Aware that sounded like more than he could handle, without triggering a whole new slew of nightmares, Matt lifted his hand. “Listen, I’ll help out with anything that needs to be done organizationally...”
Her eyes glittering with disappointed, Sara seemed to guess where this was going. “But you still don’t want to help in the hands-on socialization of Champ.”
“No.” Aware the pup had finished peeing and was hopping around his feet, begging to be picked up, Matt steadfastly ignored him. “Not my thing.”
Sara picked up a ball and threw it, then watched Champ bound off to retrieve it. “What’s happened to you? I don’t remember you having an aversion to animals growing up.”
The truth was he hadn’t.
“Did you get bit or attacked by a dog or something?”
Once again she knew him too well. Despite the time that had elapsed since they’d been friends.
“No.”
She peered at him in concern. “Lose one you cared about so deeply that you can’t bear to be around another?”
Comforted by the feel of Charley snuggled up against him, Matt pushed away the unwanted emotions welling up inside of him. “I told you. I don’t have the patience to train a puppy.”
“Really?” she echoed skeptically. “Because you seem to have a lot of patience with my son.” Her gaze drifted over him and Charley before she tossed the ball again.
He turned his attention to the close fit of her white yoga pants over her spectacular legs, and felt his body harden. “It’s different.”
She continued to study him as Champ raced off.
His gaze drifted up to her peach knit tunic top. The fit was looser, but it still did a nice job of showing off her luscious 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