps such a high wall between himself and the world, it's like he lives in a … uh…"

  "A shell?"

  "I was going to say 'cave,' but 'shell' works. And I think you're the one who could bring him out. You two have a … a connection."

  "You just said he's been worse since we, uh, since New Year's Eve. You can't have it both ways."

  "Sure I can." Matty pulled the plug in the bathtub. "That made it worse because he's hot for you."

  "Matty—"

  "The fact that he wants you is the reason he's pulled back so far. If you didn't threaten his wall – his shell – he wouldn't fight so hard to keep you away. All you have to do is spend as much time as possible around Cal, and pretty soon those walls will come tumbling down, like Jericho."

  And what about her? All that time spent around Cal, waiting for walls to crack. What if Matty was right, and they did tumble? Even if they didn't fall on her, squishing her flat as a bug, there were other dangers.

  Cal was a powerful presence as it was, with his will and his personality and his.., desires clearly held under a tight curb. What would it be like if he let go?

  She used to think she was strong, that she held to certain unbreakable, even unbendable, principles. But her life before she'd come to Wyoming had proved her wrong. Could she risk getting involved with a Cal Ruskoff who was no longer curbed by his own walls?

  And, of course, this was all presuming Matty was anywhere close to being right in the first place. Two kisses – even those two kisses – did not a powerful connection make. Necessarily.

  "Uh-oh."

  Taylor was so dizzy from her own circular thoughts that she even welcomed that "bad news" interruption by Matty.

  "What?"

  "The water isn't going down the drain."

  "Hugh is going to shoot me. How am I going to explain this?"

  "Tell him you were shedding?"

  Taylor glared at her. "Oh, God, I can't keep Baby Dog here after I tell Hugh about the drain."

  "I gave you a quick solution. Otherwise you'll have to wait until I work the phones, looking for the right home for Baby Dog. And we'd have to check those people out. But we know Cal, so we wouldn't have to check him out. It's the quickest solution."

  * * *

  As solutions went, it might be quick, but it certainly was dirty – or at least nerve-racking.

  "What a sweet Baby Dog," Taylor crooned, as she ran her hand over the downy fuzz atop the puppy's head. As long as she concentrated on the animal, she wouldn't have to think about the fact that she was going to face Cal.

  If he ever came back.

  The puppy, momentarily tired of exploring, sat beside Taylor's feet and leaned against her calf, a nice added warmth as the air chilled rapidly with the waning daylight. She wasn't sure how much longer she could – or should – sit on the steps to Cal Ruskoff's small home, waiting for him to return.

  The first fifteen minutes had been fine, with the structure behind her serving as a wind block and the sun exerting some winter strength. She'd had plenty of entertainment from the puppy. Keeping him from an apparently fascinating mud puddle beside the steps had been nearly a full-time job.

  But for the past ten minutes, doubts had crept in along with a chill.

  "Not even Cal Ruskoff could say no to such a sweet Baby Dog." Was she reassuring the puppy or herself? "Look at that face. So sincere."

  The puppy obligingly tipped his head back until his face was nearly upside down.

  She was chuckling when she became aware of a shadow looming against the brilliance of the setting sky. Cal walked slowly toward her, pulling off first one glove, then the other.

  His squared-off jaw was firm beneath a sensuous mouth drawn neutrally straight. A groove curved from the outside corner of his nose to beside his mouth, echoed by a longer groove from just under his high cheekbone to his jaw. She had seen those grooves deepen with both anger and amusement. But they, too, were neutral at the moment.

  She scrambled up, automatically brushing at the seat of her long jacket.

  "Hi, Cal. I hope you don't mind us waiting on your steps." She became aware his eyes were following her brushing motion and stopped it immediately.

  He was slow answering, as if hoping she might disappear or run off before he needed to make the effort.

  "Taylor. What brings you here?"

  It didn't qualify as the most unfriendly greeting she'd ever received, but it didn't rank far down the list.

  The puppy wagged his tail. Maybe he liked Cal's unhurried tenor voice. There was no doubt it had an effect on her.

  "He does," she blurted out.

  Cal's brows met at a deep groove over his nose. "Who does?"

  "The puppy."

  His gaze followed the direction of her gesture, to where the puppy was settling down in the center of the mud puddle. If she hadn't known better, she'd have thought Cal looked relieved.

  "Oh, no! W
e just gave him a bath." She grabbed the old blue towel from the supplies she'd hauled to the steps, and wrapped the puppy in it. It engulfed him, so only his nose stuck out, looking like a fuzzy fox in an oversize babushka.

  "The dog's the reason you came out here?"

  If his question held a hint of suggestion that she'd come here as a personal overture of some kind, she'd have been embarrassed. Instead, he sounded as if he was trying to eliminate some other cause. She didn't have a clue what that might be, but as long as he didn't think she was chasing him, that was fine with her.

  "Of course. He's really a sweet puppy. About four months old, the vet thinks. Remarkably healthy, considering. All collie, Dr. Markus said. They're known for being intelligent, loving and loyal." She set Baby Dog on the ground. Wherever his fur had contacted the mud, it stood straight out in pointed tufts. "This little guy's coat isn't the best vet, but it will get better as he gets regular meals and—"

  "Why the sales job?"

  Taylor drew a deep breath. She was doing this all wrong. Now she had his suspicions up.

  "He's a Rescue League dog. Matty and I took the call on him." She told him the story. She left too many details in but couldn't seem to edit herself. It could have been that she was a little nervous. "When we found him, he was dirty and hungry and skinny—"

  "He's still skinny."

  Taylor had no clue whether Cal's murmur was meant to be humorous or critical, so she ignored it. "We're trying to find a home for him. Matty thought you—"

  "If he's so lovable, why don't you keep him?"

  "My landlord says absolutely no pets." Especially not after he'd fixed the bathtub drain, complaining all the while about the smell of flea shampoo.

  "Then let Matty take him."

  "Dave's allergic."

  He frowned as he looked to the animal now sniffing his boots with audible interest. "He doesn't look much like a collie."

  Taylor bridled. "Were you expecting Lassie, with all her Hollywood groomers? He's a puppy. And he's been neglected. Maybe abused. You wouldn't look so good if you'd lived such a hard life."

  You wouldn't look so good… Oh, Lord, how had that come out of her mouth? Nothing like telling the man she thought he was appealing. Appealing, Taylor? Try a hunk.

  His ash-brown hair was lighter around his face from the sun. Brows a shade darker than his hair dropped at the corners, just as his eyelids drooped lower at the corners over brilliant blue eyes.

  His shoulders were as square and straight as his jaw, his jeans showed taut muscles, and his chest had been wide and firm enough to have left an apparently indelible impression on her nerve endings from their New Year's Eve embrace.

  "That doesn't change that his legs are too long for his body and he's knock-kneed."

  Her lips parted to vehemently deny that charge. Then she realized he was talking about the puppy, not continuing her mental catalogue of his attributes.

  "You want an aristocratic dog? Are you planning on hitting a show ring?"

  "I'm not planning on anything, because I don't want a dog."

  Had he overheard her comment about not even Cal Ruskoff being able to resist this puppy? He certainly seemed determined to put the lie to it.

  "Matty said you could use a dog around here. He can alert you if strangers are coming. And with the main house empty, he can help keep guard."

  "Strangers don't usually come, because they're not invited," he said pointedly. "And I've had no trouble keeping the main house safe from marauders. If Matty thinks otherwise, she can fire me. She's the boss."

  Taylor wasn't a lawyer for nothing; she jumped on the opening.

  "Yes, Matty is the boss. And she said you should take him. She said he could become a working dog. Would you refuse to care for a colt she bought, even though it wouldn't be ridden for another year?"

  She had him there, and they both knew it.

  "He's not a cattle dog."

  "Collies have strong herding instincts," she shot back, echoing Matty's argument.

  "For sheep – that's where the instincts are. And it's not wise to mess around with instincts."

  A glint flared in his eyes, and the word instincts no longer applied to the gangly bundle of fur at their feet, but to something else entirely. The sensations of their kisses New Year's Eve swept in like a chinook, warming her so suddenly and unexpectedly that she shivered with it.

  Taylor tried her best to ignore that shift. "Are you going to argue with Matty?"

  He tucked his fingers in his front jeans pockets beneath his winter jacket, and rocked slightly from heel to toe and back.

  "I've been known to."

  Did he mean he'd argued with Matty about her, Taylor? Had Matty been urging him as she'd been urging Taylor? And there it was again, the conversation sliding from the dog that stood between them to this other thing between them.

  "Are you going to make me go back and tell Matty you turned down her request to take this puppy?"

  "I've never cared for a dog."

  In another man it might have been an admission. Cal made it a flat fact. But Taylor wondered what was behind that fact.

  "The basics are pretty obvious, Cal – food, water, shelter, attention. It's actually a lot less complicated than caring for a horse, which you do all the time. So, what's your answer? Should I tell Matty you refused to take him?"

  His posture remained inflexible, but he said, "No."

  "Good. I'm glad." Their eyes met, and the intensity of his blue stare was overlaid by the memory of another look … after he'd kissed her at midnight.

  She shifted her shoulders, dislodging the memory, then turned toward the supplies she'd brought.

  "There's enough puppy food here to get you started. The proper amounts are listed on the back. Try to make meals the same time every day. That should help with house-training. He's been really good so far.

  "He has a new collar and leash. There's a brush, toys and puppy treats. He likes this towel. He had it when we found him. You'll need a couple bowls for him – one for food, one for water. He's really very good."

  "Good grief." Cal looked around at the puppy as if trying to match all he'd heard to that one small creature. "What's that?"

  "His crate. He sleeps in it. Travels in it in the car. It helps with house-training. There's a booklet on using the crate in the bag, too. But as I said—"

  "He's really very good," he filled in, using her earlier words.

  Cal obviously didn't believe it, but she answered, "Yes, he is. Any other questions?"

  "What's his name?"

  She almost smiled. A man as entirely indifferent to an animal as he posed at being wouldn't care about a name. He was softening.

  As soft as Cal Ruskoff probably ever got. Soft was not what she associated with him. Those kisses on New Year's Eve had told another story, a story of heat and hardness. The drift of her thoughts sent her eyes from his wide shoulders to his narrow hips … and below.

  She jerked her gaze to one side and took two slow, deep breaths.

  "He had no tags, no collar. Matty and I call him Baby Dog."

  "I'm not calling—"

  "He's your dog now," she interrupted. "You name him."

  "He's the Flying W's dog. I'm taking him as one of my duties as foreman."

  "Make it another of your duties to name him." She started off, then turned back. "One more thing."

  "Now what?"

  "You have to have him neutered."

  "Neutered? You want me to castrate this dog?"

  "No, I don't want you to personally castrate him. I want you to take him to the clinic in a couple months, and Dr.

  Markus will do it for free if you remind them he's a rescue dog. I don't know what the big deal is – you do it to cattle all the time without batting an eye."

  With that, she turned on her heel and got in her car, backing out with more speed than finesse.

  For fear she'd laugh in the man's shocked face. She knew exactly what the big deal was. Despite his b
est efforts, despite his tough words, despite his harsh attitudes, Cal Ruskoff had begun to feel a kinship with the stray puppy.

  Maybe that shell could be dented after all.

  * * *

  "She doesn't know what the big deal is, huh," Cal muttered as he put away the last of his supper dishes.

  "You do it to cattle all the time," he mimicked in a voice entirely unlike Taylor's memorable contralto.

  "Yeah, but when we do it to cattle, it's a prelude to fattening 'em up so we can eat 'em. I don't suppose she'd be too happy if I decided to eat her precious puppy. Do you?"

  He turned around to leer at the animal who'd been dogging – literally – his footsteps all evening. But he'd disappeared.

  Cal gave the main room a quick look, checking in the corner behind the wing chair by the window before passing on to the single bedroom. The floor was bare except for one throw rug beside his bed.

  He was on his way to the bathroom – the only other open door – when something out of place caught his eye.

  The dog. On his bed.

  The blue-and-white quilt had been tugged off one pillow and crumpled into the semblance of a nest. The dog was curled up inside it, his head resting comfortably on the pillow, as if to demonstrate what palomino hair might look like against the white pillowcase. Not that palomino had been Cal's fantasy. Taylor's hair was redder and—

  "Get down."

  It was one thing to know he couldn't risk bringing Taylor Larsen to his bed, but he'd be damned if he'd share it with a dog. Two long strides took Cal to the side of the bed. He took a firm hold on the collar and repeated, "Get down," while he tugged enough to ensure the animal did.

  "That's where you sleep," Cal added, pointing through the open double doorway to the crate in the kitchen.

  The animal heaved a sigh, then circled around and before Cal could back away, sat on his feet, covered only in heavy socks.

  Pain shot from Cal's feet and up his legs, bringing water to his eyes and a muffled curse to his lips. He jerked his feet free of the torture and the animal stood up.

  "You have got the boniest butt in creation, dog!" Cal shook one foot then the other. No wonder the animal had sought out something with some padding – he had none of his own.