Saving the Sheriff: A Three River Ranch Novella (Entangled Bliss) by Roxanne Snopek

Author:Roxanne Snopek [Snopek, Roxanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: cop, ranch, animals, sweet, small town romance, stranded, christmas, reindeer, susan mallery, snowstorm
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC
Published: 2014-07-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

They’d barely dumped the hay out for the caribou when the wind picked up in earnest and drove them back to the safety of the house. Frankie acted like she’d completely forgotten that episode in the barn.

The terror that had almost incapacitated her. The kiss that almost incapacitated him.

When they’d gazed into each other’s eyes, he’d unexpectedly accessed something hidden and protected and terribly private. Even though she’d been forced to trust him he felt like he’d been handed something precious and fragile.

“Oh man, it feels good in here.” Frankie shed her wet outerwear and went straight for the fire.

The dog went to her dish and sat, staring meaningfully at Red. He was grateful for the distraction.

“It’s not fair,” he said, spooning food into the bowl. “I’m the provider, yet this dog shadows you like you’re the only thing between her and starvation. I thought they always loved the ones that fed them.”

“Well.” She looked at the leashes hanging by the door. “Some invasions of privacy a lady doesn’t forgive. Want me to feed her?”

Mistral quivered and cast an adoring look her way.

“No,” he said, mixing the soft food in with the crunchy kibble. “She’s a smart dog. She should know I was only trying to keep her safe.”

Frankie got up to join him at the counter. Backlit by the fire, all he could see clearly was her silhouette, the clean, smooth lines of her body, hugged by thermal underwear. And nothing else. Muscles flexed and shifted, lean and lithe and lovely. Nipples tight with cold budded beneath the nubbly weave, making his fingers itch to reach out and touch.

He hit the edge of the dish on the counter, spilling a few kibbles. Instead of leaping on them, the dog looked at Frankie, as if asking permission.

“Go ahead, honey. It’s your supper.”

The mutt inhaled the food on the floor, then turned to the dish Red had prepared, as if he wasn’t there. Instead, Frankie was rewarded with a smile of adoration from those massive crunching jaws.

She laughed. “Don’t take it personally.”

“Kind of hard not to.” He lit the candles on the table. The last thing he wanted was a rerun of her panic attack.

“I’m a stand-in for Rory, that’s all. I feel sorry for Mistral. She’s lonely.”

“Lonely.”

“Yeah, you know, wishing you weren’t alone? Feeling sad because someone you cared for was gone? I guess she recognized a kindred spirit.”

“You? You don’t seem like a lonely person.”

“My mom always told me that to get a friend, you have to be a friend. But what I wanted was a sister. Still do, I suppose.”

Frankie’s easy admission speared him in the chest. Another tender gift. Didn’t she know how vulnerable this made her? How much it would hurt when someone found that soft spot and dug in, just for the sake of causing pain? She cultivated such a strong, independent image, yet there was this other side of her too, and her ease with it baffled him.

“You’d be one also, but you haven’t faced your own loneliness yet.

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