скачать книгу бесплатно
A McCabe at Heart
Cathy Gillen Thacker
Fast Fiction Romantic - short stories with a Happy Ever AfterRobin McCabe-Taylor hopes a puppy will help her bond with Molly, the young girl she wants to adopt. But when ex-flame Sam Navarro comes to the rescue with golden retrievers, Robin begins to dream of a family not just with Molly, but with Sam, too.But is theirs the kind of family Sam wants?
A McCabe at Heart
Cathy Gillen Thacker
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Cover (#u9ed269fa-387b-512f-871a-470b37b9d1f1)
Title Page (#u4ca65dea-41bd-5a3c-8347-87bc2ff7f1a9)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ud9dcae29-82b3-5e09-a518-7aeb31426bd2)
Laramie, Texas
“I need a favor.”
Sam Navarro looked at the dark-haired beauty standing in the doorway of the exam room and felt the familiar jolt to his system. It had been five years since he and Robin Taylor had broken up. She’d married someone else. Divorced. Three months ago she had moved onto the ranch next door to his, and had started a business refurbishing old whiskey barrels and wagon wheels. But he hadn’t seen her since the move—was she avoiding him?
He’d become a veterinarian, joined a practice in the town where they’d both grown up, and been engaged—twice—to other women. And yet he was still carrying a torch for the slender thirty-two year old with the intense green-blue eyes. Go figure. Sam went back to examining the stray beagle-collie mix someone had brought to the clinic at closing. “I’m listening.”
Robin stepped all the way into the exam room, the fragrance of her lilac soap and shampoo overriding the smells of dog, disinfectant and antiseptic. She crossed her arms. “I understand you have a new litter of golden retriever puppies.”
Sam stopped to remove a tick, dropping it into a glass tube for later examination. “Born four weeks ago.”
Finding the pup in otherwise good health, if a bit on the thin side, Sam led the thirty-five pound stray to the back for a bath and flea treatment.
Robin trailed after them. “I’d like to arrange a visit.”
Sam lifted the dog into the tub and secured his lead. “Sorry.” He turned on the warm water and used the showerhead to wet down his patient. “The pups from that litter are all spoken for.”
Robin leaned against the far wall, her eyes glued to the action. “Oh, I didn’t want to buy one. I just wanted to borrow one for a little bit.”
“Borrow?” Sam echoed, shampooing the mutt thoroughly.
Robin edged close enough he could feel her body heat and she smiled down at the shivering mutt. “You may have heard I signed up to foster a little girl?”
“Molly Russell.” Age eight. “She lost her mom a year and a half ago.”
“Right. And since then Molly’s been in three different foster homes.”
Sam toweled off the dog, and then led him back to the kennels in the back, where full food and water bowls were already waiting. “A shame she wasn’t adopted by any of them.”
He petted the stray encouragingly, then shut him in his run for the night
“The families all wanted to take Molly in at first,” Robin explained.
Sam saw a flash of worry. “But Molly would have none of it.”
A brief nod. “The social worker thinks Molly might do better in a single-parent family, since previously she was raised by a single mom.”
Ahhh. “Which is where you come in,” Sam guessed, not surprised to find that Robin had no more desire to marry than he did.
Robin raked her teeth across her soft lower lip. “And since kids who’ve encountered difficulties early in life sometimes connect better with animals than humans, I thought having a puppy around might help her adjust.”
Sam led the way back to the lobby, switching off lights as he went. “When does Molly move in with you?”
“Saturday afternoon. So what do you think?” she asked. “Can I borrow a puppy just for a little bit?”
Sam shook his head.
Robin looked surprised—as she always did when things did not immediately go her way.
“It would hurt the pup psychologically to be separated from her mother and the rest of the litter,” Sam stated soberly. “But you and Molly can come over and visit them if you like. Although I can’t say I would recommend that, either.”
Chapter Two (#ud9dcae29-82b3-5e09-a518-7aeb31426bd2)
After all this time, Sam still had the ability to turn Robin’s heart inside out. Maybe because she had never gotten over him, never stopped wishing that she’d had what it took to say yes to his proposal. But she hadn’t. And like it or not, they both had to deal with that. Not afraid to square off with him, she stepped closer. “Why don’t you think I should bring Molly over to see the puppies?”
Sam locked the front door and strode back to his private office. “She’ll fall in love with them.”
Robin hurried to catch up, feeling as dwarfed by his tall, sturdy frame as ever. “You don’t know that.”
Sam stopped and shrugged out of his lab coat, looking very handsome in a rugged, all-male way. “Obviously, you’ve never spent time with golden retriever puppies,” he drawled.
Robin pushed aside her reaction to his overwhelmingly sexy presence. “It’s not my fault my younger brother was allergic to dogs. I’ve never had much exposure to them.”
He grinned. “Maybe you should think about getting a kitten, then.”
“I’m allergic to cats.”
“A salamander?”
Their gazes locked and Robin noticed how his chambray shirt brought out the blue of his eyes. She shot back, “Very funny.”
The awareness between them increased.
Sam sighed. “It would be cruel to let Molly interact with the puppies and then tell her she has no hope of actually getting one.”
Robin flushed—she hadn’t thought of it that way. “We don’t even know if Molly is going to like dogs.”
Sam leaned closer. His five o’clock shadow, the same inky black as his short, tousled hair, gave him a faintly dangerous edge. “She’ll like ‘em, all right.”
“You’re so sure of yourself!” Unlike her. She never had been, never would be. Not enough, anyway, to keep up with him…
Sam flashed her a sexy smile. “Then let’s put it to the test,” he offered. “Come home with me. And we’ll see.”
***
Robin didn’t know why she was doing this, following Sam home, when for years she had managed to avoid all intimate interaction with him.
Of course, that was mostly because there’d been little chance of them actually running into each other until a few of months ago, when she’d left Fort Worth and returned to Laramie.
The rest was because every time she saw Sam she felt a wave of regret, followed swiftly by the even more devastating knowledge that in walking away she had done what was right for both of them.
She’d never had it in her to make Sam happy.
Or for that matter, to make any man happy.
But she did have what it took to help an orphaned child get on with her life. And the puppies Sam was overseeing were the key.
At least Robin thought so until she actually saw them.
Ten golden-blond balls of fluff, with adorably cute faces and ferociously wagging tails were running, tumbling and fighting their way to their momma’s side.
Sam hunkered down to pet the beautiful full-grown golden retriever. Robin knelt beside them. “Meet Gorgeous,” he said proudly.
Robin blinked, so startled she almost fell over. “You actually call your dog that?” The pet name he’d given her, back when they were still an item!
Sam put out a hand to steady her. His gaze swept her, head to toe, before returning with laser-like accuracy to her eyes. “You’re asking if I named my dog after the only other female in this world who had the power to turn my heart inside out?”
For a moment, she thought Sam was serious. Then the familiar gleam of mischievousness shone in his dark eyes.
“Of course I did,” he drawled with a wink.
Knowing he couldn’t still be as hung up on her as she was on him, Robin pulled her tingling arm away. “A laugh a minute, as always,” she muttered. Or was that a thrill?
Sam grinned and got slowly to his feet, then gave her a hand up, too. “So I’ll see you and Molly Saturday afternoon?”
Warming from the inside out, Robin nodded. And in the meantime, she’d try to keep her own fragile heart intact.
Chapter Three (#ud9dcae29-82b3-5e09-a518-7aeb31426bd2)
Sam had heard Molly Russell was not doing well. Seeing her in person, however, really drove that fact home.
The eight-year-old child who emerged from Robin’s pick-up truck was small for her age and painfully thin. Her red hair and freckles stood out against the underlying paleness of her skin. Her green eyes were filled with a soul-deep sorrow that broke his heart.
Beside her, Robin was a study in good cheer. “Hi, Sam. I don’t know if you two have formally met, but…” She turned back to Molly and said, “Sam is our neighbor to the south. You can see his ranch house from our front porch.”
And he could see Robin’s house and barn from his. “At ten acres each, we both have what barely pass for ranches in these parts,” Sam teased. “I’ve got puppies, though. Want to see them?”
The child offered no reaction.
“Well, I would!” Robin said. She touched Molly’s shoulder gently, guiding her in the direction of Sam’s house.
Molly shrugged away from Robin with a reticence that Sam knew had to hurt.
Feeling for both of them, Sam moved to Molly’s other side. He strode toward the porch. “I was just about to feed them.”
Robin threw him a grateful glance. “I thought all puppies did was nurse.”
“For the first four weeks. Then we start them on actual dog food. Although initially, it’s more of a mash.”
