Chapter Four
Shane turned off the tractor and stared at the snow-covered road ahead. “You ready for an uphill hike in the snow, Miami girl?”
“To find this dog?” Chloe was already scrambling off the tractor. “Of course. I have boots on.”
“But no gloves.”
She held up her bare hands. “I always forget them. And the scarf. There’s so many extra parts to winter.”
Still seated, Shane looked down at her, affection pulling at his heart. “I’ll hold your hands, or we can run back and get you a pair. You know I never wear them.”
“Because you can’t feel the dogs with them on,” she said, knowing exactly why he, a professional trainer, wouldn’t wear gloves. “So I don’t want them. I won’t be able to grab that little puppy when I catch sight of him.”
He had to laugh, climbing down. “And I thought I wanted to win bad. My competitive nature must be contagious.”
“Not a bit, but your dog-loving nature is.” She reached for his hand, tucking her fingers up his sleeve. “I will not sleep tonight if someone doesn’t bring that dog home, Shane.”
“Someone will. Count on it.” He tugged her closer and kissed her lips long enough to make them a little warmer, then drew back and angled his head toward the snowy trail ahead. “Do you recognize this place?”
She paused to look up the grade of the hill. “Is this what you guys call Mud Road?” She threw him a smile. “Of course I recognize it. The sight of our first real make-out session. Pretty sure some clothes came off.”
He grinned back, remembering the day he got Chloe Somerset on an ATV and in her first mud bath. It might have been the moment he realized he loved this beautiful, thin-blooded neat freak.
“’Fraid you’ll have to keep your top on tonight,” he said. “It’s freezing-ass cold. And there are probably ice patches, so we have to go up on foot this time.”
“Of course, we don’t want to scare off the little pupper.” She rubbed her hands together, blowing on them. “I can’t stand the thought of that dog out here in the cold, Shane. Let’s go. We have to find little Jack Frost.”
“Okay, no worries, I have a plan.” Taking her hand, they set off for the hill, staying in the center where the snow wasn’t much more than a crunchy dusting under their boots.
“Tell me the plan,” she said as they hiked.
“We get to the lookout at the top first, and keep our clothes on, even though if we weren’t looking for a lost dog…” He pulled her in for a sexy, slow kiss. “We could find creative ways to warm up.”
“Mmm. And let someone else find the dog?”
He considered that. “Might be worth losing.” He kissed her again, letting their tongues touch and heat up. “But who cares about winning, anyway?” He deepened the kiss, tasting mint and snow and this woman he loved so intensely.
“Who are you?” she teased, pulling back to reluctantly end the contact they both enjoyed so much.
“Me? You’re the former Florida germophobe out in the freezing cold ready to get snow and dirt all over you.” But the truth was, they’d both changed since falling in love.
“I am Chloe Somerset…Kilcannon, as of April eighteenth.” She smiled up at him. “Your wife.”
“Damn, that sounds good.” He slipped an arm around her and lowered for one more kiss, but she drew back.
“Shane. The dog.”
Oh yeah, right.
“What is your plan?” she asked.
“Okay, the plan. We go to the lookout, which is the highest point on all of Waterford Farm. The entire way up this hill, we’ll strategically drop treats to lead the dog to us.”
“Treats. Genius.”
He pulled out the bag and let a few tiny cookies fall. “Of course, because I’m the dog trainer. Garrett wants to rescue them all, so he’ll try to get the pooch to come to him. Liam wants to turn them into watchdogs, so he’ll use Jag to do his work. But I know how a dog thinks.”
“Affection above all, then food and fun,” she said, reciting something she’d heard him say a hundred times with the dogs at Waterford. “Okay, give me some treats to strategically drop, too. But not too many. We want that dog to be hungry and follow us up to where he can’t get out of our sight.”
He grinned at her. “You do pay attention when I train the dogs.”
“Mostly I watch the trainer,” she admitted, blowing on her hands again. “God, when am I going to learn about gloves?”
“I got you some for Christmas.”
“Really? Too bad we didn’t do the present exchange first. I might have worn them. Anything else?”
“Do you want me to ruin the surprise? Not a chance,” he said. “What did you get me?”
“Coal, because you’re a bad boy.”
“Which is what you love most about me.”
“Maybe. And I’d love you more if you tell me what else you got me.”
“No way.” He hugged her a little tighter. “I want it to be a surprise, so don’t keep asking. It’s good. You’ll love it.”
“Give me a hint,” she urged.
“Okay,” he agreed. “It’s lace, skimpy, and able to be removed with my teeth.”
“You better not make me open that at the gift exchange, Shane Kilcannon.”
“I have to. You know Gramma Finnie will take a picture and blog about it.”
That just made her laugh again, a sound that rang as sweet as any Christmas carols. They walked without talking for a few minutes, listening to their steps on the snow and dirt, then they heard the bark of a distant dog, one that sounded pretty excited.
“That was Jag,” he said, instantly recognizing the dog he’d spent several months helping Liam train.
“He found Jack Frost?” She stopped and grabbed his arm.
“He’ll call home if he has, then Gramma will call all of us or send out a group text. Just in case, let’s keep going.”
“So you’ve done this before, I take it.”
Shane laughed. “Find a lost dog? My whole life. Not on Christmas Eve, though. That’s a first.”
“I bet your mom would not be happy about this interruption of her traditions.”
“This one?” He shook his head, fighting a smile, thinking of his mother. “She’d be all over this one, trust me.”
He felt Chloe’s gaze scrutinizing him.
“What?” he asked when she didn’t say anything.
“Nothing, it’s just that you’ve come so far with your grief.”
He dropped a treat, slowing his steps, thinking about that statement. “You’ve helped,” he said simply. “I’m not mad at her at all anymore.”
“Your dad is suffering, though.”
“I know that. We all know that,” he said. “He thinks he’s doing such a magnificent job of covering it up, but Christmas was Mom’s big thing. This time of year has to be hard on him, especially when all three of his sons—well, the three that are home—have someone to share it with.”
“But that makes him happy,” she said. “He’s the Dogfather, remember? The driving force behind love in this family.”
She took a treat and gave him a questioning look. When he nodded, she dropped it like the two little lost kids in one of the fairy tales his mother used to read to him. “He needs love, too,” he said, the words surprising him even as they came out.
“Then his kids ought to turn the tables on him and set him up with some women.”
“Oh, no.” Shane shook his head vehemently. “He’s not going to remarry. That’ll never happen. He’ll never even date.”
She choked softly. “He’s sixty and sexy. Not dead and done.”
“Enough with the tourism phrases,” he said, trying for a light note but failing. “This isn’t a town you’re selling to America, it’s my dad.”
She didn’t argue, but Shane knew Chloe well enough to know that didn’t mean the end of the discussion.
But then the hill got so steep that she had to concentrate on each step, while she held his hand and worked to catch her breath, which came out in quick puffs of white clouds. Just as they reached the lookout, he put the treat bag on the snow, holding on to one. Once they were situated at the top of the hill, he pulled out his phone to make sure he hadn’t missed a call or text.
“Do we still have a chance to win?” she asked.
“I hope someone found him. Then we have a chance to…” He angled his head toward the ground. “Make snow angels.”
Her mouth opened in a sweet little ‘o.’ “I’ve never done that.”
“Sand angels in Miami?”
“I have an idea, though.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and looked up at him. “I was thinking of something.”
“Yes?”
“Why don’t you make fixing up the Dogfather a family competition? Then you’ll get into the idea.”
For a split second, he considered it, then stomped that stupid idea away. “No way, I’m not—”
Something small and dark darted in and out of his peripheral vision. Chloe must have seen it to, because she spun around. “Oh, what are we doing? We should be looking for that dog!”
He didn’t answer, but she pointed to the left.
“Over there!” She started after the tiny dark spot, which was too far away for Shane to see clearly. She pounced, sending up a cloud of snow, but Shane saw it shoot away, still out of the beam of his light and impossible to really see.
“Go get him, Shane!”
On instinct, he launched forward in the direction of the shadow, throwing himself down in a drift, only to come up empty-handed.
“I see him.” Chloe whizzed by, down the hill a ways, but she slid onto her butt and let out a shriek as she took a sled ride minus the sled. “Oh! Go get him, Shane! Get him!”
He’d have laughed if he wasn’t so damn focused on not looking like a fool in front of her, or not seeming to care about the dog. “I got him!”
The animal disappeared under a bush about twenty feet away from where Chloe had stopped. Still holding one treat, Shane headed in that direction, pausing to give Chloe a hand up, then the two of them clomped through the snow toward the bush.
“We got him now,” Chloe whispered.
He very much doubted that, but he neared the bush, his treat extended, not entirely sure what he’d find under there, but he had a pretty good idea. “Come here…Jack. Come here, boy.”
Under the bush, something moved, uncertain.
“Shane.”
“Shh. Shh. I got this.”
“But Shane.”
He shook his head, focused, ignoring the cold snow on the knees of his pants, one hundred percent intent on proving to her that he could do this.
“Shane.”
Shane crouched and slid his hand into the bush, palm up. As the tiny mouth pressed against his skin, he swooped in with his other hand and closed it around the little furry body, half expecting to be nipped.
Victorious, he pulled out…a tiny brown and white bunny. “As I suspected…not Jack Frost. Jack Rabbit.”
“Shane.” Chloe jabbed his arm, and he looked up to follow the beam of the flashlight she held.
There, at the top of the hill, was an ornery-looking raccoon, munching contentedly on the treats they’d left behind and staring at them like they held his dessert.
“Put the bunny in your pocket, Shane.”
“What?” He glanced at her. “Why?”
“To keep it safe from that predator.”
“It’s a wild rabbit, Chloe, and while I appreciate your newfound love of all animals, this one should stay out here. It knows how to fend for itself.”
She looked at him like he was out of his mind. “That raccoon will devour it.”
“Probably not.” He gave the little fur ball a pet. “They know how to handle their environment.”
“We’re bringing him home.” She tipped her head and gave him a look he’d never say no to. “Please.”
Very carefully, he tucked the tiny rabbit into his pocket and sighed. “I’ll never hear the end of this from my brothers,” he murmured.