Big Chance Cowboy

by Teri Anne Stanley

  Unaware she’d tossed a verbal gauntlet, she tugged the dog’s collar again. “Come on, Patton. Let’s get your bath.”

  Holding onto the dog with one hand and her big beach bag with the other, Lizzie proceeded through the kitchen, toward the hallway, to the foot of the stairs.

  “Wait a minute. What are you doing?”

  “Taking Patton to give him a bath.”

  “What? In my house? In my bathroom? No. I don’t think so.”

  “Well, where else do you think I should do it?”

  “Outside. With the hose.”

  “What?” She looked truly confused. “But there’s no hot water out there.”

  “It’s a dog.”

  * * *

  For a moment, Lizzie thought Adam was teasing her, but one look at that solid jaw convinced her that he wasn’t planning to let her wash the dog in his bathroom. “But he needs a bath.”

  “So wash it outside with the hose.”

  “No way. That water’s, like, fifty degrees. You must have a well that comes from the North Pole!” Okay, she was engaging in a tiny smidgen of hyperbole, but she’d had a shitty day, hitting dead ends everywhere she turned on the Mill Creek project.

  Apparently, Adam wasn’t in a mood to back down, either. “The hose is in the barn, which is, like, a million degrees.”

  “Oh, good idea. Let’s get him hot, then freeze him, then cook him again. Pneumonia, anybody?”

  Adam snorted. “Do you want me to tell you how many nights I’ve spent soaked to the skin in the middle of winter? How many nights my dog spent outside soaked to the skin in the middle of winter?”

  “Yes, actually,” she said. “You never tell me anything about playing army.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I wasn’t playing.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to minimize—”

  “I’ll tell you this about the army,” he ground out. “A dog is just a dog. It’s not a baby, and it doesn’t need to be treated like one. It doesn’t even need to be in the house. Ever.”

  “Is that what they taught you in dog handler school? That your dog’s nothing more than a big, hairy rifle?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out. “Listen. I know you don’t get this. Your life is all about being nice and sweet and good, and you probably carry spiders outside so you don’t have to squash them. But you need to face reality. Dogs aren’t people.”

  She’d address his comment about her relationship to reality later. Her own patience had thinned to the breaking point. “Patton is not a Bulgarian mani-whatsits!” she shot back. “And I’m not a badass Army Green Beret!”

  Something she said must have gotten through to him, because his arms dropped to his sides and his mouth softened. Then one corner rose. His eyes crinkled—years of pain and unknown horror faded from his expression—and he grinned.

  “What?” she asked, suspicious of this shift from verbal sparring.

  “Ranger.”

  “Huh?”

  “I went to Ranger school. And I was an MP, not a Green Beret.”

  “Oh.”

  “And Tank was a Belgian Malinois, not a—what did you call it?”

  “A Bulgarian…um, I have no idea,” she admitted. “But whatever he was, he probably didn’t like being coated in stinky mud any more than Patton does.”

  Adam’s smile grew. “There’s nothing any dog loves more than rolling in stinky stuff.”

  Lizzie blew out a breath. She wasn’t thrilled that Adam’s cranky-ass demeanor only cracked because he was laughing at her ignorance, but the way he looked at her now was almost worth it.

  Or rather, it would have been worth it if she still had a huge crush on him. Which, damn it, she did.

  And that made her madder than this whole argument. She knew he didn’t want her. He hadn’t wanted her on his graduation night twelve years ago, and he didn’t want her now. Hell, he hadn’t even come off the roof to talk to her for, like, ever—she had to inadvertently ambush him with a dirty dog to get near him.

  She looked down at Patton, who gazed up patiently, certain that Lizzie would fix whatever the problem was. How could such a neglected dog manage to trust again so easily?

  Of course, what Patton didn’t understand was that he was trusting her to get him an indoor bath. She suspected that to the dog, an indoor bath would only be horrible, as opposed to a very horrible hose bath. The trust he’d so easily given might be blown to smithereens.

  “Come on, Patton,” she said, clipping the dog’s leash to his collar. “I guess you can make it another day until I can get you an appointment at the Perfectly Pampered Pooch.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Adam huffed. “You’re really going to pay good money to get a stray professionally groomed?”

  She looked at the knotted, muddy mess and said, “Yes.”

  Adam scowled, took two steps away, and muttered, “I shouldn’t have replaced that water heater.” Then he came back and hoisted Patton into his arms. “Come on, then, Princess,” he said and proceeded toward the stairs.

  Lizzie scurried to catch up with him. “Where are you going?” And who was he calling Princess? “Patton’s a boy, in case you missed that.”

  “Just come on before I change my mind.”

  Chapter 16

  “Thank you for this,” Lizzie said, smiling at Adam when he came back into the bathroom with a couple of old towels.

  All he could do was nod and say, “Sure,” because the wetter her sheer T-shirt and lacy bra got, the less blood there was going to his brain.

  He forced his gaze to the dog, who cowered in the corner of the tub, as far from Lizzie and the handheld spray nozzle as it could get. It looked up at him, imploring him to step in and save it from this torture.

  “Suck it up,” he told it. “It’ll be over sooner.” Then maybe he could get out of this bathroom without reaching for the cheerful woman who was up to her elbows in lavender-scented doggie shampoo, dragging the dog in question into her lap so she could gently wash around his face.

  Adam draped a big towel over his forearm like a fancy waiter so he could seem to be ready to catch the dog after it was rinsed clean but more to hide how hard it was getting to resist the considerable charms of the nicest girl in town. Christ, he was like an eighteen-year-old kid again.

  But really, what did he think would happen when he brought her upstairs and let her use his bathroom?

  He hadn’t. Thought, that was. Not beyond getting her to stop explaining why the stray needed to be bathed in luxury rather than hosed off outside like every other dog he’d dealt with.

  A memory forced its way into his consciousness—a few years ago, spending his day off at Fort Hood, washing his new partner Tank, and then spending hours under a tree in the hot Texas sun, brushing then petting the damned thing in an effort to bond with it. Spending all that extra time working with a problem dog so it would trust him enough to stop growling at the wrong people. Thousands of dollars may be invested in the breeding and training of a dog, but the army wouldn’t keep an animal that was handler-aggressive. And if it was handler-aggressive, it wouldn’t be adopted out; it would be euthanized.

  Another memory—his grandfather, expressionless, carrying his shotgun and a leash into the kennel to take Adam’s favorite German shepherd, Thor, for one last walk into the brush beyond the barn.

  He forced the memories away and focused on Lizzie. Better to die of unrequited lust today than think about any of that shit.

  Patton squirmed again in Lizzie’s arms while the last of the suds were rinsed away, and she said, “I give up. I think that’s as good as it’s going to get. Can you take him?”

  Reluctant to move the towel away from his groin, Adam nonetheless stepped closer and ignored the way his pants tried to unman him when he squatted to reach for the dog. The second the water was turned
off and it sensed its ordeal was over, Patton leapt from the bathtub and made for the open doorway.

  Adam managed to grab the back half of the dog before it escaped. He put one hand through the collar, but before he could get the towel untangled, the dog wound up and shook like a spin mop, spraying half the water in Texas over his bathroom floor. Lizzie, still sitting in the tub behind him, laughed. He tried again to get the towel over the dog’s body, but it wasn’t any more interested in drying off than it had been in getting washed.

  With a twist and hop any rodeo bull would have been proud of, Patton escaped. It took a mighty jump and landed with all four paws in the middle of the bed. On the clean sheets. Where it gave another wet shake.

  “Damn it!” Adam dove toward the bed to try to stop it before it started rolling around on his pillows, too. He caught it, wrangled it to the floor, and held it still, soaking his shirt and pants. “Can you bring a couple of towels in here?” he called to Lizzie.

  “Um…”

  He glanced toward the open bathroom door. Oh hell. She stood in his bathtub, completely drenched, wet shirt molded to her amazing body, jeans clinging to every curve and crevasse of her lower half. Her hair hung in clumps around her face, framing her smooth, rosy cheeks.

  She must have read his dirty mind, because she crossed her arms over her chest and seemed to shrink in on herself. Probably thought he was the world’s biggest pervert.

  “I don’t think you want me walking in there right now,” she said.

  He didn’t want her to feel disrespected, so he said, “Right. Just, um…” He rose and carried the soggy dog back into the bathroom with him, turning sideways so he wasn’t staring at her body while he grabbed a couple of dry towels. Aaand there she was in the mirror.

  He cleared his throat and reached behind himself to hand her one of the towels, waving his hand blindly until she snatched it from him.

  “I’ll just, uh, I’ll just take the dog out here,” he mumbled, trying to leave without embarrassing either of them any further.

  “Wait—”

  Crap. “Yeah?”

  “Do you—do you maybe have a T-shirt and some sweats or something I can put on?”

  “Yeah, just a minute.” He resisted the impulse to smack himself in the forehead as he pulled the bathroom door shut behind him. Of course she’d need something dry to put on.

  He rubbed the dog a few more times with the towel, soaking up as much water as he could, and then set it on the floor outside in the hallway, next to a pacing, anxious D-Day. Adam shut the bedroom door to block them from coming back in. Let the damned thing go crawl on Talbott’s sleeping bag.

  He found a pair of sweatpants and a tan T-shirt, which he carried to the bathroom door. Knocking, he said, “I’ve got some stuff here.”

  The door cracked open, and Lizzie peered out at him. “Do you even have anything that will fit me?”

  Was she trying to kill him? “Of course I do.” He shoved the clothes through the tiny space and watched the door snap shut.

  He stood there for a minute, until he heard the sucking sploosh of a wet shirt being pulled away from her body. Would her skin be pebbled with cold or pink and smooth with heat? He walked away from the door, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to touch her, either way.

  The next sound he heard was a zipper, followed by some heavy breathing—probably her fighting to get the snug wet denim down over those hips.

  No. No, no, no.

  He tore off his own wet shirt and threw it onto the pile in the corner. He got to the mirror and saw that the plastic taped over his new tattoo was coming loose. He peeled off the remaining tape and threw the temporary bandage away. Niki Chance had done a good job. She’d welcomed him when he and D-Day stopped by her new tattoo shop earlier in the day, and the dog was more than happy to roll around on the floor getting belly rubs from the other artists and a few potential customers.

  He grudgingly admitted that he was glad he’d let her work on him.

  “Oh God!” The exclamation was soft, but the room wasn’t huge, and Adam felt Lizzie’s shock all the way to his boots.

  He whirled before she could get a good count of the shrapnel wounds in his lower back. But when he turned and her eyes ran over his torso, he wasn’t sure whether she’d been reacting with horror at his scars or something else—because the way her pupils flared right now, he thought she might just be impressed with his workout regimen.

  She was wearing the clothes he’d given her and not a thing more. He could tell because her full breasts were straining at the fabric of the worn T-shirt, and the pants were loose at the waist but tighter at the hips, snugging into the creases at the tops of her thighs.

  He swallowed and nodded, trying to speak. “You, uh, you got into the clothes all right.”

  She realized he was examining her and crossed her arms over her chest again. She turned slightly, shoulders slumping forward, as though that could make her body disappear.

  Jesus. Who had made her so self-conscious?

  He looked away. “I’m sorry. I…don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

  “It’s not your fault. I’m a wreck.”

  He looked at her then, but it was her misery that he was aware of now, not her dangerous curves. “I thought that was my job title.”

  She snorted. “Everyone has their own interpretation. I know I’m huge, and this stretchy stuff doesn’t help things any. I’ll try to keep some extra clothes in my car, in case anything like this happens again.”

  How could she not know how incredibly sexy she was? He remembered that in high school, she’d been insecure, and then she’d said something about that ex-boyfriend judging how much she ate. The asshat who’d let her believe she was anything less than perfect had found her weak spot, enlarged it, and left some pretty damned big scars. Adam wanted to kick his ass.

  Adam had failed miserably at a lot of things—keeping his team safe, keeping his family financially afloat. If he could do one thing right, it would be to make sure Lizzie stopped hating her own body, because damn. He loved it.

  * * *

  Lizzie had been chilly when she’d peeled out of her wet clothes in Adam’s bathroom, and his worn T-shirt and threadbare sweatpants hadn’t done much to warm her up. But the way he looked at her right now sent shivers down her spine that had nothing at all to do with the temperature.

  Of course, when she came out of the bathroom and saw all that tattooed skin-covered muscle, she had a hot flash. There was a red, white, and blue Celtic knot surrounding one of his biceps that ran up his shoulder, where it expanded and became an American flag most of the way across his back.

  Then he turned to face her, and her brain short-circuited. While Adam stared at her, every insult her ex had ever hissed in her ear came flooding back. She tried to mentally sneer at Dean, the way her therapist had suggested—give it right back to him, because anyone who needs to control you with insults probably has a small penis—but she wasn’t sure that was working right now. And yeah, her therapist was technically a hairdresser, but she’d talked Lizzie through some rough times and gotten her over a few really bad kitchen color jobs, and Lizzie trusted the woman. Why was she thinking of Dean when Adam freaking Collins was semi-naked right in front of her, anyway?

  “Lizzie.” Adam stepped closer to her. The heat from his skin radiated over her.

  Had his eyes always been that blue? The air in the room thickened, and it suddenly became harder to breathe.

  “Lizzie,” he repeated. “I need you to know something.”

  “Um, okay,” she croaked.

  “You have no reason to hide your body. As a matter of fact…” He hesitated, those eyes as sincere as she’d ever seen them.

  Oh good. Here came a pep talk about how all she had to do was cut down on partially hydrogenated fats and carbs and then start doing CrossFit, and she’d
feel a million times better and—

  His lips pressed against hers as his hands came to rest on her hips, giving her the impression, for one brief second, of being cherished and safe. It was a little kiss, just a touch. His mouth was gone before she even had time to register what he’d done, but the…the…after-feel of it had her raising her fingers to her lips as he stepped back.

  Stunned, she stared at him until he looked away—toward the window, and then down, his hands on his hips, blowing out a big breath.

  This gave her a moment to look at him again, at the way he—oh Lord. He either had a banana in his pocket or… She looked back at his face, and his smirk told her that he’d totally caught her looking.

  Well, fine. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been looking at her first. Not because he thought she was disgusting but because he thought she was sexy. That was what had started this whole…whatever this was.

  It struck her suddenly that they were in his bedroom. As in the room where he slept, where he took off his clothes, where he probably slept without his clothes.

  He cleared his throat. “So anyway,” he said, “I think you’re pretty hot.”

  Lizzie couldn’t help it. She laughed. His little smirk became a real smile, and she realized that as weird as this situation was, she felt almost comfortable, for the first time in…she didn’t know how long.

  “Well, then, I’ll have to ask if I can borrow this outfit for my next hot date.”

  He nodded. “It’s yours.”

  “I’m not sure, though…pumps or flats?”

  “Are pumps the ones with the pointy toes and the high heels?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pumps all the way.”

  “I’ll have to see if I have any that would go with these colors.”

  “I don’t think the color matters all that much,” he said with a gleam in his eyes that suggested it didn’t matter what she paired the shoes with. Nothing at all might be even more acceptable.

  Oh Lord. The idea of traipsing around naked in front of someone as hot as Adam was bad enough—stumbling around in high heels? Ridiculous.