Cupid to the Rescue: A Tail-Wagging Valentine's Day Anthology

by Lisa Mondello

  “Since I’m the unofficial Grinch of said holiday,” Sam put in. “I’ll be rooting for them from the sidelines.”

  TJ shrugged. “You have to be in love to think about that sort of thing, my friend. And that lets you and me out. Are you still throwing your annual St. Patty’s Day party?”

  “Sure am. The Garden Club gets to keep all the proceeds, and Ida Jane and her friends would have my head if I tried to cancel.” A beeping sound made TJ look at his phone. Low battery? Nope. All good.

  “Speak of the devil. Josh is calling. Good luck with the donkey…and the city gal. Keep me posted.”

  TJ ended the call and put his truck in gear. He loved his truck and thanked his lucky stars for Rogue One—a stone-cold white bull with a head the size of the generator he’d bought to pump out the main tunnel. For some reason the rank bull was having an off day and ignored TJ for five and a half seconds of a championship ride in Houston four seasons ago. When the Rogue woke up, he did a twisting spin that made the judges sit up and take notice, but the whirling dervish couldn’t unseat TJ before the buzzer sounded. TJ used his winnings to pay cash for the truck he called Rogue Too.

  Good thing. If he’d trusted his girlfriend, who was also his agent at the time, to take care of his money, he wouldn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out, as Betty liked to say.

  Duplicity and lies didn’t make for a happy relationship.

  Probably the reason he hadn’t dated anyone since he moved home.

  “Better lonely than broke,” he murmured as he pulled into his camp. He couldn’t really call it a home since he was living in a pull-behind, toy hauler, but his two-stall oversize garage included a shop and a full bathroom. The steam shower more than made up for whatever luxuries his trailer lacked.

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  A mere sixty-five minutes later, he pulled into Betty’s driveway for the second time that day. His mouth had been watering the whole trip thanks to the smell emanating from his crockpot, which, fortunately, had a locking lid. On the way out the door, he’d grabbed the bottle of wine Sam had given him at Christmas. City girls like wine, right? His friend’s generosity had included a freezer full of meat and a cash bonus, too.

  Most of the women he’d dated over the years were more the beer-and-a-shot type. Betty loved her lite beer and spiced rum—a special brand with a tattoo under the label. As women went, Betty was probably the easiest to please he’d ever known. His birth mother? Hard to say since she split when he was five, leaving him in the hands of the man who may or may not have been his biological father. The career criminal met a violent end two years later, making TJ a ward of the state.

  His breath caught in his throat when he looked at the house. Completely dark. He lowered the passenger window and heard the dogs barking inside the home. “That can’t be good.”

  At least, the Jag was still parked where she left it. “Still here, thank God. Maybe she fell asleep.”

  Tension mounted as he hopped out of the truck and started toward the house. But a sudden, ear-piercing whistle made him turn and look toward the barn. Paige stood in the doorway—head lamp shining like a beacon.

  “Everything okay?” he hollered.

  The light moved side to side.

  Damn.

  He grabbed the backpack he’d packed with the clothes and supplies he figured he might need if the donkey took a turn for the worst. He slipped one strap over his shoulder, stuffed the wine bottle into the side compartment, and then picked up the slow cooker with both hands. Paige probably needed sustenance as much as he did.

  “Where’d you learn to whistle like that?”

  “My dad.” She switched off the headlamp and held the door for him.

  He caught a hint of her perfume as he passed. Intoxicating. He swallowed the extra moisture in his mouth. She smells better than slow-cooked, free-range beef.

  The light in the barn wasn’t the best, but Betty kept the important spaces clear. He set the pot on the plank counter, hooked his backpack on a handy nail, then slipped into the stall and checked on their patient. Shallow breathing, but steady. The heat from the lamp seemed to be helping. Her skin reacted to his touch but she didn’t open her eyes.

  “Did the vet show up?”

  “You just missed him. He gave her a shot. She woke up and drank some water for me, so he opted not to put in an IV. He said to call if her breathing didn’t improve by morning.”

  “Okay.” He got to his feet and brushed off his hands. “Are you hungry? I’m starved. Let’s take this up to the house.”

  She looked at the cooker with obvious interest. Her nostrils flared as the aroma reached her. “I made coffee.” She pointed to a battered thermos TJ recognized all too well from camping trips as a teen. “And I found some cookies in the pantry when I was feeding the dogs. Are they okay in the house alone? I heard them bark when you drove up.”

  “They’re fine. Betty calls them her early-warning system.” He walked to a bank of switches and flicked up a couple. “Electricity is cheap security. We’ll turn on some at the house, too.”

  She looked at their patient. “I’d planned to stay with her tonight.” She nodded toward a pile of camping equipment that he knew Betty stored in the tack room. “Betty called from Bakersfield. She told me where to find everything.”

  Betty? What are you doing? You can’t make a city girl sleep in the barn on her first night in the mountains. But he was too hungry to argue. “I’ll run up to the house to check on the dogs and grab some plates and eating utensils.” More to himself than to her, he added, “And TP.”

  “Toilet paper?” Her tone bordered on horrified.

  He pointed to a door in the far wall of the barn. “Betty put in a composting toilet when the county wouldn’t let her run a new sewer line to the old septic system. It’s pretty basic, but there’s a little water heater under the sink. Use the timer button to turn it on. Sure beats the alternative when nature calls in the middle of the night.”

  “What is the alternative?”

  “Going behind a bush. You might bump into a big cat—the bigger-than-Rex sort. Or, a bear.”

  Even in the dim light, he could see the color leave her cheeks. Damn. I scared her. He stepped to where she was standing and gave her upper arm a supportive squeeze, like he might with a young bull rider headed for his first rodeo. “Don’t worry. It’s a little early for bears and the llama could probably take any mountain lion.”

  She looked at his hand on her arm as if surprised but not necessarily put off by the familiarity. He pulled back his hand, intending to apologize, but before he could get a word out, she laughed—a low, sexy chuckle that made his knees give slightly.

  “A llama. Goats. Chickens. And a donkey. My mother will never believe this. I don’t believe it.” She made a gesture he knew meant: mind blown.

  TJ felt the same but for a different reason. Maybe he could blame the intimacy of the setting or their mutual concern for the donkey. Whatever their emotional connection, the physical one doubled—no, shot off the charts—when he touched her. Through who knew how many layers of clothing?

  That never happened.

  Her Cowboy Valentine: Chapter 5

  Paige chewed her last bite of meat slowly, with her eyes closed to critique the experience best. Tender as mignon. Seasoned simply—salt, pepper, granulated garlic, I think. Nothing to disguise or take away from the taste of the meat. “Superb,” she said the minute she was done swallowing. “That was the best roast beef I have ever tasted—and my ex-husband and I took a three-week culinary tour of France for our honeymoon. So, that is high praise.”

  TJ, who was sitting on an overturned five-gallon bucket a couple of feet away, balanced his heavy-duty paper plate filled with a second helping of meat, potatoes, and carrots on his knees. He finished chewing a bite, too, and then gave her a look that seemed more bemused than impressed by her compliment.

  “A three-week honeymoon? Wow. Most of my married friends considered themselves lu
cky to spend a week in Hawaii.”

  The topic of conversation was one she would have dodged with anyone else, but in the few hours she’d known him, Paige had come to understand that TJ Huey didn’t play games. He wouldn’t share her secrets with the menacing blogger who was out to vilify her for having been married to Brad.

  “We met in film school. I worked my way through college, but then my mom remarried. My stepfather offered to finance grad school. It got me out of their home, and he could enjoy Mom’s full attention.”

  TJ snickered softly. “Altruism with a purpose.”

  His comment reminded her not to underestimate his intelligence even though he tried to sell himself as a simple, living-off-the-grid cowboy.

  “Brad’s parents are both successful Hollywood producers. Money people.” She put air quotes around the word. “You wouldn’t recognize their names, but you’ve probably seen most of the movies they helped make.”

  He took a gulp from the plastic tumbler he’d brought from the house. Filled with wine. Be careful, Paige, your snooty is showing. “You were classmates, but not competitors?”

  She shrugged. “Brad liked to tell people we were fishing in different parts of the pond. When one of my film noir shorts got picked up in Japan, he flew us to Tokyo for its release.” She made a so-so gesture to downplay how generous that sounded. “We’re talking nine and a half minutes before some blockbuster movie in a language neither of us understood. Thirty hours round trip. I wound up with bronchitis.”

  “How long were you married?”

  “Ten years.”

  “No kids?”

  “A daughter. She passed in infancy.”

  Look, Brad. I said the words without humiliating you by sobbing in public.

  His face showed true sympathy. “That would be hard on a relationship.”

  She shook her head, refusing to put the blame for her train wreck of a marriage on her baby girl’s shoulders. “Sophia’s death merely exacerbated some underlying issues I’d been determined to overlook.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was in my mid-thirties and I wanted a baby. I’ve been told I approach every goal with a single-minded intensity—to the detriment of certain personal relationships.”

  She touched her paper napkin to her lips and looked at the donkey still asleep at their feet. I can’t believe I just admitted that to a stranger when it took two months of weekly visits with a therapist for that truth to crystalize.

  TJ’s phone buzzed.

  He unclipped the phone from a leather holder on his belt. “The vet,” he told her before tapping the green spot to receive the call. “Hey, Doc, how’s it going? Paige told me you dropped by earlier to check on the donkey. Sorry I missed you. What do you think? Is she gonna make it?”

  A fist gripped Paige’s heart. She refused to speculate—even for a moment—on Miss Valentine dying. No. Not on my watch. Not again.

  TJ didn’t have the phone on speaker, so she couldn’t hear the vet’s response but she pictured the man who’d pulled into the driveway while she was lugging the rest of her luggage up the steps of the porch. The dogs had greeted him like a savior. He’d given each a treat of some kind then called out, “Roger Brandt. I don’t see TJ’s truck. Your little donkey still with us?”

  She’d liked him immediately for not assuming the worst—and not just because his tall, lanky shape and brown hair reminded her of her father. His unhurried, confident manner was so similar she wondered if Roger Brandt and Dad might have attended the same veterinary school.

  “She’s in the barn. I was just heading back.” A lie. She’d hoped to squeeze in a hot shower before TJ returned.

  “Hop in. Let’s take a look.”

  She parked her Louis Vuitton bags on the deck and did an about face.

  Doc, as he asked her to call him, seemed right at home in Betty’s barn. She’d watched from the open door of the stall as his large, confident hands gently examined the donkey.

  “Someone wasn’t very nice to this poor little girl, but she’s stronger than she looks.” From his suitcase-like medical bag, he’d withdrawn a syringe. “I’ll leave some antibiotic ointment to put on the open wounds. This should help the rattle in her lungs.”

  He motioned for her to come all the way in. “Can you help me get her up? She’s weak, but she needs to drink.”

  Securing her arms under the donkey’s chest and shoulders while Doc anchored her hindquarters, they held her trembling body while Miss Valentine lowered her muzzle and drank from the plastic bucket Paige had filled earlier.

  Helping the vet had brought back memories of working alongside her father. The animals all trusted him—and so had she.

  “I agree,” TJ said into his phone. “Sometimes it’s just up to the animal and Mother Nature. Thanks for coming by, Doc. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

  Her delicious meal made an unhappy gurgling sound in her belly. Stiff from the chill in the barn, she stood and started cleaning up their mess. Her beef with Mother Nature went bone deep. She’s a cruel and heartless b.i.t.c.h.

  Lost in the catacomb of remembered pain, loss, fear, and heartbreak, she didn’t realize TJ had gotten to his feet until she bumped into him and nearly stumbled over their patient. His strong hands gripped her upper arms. His eyes—a smokier shade of blue in the light from the camping lantern he’d set up—searched her face. “Are you okay?”

  His concern grabbed hold of a place inside her—neglected and barren too long. Doc’s parting words came back to her: “TJ’s a good man. Practically a son to Betty. You’ll be in fine hands tonight.”

  She broke his hold by locking her arms around his middle. She pressed her cheek to his shoulder, breathing in his warmth and the freshly showered smell of him—soap and water, no cologne.

  It only took a second for him to hug her back. Maybe he’s used to strange women throwing themselves at him.

  They broke apart the instant his phone made its strange buzzing sound again. Heat from embarrassment replaced the chill on her bare skin, but a different kind of warmth traveled to other spots, too. Places that hadn’t known passion in too long to remember.

  TJ’s gaze lingered on her face a second longer—regret? disappointment? bafflement?—before grabbing his phone from its holster. “Yes?”

  He listened a second then held up the phone to put it on speaker. Betty’s voice continued speaking. “…and Doc says if she’s not standing on her own by morning, he’ll come back and put her down.”

  Paige snatched the phone from his fingers. “Well, that isn’t going to happen. She may be weak, but I am not giving up on her. Who knows the last time she had something to eat? What do you feed a donkey?”

  Betty didn’t answer right away. Paige felt TJ’s gaze on her. She gave him back the phone.

  His understanding smile made her knees go all rubbery. To hide the fact, she knelt beside Miss Valentine, who lifted her head and opened her eyes.

  Paige rubbed the little white blaze near the top of her elongated diamond-shaped head and whispered in one of her big ears, “Don’t worry, sweet girl, you’re going to be okay.”

  Betty’s voice crackled to life, mid-stream “…could start with bite size pieces of carrots. There might be a turnip in the crisper from my last CSA basket, too. Did I leave you any bananas? We fostered an old jenny way back when. The feed store had some dried sugar beet pulp that came in cubes. You had to them soak them overnight, if I remember correctly.

  “TJ, could you take Paige into town tomorrow? Show her around. Put whatever you need at the feed store on my account. And don’t forget to introduce her to Ida Jane.”

  “Roger that. Are you headed out early?”

  “First light. Probably won’t have cell service much of the time, but who knows? Change of plan, though. Instead of Arizona, we’re gonna be in Nevada.”

  TJ looked relieved. “Hey, you won’t have as far to drive.”

  “Good for me, but bad for the wild horses. The BLM plans
to zero-out the herds, despite the fact they haven’t cut back on free-range grazing permits.” Her sigh sounded weary. “The watch-dog group is sending a lawyer. An old friend of mine from way back. Hopefully, she’ll bring us some good news.”

  Paige was already on her feet. As she adjusted her headlamp, she mouthed, “Going after carrots.”

  Her heart rate jumped when she noticed his gaze linger on her lips. My imagination? Or something more? It had been so long since she’d had feelings like these, she honestly didn’t know the answer.

  What does it matter? She only had a few weeks here, then she had to go home, find a place to live, confront the nasty blogger, and get whatever was left of her career back on track.

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  TJ rolled his shoulders against a lump of something that felt like a mini-boulder from his mine. His night sense told him it was two-ish. He’d spent enough nights wide awake from pain to know his way around the witching hour.

  He opened his eyes, blinking to focus in the near dark. They’d left a small, battery-powered lantern on its lowest setting to provide some light in case someone woke up.

  Above, he could make out the open rafters thanks to the moonlight streaming through the small gable window. If he listened hard enough, he’d hear mice nearby, an owl on the hunt, and all the other night sounds that came with living in the mountains.

  Instead, he tilted his chin and closed his eyes to focus on his sleeping partners’ breathing. The donkey’s was fast and shallow, possibly a bit hollow, as Doc said. He hoped not. Coming back from pneumonia wasn’t easy. He knew that from experience.

  By cocking his head just so, he could hear Paige. Slow and light. Good REM sleep at last?

  She’d made a few interesting sounds earlier. A mumbled conversation he couldn’t quite make out. A small sob.

  He rolled to his side to study the back of her head, a couple of feet away. She’d braided her hair into a loose weave that created a uniquely feminine pattern against the navy blue fleece pillow he’d grabbed from Betty’s bed.