Double Dog Dare: Southern Seductions, #4

By J.A. Coffey

Meet Mack Taylor, a man who won't let his past mistakes destroy his future chance for love. The Southern Seductions series continues and it's never been hotter in the South!

From bestselling author J.A. Coffey, Book #4 in her hot new contemporary romance series.

Allison Dare is having a bad month. Make that a bad year. A broken foot. Sidelined from an active career fighting crime. She sure as hell doesn’t need to deal with a four-footed canine disaster inherited from her recently departed cousin. In a desperate attempt to get her life in order, she hires a dog trainer. The only problem is he’s sexy and stubborn as sin. With her old life torn away, can she reinvent herself when she can’t seem to control her new pet or her feelings for a man who refuses to take orders?

Decorated vet Mack Taylor has tortured himself since the day his mistake cost him his loyal K-9 partner and part of his leg. Now the owner of a dog kennel in Atlanta, he spends his days working with pampered pets in need of potty training. A chance encounter with gutsy Allison puts him on edge in more ways than one. Suddenly, he finds himself hoping against hope…dreaming dreams that he has no right to dream…and taking his chances on a love that could transform them both.

Southern Seductions series:

*LIAR LIAR

*PANTS ON FIRE

*HELL ON HEELS

*DOUBLE DOG DARE

*UP ALL NIGHT- coming soon!

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.A. Coffey
• Release date: Mar 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524289751

Book preview

About this book:

Allison Dare is having a bad month. Make that a bad year. A broken foot. Sidelined from an active career fighting crime. She sure as hell doesn’t need to deal with a four-footed canine disaster inherited from her recently departed cousin. In a desperate attempt to get her life in order, she hires a dog trainer. The only problem is he’s sexy and stubborn as sin. With her old life torn away, can she reinvent herself when she can’t seem to control her new pet or her feelings for a man who refuses to take orders?

Decorated vet Mack Taylor has tortured himself since the day his mistake cost him his loyal K-9 partner and part of his leg. Now the owner of a dog kennel in Atlanta, he spends his days working with pampered pets in need of potty training. A chance encounter with gutsy Allison puts him on edge in more ways than one. Suddenly, he finds himself hoping against hope...dreaming dreams that he has no right to dream...and taking his chances on a love that could transform them both.

The Southern Seductions series continues and it’s never been hotter in the South!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Copyright Information

Blurb

Prologue

About the Author

Recipe & Extras

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Dedications: For Rob, for solving my problems (or trying!) and for bringing me on this amazing new adventure and introducing me to a wealth of new people. I couldn’t do what I do without you.

To my amazing review team overseas—you know who you are! Thanks for the support.

To Jody Wallace, editor and friend extraordinaire—this book is so much better because of you. And Caroline Lee for her impeccable insights.

To L.T.—I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. Thank you for being my loyal companion and for holding on as long as you did. Meet you over the Rainbow Bridge, little buddy.

Sweet Readers,

I never intended to write this book. Several events of the past year, including the loss of my dog to cancer, propelled this story to the forefront. I’m so grateful to the US military community, soldiers (both active and not), and their families for their support and their service. While this book just barely touches on some very serious subjects, I hope that I’ve done it justice. I love a good redemption story. I hope you will, too! As always, drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Happy Reading!

J.A. Coffey

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Prologue

Afghanistan, 2008

Pain.

The throbbing in his leg was excruciating.

Like every heartbeat pounding out shreds of his life through tortured veins and arteries.

He hoped there’d be enough left to piece him back together.

Breathe.

A thousand razorblades sliced up the nerve endings of his left thigh. Smoke and dust clogged the air. It felt like the whole damn base had fallen on top of him. It took every ounce of willpower not to writhe beneath the rubble that used to be a wall of sandbags, barbed wire and corrugated metal of what had been the main checkpoint of their satellite military base.

The charred remains of a nondescript sedan he and Gunner had been checking for explosives smoldered off to his left. His ears rang and the world was a crazy, sideways jumble of muffled sounds and blurred images.

Mack Taylor focused on taking slow measured breaths and waited for the noise in his head to stop.

Warm, wetness pooled in the gravel beneath him. Had he pissed himself?

He blinked his eyes, once...twice. His lungs ached beneath his armored military vest. The one designed to save his life. It was crushing him, too. He was pretty sure one of his lungs was collapsed from the way he was wheezing.

His leg hurt so damn bad. Everything hurt. He felt like a piñata, with his insides exploding outwards from the force of some huge, invisible stick.

But none of it compared to the agony that seared his gut as he stretched out a hand to Gunner’s lifeless body splayed next to him in a litter of rocks and chunks of still-smoking concrete chunks and car parts.

Hey...hey buddy. His lips cracked as he tried to whistle up the call to signal his partner to heel. Gunner’s amber eyes were shut, pink tongue lolling. The canine could almost be sleeping, here, in the midst of chaos and muffled shouts and far off crashes of falling rock and bodies.

A fine coating of plaster drifted across the shepherd’s black and tan fur.

His partner. His companion. His savior.

Mack had been poking a fish-eye mirror at the end of the pole clamped to his arm to check for undercarriage explosives. That much he remembered. If not for Gunner’s warning yelp right before the dog nosed between him and the back end of the vehicle, it would be him laid out on the ground.

Not breathing.

Not moving.

He tried to brush the dirt off Gunner’s fur, and his hand came away wet and sticky. Wet and warm like the pool spreading beneath his lower body.

Not piss.

A scream built in the back of his throat, silent and anguished, but his lungs wouldn’t force the breath out so it came as a groan. His mouth tasted like he’d been sucking on a copper penny.

Taylor? Someone shook his shoulder. That was when he realized his scream wasn’t silent at all. Mack clenched his jaw. Hard.

Here.

Under the shadows of a Kevlar helmet, the soldier’s eyes cut down the length of Mack’s body and back up to his face. Jesus, man. Your leg... The soldier’s face blanched beneath the layer of ash and grit.

Gunner, Mack whispered. Get Gunner.

The face disappeared from his view for a minute. No use, man. He’s gone.

Gone.

And it was all his fault.

Black clouds encroached on the corners of his vision. A terrible pounding beat his temples like a fist. Mack tried to scramble away, to get help, so he and Gunner wouldn’t be left alone in the darkness.

Don’t move! The hands were back, sliding under his shoulders to lift him onto a gurney. Hang in there. We’ll get you out.

Colors leeched into a world of blurred gray and white. Mack shook his head slowly. His whole life, his career, was over. The ringing in his ears returned as he slipped into the nothingness with one thought entrenched in his addled mind.

He’d never get out of here.

Chapter One

You’ve got to be kidding me, Kendrick. Allison Dare shouldered her cell phone, and marched into the law office tasked with execution of her cousin’s final will and testament. Her sensible, low heels clicked on the polished marble floor. You? On vacation?

She took a corner too quickly and her left arch throbbed with remembered pain. Since her injury earlier this year, she’d been confined to Atlanta and flat-heeled shoes that made her feet resemble aircraft carriers. While she didn’t want to risk another stress fracture, the reading of her cousin Lavender’s last wishes mandated a little formality.

Granted, Lavender would have been just as thrilled if Allison had come to see her in flip-flops and dirty PJs, but Lavender was gone. It was her aunt’s severe Southern sensibilities she had to please now.

I’m not joking, Dare, insisted her ex-partner Stan Kendrick. Caroline and I are taking off for a while. After all the craziness of the past month, it’s about time she and I get to be alone.

Allison could practically hear him smiling through the cell phone. Stan Kendrick—a man who almost never smiled. Until last week, that is, when he’d wrapped up his stint as an undercover mole and embraced a new life.

Good for you, she told Stan, and meant it.

How’d things go with Colonel Hanran? He take you off extended leave yet?

Not exactly. How could she tell Kendrick what closing their case had cost her? She still hadn’t wrapped her brain around it herself.

She’d been assigned as Stan’s joint investigator in an international sting that brought down a nefarious crime cartel. And then she’d promptly been sidelined, both because of her attitude and her broken foot. Apparently balls and brass didn’t cut it with some military commanders, and an unexpected diagnosis of osteoporosis didn’t cut it with investigative work.

Which pretty much left her with shit.

Shit that Kendrick didn’t need to hear about.

What does that mean? He sounded worried. Her whiny woes were the last thing he needed before some well-deserved time off.

I’m working a new gig now. It’s great. Really, she lied. Probably temporary, though. We’ll see.

Tell me all about it, he encouraged.

Nah. I’ll fill you in when you get back. Her osteoporosis had been diagnosed when some stress fractures she’d been nursing had blossomed into a painful break of her talus. Apparently osteoporosis wasn’t limited to the elderly. A life of hard physical activity—running in and out of heels, combat training, jumping out of planes, you name it—wasn’t suitable for a person with weak bones.

Hanran didn’t forgive you for backing me to rescue Caroline, did he? Stan’s voice was quiet. Going rogue to take down a crime lord on their joint case had been the final nail in her career coffin. She’d been stripped of her rank and her team and stuck in a dead-end desk job, pushing paperwork in the Department of Defense Transition Assistance Program, TAPs for short, instead of making a difference.

Not exactly. She’d never work in the field again, not that she’d confess that to her former teammates. Or anyone. If she didn’t tell anybody, it wasn’t happening. In Hanran’s defense, he did warn me that my attitude would get me into trouble one day. She just hadn’t expected the punishment to be so harsh.

You sure you don’t want to talk?

Yeah, I’m fine.

If you say so. Kendrick paused. You don’t sound okay, Dare.

I’m not a hundred percent. I’m at the reading of my cousin’s will, she reminded him.

That’s today? Shit, I’m sorry, he responded immediately.

Thanks. We knew it was coming but...well, these things are never easy. She forced brightness into her tone. After all, she still had her health, or most of it. What did she really have to complain about? Tell Caro I said hello. You guys call me when you get back. We’ll do...lunch or something.

Allison, he persisted. It took you a week to call me back this time. I know a brush-off when I hear one.

It’s not a brush-off. It’s what civvies do. They lunch. They Keep On Keepin’ On, right? Like those messages on T-shirts and coffee mugs. She faked a laugh.

He wasn’t fooled. I’m not sure. Listen, Dare, about the team. Thought we’d go visit...

I gotta go, Kendrick. I’m hitting the elevators. She didn’t want to talk about the team. No way was she going to bring him down just when he’d finally rebuilt his life, even if hers was going to hell in a hand grenade.

They’d worked together so long undercover that their relationship was sibling-like, but Allison didn’t want to confess how much her change in circumstances had devastated her. She missed being in charge. Hell, she missed Kendrick, Lee and Jones, the other members of their team. They’d treated her like the go-getter she was, or that she had been, never giving her crap about being one of the only females in the department. They’d respected her, and together, they’d done a lot of good work together.

Now she didn’t know what she was. She wasn’t used to being useless and needing people. Or missing people. She didn’t like it any more now than she had when she’d been hobbling on crutches earlier this year.

Okay. Sorry again about your cousin, he replied. If there’s anything you need—

I’m fine. Allison shoved away the wave of nostalgia and guilt, along with the heavy door to the law offices. Seriously. I’m good. Have a great vacation. Talk later. She hung up.

She didn’t need anything. Prior to her demotion, her job had kept her on the move, with little time to spend with an ailing Lavender. They’d been close as children, but Allison hadn’t kept up her end of the relationship. She’d been too driven, too busy. Now it was too late.

Cancer was a real indiscriminant bitch.

But if there was one thing Lavender had taught her, it was that you couldn’t let life’s setbacks derail you. You had to keep trying.

So here she was about to navigate the required familial gathering. For Lavender, she’d try to get along with her aunt. After all, Petunia had just lost her daughter. Allison owed her some consideration.

She jabbed the buttons on the elevator and smoothed her hands down her modest black dress. She’d had to buy a new one, which had come as a rude shock this past weekend when she’d tried on her old one on a whim. The softer curves she’d accumulated over the past three months of relative inactivity felt foreign, like she was living another person’s life. She’d been less than eight percent body fat before the fractures in her foot had slowed her down. Now her five-foot frame was missing some muscle mass and packing extra poundage.

Damned desk job. When would the doctor okay her to start jogging and weight training again? Before or after she had to purchase an entire new wardrobe?

The elevator shuddered to a stop and she stepped out into a wave of perfume and tears. Her aunt had a flare for the dramatic, something that had always made Allison uncomfortable.

Oh, it’s you, Daffodil. Her aunt greeted her a fresh flood of tears.

Allison. She compressed her lips. I go by Allison, Aunt Petunia. Remember?

No way in hell was she going to go by the loopy names that plagued her family. Not since the sixth grade, when she’d put her tiny foot down. Her arch throbbed again and she winced.

Of course, of course. Her aunt wrapped her in a hug that resembled a perfumed wrestling grip. So good of you to come.

How are you holding up? she asked politely. It was a beautiful service.

I’m getting by. Petunia’s normally sharp eyes watered. My dear girl is in Heaven now, and I know she’s looking down on us. She would have liked to have seen you more, before...

Allison cringed inwardly. I know. I...had to work.

She should have made herself to visit Lav last month, but with the new job and all she just hadn’t been able to force herself to do it. Then again, she could barely force herself to go sit at her new fucking desk some days.

A woman shouldn’t have the type of job that prevents her from doing her duty to her family, her aunt chided.

It’s the second decade of the new millennium, Petunia. Women can wear pants and everything. It was the same battle she’d fought with both Petunia and her mother, though the two women hated each other the way only Southern belle sisters could. Uninterested in another go around, Allison forcefully changed the subject. I’m not really sure why I’m here. I didn’t think Lavender had much to leave.

God, she needed a beer, but showing up half-drunk to the reading of Lavender’s will would have been too crass even for her.

She had a small life insurance policy. Beyond that, she wanted to bequeath something to all her loved ones. Even you. It’s a shame your mother couldn’t be here. Petunia sniffed, as if Allison could summon her mother Rose like a genie from the depths of her small clutch. I’m sure she had her reasons. Her aunt’s tone could have sliced a tin can, like one of those serrated knives on the late night infomercials.

Allison dug out a fresh tissue and handed it to her aunt. Indeed.

If her mother had made an appearance, it would’ve instigated an act of war. She and Petunia had been on the outs for years, and Allison didn’t even know why.

We’re ready for you now. The lawyer’s assistant ushered them into a stark conference room with austere furniture and high windows. The blinds were at half-mast, an awkward salute to the dearly departed. Or maybe it was just to keep the mid-afternoon Atlanta sun from striking anyone in the eyes while seated.

Allison took her place at the chair nearest the door. Easier for a quick escape. The attorney made a show of placing a large, silver-framed photo of her cousin clutching a fleecy, small dog with a shiny, black plastic nose. Odd choice for a grown woman without children, but Allison supposed if she’d been dying from leukemia, she’d want some comfort, too.

It wasn’t like Petunia had ever allowed Lavender to have real pets. No, those had all been for Allison—for the short time each of them lasted.

She and Lav had laughed about it some, as adults, but...not lately. Because Allison hadn’t gone to see Lavender often enough.

Shall we begin? The attorney intoned the regular legal mumbo-jumbo that prefaced the Last Will and Testament of what was once a lovely human soul. I, Lavender Clattrap, being of sound mind and body... His voice was so low that Allison found her attention wandering after the first few paragraphs of behests.

A tiny jewelry box to her neighbor. Her favorite quilt to Allison’s absent mother.