Page 17 of Survive the Night
“Milk replacer? What orphans are you feeding now?” Jules asked, breaking what was turning into another awkward silence.
He finally looked away from Sarah to focus on Jules. “Puppies. Curtis Trammel’s shepherd was hit by a car.”
“He brought them to you?” Before he answered, Grace spoke again. “Of course he did. You’re the Dr. Dolittle around here, after all.”
Otto gave an uncomfortable half shrug, but Sarah had stopped pretending not to stare at him. He was a Viking lumberjack cop who bottle-fed orphaned puppies? If he’d spent years trying to think of the most effective punch to the ovaries, he couldn’t have come up with a better plan.
“Juju!” Ty called from across the store. “We’re going to get these guns, okay?”
“What? What guns? No, not okay.” Jules immediately charged toward the sporting goods section.
Grace grinned. Following after a stressed-looking Jules, she said over her shoulder, “This should be good. They probably want to mount them on their homemade drone.”
The two women disappeared around the corner of an aisle, and the realization hit Sarah—she and Otto were alone. Together. Sure, they weren’t really alone, since it was a public place with several people, including children, nearby, but…still. Alone. Together. Again. Her scalp prickled with sweat.
She tried desperately to think of something to talk about, but her mind was blank. There wasn’t a nearby herd of elk to supply a handy topic of conversation. It had been the same every time they’d met. Otto seemed to be a huge walking magnet, wiping her brain’s hard drive whenever he got near. “Um…how many puppies?”
He just stared at her, and uncertainty started to set in. Her question had made sense, hadn’t it? Maybe she should’ve clarified. But Sarah was afraid that, if she spoke again, she’d rush into a waterfall of babbly explanation, and that would just make her seem even more unbalanced.
“Your mouth…” He trailed off, his eyes fixed on her lips.
“My mouth…?” she echoed, and then horror hit her. There had to be something on her mouth. They had all just eaten lunch at the VFW-turned-diner where Jules worked. Was there something green and slimy in her teeth? Did she have residual barbeque sauce on her face? If so, she was going to kill Jules, Grace, and every last one of the kids for not telling her before she came face-to-face with a lumberjack Viking puppy rescuer. Sarah wiped frantically at her lips, feeling her cheeks heat. “What about my mouth?”
“It’s pretty.” His tanned face flushed to the color of brick. Abruptly, he turned and walked away.
Sarah went still, her hand still over her lips. There was a strange feeling in her stomach. It wasn’t the anxious dread she was used to, though. This was more of a hopeful fluttering, a funny little squeeze of happiness. Dropping her hand to her side, she smiled at Otto’s broad, quickly departing back.
He thinks I’m pretty.
* * *
Your mouth is pretty?! Otto groaned. The only thing that kept him from thumping his forehead against the steering wheel of his pickup was the fact that driving on the curvy mountain roads took focus, especially in the predawn darkness. He’d meant to tell her she had a nice smile, but it had come out so, so, so wrong. Of all the things he could’ve said, he’d chosen a line from a horror movie? From the villain in a horror movie? What was wrong with him?
He knew perfectly well what was wrong with him. Whenever he found a woman attractive, he turned into a bumbling thirteen-year-old. No, that wasn’t right. Most thirteen-year-olds had more game than Otto did. For three days now, his idiotic statement had been running through his head, and he’d cursed himself out every single time. He’d managed to speak and not embarrass himself the second time they’d met, when he’d helped her off the carport roof, but he hadn’t expected to see her at the store. It’d thrown him off guard. Still, why hadn’t he just asked her out or, at the very least, said something innocuous? She’d just asked him a question about the puppies, for Christ’s sake. It’d been a simple answer, too. All he needed to say was that there were four of them, and they could’ve continued having a perfectly normal, civil conversation.
But no. Otto had to pull out the creepiest, most unnerving line possible instead. “Four,” he muttered, pulling into the VFW-turned-diner—otherwise known as the viner—parking lot. “That’s all you would’ve had to say. Four. It’s one syllable, you moron.”
Scrubbing a hand over his head, Otto took a deep breath. He had to let it go. Dwelling on it was just making him crazy and giving him a stomachache. Letting out all the air in his lungs, he reached for the door handle. So he’d ruined any possibility of a chance with a woman he was hugely attracted to, all in four words. Things could be worse.
No. He couldn’t think of how things could be worse, unless he had accidentally dowsed her in chemical spray or tased her or something.
With a quiet groan, he got out of his pickup and walked toward the viner entrance. Theo and Hugh were already there, Otto noticed. Both of their K9s, Viggy and Lexi, barked at him from their respective vehicles, and he gave them a small wave. He walked past Theo’s squad car, going out of his way to check on Viggy. The dog had been in a rough way just a few months ago, right after his former partner, Officer Don Baker, had committed suicide. The dog had lost all of his confidence, and it didn’t help that his new partner, Theo, had been wrecked by grief. The two were coming along, though, and the dog had been making huge strides.
Even now, Viggy was standing up in the back seat, his tail waving slightly as he recognized Otto. He looked like a different dog from the huddled mess he’d been just a couple of months ago. It gave Otto hope for Xena, the dog he was currently attempting to rehabilitate. They still had a long way to go, though, and his lieutenant was making noises about buying a trained K9 for the department—a K9 that would be Otto’s new partner. His last K9 was retired and living a life of luxury chasing rabbits on Otto’s ranch.
Breaking out of his thoughts, Otto strode to the viner entrance. Even at that early hour, it was starting to fill up with customers. Giving Jules a nod of greeting, he made his way to the table that had become their usual meeting spot after the diner had been blown up two months ago.
Hugh saw him and swiveled around, attempting to prop his leg on the chair next to him, but Otto was already there, sliding into the seat.
“Quit swinging your leg around,” Otto grumbled, flipping his coffee mug right side up. “It’ll never heal if you keep abusing it.”
“I’m not abusing my leg. You’re thinking of another body part.” Waggling his eyebrows comically, Hugh returned his foot to the chair across from him.
Otto didn’t laugh. “Your broken arm?”
“No, my…” Hugh’s reply trailed off as Otto gave him a stern look. “You know, I liked it better when you were obsessing over Theo, rather than me.”
“I didn’t.” Theo leaned back in his chair, his normally severe expression amused.
