Page 40 of Mountain Rescue
“Just who is this woman coming here, and what kind of danger is she bringing with her? How do you know her? What have you gotten yourself involved in? What—”
“Give the boy a chance to answer, Bonnie,” he heard his dad say in the background. “Put it on speaker.”
Oh, man. Now he’d have two of them interrogating him. “Hi, Dad. You find Old Arnie?” The old bull was more pet than anything and had a habit of wandering off.
“The stupid fool went down in the ravine again and couldn’t get out,” his father said with fondness in his voice.
“Probably looking for you.” Old Arnie followed his dad around like a devoted dog.
“Enough about Old Arnie,” his mother snapped. “You need to come home, Dallas. You should be with your family, not out looking for trouble. Tell him to come home, Laramie.”
No, that was not what he needed. Without hurting their feelings, especially his mother’s, how could he tell them he had to leave because they were smothering him?
“I know you’re worried about him, honey, but our son is a kickass SEAL. I think he’s capable of taking care of himself.”
“I don’t care how kickassour sonis, he needs to be with his family after his ordeal so we can take care of him.”
“He’ll come home when he’s ready. What’s for dinner?”
“Broiled chicken and a salad. It’s a new recipe I found on Google.”
Dallas grinned. His mother loved Google. Ever since she’d discovered the search engine, she spent hours looking up things.
His dad groaned. “Come on, Bonnie. Enough of this broiled chicken shit. We’re cattle ranchers. We eat beef, big fat juicy steaks.”
And there they went. Dallas chuckled because this was often how a three-way conversation went with his mom and dad, whether they had him on the phone or one of his siblings. At least the attention was off him. He’d give them a minute or two, then he’d say a quick goodbye and quickly disconnect before they remembered he hadn’t answered any of their questions.
“Dallas? Oh, there you are.”
He put a finger to his lips to hush Rachel, but it was too late.
“Who’s that?” his mother—who could hear better than a bat when you least wanted her to—said.
“Just a friend. Gotta go.”
“Dallas Manning, don’t you hang up.”
He hung up. “That was my parents. My mother seems to think I’m still her little boy, needing her to take care of me.”
She looked him over from his head on down, pausing on the zipper of his jeans, then lower, and then back up. “There is nothinglittle boyabout you.”
“Glad you noticed.” He gave up on his resolve to not touch her, stepped in front of her, and wrapped a lock of her hair around his fingers. “How locked down are you on us never kissing again?”
“I was going to talk to you about that tonight.”
“Yeah? And what—” His phone rang again, and he rolled his eyes at seeing his mother’s name on the screen. He hadn’t answered any of her questions, and now there was a mystery woman to investigate. She wasn’t one to easily give up.
“Do you need to answer that?”
“Nope.” Cheyenne had all the information and had already told their mother all she needed to know. “My mama’s worse than an old hound with a bone. Now, back to kissing.” And whatever that might lead to.
Before coming here, the last thing he had on his mind or wanted was to find himself interested in a woman. For one thing, his body was a roadmap of his torture, not a thing any woman would want to see. But there hadn’t been any disgust in Rachel’s eyes when she’d come into his room and found him close to naked. Unless he was completely off base, and he didn’t think he was, he’d seen desire in those golden-brown eyes when her gaze had roamed over him.
“You’re supposed to meet Noah soon.” She put her hand on his waist. “We’ll talk about kissing tonight.” She frowned. “What’s this?” She lifted his shirt. “A gun?”
“Yes, that would be a gun.” He pulled his shirt back over the holster.
“Is that really necessary?”
