by Anna Sugden
She reached for the dog, letting Sweetness lick her hand. Which put her breasts about two inches from his face. Uhh.
When she pulled back, she seemed to realize how weird that had been.
She chuckled. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s...fine,” he managed to croak. Which seemed like the polite thing to say at first, but now it seemed...weighted.
Cara grinned, making a considering sound in her throat.
“Well, see you around.” And get the hell off my truck. Which he managed not to say only by grinding his teeth together.
“See you Saturday,” she said, finally hopping off the stair.
“Huh?”
“The market. I help Mia out every week.”
“Right.” God, he was an idiot.
She waved, and he pulled away from the Pruitt farm. The drive to his cabin was long, winding and slow. Away from New Benton, away from farmland, toward the river and the woods and his refuge.
It was a decent-size cabin in the middle of a forest. Definitely an escape from well-meaning people and their parade of casseroles and intrusive questions when he’d first gotten back on his feet. Then the cabin had become his life, his sanctuary. And, okay, maybe it still was. Maybe it always would be.
He’d never be normal, and he’d never be a veterinarian. Those were irrefutable facts.
He got out of the truck and let the dogs out to yip and prance around with Franco and Monster, the two dogs who hadn’t been trained well enough yet to go everywhere with him. The land around the cabin was his animals’ domain. Six dogs, three cats and one sheep with a limp.
He hadn’t been able to do the vet thing, what with the nerve damage in his arm and hand, making performing surgery, exams and just getting through vet school requirements impossible, but that hadn’t meant he’d lost his love of down-and-out animals.
He let the dogs run around outside, Monster and Franco attached to their runner, then trudged into his cabin. It had everything he needed. A big kitchen for the dog treat making, a room expressly for packaging, an office for the business side of things.
Though the office looked more like the aftermath of a frenzied police search. He headed to his computer. It was nearly six. The video call with Mom was his least favorite part of the week. Hearing about how great Palm Springs was. How amazing her new family was, how successful her little chain of all-natural grocery stores was. She thought she was proving she’d gotten her life together, that she was a mother he could be proud of now.
She couldn’t accept he’d always been proud of her, and the money she had now didn’t magically change, well, anything.
Phantom rested his snout on Wes’s knee, having not stayed outside with the rest of the—as Cara had put it—menagerie.
That almost made him want to smile.
The pinging sounded. Deep breath. Accept the video call. On the computer Mom had bought as a gift, in the cabin she’d bought as a homecoming present, surrounded by the debris of a business Mom helped fund.
He’d gone to Afghanistan because they couldn’t afford any of the colleges with decent vet programs. Community college had been an option, but the GI bill had seemed a better one at the time. Better than piles of debt that had seemed insurmountable to a kid who’d grown up in poverty.
Then a bomb had exploded and ended any vet dreams or the possibility of staying in the structure and comfort of knowing how to act in the army. And no amount of things Mom offered him or forced on him was going to change that.
“Baby!” Mom’s smile filled the screen, and he worked on matching it.
“Hey, Mom.”
Her smile dimmed. “You’re doing okay?”
It was the closest she ever got to mentioning his injuries. Four years later and she was still more uncomfortable discussing them than he was, which was really saying something.
“Sure. Found a new vegetable supplier a little closer to home.”
Her smile returned to full wattage. Talk about business. That she could do. That they could do, and did do, for twenty minutes before she started talking about her husband, her stepkids.
She paused, biting her lip, a sure sign of nerves. The same way she’d bitten her lip when he’d been a kid, and they hadn’t been able to afford anything. Not new shoes. Not school lunches. Not the colleges he wanted, even with government assistance.
“Maybe you could come visit.” It was the first time she’d suggested it in a long while. Maybe ever. He got invited to go on vacations with the new family, but he always declined. Usually because he wasn’t up to skiing or being shoved onto a cruise ship.
He’d never been invited to the actual house.
“There are a lot of steps and things to maneuver, but we can make it more—”
“I don’t know when I’d be able to get away, Mom. High market season for the next few months, you know.”
“Oh, right.” She bit her lip, and he refused, absolutely refused, to read anything into her expression.
He wasn’t handicapped, which made him a lot luckier than many of his fellow soldiers. If she wanted to treat him like he was, he’d keep far, far away.
“I miss you, baby.”
“Yeah. Miss you, too. Gotta go, though. Talk next week.”
She forced a smile and a sad little wave as she said bye, and he clicked off the connection.
Phantom’s nose pushed into his chest, and Wes gave in to the urge to rest his head on top of the dog’s.
CHAPTER THREE
CARA SHIVERED UNDER her bulky sweatshirt, breath huffing out in clouds as she yawned. “It’s so freaking cold.” It always took a few weeks to get into the more bearable mornings, and while she could stay home, what with the abundant help Pruitt Morning Sun now had, she was not about to get pushed out of being a part of it.
Why she felt that way was something she didn’t want to analyze.
Mia smiled. Dell rolled his eyes. Charlie, Dell’s brother, sipped his coffee. “Yes. It is. Why are all four of us here?” Charlie asked.
Cara looked away. Sorry, Charlie, but she wasn’t about to let the Wainwright brothers push her out. Maybe she wasn’t part of the farm, but she’d been a part of Mia’s booth from the beginning. That wasn’t going to change.
She hoped. She had to leave in about half an hour for the stupid interview Mia had set her up with. For making pies. At a real-life restaurant.
The cold dug deeper, and that little voice inside her head that was always right about things whispered, you’re going to screw it up.
“You come of your own accord,” Dell said to his brother. “Feel free not to. Less bitching I have to listen to.”
Charlie sighed heavily, but he didn’t say anything else. He sat on the truck bed, sipping his fancy coffee.
Cara stared at her knees, trying to focus on the cold and will the ominous feelings away. So what if she did mess up the interview? It was a dumb part-time job. One she’d have to quit her salon job over, and then she’d have to find another part-time job that would give her Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays off.
This was ridiculous. How had she let Mia talk her into this? How could Mia conveniently forget that if there was pressure involved, Cara was going to fold? And fold hard. If she dreamed it, she could not do it.
A little bolt of fur shot in front of her, followed by a few yips, then paws on her shins. Sweetness panted up at her expectantly, tail wagging on overdrive.
“Geez, when did you become the anti-dog whisperer?” Dell asked. “Are dogs going to attack you every market day?”
Cara bent down to pet Wes’s littlest dog, a shaggy piece of fur that gave no hint at breed. “She’s not attacking me. Hi, Sweetness. And you are, aren’t you? A bundle of sweetness.”
A shadow stepped over the sun, and it didn’t take a fortune-teller to know that when she looked up at the looming figure, she’d come face-to-face with beard and eyes. “Sorry about her. Apparently she’s got a thing for you.”
And what does her owner have f
or me? In another situation, like at the bar with her friends as an audience, she probably would have said it. “I don’t mind.” She gave Sweetness a scratch before standing up and moving away from the table where Mia and Dell were dealing with customers. “She escaped you to find me. I’m flattered.”
“You must smell like bacon,” Wes replied, following her and Sweetness to a cluster of trees outside the main row of tables.
“Or I’m irresistible.”
He made a strange kind of grunting sound. “Come on, dog.” His voice was low and grumbly as he patted his thigh to grab Sweetness’s attention.
It certainly caught Cara’s attention. It was a very nice, powerful-looking, denim-clad thigh. Get a grip. He might be hot, and that might usually be all it took for her to flirt with a guy, but she didn’t think she should get involved with someone rumored to be a hermit after being injured in the military.
She wasn’t the nurturing, empathetic, there-there type. She was the suck-it-up-and-let’s-have-fun type. James had made it abundantly clear when he’d broken up with her that he was leaving because she wasn’t at all comforting or helpful when he’d been dealing with his friend’s suicide.
And he’d been right. So, Mr. Wes Stone and his gruff bluster and fluster was way off-limits.
Cara gave Sweetness a little nudge. “Go on with your grumpy daddy.” But Sweetness whined, pushing against Cara’s legs as Wes scowled at her.
“You can borrow her,” he said in that gravelly voice.
“Borrow her?”
“Yeah. You said you were thinking about getting a dog. I have a couple of them I loan out. People wanting to see if their dog’s compatible with other animals, seeing if they can work a dog into their schedule, you know, before committing. It is a commitment.”
“Tell me again why you don’t call yourself their daddy.”
He narrowed his eyes, but there was humor in the look. “Not a daddy. Owner. Master.”
It was probably her imagination that when he said master it sounded kind of dirty. And hot.
Nope. For once in her life she was going to make the right decision when it came to a guy and just not go there. “So, I could really borrow her? For how long?”
“I usually do a week. Lets people see how all aspects of their schedule would be affected and if they’ll get used to any hiccups. It’s not perfect, but it helps.”
Sweetness yipped. “I don’t have any dog supplies or—”
“I have a loaner kit. Food, treats, leash, you know.”
“You really do this a lot?”
“I don’t usually offer strange women my dogs for fun, no.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I have to get back to my booth. You interested or what? You can take her after the market. I might have a kit in my truck.”
“Yeah.” Be nice to have a little company in her empty apartment, even if it didn’t speak. “Um, I have this interview thing in a bit. Could I pick her up from you this afternoon?”
“From me?”
“We can meet at a centralized, public location if you’re afraid I might peel off your skin and eat it.”
“Skin...peeling?”
She wouldn’t have pegged him as a guy with a great sense of humor, but there was a flash of one there. Maybe he wasn’t all gloom and doom? “I promise to keep it to a minimum.”
He snorted. “All right.” Then he fidgeted. “Um.” He pulled a wallet out of his pocket, then a little business card out of the wallet. All black and white. Organic Dog Treats. Wes Stone. Website and phone number. “Call me when you’re ready to come, and I’ll give you directions.”
Do not make a dirty joke. Do not make a dirty joke. “Yeah, okay.” And then because she couldn’t work it out, asked, “You seriously do this just because?”
“I seriously do.”
“You’re not trying to hit on me or something?” Because she couldn’t remember a time a guy had been nice just to be nice. To her, anyway. Her reputation in New Benton didn’t exactly lend itself to a lot of nice from the male population.
He frowned. “If I was trying to h-hit on you, I would not do it by lending you an annoying little yap dog with a terrible name.”
“Really? You don’t know much about women, do you?”
She could have sworn that underneath the grizzly beard he was blushing.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’d made a guy blush.
“Well, anyway, I should be done by twelve-thirty.” She waved the card. “I’ll give you a call. I could definitely use a furry friend after this dumb interview.” All the good feelings Sweetness had produced faltered in the face of pre-interview nerves. So, she worked up her widest grin. “And I do mean the dog, though if that falls through, you’d be a good backup.”
“Ha. Ha.” Definitely blushing. He turned and stalked back to his booth, and this time Sweetness listened and followed him.
Cara looked down at his card. Okay, maybe flirting with him was inevitable, but she would keep in mind he was probably in a fragile mental state and she had no business being a part of that.
At least she would try to keep that in mind.
* * *
WES THREW THE rope bone as hard as he could with his left hand. It veered into a cluster of trees, and he cursed. The pins and needles in his right arm were doing their dance, and he wanted to cut his own arm off to end the annoyance.
His left hand and arm had gotten more usable with practice, but it had yet to give him the controlled response his dominant hand had before.
He was going to have to go to the doctor again, and that made him want to pound his fists in fury. When would this be over?
The headache throbbed behind his left eye. His arm bothering him caused stress, and that caused a migraine. A fun circle he didn’t know how to escape, even after four years of being stateside.
When he heard the car in the distance, he knew it would be Cara, since he’d given her directions about forty-five minutes ago. He rarely let people come out here, but she’d sounded odd on the phone and his arm was bothering him, so driving out to her didn’t sound appealing.
Now the woman he had no business fantasizing about was going to be at his house. To pick up Sweetness for a loan week. Not to enact any fantasies. Lame fantasies, at that, considering how little experience he had in that particular arena.
His frustration simmered, his headache drummed. He’d get Sweetness loaded up with Cara, then he’d do some work. The methodical process of making dog treats, even when his arm sucked, was soothing. Possible. Not frustrating.
He’d learned in the army that having a precise way of doing things eased his anxiety and stress. Which helped him deal with people and life.
Cara stepped out of an old beige Toyota Camry. She wore black pants and high heels and a silky-looking green top under a black sweater.
Had he really offered a loaner dog to someone he’d met twice?
Yes, because she’s hot, and you’re very, very dumb.
Well, and Sweetness liked her. Which wasn’t all that unusual. Sweetness preferred women, though she’d gotten used to him after a family had left her with him because she hadn’t taken to their new baby.
“Hey,” Cara greeted him, picking across the yard on her high heels, getting stuck once or twice in the thawing, moist mud of his yard.
“Hey.”
Sweetness leaped off the porch, yapping the whole way to Cara. Before he could get half the stop command out of his mouth, Sweetness’s front paws were muddying up Cara’s pants.
He crossed to where Cara had knelt, right in the mud. “I’m sorry. She’s usually better at obeying.” He refused to see that as some kind of omen.
“It’s okay.” She held up her arms, showing off some patches of white dust and yellowish crusty stuff across the elbows and forearms of her black sweater. “I’m already a bit dirty.”
“I thought you had an interview?”
“Pie-baking interview.”
“That’s a thing?”
> “Well, it was supposed to be a thing. Turned into a fiery ball of super fail instead.” She buried her nose in Sweetness’s fur. Phantom approached and rested his head on Cara’s shoulder.
Aw, crap.
Cara sniffled, but her head remained buried in Sweetness’s fur even as one arm curled around Phantom’s neck.
He had half a mind to tell her he was having his own meltdown, and he didn’t need hers to add to it, but this moment seemed so incongruous. He’d only spoken to her twice, but it had been obvious Cara was generally fun and happy, and the few times he’d heard her name bandied about town, those were the words used to describe her. Now she was crying all over his dogs. Hell if he knew what to do about it.
She cleared her throat, slowly released the two dogs and wiped her face with her sleeves before she turned to him. “Sorry about that,” she mumbled. “Bad day.”
“He’s a therapy dog.”
She swiped at her nose, watery bluish green eyes meeting his. “Huh?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I just mean, don’t feel bad for crying. Phantom is a therapy dog. That’s why he came over. Trained to offer comfort. Sometimes it makes you cry.”
She cocked her head, that kind of concentrated study he hated almost as much as the avoided glances. The avoided glances were I don’t want to deal with whatever is wrong with you. The cocked-head study was it doesn’t look like something is wrong with you. Are you mental?
“So, you need comfort?” she asked.
He swallowed down the “none of your damn business” and turned on a heel instead. “Let me get Sweetness’s stuff.”
Inside the kitchen, he hefted the plastic bin of food and treats and other dog paraphernalia. When he turned to walk back outside, Cara was stepping over the threshold.
Of his house. Someone else was in his house. A human being.
Phantom had followed her, resting his head against her thigh when she stopped. Traitor. Sweetness danced at her feet once she saw the plastic bin. The dog knew what was coming.
He wished he had some inkling, because he didn’t know what to do about Cara being in his house, even if it was only a few steps into the kitchen.