Page 4 of High Intensity

My mother has never passed up on an opportunity to try and hook me up with any seemingly available female we’ve come across. She has never given up hope to get me tied down and settled, despite the fact I’ve told her often enough I’m not looking for anything permanent. Certainly not with someone my mother hooked me up with.

“It certainly is a coincidence,” Jillian agrees with a kind smile for my mother. “Unfortunately, I have to run. My time is up here and I have to get these guys home and fed, but I’ll be back in two weeks.”

Mom leans forward to give that ugly mutt a hug, before Jillian heads out with both dogs. Then she nudges my hip with her elbow.

“She seems like a nice girl. Maybe you should walk her out.”

“Mom,” I warn her.

The tiny redhead with the big smile is already enough of a temptation without my mother’s interference.

Two

Jillian

“He’s such a pretty boy.”

Sloane scrunches up her face.

“He may be handsome, but he’s a big menace,” she corrects me.

I bend down and comply when her dog, River, flops on his back, big paws in the air, for a belly rub.

Big is an understatement for this almost eight-month-old, oversized puppy. River was a rescue I picked up from a kill-shelter near Helena when I was out there with Hunter and Murphy, helping on a search. I couldn’t leave him behind.

When Sloane called me a week later, asking me to help her find a dog for her fiancé, it felt predestined.

“What is he doing?” I ask her.

She called this morning, asking if I could take River for the day. She didn’t want to leave him with Aspen at High Meadow, because she said he’d been acting up. I told her of course, and that if I got called out, I’d keep him in the kennel out back with my guys.

“Eating my underwear.” She makes a gagging sound that makes me snicker. “He’s attached to me like Velcro and shadows me everywhere. When I leave the house without him, his howls follow me down the driveway, and then when I get back, I find half-eaten panties he steals from the laundry hamper.”

“Is this a new thing?”

I straighten up and walk over to my coffee maker to get a pot started.

“Yeah,” she says, taking a seat on one of the stools at the island. “Started last month, sometime before Christmas. Oh, none for me,” she adds when I start loading grinds into the filter. “I’ve been off coffee. It gives me heartburn.”

I drop the scoop back in my coffee tin and turn to face her, folding my arms in front of me.

“Have you considered the possibility you could be pregnant?”

First her face freezes. Then, slowly, her mouth drops open, even as she starts shaking her head.

“No. No, no, no.”

I tilt my head and watch her go through the motions as she processes my suggestion. Pregnancy would fit with River’s behavior as well. Some dogs can react strongly to any changes in physical condition, including pregnancy. I’m starting to wonder if River might have done well as a support dog.

“Oh my God,” Sloane mutters, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. “I’ve barely had a period since Aspen was born. I thought maybe I was still getting regular.” She turns wide eyes on me. “I’m gonna have two kids in diapers.”

I grin. “Why don’t you do a pregnancy test first? Make sure before you panic.”

“Dan’s gonna flip his shit.”

“Highly doubtful,” I assure her. “I don’t know him that well, but I’ve seen him with Aspen.”

“It’s too soon,” she laments, tears welling in her eyes.

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