The Cowboy's Quintuplet Surprise - A Western Romance Read online

  It was a silly fantasy. But it was possible. People did meet in dog parks. Wouldn’t that be more fun, and give her a better story to tell, than meeting someone on a dating app?

  She sank down into the water and allowed the fantasy to play itself out in her mind. Moving in with her fantasy guy, their dogs cuddling up in front of a roaring fire while the two of them snuggled on the couch with a couple of glasses of wine…

  That would definitely be an adventure.

  She could hardly wait for the weekend to arrive.

  Chapter 2

  Susie

  The trip out to Englewood was long, but Susie had been being honest when she had told Sam that she enjoyed long car rides. She spent the first three hours listening to a podcast that Georgia had recommended to her, a true crime series that was so gripping it made the journey virtually fly by.

  When she arrived in the town of Englewood, she stopped at a rest stop to make herself presentable before continuing on to the address she’d been given. Inside, she bought a soda and a pack of gum for herself, then showed the address to the clerk at the checkout.

  “Do you know how much farther it is to get to this address?” she asked.

  He frowned. “I don’t know this place,” he said. “Route 50. Not much out there.”

  Susie felt a pang of discomfort, wondering for a moment if she had been set up in some way. “Nobody lives out there?”

  “Nobody I know of,” the clerk said with a shrug, handing the paper back to her.

  Susie shook herself. She had been listening to too many true crime stories. Yes, it was true that this was often how they began—with a woman traveling alone to a suspicious destination—but that didn’t mean anything weird was going on.

  Besides, if it looks shady when I get there, I can always turn back.

  Still, when she had gotten back to the car, she felt compelled to shoot a quick text to Georgia.

  “I’m going to Englewood to see about a puppy,” she wrote. “I’ll be at this address. Check up on me if I don’t call you later tonight.”

  She added the address and sent the text.

  The answering text came back with lightning speed.

  “You’re getting a puppy?? Send pics!”

  Susie laughed, feeling some of the tension that had built up leaving her body. Of course there was nothing to be worried about. She would talk to Sam Cranston for a bit, she would see the puppies, she would make a decision, and she would be on the road back home with plenty of time to spare before nightfall.

  Nothing was going to go wrong.

  She cracked open her soda and pulled back out onto the highway, driving more slowly now, allowing the app on her phone to give her instructions about where to turn and which roads to follow. It soon became clear that the clerk at the gas station had been right about one thing—there wasn’t much out here.

  “The destination is on your right,” said the automated voice on the phone.

  Susie looked to her right, frowning. There wasn’t anything there at all—just a wall of trees.

  No—wait.

  There was something. She had almost missed it—there was no sign—but there was a dirt road leading off of the main road, weaving in among the trees. The turn was so sharp that she would have driven right by it if not for the direction app alerting her to its presence.

  She slowed the car to a crawl and turned down the path.

  The trees thinned out quickly—it was clear they had only been planted for a few feet along the side of the road, perhaps to keep what lay behind them concealed from passersby. Susie saw a small house in the middle of a big plot of land. It looked as though it probably only contained a couple of rooms.

  Is this the place?

  She couldn’t see a house number, and she was surprised Sam hadn’t explained how difficult it would be to find when they had spoken on the phone. No wonder the clerk hadn’t been sure it existed.

  As she drove up to the house, the door swung open and a man in jeans and a beige cowboy hat stepped out.

  Is that him?

  She was taken aback. She hadn’t spent any time thinking about what Sam Cranston would look like—it hadn’t seemed relevant—but he was almost startlingly good-looking. His sharp jawline was obscured with stubble, his eyes were blue and bright, and he looked as if he had spent several good hours out in the sun. He had wavy, ginger hair that seemed to fit in with the color of the landscape. He wore faded jeans and a blue collared shirt, open to the third button.

  She parked the car and sat staring for an inordinately long time, her brain trying to process his good looks.

  He frowned in her direction.

  Oh, for Pete’s sake!

  She opened the car door and got out, blushing as she did so. He must think she was a real idiot to have been sitting there in her car and staring at him.

  But if that was what he was thinking, he didn’t say so.

  “Are you Susie Avery?”

  “That’s me,” she said.

  “I see you found the place,” he said. “I’m glad. I was a little worried. Sorry I didn’t warn you about the turn off of the highway. Some people miss that.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I found it without any trouble.”

  “Well, that’s good,” he said.

  “Yeah,” she agreed, aware that her voice sounded a little breathy. She felt slightly lightheaded, as if she had had too much caffeine on the drive over.

  Oh, pull yourself together! He’s a good-looking guy! It’s not like you’ve never seen one before!

  “Want to see the puppies?” Sam asked.

  “What?” She blinked and shook herself, feeling like an idiot. She had almost forgotten what she was doing here in the first place.

  Sam frowned. “Or would you like to come in for something to drink first?”

  “The puppies aren’t inside?” she asked, trying to cover her gaffe.

  “Not at the moment,” he said. “They’re playing outside. Such a nice day, we wouldn’t want it to go waste. Want to come and see them?”

  She nodded and followed him around the side of the house to a little fenced area in the back. It looked like he had put the fence up himself.

  A dozen dark brown puppies played within the fence. Two of them were crouched before one another, clearly in the midst of a play fight. Two more were tugging on opposite ends of a scrap of cloth. One sat motionless but alert, watching as one of his siblings’ tails wagged back and forth.

  “Here they are,” Sam said. “Ten weeks old, so they’re ready to leave their mother any time. I’ve got a couple of people already wanting to buy some, but they haven’t come out to make their picks yet, so none of these are spoken for. You get the first choice.”

  “This is a pretty big litter, isn’t it?” she asked, trying to count them. It was difficult, because they kept moving around so quickly. “There are twelve?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “And yes, it is a big litter. Biggest Western Kansas has ever seen, actually. We got our picture in the paper.”

  “Did you?” She was impressed. “I didn’t know that was something papers reported on.”

  He grinned. “I guess it was a slow news day,” he said. “But it helped bring some attention to the puppies. It’ll help them get adopted more quickly.”

  “I can’t imagine you’re going to have any trouble finding homes for these little guys,” she said, reaching over the fence to scratch one of the puppies behind the ear. He turned away from the puppy he had been tussling with to lick her hand.

  “Do you want to get in the pen with them?” Sam asked. “Some people find it easier to get to know them if they can interact with them more directly.”

  “It’s all right?” she asked.

  “Sure it is,” he said. “Climb on in.”

  She nodded and stepped carefully over the fence. The puppies, it seemed, were accustomed to being visited like this, because they all stopped what they were doing and came running over to
pile on top of her.

  She laughed as one of them jumped into her lap and placed his paws on her chest. “You’re friendly, aren’t you?” she asked, tapping the tip of his nose with her finger.

  “They love having guests,” Sam said. “Not that it happens all that often. Not that many people come out here. There’ll be more as they start finding their way to owners, but most people haven’t come to see them yet.”

  She nodded. “You said I was the first?”

  “You’re the second. A young couple came earlier this week and told me they were going to have to decide and call me back. I got the feeling the woman wanted a dog and the man didn’t.”

  “That’s sad,” Susie said. “I hope it doesn’t turn into a fight between them.”

  “You got a man to deal with?” Sam asked. “I like to make sure my dogs are going to a good home. I don’t want to send them somewhere they might not be wanted.”

  “No man,” Susie assured him. “It’s just me.”

  “What do you do for work?”

  “I’m a cheerleading coach.”

  He cocked his head, and Susie could tell he was looking at her differently. She was used to this look. He was imagining her in a cheerleading uniform. The conversation would go one of two ways from here. She hoped he wasn’t going to be gross about this.

  “Were you a cheerleader yourself?” he asked.

  “I was a competitive gymnast, actually,” she said. “In college. But that was a long time ago. A lot of the skills translate pretty well to cheerleading, but I definitely don’t have the chops to coach serious gymnastics.”

  He nodded. “The reason I ask,” he said, “is that I want to make sure you’ll be able to spend time at home with the dog. Especially since you’re single. I don’t like to adopt to certain professions—doctors who might be on call for days at a time, anyone who regularly has to travel overnight for work, stuff like that. That can make for a sad environment for a puppy.”

  Susie was impressed. He didn’t just want to talk about what she looked like in a short skirt—he was asking about this stuff for practical reasons.

  “Not to worry,” she said. “Most of our cheerleading competitions are within the state of Kansas. There are only two or three every year that require us to travel overnight. And I have a big family, so it’ll be easy for me to recruit dog-sitting help on those occasions.”

  “Oh, you have a big family?” he asked.

  “Five brothers and sisters,” she said. “I’m the youngest. All the others are married, so there are eleven of us, really. Plus my parents, of course. There’s never a lack of someone to pitch in if somebody needs help.”

  “Sounds like you guys are close,” Sam said.

  Susie smiled. “We are,” she agreed.

  “It must be nice to have a close family.”

  She nodded. “I like it. My mom can be a bit intense sometimes—she tends to smother us. But that’s a lot better than having a mother who isn’t involved.”

  “I imagine it is,” Sam said.

  Susie felt a sudden flash of embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m doing, blabbering on about my family like this when you didn’t ask. The point is that the dog will be well taken care of.”

  “So you’ve definitely decided on getting one, then?” he asked.

  “Yes, I think so.”

  She turned her attention back to the puppies, trying to forget the fact that she had just acted like a teenager with a crush on a cute guy. She could visualize one of her cheerleaders behaving that way all too easily—in fact, she had seen them act like that. It was typical for them to forget what they were supposed to be doing when someone good looking came into the room, to strike up the newcomer in conversation and abandon their responsibilities.

  She was supposed to be looking at puppies, not at Sam.

  If he had noticed anything weird about her behavior, though, he didn’t comment on it. He leaned on the fence and watched as she surveyed the dogs around her.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to choose one,” she murmured. “They’re all so cute.”

  “I tell people who are having trouble to keep in mind the fact that all of the dogs will be going to god homes,” Sam said. “Labrador puppies are highly sought after. None of these little guys are going to have any trouble finding a family. So you don’t have to worry about the ones you leave behind. They’ll be fine.”

  Susie nodded. That did help. It was difficult each time she set a puppy down. There was a part of her that wanted to bundle the whole dozen into her car—as crazy as she knew that was—and drive away with them.

  Her eye was caught by one little dog who hadn’t joined in playing with his brothers and sisters, nor had he come running over to see her when she had gotten into the fenced area. He was a little smaller than the others, and he had found a blanket and huddled there in a ball, almost as if he was cold or frightened.

  Sam saw her looking. “He’s the runt,” he said.

  “The runt?” Did people really use that term? It seemed kind of heartless.

  “The smallest,” Sam clarified.

  “I know what it means,” she said, crawling over to him. “It’s not his fault he's small.”

  “Of course it isn’t,” Sam said. “But you can’t get as much money for the smallest dog. People want to know that sort of thing when they make their purchase. A breeder has to be able to offer birth weights comparative to the rest of the litter.”

  “You’re saying he’s worth less than the others.”

  “I’m not making a judgment,” Sam said. “But objectively, yes, that’s true.”

  “Well, I won’t pay a penny less than you would take for any of the rest of them.” She stroked the puppy’s back gently and he lifted his head, looking up at her with soulful brown eyes. “He deserves to go for full price.”

  “If you insist,” Sam said.

  “I do.” Carefully, she pulled the blanket the puppy had been resting in onto her lap. He shuffled around a little and then closed his eyes, returning to his sleep.

  “He’s healthy,” Sam said, watching as Susie continued to pet him. “He eats well, and he does play sometimes. He’s just a little lower energy than the others. It’ll be good for him to be away from the competition around here, to be on his own. To have somebody’s full attention.”

  “I think we can do that,” Susie said quietly.

  “So he’s the one you want?”

  Already, she felt bonded to this little dog. She couldn’t believe she had convinced herself that there was a possibility she might leave empty-handed. There was no chance at all of her leaving this little guy behind.

  “He’s the one,” she said.

  “Do you know what you’re going to call him?” Sam asked.

  “Tater Tot.” She hadn’t thought about it, but as soon as the words had left her mouth, she knew it was right. “He’s an adorable little tater tot.”

  Sam grinned. “Okay,” he said. “Tater Tot it is. Why don’t you come inside and we’ll sign the papers and finish out the purchase, and then you can take him home with you?”

  Chapter 3

  Sam

  Sam guided Susie to the breakfast nook. “Can I get you a coffee?” he asked.

  “Coffee would be nice,” she said, smiling.

  He nodded and retreated to the counter to put water on the stove. Having company always made Sam a little uncomfortable. It wasn’t that he didn’t like people, exactly, but he was more accustomed to being on his own and dealing with animals. Susie was pleasant and gregarious, and he was definitely enjoying her company more than he would have expected. Still, it was good to step away for a moment and clear his head.

  He hadn’t expected someone so hot. The truth was that Sam was on his own much of the time, and he hardly ever thought about women anymore. But he was still a man, and there was an incredibly attractive woman sitting in his breakfast nook.

  She tucked a lock of light brown hair
behind her ear as she gazed out the window, revealing her profile, and Sam forced himself to look away. He couldn’t allow himself to stare at her like a moron. He didn’t want her to think badly of him.

  But as he went through the familiar motions of preparing coffee, he couldn’t help remembering that she had told him she’d been a gymnast in college, and that she coached cheerleading now. In addition to having a pretty face, she must have a really athletic body. It was hard to tell, given the clothes she was wearing, though.

  He didn’t want to stand here imagining her in spandex while she was sitting right across the room from him. That would be a jerk move. He gritted his teeth and turned his mind away from the appealing image.

  “How do you take your coffee?” he asked her.

  “Oh,” she said. “Just black, please.”

  “Me too,” he said, surprised.

  “Great,” she said. “You must make it well, then,”

  He nodded. “I think I do,” he said. “Well enough, anyway. I don’t think good coffee needs anything. It’s got enough flavor on its own.”

  “I agree,” she said. “I only add things to my coffee when it’s from fast-food places, because that coffee is always so watery. But I prefer homemade.”

  He finished preparing the coffee and poured generous helpings into two mugs. He carried one over and set it on the table beside her, then sat down with his own mug.

  She was looking out the window, watching the puppies tussle with each other. “I think I would have been too sad to take any of the others,” she said. “Tater Tot is the perfect choice. The rest of them are enjoying each other too much, but I don’t get the feeling he’s going to be sorry to leave the litter.”

  “He’s kind of a loner,” Sam agreed. “I’ve tried to get him involved in their playtimes, of course, but he never seems to want to. Even when he’s active, it’s usually by himself.”

  Then he hesitated. Maybe he shouldn’t be telling her these things before she had signed the adoption papers. Would she decide she didn’t want the puppy after all? Maybe she would worry that he wasn’t capable of bonding with her.