Cathy Gillen - His Baby Bargain

Matt pushed back the brim of his hat with his index finger. Brazenly looked her up and down in a way that heated her flesh, head to toe. “And why is that?” he challenged softly.

Sara focused on the nonprofit organization and the ex-soldiers she was helping. Her actions every bit as deliberate as his, she moved closer still. “Because if you ever deign to meet him, you just might fall in love with Champ, the remaining black Lab puppy from the latest West Texas Warriors Association’s litter.” She certainly had. Not that she was signing up to train a service dog. Not when she would soon be going back to work as a large-animal veterinarian and had a six-month-old son to raise.

Matt folded his arms across his muscular chest and let out a sigh that reverberated through his entire six-foot-three-inch frame. “Good thing I’m not planning on visiting the puppy, then.”

Time to play the guilt card, and appeal to the legendary McCabe chivalry. “You’re seriously opposed to helping out other returning military veterans in need of a therapy dog?”

Irritation darkened his eyes and he pressed his sensual lips into a thin, hard line. “Of course not.” He gestured offhandedly. “Just tell me where to send the check and...”

She held up a staying palm. “We’ve got money, Matt.” At least for the needs of the current litters. “What we need are more hands-on trainers to help socialize the puppies.”

His expression grew even more impatient. “Well, that’s not me,” he countered curtly. “Haven’t you heard? I’m not exactly a dog person these days.”

Actually, she had learned he’d become mysteriously averse to pets. Which was strange. When they’d grown up together, there hadn’t been an animal who didn’t automatically gravitate to the personable cowboy with the exquisitely gentle touch.

Deciding to call him out on this—and anything else that needed to be challenged—she scoffed, “Oh yeah. Since when?” What had happened to him in the time he’d been away from Laramie County? That had made him decide to clear a two thousand acre ranch, all on his own?

Their eyes met, held. For a moment, the years of near estrangement faded and she thought he might answer, but the opportunity passed, with nary a word.

Matt squinted right back at her. Shrugged. “I’ve got a question, too, darlin’.” Deliberately, he stepped into her personal space. “When did you get so darned pesky?”

* * *

The endearment, coupled with the insult, worked just as Matt hoped.

Sara’s slender shoulders stiffened and she drew herself up to her full five feet, nine inches. She glared at him resentfully. “I’ve always been extremely helpful and forthright!”

He grunted and reached for the metal cutters. Walking along the fence, he snipped through the lengths of rusting barbed wire. Irritated to find she was still fast on his heels.

“Is that what they’re calling your do-gooding these days?” He slanted a glance at her, and noted the way the breeze was plastering the soft knit of her sweater against her delectable breasts. Ignoring the hardening of his body, he turned his gaze back to her face. “And here I was thinking you were just bossy and interfering.”

She dug her boots into the hard ground beneath them and propped both her hands on her denim-clad hips. “I go where I’m needed, Matt.”

The fact she, like so many others close to him, apparently saw him as a charity case rankled. Gathering up the wire, he walked back to toss it into the bed of his pickup truck alongside the stack of weathered metal posts. “I don’t remember calling for a large-animal vet.”

She continued shadowing him, getting close enough he could inhale the lilac of her perfume. “Then I guess it’s your lucky day,” she announced. “Me, showing up here—”

“Uninvited,” he turned to point out.

She held her ground. “—and all.”

This ornery woman had no idea who she was playing with. “Uh-huh.” Matt moved closer, drinking in her fair skin and sun-blushed cheeks. Damn, she was pretty, standing there in the spring sunlight. Her cloud of golden-blond hair drifting across her shoulders and framing the delicate features of her face.

In an effort to further repel her, he let his gaze move lower, to the lithe build of her body. From her dainty feet and long sexy legs, to her slender waist and the lush fullness of her breasts, she was all woman.

Still enjoying the view immensely, he returned his focus to the elegance of her lips, cheeks and nose. The jade depths of her eyes. “Sure you’re in the right place? Talking to the right ex-soldier?”

“Definitely.” She trod even closer and tilted her chin up to his. “And believe it or not, I’m strong enough to handle you, cowboy.”

“Sure about that?” Matt asked gruffly, wishing he hadn’t noticed how feminine and perfect she was. All over.

“Yes,” she repeated.

Funny. She hadn’t seemed strong when she’d lost her husband a little over a year before. She’d seemed vulnerable. Achingly so.

To the point, every time he’d run into her, he’d been tempted to take her in his arms and hold her close. Not as the platonic friends they’d once been in their high school days. But as an ex-soldier comforting another ex-soldier’s wife.

There were several problems with that. First, he’d already gone down that route before—and learned the hard way that any relationship based on rebound emotions was a huge mistake.

And second, she was so damn pretty and accomplished these days, he knew he’d never be able to leave it at that. Holding Sara close would make him want things he couldn’t have and had no business wanting.

Because, thanks to the mistakes he’d made and the guilt he still harbored, having a wife or a family of his own was no longer in the cards for him.

Clearly misunderstanding the reason behind his long pause, Sara pleated her brow. She looked at him more closely, then queried cautiously, “Really, Matt? You seriously doubt my inner strength?”

“No,” he conceded honestly. “You’re as feisty as they come.”

“Feisty,” she said, repeating the term distastefully. “Really.”

He grinned, thrilled to be getting under her skin.

It was that friction that would help keep them apart.

Watching the color come into her high, sculpted cheeks, he removed his hat and let it fall idly against his thigh. “Don’t like the term?”

Her pretty green eyes narrowing, she watched him run his fingers through his hair. “It’s condescending!”

He settled his Resistol squarely back on his head. “Yeah?” he retorted sardonically. “In what way?” Because she was feisty and then some. Always had been.

Oblivious to how much he liked her spirit, Sara let out a lengthy sigh. “In the sense that feisty is an adjective usually attached to a female or small animal one would not expect to defend itself.”

He rolled his eyes at her deliberately haughty tone. “Spoken like a veterinarian,” he said. Then seeing a way to needle her further, added, “A woman veterinarian.”

Now she was spitting mad. She planted her hands on her hips again. “You just keep digging yourself in deeper, don’t you, cowboy?”

He shrugged in a way designed to rankle her even more. “Hey. If it annoys you, maybe you should leave.” He went back to pull up some more aging fence posts.

“Not until you at least agree to come to my ranch and see the puppy.”

He turned so suddenly she nearly slammed into him. He inhaled another whiff of her lilac perfume. “Why me?” he asked as his gaze drifted over her fitted suede jacket and dark, figure-hugging jeans. “Instead of someone else a hell of a lot more amenable?”