Holden groaned and shook his head. Man, it was going to be a long day. “There’s not enough room in here with your ego.”
“Nonsense.” His buddy winked as they exited the vehicle. “My ego is happy to sit on my shoulder, just like Lex.”
He snorted and shut the door. “Mel is a saint.”
“You’re just realizing that now?” Hunter smirked, exiting the vehicle next to him.
Before anyone could reply, the front door of the house opened and Emily stood in the doorway, waving them in.
“Hi, guys.” She smiled. “The coffee is on, and Lyndsey brought a dozen cinnamon buns from Champion Bakery.”
“Angels. Both of you,” Carter crooned, taking the porch steps two at a time where he followed a laughing Emily into the house.
Sinjin and Hunter weren’t far behind, and Holden entered on their six.
A beautiful wooden staircase was several feet back. In the room to his right, he noted an assortment of paint cans and supplies in an empty room. To his left was a dining room where Emily, Lyndsey, Christa, Isla, and Carter were seated at a large rectangular table. Hunter and Sinjin stood eating cinnamon buns.
Holden smiled. Those guys wasted no time.
He moved further into the room and stopped dead. In a corner, on a bed near Emily’s chair sat a small dog and a large one. Both were quiet, but he could tell one was nervous and that could be dangerous and quickly lead to aggression.
The chestnut Chihuahua was grounded and calm. The other dog, the nervous one, was a Rottweiler.
A very thin Rottie
Holden’s heart careened to his knees.
She didn’t...She wouldn’t…
“Hey, Holden, pull up a seat.” Carter motioned to an empty chair on his right. “We left you one.”
He ignored the invitation, his mind gripped by apprehension. “Jesus, Emily. Please tell me that isn’t Hera.”
Chapter Nine
The Rottweiler shook in her bed and Holden hoped the woman hadn’t adopted the dog she’d seized from Perez.
The very dog the unstable man had harassed her about.
Emily shook her head, and his heart found its way back into his chest while the fingers of anxiety began to loosen their hold. “That isn’t Hera, that’s Queenie.”
Thank God.
He exhaled. “That’s good.”
“Her nameusedto be Hera,” she continued, sending his heart crashing back into his knees. “I changed her name to Queenie, as in Queen of the goddesses, when I adopted her last month. No way would I allow her to keep the name associated with the negativity she left behind.”
Son-of-a-bitch…
It was Perez’s dog. Former dog.
Carter, Hunter, and Sinjin stilled, and the gravity of the situation was evident in their eyes but not in the soft expressions on the woman’s face.
Queenie suddenly rose to her feet and moved to stand next to her owner’s chair.
Shit.
The dog was picking up on the tension in the room. The tension he started.
