Shoulda Been a Cowboy (Rough Riders #7)(15)

“Good girl.” Cam crossed to the dog, ignoring Domini crouched like a cat about to pounce. He ruffled Gracie’s silky ears. “Listen up, pup. Domini hasn’t been around dogs as cool as you, so give her some time to adjust. Be on your best behavior and before you know it, you’ll have Domini sneakin’ you treats and rubbing your fat belly. Understand?”


Gracie barked twice.


“Good girl. Stay.” Cam grabbed a new rawhide chew out of the pantry. The second Gracie saw it her tail thumped. Her tongue flopped past her gums in a doggie version of a smile. He couldn’t help but grin. The damn dog cracked him up. “If I let you out in the pasture, you can’t be sneakin’ up on Colby’s cattle.”


A tiny, sad noise hummed from Gracie.


Domini said, “She’d do that?”


“Yep. Her breed is great for herding. Since I don’t have cattle she tries to herd everyone else’s cattle. Back here. The first couple times my brothers were amused. After that, not so much.”


Gracie whined pitifully again.


“I mean it, Gracie. No chasing cows.”


Two more barks.


Cam shot a look over his shoulder at Domini. “Be right back without the mutt. Grab the beer and I’ll meetcha outside.” He whistled loudly and Gracie raced out of the house hell bent for leather.


When he returned, Domini had curled up in a lounge chair in the far corner of the deck. Sunglasses covered her eyes and she’d wrapped both hands around a bottle of Bud Light.


He snagged a beer and eased himself into the chair beside her. “Sorry about that.”


“Not your fault I freaked out about a dog. I should be apologizing because I jumped on the table like a spooked cat.” She muttered in Ukrainian and gulped her beer.


“We all have fears, princess.”


“Even you?”


“Especially me.” Cam pried her fingers away from the beer bottle so he could hold her hand. “But maybe you oughta come clean about what happened that makes you so afraid of dogs.”


Domini gazed off into the distance, as if gauging her words. “When I was six, we were relocating from Kiev to Kharkiv because everything was in chaos due to the Chernobyl incident. We were waiting outside the train station, when two Soviet policemen showed up with a German shepherd police dog. A big, mean, snarly attack dog. Although I’d done nothing wrong, I…ran.”


Cam’s throat closed up.


“The dog chased me until it caught me. By the time the police and my parents separated me from the dog’s jaws, I was already bleeding badly. I remember little of the hospital except the excruciating pain when they stitched me up. The next day the same Soviet police came by and wrote my father a ticket.”


“For what?”


“Some trumped-up missing paperwork charge. Mostly they needed an excuse to explain why a dog that was supposed to be protecting people, attacked a child unprovoked.”


“Jesus. The police twisted it around so it was your fault?”


“Stuff like that happened all the time when we were under Soviet rule. Law enforcement there is nothing like it is here. So, we had to stay in Kiev another three weeks, during which I got an infection.” She shuddered. “I ended up back in the hospital and almost died. I’ve had…issues with dogs ever since, which is why my first instinct is to run.”


Rage filled him. Yet he managed a calm, “Where did the dog bite you?”


“You asked, I answered, so can we drop it now? It doesn’t matter.”


Cam stood. He braced his hands on the armrest of her chair and demanded, “Where did the dog bite you?”


Her pale eyebrows lifted above the rims of her sunglasses. “The first mark is on the back of my left shoulder and the second one is on my hip.”


“Lemme see.”


“Cam. It’s not important.”


“Then it shouldn’t be such a big goddamned deal to let me see it.” Why was he pushing her on this?


Because you want her to be physically scarred, same as you. You want to see it so you don’t feel like such a freak.


In angry, jerky movements, Domini slid the shirt down her left shoulder. She dropped her chin to her chest, leaving the nape of her neck exposed.


Oh f*ck. His stomach clenched. The jagged edges of the white scar tissue showed where the dog had ripped a huge chunk of her skin off. Whatever sawbones had treated her in the Ukraine managed to piece it together, but not very well. How had he missed feeling those ridged scars last night?


Because you were selfish and then you were gone.


Seeing that broken section of her skin broke something inside him. He placed his mouth against her warm, sweet-smelling flesh and tenderly pressed kisses across every inch of the scar. And when he finished the first pass, he did it again.


Domini’s breath caught.


Cam dragged his mouth over the sexy arch of her neck, pushing aside the baby-fine strands of hair. He brushed his damp lips to her ear and murmured, “See, that wasn’t so hard,” before easing back and retaking his seat.


She hadn’t removed her sunglasses, but he knew she was watching him very closely.