That’s okay. I went to the school of fucking hard knocks to learn how not to set myself up for pain.
Rhys scowls. “I don’t like how we left things the other night.” He crosses his arms. There’s nothing soft in his expression, nothing soft in the set of his shoulders or the determination on his face. “You said you didn’t think it could work between us, and I let you walk away. That’s not the man I want to be. That’s not the man I’mgoingto be.”
My stupid, hopeful heart beats halfway out of my chest.
I want this. I want him. So much.
Somewhere along the way, I let myself fall in love with him. I don’t know if it was when he cooked me dinner or suggested we stop at the quilt show or booked me plane tickets to Sioux Falls or bought me frog slippers—or when he let me take him apart.
It was probably way before that, actually. It was probably when he set the cowboy hat on my head on the morning of my wedding and led me out of the building with no questions asked, doing what I needed even though it was messy and inconvenient for him.
What if…?
What if that’s exactly who he is?
What if it’s not?
“There’s someone I want you to see,” he says. “Can I bring him in?”
My mind flashes to all sorts of possibilities, none of which make sense. One of his brothers. Paul. Teller—but that makes even less sense than the other options.
“Stay there.” He points.
A moment later the door chimes, and then again, and then he’s standing there, a leash in his hand?—
A leash?
He drops the leash, and the creature on the other end of it bounds forward—medium-sized, with curly red blond–and–white–and–black splotches and spots and floppy ears and a snout that’s blunt enough to suggest some bulldog or pug or boxer in his heritage.
“Milo!”
I fall to my knees, and the bundle of loving mutt-y energy, my baby boy, my darling Milo, jumps up, licking my face, panting his joy.
He licks tears off my face, and I look up at Rhys. “How…?”
He grins down at me. “I went back to New York yesterday. Had a long talk with Teller. I reminded him that sometimes in the heat of battle, we fight for things out of spite that we don’t actually want as much as the other person does. And I told him that I’d gotten to know you a bit and it was clear to me that Milo meant a lot to you…and that I thought Milo might be a lot happier living in one place year-round and that Teller might be happier not pouring so much money into dog-walking and dog-sitting while he works and travels on his ridiculous schedule.”
“You didn’t!”
He nods. “And he agreed that perhaps Milo would be happier with some space to run around in the backyard of a little house in Rush Creek, Oregon, than cooped up in a New York apartment. So he signed custody back over to you.”
“Rhys…” I can barely manage his name through my happy tears.
“Just so you know,” he says sternly, “this isn’t a grand gesture. I don’t believe in grand gestures.”
I snort. “Are they like jumping spiders or rattlesnakes?”
“More like cotton candy,” he says. “Pretty but not very satisfying. But this isn’t one.”
“What is it, then?”
“It’s just setting right something I wish I’d been able to do differently. Restoring order.”
That makes me smile.
“I didthinkabout grand gestures a lot. I can tell you all the ideas I considered and dismissed. Kidnapping you on a big road trip, buying the shop next door to yours so you can expand, strong-arming Paul into giving you the condo.”
That makes me smile. “I don’t hate any of those,” I say, still kneeling beside Milo and soaking up his sloppy kisses and puppy breath, my hands buried in his fur, my heart beating nearly out of my chest with joy.
