Puppy Kisses

by Lucy Gilmore

  That was it. One word, one syllable, one breath. Oh. It was hardly the encouragement a man wanted to hear when making a declaration like this one, but he didn’t care. Dawn had always been brave enough to say exactly what was on her mind. The least he could do was return the favor.

  “I know I should have said this weeks ago—months ago—but I’m only just now realizing it,” he said. “What it means to love someone this much, how much my happiness depends on yours. I think that’s why it scared me so much—why you scare me so much. If you asked me to, I’d pack everything up and elope with you in Las Vegas. I’d join a cult in the backwoods of Idaho. I’d follow you on a circus tour through Europe. I thought…”

  She didn’t pull out of his embrace, but she did draw her head back so that her mouth was no longer within kissing distance. “You thought?” she prodded.

  “I thought that tying you to this place was the worst thing I could do.” His voice cracked, but he didn’t bother to hide it. Mostly because his heart was cracking wide open along with it. “But it isn’t, is it? We’re already tied. Not to a ranch or a house or even a lifestyle, but to each other.”

  “You think we’re tied to each other?”

  No. He knew they were—knew it down to his very bones.

  But that was the thing about being tied to someone else: there were two of them in it together, both of them bound by the same power. It wasn’t up to him to say what happened next. The burden of their relationship didn’t rest entirely on his shoulders.

  How could he have been so stupid?

  Dawn wasn’t asking him to change or give anything up. She was only asking that he make room for her at his side.

  “The worst thing I did was deciding that I knew what was best for you—and for us,” he said, brushing his thumb across her cheek. It was damp with her tears. “You know yourself better than anyone. In fact, it’s one of my favorite things about you. Who am I to tell you what you can and can’t do? Who you can and can’t love?”

  “You can’t,” she said simply.

  He knew it for the truth it was. He also knew that everything hinged on what he said next. Unable to help himself, he slid his hands up her back, holding her so close that she could feel how entangled his heartbeat was with hers.

  “That day in the car when you told me that there hasn’t been anyone else, I realized there was nothing on earth I wouldn’t do for you, nowhere I wouldn’t go. There hasn’t been anyone else for me, either. Not since the moment we met.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know.”

  He nodded but moved on, determined to get the rest of this out. “It happened again at the poker game when you tried to shake me out of my stupidity. To set all that up, to put yourself so far out there, and for me? I didn’t understand. I thought—I hoped—that if I cut the ties between us, I’d be the only one who got hurt.”

  “Well, you weren’t,” she said.

  His heart roared—with joy at hearing how much he mattered to her and with agony at realizing what he’d done to her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. It was an inadequate thing to say, barely scratching the surface of the remorse and regret that flooded through him, but it was all he had. “I know it’s taken me a stupidly long time to come around, and I don’t deserve it, but if you give me another chance, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you. Even if it means selling this place and starting over somewhere new with you. Even if it means uprooting an entire field to plant your rosebushes.”

  He drew a deep breath, since this last one was the most difficult to get out. “Even if it means stepping back and giving you the time and space you need to make this community your own. I’m yours, Dawn Vasquez, any way you’ll have me. I’m yours even if you won’t have me at all.”

  “Oh, Adam.” Dawn somehow managed to get her hands free and lifted them to his face. The press of her palms against his cheeks was so much more intimate than their kiss had been because she held it there. Long after the moment passed, even as Gigi and Uncle descended upon them and began prancing around their legs as though they’d been separated from them for hours instead of minutes. She just held him. Loved him. Accepted him.

  He couldn’t wait to start offering her the same thing in return.

  “You’re such an idiot,” she murmured. “You’ve always been such an idiot. Don’t you know that I’m already exactly where I want to be?”

  “You mean Dearborn Ranch?” he asked.

  “No.” She got up on her tiptoes and kissed him with a light flutter of her lips and a sweet sigh. He knew, in that moment, that Dearborn Ranch would never be as much a part of him as this woman.

  Places were just places. But people were everything.

  “I mean right here with you.”

  Epilogue

  “I’m still not sure I understand. Why are we all wearing hats?” Alice Vasquez adjusted the elastic band under her chin so that the paper cone on top of her perfectly coiffed brown hair sat at a jaunty angle. “Everyone else seems to be wearing their normal clothes.”

  “Because, Mom.” Dawn reached forward and tucked a stray lock behind her mom’s ear. “This is a celebration. We’ve been counting down the days until Dawn’s auction date for months.”

  “I’m not sure I understand why you and the cow have the same name,” her dad put in. Both of her parents had just returned from a luxurious semester of lecturing in Spain, so they were looking tan, well rested, and not at all pleased to be attending a cow auction in paper hats. “Is it a joke?”

  “Yes, Daddy,” Sophie answered for her. “It’s an inside joke between Dawn and Adam. She was always his favorite cow.”

  Their dad glanced askance at the animal. This was the first cow auction for the entire Vasquez clan, and all of them could say with complete sincerity that they hoped it would be their last. There was something unsettling about all these pens of cows being sold to the highest bidder for a future as a nice chuck roast. Even Dawn, who had long since inured herself to the ranch-to-table process, was finding it difficult to look the cows in the eye.

  “You know I’ve never questioned your life choices, Sunshine, but this whole rancher thing is just plain weird. And considering your past, that’s saying a lot.” That seemed to be all her dad had to say on the subject, because he shook his head and offered his wife an arm.

  Dawn waited until he was out of earshot before releasing the laughter welling up in her throat. Lila and Sophie chimed in, holding up their paper cups in a mock toast.

  They were also the only ones who’d thought to bring celebratory drinks to a cow auction. Sophie and Dawn were sipping from a very cheap bottle of champagne, but Lila was on a strict sparkling cider diet. The gentle swell of her stomach, now halfway into her first pregnancy, had turned her into a teetotaler.

  “Poor Dad,” Sophie said with a giggle. “We broke him. At this point, I think we could all shave our heads and start a zombie-training boot camp, and all he’d do is say that he supports our dreams.”

  “Mom, too,” Dawn said and gave Lila’s stomach a gentle pat. “As long as Lil here promises to pop out grandchildren on a regular basis, she’ll let us get away with anything.”

  “One, you guys,” Lila warned. “I’m giving her one grandchild. Two, if you count Emily, which she most definitely does. Someone else can take the next round.”

  Sophie and Dawn shot each other accusing glances, which only made them laugh harder. They probably should have laid off the champagne a little, but Dawn needed the fortification. She was going to miss that silly old cow.

  As if sensing how emotional she was getting over an animal that had thus far eaten two dozen of the rosebushes she’d planted, Adam appeared at her side. The arm he dropped around her shoulder was playful and casual, but she knew how anxious he was that everything went well today. And not just because his entire year’s income depended on the outcome of the
auction. He was weirdly worried about making sure her family had a good time. Never mind that Emily was gleefully running around and naming each cow, every title a little more ridiculous than the last. Or that Ford and Harrison were running after her, anxious lest she or her service dog get trampled underfoot. Or that Harrison, equally anxious about his service dog, was wearing a Pomeranian strapped to his chest in a baby sling. Add in Uncle trotting faithfully at Adam’s side and Gigi, who refused to be left alone in the truck, and it was a veritable zoo.

  Needless to say, the old cowboys who filled up the rest of the place were giving their party a very wide berth.

  “It’s going okay, right?” Adam asked. “I left Phoebe in charge of the rest of the herd, but Dawn is going up on the auction block now.”

  “It’s going fine,” Dawn promised, giving his waist a squeeze. To be perfectly honest, she had no idea if any of this was going according to plan, but that was half the fun of it. Anyone who said that to live on a ranch was to live a life of monotony had clearly never spent time at one. She had cows to chase and puppies to train, neighbors to visit and town hall meetings to attend, sisters to plan dinners with, and a gorgeous, hardworking, faithful man to come home to every night. It was a wonder they had any time for sex, really.

  They always managed to find time, though. In fact, there had been a promising little storage shed she and Adam had passed on their way out of the parking lot…

  “I think they just called her number,” he said, forcing any and all thoughts of the storage shed out of her mind. Well, mostly out of her mind. That arm around her shoulders moved to her waist, Adam’s fingers trailing awfully near… “Yep, that’s her. It’s time.”

  Dawn held her breath as her fellow Dawn ambled down the chute to where the rest of the cows were being held. The animal’s statistics were rattled off by the very loud and efficient auctioneer before the bids were opened. It started much as the other auctions had so far, with low numbers being tossed around as interest heated up.

  “I think I changed my mind,” Adam said suddenly. “Dawn—quick. Get up there and tell them the sale is off. I don’t want to get rid of her. She’s a pain, yes, but she’s my pain.”

  “Relax.” Dawn slipped a hand in Adam’s back pocket. “It’ll be fine.”

  “I’m serious,” Adam said. “I know it sounds stupid, but I already tried this twice. First with Gigi and then with you. It never works. I started missing both of you before you even left. We’ll find room for her. We’ll build her a barn of her own. We’ll—”

  “And that’s an unheard of bid for three thousand!” the auctioneer called. “Does anyone dare to step up and offer more?”

  Adam groaned. “Quick, Dawn. Place a bid before I change my mind. Offer them four thousand. No—offer them five.”

  “No way. I am not paying five thousand dollars for that cow.”

  “Going once—”

  “Please, Dawn. She’s part of the family.”

  “Going twice—”

  “They’re going to murder her. You know that, right? None of these cows are making it out alive.”

  “And sold!” The auctioneer was barely audible among the sudden burst of applause that sounded all around them. “To the gentleman in the oversized gray shirt. Oh. Nope. I’m sorry. To the woman in the oversized gray shirt. My apologies, ma’am. My vision isn’t what it used to be.”

  “Oh, shove off,” an irascible voice said. “You’ve known me these thirty years and more.”

  As soon as Adam heard it, he turned his head toward Dawn. “Dawn. That’s not… It can’t be…”

  “And you’d better take that damn heifer around back. She looks innocent now, but give her ten minutes, and she’ll have the entire lot of you running for your lives.”

  “Bea!” Adam dropped his arm from around Dawn’s waist. “That sounds exactly like Bea.”

  Bea’s signature cackle rose through the air, dispelling any and all illusions Adam might have had that he was hearing things. “She’s going to be worth every goddamned penny. Just you wait and see. We’re kindred spirits, Dawn and I. The next time one of my neighbors tries to kick me off my own land…”

  Adam could only chuckle as Bea’s voice trailed off. It was followed by an audible groan a few feet away.

  “Well, fuck,” Charlie Smithwood said. “There goes the neighborhood. Again.”

  About the Author

  Lucy Gilmore is a contemporary romance author with a love of puppies, rainbows, and happily ever afters. She began her reading (and writing) career as an English literature major and ended as a die-hard fan of romance in all forms. When she’s not rolling around with her two Akitas, she can be found hiking, biking, or with her nose buried in a book. Visit her online at lucygilmore.com.

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