Page 56 of Puppy Kisses

She touched the brakes again, this time enough to send him lurching against the seat belt. “You monster. Those poor little cows. You’re robbing them of their manhood—their prowess.”

There was enough genuine horror in her voice to set him laughing. If nothing else, at least Dawn was consistent in her appreciation for masculinity in all its forms.

“Not that I spend a lot of time feeling up my puppies, but I’m pretty sure you’ve had Uncle neutered,” he pointed out. “What abouthisprowess?”

She released a harrumph and regained her previous speed. “That’s different. There are already too many unwanted dogs in this world. Besides, his job is to take care of you, not get down and dirty with any bitch who saunters by.”

“Poor Uncle. He’ll never know what he’s missing. Getting down and dirty is my favorite thing to do.”

“You’re such a liar,” she said, laughing. “I just can’t believe you’re going to pick up something literally designed to remove a cow’s testicles and then take me back to your house and fuck me senseless. It seems cruel. Like eating cake in front of a dieting person or—Oh shit.”

This time, her touch on the brakes was more like a slam. Even though he was buckled in, Adam’s hand shot out to catch himself on the dashboard. He fully expected to hear the screech of metal or to feel the car come sliding to a halt on the side of the highway, but no sooner had Dawn slowed down than the engine revved and they lurched forward once again.

“What is it?” he asked, his voice sharp with anxiety. It wasn’t often that he felt encumbered by his blindness, but moments of danger were one of the exceptions. Until he knew what was going on, he was powerless to come to Dawn’s aid. “What happened? Did we hit an animal?”

“No, but an animal is trying to hit us. Hold on tight, Adam. I can outrun him, but I have to speed a little to do it.”

“A little?” he asked as they started racing even faster. Despite the obviously high rate of speed they were undertaking, he risked laying a hand on Dawn’s thigh. It was rigid with tension, her attention so focused on the task of driving that she didn’t seem to notice his touch. “Dawn, relax. Tell me what’s going on. Who ishim? And why is he trying to hit us?”

She didn’t answer. He thought for a moment that she was too intent on the task at hand, that she had to concentrate on the road or risk their imminent death, but there was something deliberate about her silence.

“Dawn?” he prodded. “It’s not fair to keep me in the dark. You know I can’t assess this situation for myself.”

She released a soft curse. “I know, Adam. I’m sorry. It’s just—” She heaved a sigh. Some of the tension lifted from her body, though their speed stayed exactly where it was. “It’s this guy. He sort of…lies in wait for me.”

He bolted upright in his seat, his hand falling away. “He lies in wait for you? As in, this has happened before?”

“A few times, yes.” She swerved to the right and beeped her horn in a quick, friendly staccato. “Thank you, semi-truck driver. You’re a doll for letting me by. See? I’m already four SUVs and one hauler ahead of him. A few more minutes, and he’ll be nothing but a blur in the distance. I don’t think he does a very good job maintaining his engine.”

“His engine?” Adam echoed. He was still trying to process what Dawn was telling him—and how coolly she was doing it. The last time he checked, a man lying in wait to chase a woman down the highway was something to be alarmed about.

“Yeah. I don’t pretend to be a wizard when it comes to cars, but even I know to top up the oil and spring for the new air filter every year or so. My dad’s really insistent about stuff like that. He wouldn’t let me or my sisters take our driver’s tests until we learned how to change a tire on our own.” Her laugh, at least, was shaky. It was oddly comforting to know she could showsomefear. “He didn’t want us to be at the mercy of any crackpot with a truck on the side of the road. Sorry, Dad.”

“How many times has this happened?” Adam asked, his voice grim.

“This is technically the fourth.”

“And you know him?”

Dawn didn’t answer.

It was all he needed to hear—or not-hear, as the case turned out. “You know him.”

“I don’tknow himknow him,” she protested. “He’s not a crazed ex-lover or anything like that. He’s, well…”

Adam froze. He knew that tone. He recognized that tone. It was the same tone Phoebe had used whenever she’d gotten in trouble at school and didn’t want him to know about it. He’d never gotten angry with her for skipping classes or talking back to her teachers—and he definitely skimped in the punishment department—but that hadn’t seemed to make a difference. He was older and ostensibly wiser, which meant that the lines were drawn and there was nothing he could do about it.

He hadn’t cared for it then, and he didn’t care for it now either. He wasn’t that old and he didn’t feel particularly wise, but the barriers were there all the same.

It was bad enough coming from Phoebe, but fromDawn…

As she usually did, Dawn both surprised and delighted him with her frankness.

“I lied to you, Adam, and I’m sorry.” This time, it washerhand that found its way tohisthigh. She probably found him just as tense as she’d been, though for entirely different reasons. “I didn’t find Gigi abandoned on the side of the road. She was chained up in that rotter’s backyard—though how anyone could call it a backyard is beyond me. It was more like a dirt pit, without any shade or any water or even a place where she could comfortably lie down. He had her chained so tightly that she could barely move.”

Every muscle in Adam’s body hardened. “Hewhat?”

“Her little body was heaving—with the heat and the dehydration and the fact that the chains were literally pinning her down.” Dawn drew a deep breath. “I tried calling animal control, but they weren’t any help. They said I could lodge a formal complaint, and that they’d process it through the normal channels, but it would have takenweeksfor them to get around to checking on her. She didn’t have weeks to spare, so I made Zeke help me steal her.”