She swept in a breath as he suddenly bent his head and brushed the side of her cheek with his lips.
Her heart nearly cracked at the tenderness of it all.
“You’d better get some sleep,” he said, warm breath brushing across her skin.
“What about you?”
“I thought I’d crash here. On your couch.”
“Again you think I need babysitting?”
A slash of white showed in the darkness as he grinned. “I think I do.”
She almost laughed, despite everything else, and it felt good. “I don’t think you’d ever need a sitter, cowboy,” she said. To her surprise, he drew her into the circle of his arms, pulled her tight against him and rested his chin on the top of her head.
“Oh, darlin’,” he whispered thickly, “if you only knew.”
She heard the beating of his heart, echoed by her own and started to pull away, only to have his arms tighten around her. It was as if he’d been waging a silent emotional battle and had finally, unwillingly, given in.
“Oh, hell,” he growled, then captured her mouth with the pressure of his own. Gone was the tentative touch of his body to hers. His hands twined in her hair and he held her close, so close she could barely breathe. Hungry lips melded to hers.
She kissed him back. Eagerly. Without a thought to anything but the persistent pressure of his mouth against hers and the feel of his body. Hard. Sinewy. All male. She didn’t think where this might lead, just that right now, this very instant, she needed to be wanted, to be touched, to be kissed.
To forget.
Her fingers clutched his shirt and she opened her mouth to the invasion of his tongue. Her mind spun. Pure, wanton fantasy became reality until she heard a sharp, demanding bark from the other side of the door.
Groaning, she pulled her head away from his. “Khan,” she said.
Travis chuckled. “Never have I taken a backseat to a dog,” he said, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes.
“If you hang around me, you’d better get used to it.”
His hands dropped and she turned, shaking her head at the ridiculousness of the situation, then unlocked the door. Khan bounded through the door. He wiggled and wormed through her legs, barking happily.
“Yeah, you’re spectacular,” she said. “We all know it.”
The dog insisted on attention from Travis, too, and only after having been petted and scratched, talked to and praised, did he bound off the porch to find a bush or fencepost on which to relieve himself.
“Isn’t he great?” she teased.
“The best.”
So the cowboy did have a sense of humor. Even in the face of such a ghastly situation. Which was good. Shannon was a firm believer that black humor was better than no humor at all.
From inside the house, the puppy yipped. “Duty calls,” Shannon said and walked into the house, snapping on lights, pushing the horror of the night into a far corner of her mind. She wouldn’t let herself dwell on that last image of Oliver, nor would she let the desperate words of the tape she’d received, the pleas for her to help from the child she’d never met, run through her mind. Not right now. There was time enough for that later.
“Hey, Marilyn, how’re you?” she asked, reaching into the pen and picking up the soft little puppy. Her face was washed over and over again. “Yeah, yeah, I missed you, too. Soooo much.” Shannon spent the next fifteen minutes dealing with the puppy, feeding her, holding her, talking to her and walking her outside.
Travis rummaged in a cupboard that served as Shannon’s liquor cabinet and fixed them each a stiff drink.
The puppy was wide awake, ready to be up for hours. Or so she thought. “I know, now you’re all hyped up, right?” Shannon said, kissing Marilyn’s soft little head. “Wrong.” She played with the two dogs for a few more minutes. Once they were both calmer, she straightened and gratefully accepted the drink, a short glass with some kind of amber liquor poured over ice cubes.
“Scotch,” Travis said and they touched the rims of their glasses together. “To…better days.”
“And nights.”
“And finding our daughter.”