breasts and trim midriff. He liked the half-moon necklace and matching earrings she wore, too.
In fact, liked everything about her. Maybe too much.
“Something’s going on with you,” she persisted.
He cut her off brusquely. Not about to go down that path. “I don’t have PTSD, if that’s what you’re inferring.”
She regarded him with steely intent. “Sure about that? I heard your last tour was pure hell. That’s why you quit the army when your commitment was up.”
He shrugged. “I came back. I’m alive.”
Another telling lift of her delicate brow.
“Maybe the question, then, is,” she countered softly, “who didn’t?”
Again, right on point.
Silence fell.
Wondering if it would always be like this between them—her challenging, him resisting—he said nothing more.
The puppy came over, panting. Sara gathered him in her arms. “Time to eat, buddy.”
Matt followed her inside. Figuring it was his turn to question her on her choices, he said, “I’m surprised you took on a puppy when you already have your hands full with Charley.”
She filled a food bowl and set it back inside the whelping pen, next to the water bowl and the puppy. “I didn’t plan to, but Alyssa Barnes, the soldier who was going to raise Champ and help with his training, had a setback.” She straightened and went to the sink to wash her hands, then came back to him and took Charley in her arms.
“She’s going to be in the hospital another week, and then a rehab facility here in Laramie for about twenty-one days after that,” she explained. “But she still wants to do it, and I’m not about to take that away from her, when this is all she’s been looking forward to. And since you wouldn’t even consider helping me, cowboy, even on a short-term basis, I volunteered myself.”
Guilt flooded Matt. Along with the surprising need to have her understand where he was coming from. He trod closer, appreciating the sight of Charley nestled contentedly against her breasts. Noting how sweet they looked, he spread his hands wide. “Look, it’s not that I’m selfish or heartless.” He drew a deep breath and confessed what he had yet to admit to anyone else. “I just don’t want to be around dogs, okay?” Even one as technically cute and lively as little Champ.
She settled Charley in his high chair, persistent as ever. “And again I have to ask... Why is that, Matt? What’s changed?”
Annoyed, he watched her snap a bib around Charley’s neck. Wishing he didn’t want to haul her against him and kiss her again. Never more so than when they sparred.
Working to keep his emotional distance, he let his glance sift over her in a way he knew annoyed her, then challenged, “Why do you care?”
Especially after she’d already told everyone she was giving up on him. And walking away...
A fact that had somehow irked him.
“I don’t know.” She plucked a banana from the bunch. Looked over at him and sighed. “Maybe it’s because I feel disrespected by you.”
Disrespected! “In what sense?” He’d come here to extend the olive branch. Not drive her away with bad behavior the way he had a week ago. And yet here they were, bringing out the worst in each other...again...
Setting the peeled banana on a plate, she frowned and said, “In the sense that people tend to not tell me sad or upsetting stories since Anthony died.” She raked a hand through her hair, pushing it off her face. “It’s as if they’re afraid that I’m so fragile, if they say or do the wrong thing, they’ll push me over the edge.”
He lounged against the counter, opposite Charley. He empathized with her. “I’m familiar with the walking-on-eggshells part.”
She wheeled her son’s high chair closer to the breakfast table, sat down and began to mash the fruit with a fork. “Then you can also understand my frustration at having apparently been tasked with getting your help and yet simultaneously been cut out of the loop. Because there is clearly something more going on here than what I’d been told.”
He could see she felt blindsided, when all she’d been trying to do was help. The wounded vet, Alyssa Barnes. Him. Champ. And in that sense, he did owe her. So...he drew up a chair on the other side of Charley, sat down and said, “You want to know what happened?”
She nodded, expression tense.
Matt gulped. “I saw a dog get blown up right in front of me.” And worse... “His death was my fault.”
Sara stared at Matt, hardly able to comprehend what he had just said. “And your family knows you were a part of such a terrible tragedy?” she asked, aghast. Or more horrifying still, that he felt personally responsible?
His expression closed and inscrutable, Matt watched her begin to feed her son. “I’m not really sure what they know.”
Sara spooned up a bit of mashed banana from Charley’s chin. “But you haven’t told them,” she ascertained quietly.
As he exhaled, his broad shoulders tensed, then relaxed. “It would freak my mom and dad out to know how close I came to dying. So no, I didn’t give them any specifics other than what was reported in the news. That our base was hit by suicide bombers in the middle of the night. And there were no injuries or fatalities among our soldiers.”
Thank heaven for that, she thought. Resisting the urge to jump up and hug him fiercely only because she thought such a move would be rejected, she asked, “Was it a bomb-sniffing dog who saved you?”
“No,” Matt said hoarsely. “Mutt was one of a half dozen strays we picked up over there and took in.”
Sara caught the note of raw emotion in his voice. She slanted Matt another empathetic glance, then rose and got two bottles of water from the fridge. “The army lets you do that?”
He tilted his head. “It depends on the commanding officer and the situation.” Matt relaxed when Charley turned and grinned at him. He stuck out his hand, and Charley latched on to his palm, banging it up and down on the tray. “Our CO thought having dogs around was good for morale. Reminded us of home. Gave us something other than the war to think about.”
Sara could see that. Relieved that he was finally confiding in her, she walked back to join Matt and her son at the breakfast table.
“So he let us keep them and train them, but no one person was allowed to adopt any one dog. The deal was the pets belonged to the unit, and we had to rotate their care,” Matt related. “Anyone who was interested could sign up, and on the day and night you were assigned, you fed and walked a dog, and got to sleep with that particular dog next to your bunk.”
Sara knew full well the healing power of animals. “Sounds nice.” Their fingers brushed when she handed
