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

unexpectedly welled up from. She knew he was only here helping his coach. That he had a job and a life elsewhere. And probably a line of women around the block.
    She tripped over her own feet. “You’re still being perfect,” she said.
    “Haven’t started.”
    “She seems pretty calm.” Talon noted. “Take her to the house please, Superman.”
    “I always wanted a red cape,” he said, but Talon was curious why his tone had gone cool and curt. And his fabulous square jaw, the one with the cleft that made her stare and fantasize about licking it, was tighter than usual.
    “You’d look good in red.” She teased, hoping to see that light in his eyes again.
    “Can we keep her mom, can we keep her?”
    “Let’s focus on seeing to her injuries and getting her fed,” Talon said, dragging her attention away from Colt and her flirty thoughts.
    Really? Like she didn’t have anything else to do except lust after a man who was going to be gone in few weeks. And with her son present.
    “You want to take the dog to the house, not the barn?” He fell into step with her, and she liked how his voice was curious, not critical.
    “We’ll keep her in the mudroom for now. I don’t have clean straw, or wood to close up the space between the slats enough to keep her in one of the birthing pens.”
    “Are you planning to keep her?” Again with the neutral voice, only soft, so Parker, running ahead, couldn’t hear their conversation.
    Definitely a keeper .
    “Heal her and see if we can find her ranch or her family.” She sighed and reached out to touch the dog through the blanket. She could feel the deep trembling. “Parker will want to keep her, of course, and I’d love to, but I’m not home enough for a dog with my shifts at the diner and interning with Noah, the vet in town.” She smiled. “But once I’m done with school and working in a vet practice, Parker and I will be able to have a dog and I’m hoping to take in other animals to have kind of an animal sanctuary where school kids or veterans could volunteer, and it could be a therapeutic experience for them. I think taking care of others, people and animals or a garden, is so important. So healing, don’t you think?”
    His golden eyes swept over her, lingered. Then he nodded. She wished she could see into his mind right at that minute. What made him tick? What did he want?
    “Do you like animals?” she asked.
    “Haven’t thought about it.”
    “Really?” she asked, walking into the house as Parker held open the door.
    “As a child, I didn’t want to kill them.”
    “Well, there’s a start.” She couldn’t tell if he was joking.
    “Hunting,” he said. “I didn’t want to hunt. My uncle did. Common in this town. My aversion was not.”
    She thought she heard him mutter “ironic”, but wasn’t sure what to make of that, and his tone was more than a red flag that he was done with this conversation, and Parker was dancing, one foot to the other, dragging more blankets out of the linen closet and sliding them across the floor to make a bed inside the storage bench. He’d already partially propped the lid open with a roll of duct tape.
    “That’s smart thinking, Parker,” Talon said.
    “It’s like a nest, mom, don’t you think?”
    Talon braced for a sarcastic comment from Colt about how he was holding a dog, not a bird, but once again he surprised her.
    “Looks good, Parker. Help me hand her in. I have her head.”
    Talon whispered, “Thank you.”
    “What do you need? Water? Towels?”
    She did want water and cloths to clean the wounds and Parker ran around being helpful and enthusiastic, directing Colt where everything was and suggesting that maybe they’d all want some of his mother’s homemade chocolate chip cookies. Colt took him up on that and when Talon looked back at them, leaning against the laundry sink as the mud room was also the utility/laundry room, both of them were munching a cookie and fisting two others each, her