Page 52 of Puppy Kisses

“He really enjoyed it.”

“Adam hasnevercome to one of my races before.”

“Yes, I heard you the first time. It was fun for all of us, although I’m still trying to figure out how you got in and out of that wet suit so quickly. Is it Vaseline? Or just regular lube? Adam seemed to think it was Vaseline, but I’m holding out for Astroglide. The kind you buy in bulk.”

“I don’t think you understand.Adam has never come to one of my races before.”

Dawn bit back a sigh. This wasn’t a conversation she was either prepared to have or looking forward to right now. It was an important conversation, obviously, but all she really wanted was to get the puppies settled and get her hands on that chocolate cake.

“Speaking of, we’d better get moving if we plan to pick up that food while it’s still hot.” Dawn settled the Chihuahua she’d been cuddling back in his pen, making sure to slip him a chew toy before she moved on to the next puppy. Gunner was in a fierce chewing phase and already making headway on his dog bed. By morning, there’d be nothing but fluff and fabric as far as the eye could see. “I wonder if I should just bring this guy with us. How many puppies are too many puppies as far as Adam is concerned? Six? Seven?”

When Zeke didn’t answer, his brow furrowed in a way that made him look as though he was working out a particularly difficult calculus equation, she added, “No, you’re right. Chances are he’d fall in love with Gunner and decide to keep him, too. It’s better not to risk it.”

“It’s weird,” Zeke said as though she hadn’t spoken. He did start feeding the Lab, though, so that was good. “He’s been doing a lot of unusual things lately—making dinner and visiting with Bea and showing an interest in my well-being. Phoebe’s too. He’s been talking about giving her a week off to take a trip to the Yucatán with her friends. All he has to do is announce his plans to run off with his secret girlfriend, and I’ll know he’s been taken over by body snatchers.”

It took every ounce of willpower Dawn had not to balk at that last bit, but she managed it by moving on to the next puppy, an adorable beagle with eyes like liquid amber.

“Adam has a secret girlfriend?” she asked in a tone of what she hoped was only mild interest.

Zeke snorted. “Of course not. A regular girlfriend would require him to take a few evenings off. I can’t imagine how much more work a secret one would be. But not only did he offer to do my chores last night, but he sang show tunes while he did it.Show tunes.I can’t think of anything else to account for that kind of behavior. Can you?”

Dawn saw a chance of salvation and reached for it. “Um, hello?”

“Hi?”

She waved a hand over herself. She was looking particularly good today, with a pair of stretch jean overalls layered over a white crop top. It was the kind of outfit one wore topretendto work on a farm, as it was more suited for low-key clubbing at a country-western bar than actual hard labor, but that had been the whole point. Nothing drove Adam crazier than her showing up to work in the least ranch-appropriate attire possible.

“He’s obviously in a good mood because he has me in his life now,” she said.

Her ruse worked. Zeke took the bait. She might even have felt relieved at such an easy success if he hadn’t laughedquiteso hard and long over it.

“Dawn, you know I love you, but no man who has to put up with you for eight hours a day is going to be happy about it,” he said.

“Why not?” she asked. Even though she’d spoken in jest, the mockery in Zeke’s voice caused annoyance to pluck at her nerves. “People love me. I’m nice. I’m fun.”

“The word you’re looking for is ‘exhausting.’”

“Excuse you. I’m not the one who just ran and biked like a zillion miles today. You’re much more exhausting than I am.”

“I don’t mean physically exhausting,” he said, and with so much condescension that it took all her resolve not to step on his foot.Hard.“I mean emotionally exhausting.”

She didn’t respond, just crossed her arms and stared at Zeke until he sighed and added, “You know what I mean, so don’t look at me like that. Adam obviously didn’t want to celebrate with us tonight, but you kept pushing until he had no choice but to give in. That’s what you do. You push and you intrude and you make a man so fed up that he’ll get behind the wheel of a getaway car and help you steal a puppy just to get you to leave him alone. Couldn’t you, like, scale it back a little? Just for once?”

It was the final straw, the tipping point, the place where common sense departed and her impulses took over.

Okay, yes. Dawn knew she was exhausting. She knew people got tired of her after a few months, always telling her to step back, step down,be less. She’d heard it so many times before—from teachers, from employers, from relatives, from friends—that she could practically recite a list of her sins in her sleep.

What she didn’t understand, however, was why these particular sins were so off-putting. There were people out there who lied, who cheated, who wrote long, painstaking checks in the express lane at the grocery store. When was it universally decided that the one unforgivable offense was for a woman to be herself? Why did her desire to be accepted for who she was turn her into some kind of unlovable monster?

“Well, I think you’re a chickenshit, so there.” She tightened her arms across her chest. “We’re even.”

Zeke almost dropped the clipboard on the black Lab’s head. “I’mwhat?”

“A chickenshit,” she repeated. If they were going to throw out painful truths, he needed to see his as well as hers. At least she’d always been able to own who she was, even if it made other people view her as a nuisance. “I’ve been at your ranch for almost a month now, and I have yet to hear you mention to your brother even once how much it chafes you—how badly you want to leave. Adam is so deep in his expansion plans that he’s sending me to Bea’s house to uncover some kind of long-lost legal document, but I have yet to hear you raise one word of protest.”

“Dawn.”

“Ezekiel.”