Seducing the Bachelor (The Bachelor Auction Returns Book 3) by Sinclair Jayne

sedate her just a little and restrain her so I can treat her, and then I’d like to pen her in the barn once we can nail up some extra boards so she’ll stay put. Maybe once she’s fed properly and feeling better, she won’t be so feral. Maybe I can find her family.
    Colt continued to eye the dog narrowly. She could practically hear his thoughts. That dog did not have an anxious family missing her. She was skinny, ragged with her fur pulled out in patches, and filthy. She looked like she’d been in a fight with something recently, possibly the emu. Blood coated her sides and now she was prone, panting, eyes rolling. Her stomach was hard and distended. Serious worms or disease or pregnancy, Talon thought with despair.
    “It’s all right, baby.” Talon began to speak softly. Nonsense words. Sweet words, letting her voice slow and soften and deepen. The dog kept its eyes on her as she approached, ears flattened, tail down, sides heaving as she sucked in air. Talon slowed her own breathing, lowered her eyes so she didn’t make contact, and continued slowly but steadily. She tapped her hand lightly on her leg, slower and slower, keeping a soft beat, all the time talking.
    The dog stopped pulling so hard to get away, and instead looked at her more beseechingly than terrified.
    “Yes, that’s right, baby. We’re going to free you, and stitch you up, and then give you something delicious to eat. Are you hungry? I bet you are. Just another minute.”
    The sound of fast footfalls cut through the calm she was trying to weave, and Talon held her hand out behind her. Parker slowed.
    She was closer now, almost to touching. She crouched down.
    “Parker, give the cone to me and the wire cutters and blanket to Colt. Put my bag down on the ground and scoot it to me. Don’t come too close.”
    She sang a lullaby that her friend Jenna used to sing to Parker when he’d been a baby.
    Without her telling him to, Colt dropped to a crouch and began to ease the blanket down flat, his eyes on the ground but clearly eyeing the dog briefly in his peripheral vision.
    “Closer,” she whispered.
    He leaned towards the dog, and immediately her attentions shifted to him. Talon slid the collar around the dog’s neck and pressed the Velcro in place.
    “Okay, slide the blanket under her.”
    He did while she drew up a shot of pain meds.
    “She’s going to also need an IV.” She pulled out a bag of fluid. She was really lucky Noah let her keep a stash of medical supplies at her house, in case she reached a call first where some minor interventions would make a difference. She ran her hands over the dog’s limbs feeling for breaks and sighing in relief when she felt none.
    The dog thrashed, but Colt had wrapped the blanket around the dog’s limbs, and its struggles were weaker.
    “Okay, cut her free,” she said.
    Colt cut and slowly peeled back the fence, as Talon gently freed the dog’s lacerations. The dog thrashed more, tried to turn over and yelped, and Talon appreciated how Colt kept the wire free and didn’t freak out when the dog’s head crashed into his knee. A mouth full of sharp canines could be intimidating even with the cone restraint, but he didn’t even blink or try to jump out of the way.
    “Thank you,” she said. “Can you pick her up, keeping her in the blanket?” she asked.
    Yes, the dog was quite thin, but she was a large breed.
    “Can,” he said, his voice had a touch of the same playful tone he’d shared at the platform. Talon caught her breath and looked up quickly, just to catch a glint of humor before he stood with the seventy to eighty pound dog as easily as if it were a Chihuahua.
    “Where to?”
    “That’s a lovely question for a woman to hear.” Talon grabbed her bag. “If you keep talking so sweetly and lifting heavy objects, I might have to keep you.”
    “I’m on loan,” he said.
    “And, bam, in walked reality,” Talon said, trying to stuff the disappointment back to where it had