Big Sky Dog Whisperer, page 18
“Stow that smile and come get some food.”
He followed, but he had no intention of stowing the smile.
Jodie walked up the path, picturing a quiet and maybe slightly intimate raiding of the fridge in a dimly lit corner of the silent kitchen. It was the sort of thing that she’d sometimes fantasized about being able to do in her own home, because she sure couldn’t do it living with her parents. There was always someone underfoot in the Brooklyn brownstone.
With his success, Davy probably had his own place by now. She hadn’t thought to ask and now it no longer mattered. She’d burned that bridge. Oh, he’d probably take her in happily if she showed up, but it hadn’t been the right choice this morning and it wasn’t now.
And that wasn’t even considering Stan’s kiss. Talk about a SEAL who put a hundred percent of his focus on the task at hand. Her body still vacillated between shivering and burning up from pure animal heat at the thought of that. She’d admired his chest earlier; his t-shirt had been just as wet as hers on the river bank and he was gorgeous. A woman could get lost in a chest like that and take a week to find her way back out, even with a tracking dog.
It had felt even better. She’d been counting the beats of his heart automatically, an instinct from tracking how many steps she’d gone from the last known safe point. And lying with her good ear against his chest was way more than sixty beats into the danger zone. As if to prove her point, he’d backed up that chest with a kiss that—
She almost did a face-plant when she pushed open the kitchen door. As she was gaping at the crowded room, a small girl slammed into her knees hard enough that Jodie might have gone over backward if Stan hadn’t placed a hand against her back.
“Tessa,” Emily called from across the room, sounding exasperated.
The girl giggled and tried to bolt off in a new direction—just like a dog taking a game too far. So Jodie scooped her up in a clean sweep, tucked her under an arm so that her legs dangled to one side and her head and arms to the other. The giggles escalated as Jodie trotted her across the room to Emily, with a galumphing gait like a playing dog, sometimes spinning in little circles just to add to the excitement.
“No, please,” Emily held up a hand to fend her off. She already had her two-year-old on her hip. “Give her to Mark. No, better yet. Keep her. Forever. With my blessing.” To belie her words, Emily tickled her elder daughter’s exposed ribs close by Jodie’s arm. And then leaned down to blow a raspberry there. “Welcome to the evening zoo,” Emily whispered before she turned away.
Indeed it was.
The very pregnant Julie was slouched on a couch, well-buffered with pillows and earnestly talking with Patrick about how to tell if a ranch guest was capable of a certain wilderness trail. Lauren was leaning against a kitchen counter, teasing her soon-to-be brother-in-law Nathan about a stew pot he was stirring. Mac and Ama sat in side-by-side armchairs with big mugs of tea, chatting easily with Mark like the lord and lady of the castle they were. Chelsea sat tossing comments into any conversation that caught her whimsy as she breast-fed Christopher.
“Did you ever see anything like it?” She whispered to Stan.
“Not before I moved here. Pretty amazing, isn’t it?”
She leaned back against his chest for just an instant in acknowledgement. Then Tessa flailed again. Jodie swung her up until they were nose to nose, then rubbed their noses together. The girl seemed to like it as much as a dog would—at least Tessa didn’t try to lick her face immediately afterward. She looked as blonde and perfect as her somewhat harried mother normally did.
“Would Tessa like a cookie?”
“No sugar!” Emily called out.
“Too late. She’s in the hands of her evil Auntie now. I claim my constitutional right to spoil any child who isn’t mine.”
Emily grimaced, “That can’t be a constitutional law.”
“It must be,” Stan answered for her. “Because she’s solemnly sworn to uphold it.”
Jodie stuck her tongue out at Emily. She didn’t get the expected eye roll. Instead Emily was eyeing Stan speculatively.
Stan appeared oblivious to the look.
But Emily nodded to herself and turned to Chelsea. “I didn’t believe you, but you were right.”
“Told ya,” Chelsea’s smile was electric.
Jodie figured her best course of action was to pretend she didn’t hear them and carry Tessa over to the table where there was a large plate still sporting a few Toll House cookies—the last remains of the meal they’d missed. She really didn’t want to know what Chelsea had been right about. It was easy enough to guess, knowing the way Chelsea’s mind worked, but having Emily confirm it made Jodie really, really anxious.
Even as she and Tessa sat, Nathan delivered a small glass of milk for the girl and a big bowl of stew each for her and Stan. “It’s really for tomorrow. The flavors will develop more overnight, but it’s all I have hot at the moment.”
“The way it smells,” she took a deep breath and sighed, “I’ll gladly eat it twice in a row.”
He squeezed her shoulder in thanks before returning to tend his pot.
Tessa sat happily with her cookie and milk. Jodie kept one hand casually around Tessa’s waist so that she couldn’t escape unexpectedly.
“You’re good with kids,” Stan tasted the stew. “Oh, last fall’s venison. That is so good.”
Jodie poked at the meat carefully; she’d just assumed it was beef. She tasted a small bite and the flavor filled her mouth. It was richer and…deeper than beef. It tasted a little wild and a little mysterious. After a second spoonful she decided that she would be glad to eat it again tomorrow, though she couldn’t imagine it being more flavorful.
“I don’t know much about kids. My brother was only a year younger, so I don’t have much of a reference. But I know what makes a puppy happy.”
“Chocolate chip cookies,” he offered a lopsided smile. She’d been right all that long time ago: when Stan finally smiled, he was the dictionary definition of lady-killer handsome.
“No, that’s me who loves cookies,” and she stopped eating her stew long enough to grab one and bite off half all at once. She leaned down and shared a nose-to-nose “Mmm” with Tessa.
Stan did the same and they exchanged that greedy smile she’d been able to feel aimed at her back in the darkness just moments ago.
“You look good with a kid,” Stan persisted.
Jodie looked down at Tessa in surprise. Done with her cookie and milk, she leaned against Jodie’s side and looked ready to drift off to sleep. “Never thought about them really. Certainly not my own.”
“C’mon. All women think about that like mad. I mean just look.” He waved a hand to encompass the happy families scattered about the room.
Jodie just shook her head. “Seriously no. Not saying I don’t want them, just never really thought about it. Too much else to do. What about you?”
Stan fooled with his stew for a moment, then spoke without looking up. “Used to. Back before…” he waved his spoon toward his left side and face. “Before this. Had a fiancée and everything.”
“What happened?”
“Dear Stanned me. After.”
“Bitch.”
He shrugged.
“No, seriously, Stan. Total bitch. What kind of a teammate doesn’t stand up when it counts? For a fiancée to not be willing to stand up for her man—that’s obscene.”
Again the uncertain shrug. He still didn’t look up.
Tessa lay her head in Jodie’s lap and she took a moment to get the girl settled.
“One thing for damn sure…” Jodie waited until Stan finally looked up at her.
“What?”
“She wasn’t a SEAL.”
His soft grunt of agreement was slow to turn into a smile, but it got there eventually.
Chapter Seventeen
Stan had lost track of Jodie a dozen times before the evening was over, which had made him crazy every single time. But one moment she was there and the next she was carrying Tessa off to bed close behind Emily. How long did it take to read a twelve-page picture book to a child anyway?
Then Mac, who’d been a Coronado SEAL, wanted to hear what she thought of her station at Virginia Beach. When Mark had started telling war stories, Chelsea had taken Jodie off in some other direction. She and Julie bonded over something else until finally Stan was going mad with how friendly all the ranch women were being to Jodie.
He wanted Jodie.
To himself.
And he wanted her now.
His attempts to be subtle didn’t work. She missed the military hand sign for “rally point”—a pointed finger circled above his head. Rather than her coming over, Doug spotted it while he was at the fridge. He delivered Stan a fresh beer and started asking questions about the upcoming assessment of the dogs. Christ, somehow, after worrying about it all day, dogs were the furthest thing from his mind.
Jodie had touched him. Had touched his face. Not as if it was some scarred disaster (which it was) in need of pity (which it wasn’t). As if it was…his face. It had been such a shock. Yet he could still feel the outline of her cool fingers as if the fire’s heat had only now been eased after all these years.
He wanted more of that.
Instead, he was talking about his damn dogs.
They were halfway back to the bunkhouse before he finally realized it was just the two of them and he stumbled to a halt.
Jodie laughed, “And I thought SEALs were observant. What took you so long to get away from everyone?”
“Me? God damn it, woman. Your female pals weren’t letting me near you.”
She poked a finger into the middle of his chest. “Aw, is da big bad SEAL afwaid of widdle women?”
“I’m not Tweety Bird.”
“No, Tweety is way cuter.”
“Like you.”
“I’m not cute, I’m—”
“The hell you aren’t!” Stan couldn’t believe he was having this conversation. And Jodie sounded as if she could go all night. All night. That’s how he wanted her. That wasn’t going to happen in a bunkhouse filled with ranch hands and thin walls. Taking her in the dog cage, however appropriate for the two of them, wasn’t exactly decent.
He smelled the night air. It was warm and thick with the growing grass, sweet silverberry, pungent sage, and Ponderosa pine. Montana’s notoriously fickle spring had issued a lovely night beneath a shining half-moon. That was how he wanted to see Jodie.
He turned and headed back the way they’d come.
“Wait. Where are you going?”
No way was he going to explain himself. Something had to be done to keep the woman even a little off balance. Besides, if he tried to explain, she’d just shower him with more words.
Stan listened, but never heard a step. He finally turned to see if he’d misjudged and lost her, but she’d come up close beside him without making a noise. Former SEAL. She’d have made a damn good one even without her dog, except for weighing little more than a deep-field mission pack. Thirty pounds of gear when they had to move fast and light; sixty when going in heavy-duty; and when going deep into the field for a long-duration, complex mission, that could easily break a hundred pounds. No woman her size could meet the requirement of carrying that for a week at a time.
She walked beside him in silence, probably guessing where he was leading her.
Up, past the darkened guest cabins and out the path to the swimming lake. Tricky with the damn crutches and he had to concentrate. Jodie’s hand brushed his forearm a few times in guidance over rough sections and it was all the steadying he needed. At a small, weatherproof hutch, he grabbed a couple of the big beach towels that the ranch kept stocked there for guests who forgot to bring one from their cabin.
“Might have been useful to know about that,” Jodie remarked as she took them and they continued down to the lake’s edge side by side.
“It says ‘Spare Beach Towels’ on the side,” he teased her.
“Damn it. Mom was right, I should have learned to read. Too late now.”
He couldn’t wait any longer. Dumping his near-side crutch, he reached for her, but he didn’t have far to go as she was already moving into his chest.
“You aren’t going to jackrabbit away from me this time, right?” Her breath was a whisper on his cheek.
“Wild horses. Not even.”
And once again she lay her cheek on his chest, her good ear, and the world went quiet. The darkness was rich and thick, like the Congo jungle—without the humidity and psychotic warlords.
“Are you just going to hold me all night? Not that I’m complaining,” her whisper barely reached him.
“Just hold you,” he whispered back and leaned down to kiss the top of her head.
“What? Goddamn it!” Jodie pulled back and hit his nose, thankfully not too hard—he saw only a few more stars than were painted across the sky. “Sorry. I can either listen to your heart or to you.”
“I can either hold you one-armed or one-armed. Deal with it.”
She thumped her forehead a couple times against his head. “I was better off when I was just listening to your heart.”
He shifted his hand to place her cheek once more against his chest.
“Yeah, got the message. Not the time for talking. Except I am. You sure about this, Corman? I’m a total and complete basket case. No, don’t answer. I won’t hear you if you do. Squeeze once for yes, twice for no, and three times for I’m a total lunatic. Isn’t that the rule? It’s just nerves, right?”
That gave him pause. She was nervous? He was more in the land of utter disbelief.
Unsure what else to do, he just kept his good arm around her and held her close.
Jodie didn’t know why she was freaking. Whatever this became tonight, her body wanted it. She wanted it.
Turn off your brain. Just turn it off and feel.
When was the last time she’d just felt?
While being slammed to the ground by a mortar blast? While holding her dog as Brandy screamed in terror? Maybe they’d both screamed and she’d never known.
Shut it down!
Block it out!
That’s what she needed.
“Now, Stan. Take me!” Jodie pushed away and hauled off her t-shirt.
Remember nothing.
Feel nothing.
Just purge.
“Whoa. Slow down, Jodie.”
“No! Now!” Pants to the ankles.
Boots.
Goddamn boots.
A good set of boots can save your sorry-ass life. Some stupid chief petty officer in Navy boot camp.
Wrong! They were killing her right now.
She sat her bare butt on the cooling grass, yanking her pantlegs up enough to reach the laces. Broke an already short nail digging at the knot. She sucked on it with one hand while tackling the knot with her other.
Double-knot that sucker, seaman recruit.
Goddamn Chief rules.
Finally free of the boot, she shoved it, her sock, and her pantleg all off in a single push. But her underwear somehow wouldn’t slide free. Because of the bunched pants around her other foot. She found her knife, pulled it out and sliced away the side of her underwear.
“Jodie.”
She began dragging at the other pantleg, hauling it up to get at the other boot’s laces.
“Jodie!”
No time to untie them. She grabbed for her knife again, just as an arm clamped around her arms and ribcage from behind, just below her breasts.
“My boot!” She struggled to reach it, but the arm trapping her was almost as big as her waist and might as well have been made of steel even though it was flesh.
Helplessly pinned against his chest, she vaguely heard the soft click as Stan reset his artificial arm. Then the cool of his metal arm slid across her stomach.
All she could do was hang there, naked except for one fully-clothed foot.
He whispered something close by her ear.
“Wrong damn ear, Corman.”
“Yeah, because you can hear me in this one.”
She wilted, “It’s never going to be okay.”
He held her tighter. “Been there. Done that. No promises that there’s an okay, not sure there ever was. But it gets better. Gets easier.” He hugged her more tightly for a moment. “It even gets good.”
“Good as in holding down a naked psycho so that she doesn’t do something really stupid?”
“And what stupid thing were you going to do?”
“I was going to fuck you.”
She felt the blow of her words slam into him. He tried to yank his arms away, but she trapped them against her.
“I was going to use your body to wipe my goddamn mind, Stan. I wasn’t going to know or care if it was you or not. I was just going to use you until I couldn’t feel anything anymore.”
His attempt to pull away stopped. But he didn’t pull her back tight again and she needed to feel that.
“I don’t want to be…”
“Yourself,” Stan declared with such simple understanding that it shocked her to stillness. “Bad news for you, Jodie. You’re stuck with being you for the rest of your life.”
“Damn it! I want a refund.”
He kissed her on her good ear and somehow it was okay.
“Now what? You just going to keep holding a semi-naked woman all night?”
“Pretty naked from where I’m sitting,” he slid his hand up over one of her breasts, then the other. She could feel the sudden tension in his body.
Tension? More like a fiery heat in hers. She raised her booted foot with its pants leg and sliced underwear anklet to make her point.
Stan let her go and shifted, with a small grunt of pain, until he was sitting by her knees and facing her.
“You’re all clothed. I’m naked, except for…” she waved her booted foot again. “Something’s wrong with this picture.”
“Moonlit Montana spring night. Naked, mostly, woman sitting in front of me. Not a damn thing wrong with it from where I’m sitting.” Then he rested his hand on her foot. “You want help putting it on or taking it the rest of the way off? I’ve got my vote.”
