Once Touched (13 page)

“He'd only had Bowie for a few months or so. Right, Marsha?” Lorelei said.

Marsha nodded. “The original owner enlisted in the army. And since the dog ended up with this kid, I'm guessing the soldier's family wasn't able to care for him, either. We have to place him with someone who understands his needs and who'll do right by him, Quinn. But no pressure,” she said with a laugh.

Some things were meant to be,
Quinn thought.

Bowie was back. He dropped the ball again, wagged his rump mightily, backed up, and then waited, quivering with anticipation, as his blue and brown gaze bounced between Quinn and the dirt-and-saliva-covered ball.

She picked it up and looked at his open smile. Good teeth, she noted. “He's obviously healthy. Any sign of aggression?”

“Healthy and up to date on his vaccinations,” Nancy confirmed. “And he's good with the other dogs. Bowie does want the ball, but he doesn't take it out on another dog when he comes in second.”

That was important. She had Sooner to consider. Friendly competition was fine; bloody, fur-flying fights were not.

She tucked the ball behind her back.

Bowie whimpered.

“Bowie,” she said, and brought her free hand to her eyes. “Look.”

The dog tracked her hand. Gazing up at her, he cocked his gray and white head expectantly.

“Sit, Bowie,” she said, and gave him the hand signal, folding her extended arm.

The dog dropped his haunches on the ground.

“Good boy.” So far, so good. One or both of his owners had cared enough to give him some training, and he seemed to have accepted it happily. She held her hand out, her palm facing him. “Wait.” She backed up several paces. Tucking the ball inside her shirt, she squatted down and opened her arms wide. “Come, Bowie.”

He bounded toward her.

She dug her fingers in his fur. His coat was good, but he needed a bath and a brushing. Any dog in his situation would. After patting him, she rewarded him with a long throw of the ball. “I'm going to the clinic to visit Tucker. I'll likely stay an hour, maybe a little more.”

“Perfect. It'll give me time to bathe Bowie and get the stink out,” Lorelei said. “I need to do something to burn off the second brownie.”

“You've only had one.”

“The second one's been calling my name these past ten minutes.”

Quinn laughed. Then she turned to watch her next adoptee. Marsha had him pegged. The dog was tireless. He ran straight to her, dropped the ball, and gave her a doggy grin. Then, perhaps worried she hadn't noticed the wonderful gift he'd brought, he lowered his nose and gave the ball a push so it rolled to the toes of her boots.

This time she lobbed it high. As the ball arced in the air, he raced back to the other side of the pen and leapt to catch it, all doggy grace and joy. She smiled. “You'll do, Bowie. You'll do nicely.”

E
YES CLOSED, AN
ice pack strapped to his shoulder, Ethan sprawled in his chair. Every now and again he contemplated getting up and fetching his bottle of whiskey to further numb the pain. Even with the ice pack, his shoulder hurt like the blazes—as if he'd been stabbed with a red-hot poker. But he remained where he was because, one, he was too tired to get up, and two, he refused to hit the booze before six o'clock. Besides, the abused shoulder was his fault. When Pete, the ranch's foreman, had asked if he wanted to help clear some overgrown trails, he'd jumped at the chance to work someplace where he wouldn't have to listen to Josh.

Six hours of clearing brush and sawing limbs made him think there must be better ways to ignore the Texan's mad desire to share.

With a low curse, he let his head fall back against the wing of the chair. What had compelled him to open his mouth and offer Josh advice about Quinn yesterday morning? It was a classic case of no good deed going unpunished. Now the cowboy acted as if Ethan were some kind of sage or, worse, his best bud, talking until Ethan thought his head would fucking explode.

Whacking at brush and hauling fallen limbs seemed the perfect escape until Ethan realized that the work left him
too
alone, unable to block thoughts that inevitably circled back to Quinn and the real reason he regretted ever uttering a syllable to Josh. It wasn't because Ethan had become Josh's go-to guy when he needed to share—which was always—but because he'd consciously decided to encourage Josh to pursue Quinn even though the Texan didn't understand or fully appreciate her.

And didn't that make him a pompous ass? Who was he to judge what Quinn needed or wanted in a relationship? Maybe she'd been telling the truth and was happy to be with Josh, who seemed to love life—and had a hell of a good time living it—from the moment he woke up until he closed his eyes at night.

Even if she was looking for someone who recognized that she was far more than the pretty package she inhabited, that didn't make him a potential candidate to replace Josh. He wasn't ordinarily stupid, so why did he keep forgetting that?

Probably because he liked her a little too damn much.

If he knew what was good for him, he'd be out clearing trails for the rest of the week.

The knock on the door had him frowning. Christ, had Josh decided it would be fun to hang out? At least the solution to this problem was blessedly simple, involving no effort except to slump deeper in his chair.

The knock sounded again, and Ethan scowled. Josh might appear to be an easygoing Texan, but he was tenacious as a New England lobster.

He let the ice pack fall to the chair cushion as he stood and crossed the room to the door. He yanked it open with a snarl of “What?” but then had to suck in a breath because more and more often the sight of Quinn tied his insides into a Gordian knot. She was dressed in what he'd come to realize was her preferred wardrobe: jeans that hugged her long legs, colorfully stitched cowboy boots, and a sweater that was on the wrong side of ratty so that it wouldn't matter if a goat nibbled its hem or a horse smeared hay on the shoulder. Her long hair was down, its honeyed ends brushing the swells of her breasts.

“And hello to you, too,” Quinn replied, and he almost felt grateful that she'd spoken before he began thinking about what those breasts would look like covered by his hands rather than that decrepit sweater.

“What do you want?”

Seemingly unfazed by his hostile tone, she said, “I brought someone to meet you. This is Bowie.”

He looked down and into one bright blue and one dark brown eye framed by a white and speckled gray head, folded ears, and a black leathery nose. “That's a dog.”

“Gosh, I am so proud of you.” An impish grin teased her lips.

He drew his brows together. A smile would only encourage her.

“Yes, this is a dog. I thought you might like a cabinmate.”

His frown became genuine. He folded his arms across his chest. “Why would I want one?”

“To sleep.”

Talking to Quinn was always interesting. “A dog will help me sleep?”

“I guarantee bunking and working with Bowie and helping train him as a sheepdog will be a better sleep aid than chugging Jack Daniel's every night. It's possible Bowie might even improve that nasty disposition of yours.”

“Thanks, I'm doing just fine.”

“Of course you are. But you'd also be doing me a favor,” she said. The tentative note that entered her voice told him how unused she was to asking for them.

He set his teeth. “I'm not in a charitable mood.”

“Say it ain't so,” she said. “Listen, he's a rescue—”

“I don't care what he is. Go ask Josh to help you with him. Believe me, he's itching to do you a favor so you can be all grateful.”

“Fine. Be a jerk—you're so excellent at it. Bowie used to belong to a guy who enrolled in the army. He apparently gave Bowie to a friend, but then the guy couldn't keep him. I thought that might matter to you.” Her gaze flicked over him coolly. “I should have known better.”

She had the dog on a leash. He'd been sitting by her side with his muzzle lifted as if listening. Animals paid close attention when Quinn was around.

Giving the leash a quick tug, she said, “Let's go, Bowie.” Without sparing Ethan a second glance, she walked quickly away, the dog trotting by her side, leaving him feeling like something far worse than a jerk.

Even after Ethan's knocking grew insistent, she took her sweet time answering. Letting him stew in his remorse, he supposed.

The door opened, and a Wagnerian caterwaul greeted him. The nearer, more immediate barking of the two dogs was a soothing lullaby compared to the wailing of sirens and percussive rat-a-tat-tat that came from God knows where.

“What the hell?”

She didn't deign to respond, merely turned on her heel and walked past the large, cloth-draped sofa, where a black and white one-eyed cat crouched like a mountain lion and welcomed him with a death glare.

As she passed the dogs, Quinn made a short chopping motion with her hand and Sooner quieted. Bowie, however, continued barking, perhaps rattled by the racket coming from the next room.

Quinn disappeared into it.

He followed her. Perhaps her taste in movies was as lousy as the music she favored and she liked her apocalyptic flicks cranked to the max. But as he crossed the threshold, the noise, still at an earsplitting level, changed to manic shrieks of “Quinn! Quinn! Quinn!”

The source was just as outrageous. A parrot was doing flips worthy of an Olympic gymnast and catching himself with his beak and talons on the suspended swings and the metal bars of a cage that stood nearly as tall as Ethan. Flashes of color whizzed through the air as it flipped—bright green, yellow, red, and blue.

He guessed the bird was from the Amazon, by way of hell. Fiendishly clever, it hadn't stopped its screaming call as it somersaulted and dove kamikaze-style, quieting only when Quinn stepped up to the cage and stuck her fingers inside. It scrambled close to press its head against them. Obligingly she scratched the area behind its beady eye, where blue feathers met green and yellow ones.

“This is Alfie.”

“Not Beelzebub?”

Her lips twitched. That she had even a tiny smile for him was nothing short of miraculous considering what an ass he'd been minutes ago.

“He's loud when he's excited or when his schedule is changed. This is his free time, when he gets to go out of his cage and hang out. Sooner and Pirate are accustomed to him flying about, but I'm worried Bowie might get overwhelmed.”

Fair enough. He could imagine the parrot getting major kicks out of strafing innocent sheepdogs. “Okay, what do you want me to do with the dog?” Even as he spoke, a part of him wondered if Quinn didn't have him as spellbound as the animals in her care.

“If you really don't want him in the cabin with you, would you mind taking him for a walk so he can get used to the scents? And he likes to play ball.” While she spoke she opened the cage. The parrot flapped its wings in quick succession and then hopped onto Quinn's outstretched arm, scrambling up its length until it was perched on her shoulder. “I know I'm asking a lot from you—”

“Knock it off, Quinn,” he said irritably. “Enough of this ‘I'm beholden' crap.”

Her blue eyes flashed, reminding him of a summer storm. “Forgive me. I just spent an hour and a half at the clinic with Tucker, so I
am
feeling kind of beholden to you for saving him. So you'll have to deal with the fact that I'm grateful you were there and did the right thing. But I understand that doing two kind acts in as many days is probably dangerous for a wannabe misanthrope like yourself.”

He scowled. He didn't know how Quinn managed it, but she had a way of making him feel like Superman one moment and then about as bighearted as a dung beetle the next. The woman had serious talent.

“And I would have asked my parents to dog-sit Bowie, but they're meeting with a neighbor about some land he wants to sell.”

“How did Tucker look?”

Quinn's shrug made the parrot squawk and then resettle himself even closer to Quinn's slender neck. Then he began raking the strands of her hair with his beak. Ethan recalled the morning he'd learned to milk the goats, how he'd grazed the silky strands with the back of his hand and caught the sweet scent of flowers when he inhaled. No wonder the damned bird was besotted, Ethan thought.

“How'd Tucker look? Almost as exhausted as when I first rescued him. And he's lost too much weight—it's crazy how a serious illness can do that to a body.”

Was she including humans as well as animals in that statement? he wondered as self-consciousness pierced him. He could hardly blame her. He barely recognized himself when he looked in a mirror.

“And the stent bandage wrapped around his belly is freaky, but the main thing is he's still alive.” She smiled. “He ate a little alfalfa with me and let me run a soft brush over him.”

“Good.” He nodded. If he'd had any sense, he would have forced his feet to carry him out to the living room and coax some soldier's dog into walking with him. Instead he opened his big mouth. “Why didn't you ask Josh to help you?”

From the flush on her cheeks, he guessed she was surprised by the question. Suddenly she became preoccupied with scratching Alfie's breast until he cooed in ecstasy. As the throated avian purr continued and the silence between the humans stretched, Ethan wondered if she intended to ignore the question.

“It's, well…I'm not sure Josh and Bowie would suit.”

He made some noncommittal grunt, forcing his mouth to move and preventing a smile from settling on his lips. “Not convinced I'll suit him any better,” he said, adding gruffly, “Don't make the mistake of thinking this is going to become a regular thing. I don't want to be involved in your pet projects.”
I don't want to be involved, period.
But somehow he already knew that Bowie was going to be sleeping on the floor by his bed tonight. “So where's the leash?”

“There's a bunch of 'em hanging on the hook in the mudroom just off the kitchen. Balls are in a basket underneath.”

All things considered, that hadn't gone too badly, Quinn thought. It would have been folly to expect Ethan to willingly, gladly accept the idea of fostering Bowie. He was too intent on shutting the world out.

But she was counting on Bowie to nudge him in the right direction. It happened, and not just in the movies. A prickly antisocial or painfully shy person acquired a dog and a transformation occurred. Sometimes the joy that came paw in hand from the nonjudgmental love of a dog crept over a person slowly, and sometimes it swept in on a warm cascade. Whichever way it came about, she couldn't believe Ethan would remain unaffected. Bowie was too great a dog.