“Because he saw the puppies on the SPCA website and he knew they’d all be gone before then.”
Of course they would, because if the others looked anything like Coco, they were too adorable for words. But having a puppy in the house, even for a short time, made her uneasy. “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
“Woof,” Oliver said again, crouching down and gently patting the puppy’s head.
“He does look like Woof,” she said to Ryan. “And you know how devastated he was when he lost that toy—what’s going to happen when your brother takes Coco away?”
He’d apparently already thought that one out. “He’ll be fine, because we can go to Braden and Dana’s house to visit Coco.”
Harper wasn’t convinced.
“Or we could go to the SPCA to get one of Coco’s brothers or sisters for Oliver.”
“No,” she said quickly. Definitively. “It’s bad enough that a puppy needs so much time and attention, but then it grows up to be a dog.”
“You don’t like dogs?”
“I don’t dislike dogs,” she said cautiously.
“You never had a pet?” he guessed.
“I had a hamster, when I was eleven.”
Ryan scooped Coco up off the floor and held the puppy out to her.
She folded her arms over her chest; he chuckled.
“What are you afraid of?”
“I’m afraid she’s going to piddle on the hardwood floors or chew my favorite designer shoes.”
He shook his head. “You’re afraid of falling in love.”
She rolled her eyes.
Oliver reached up to pat the puppy’s head; Coco swiped at his chin with her tongue; the little boy giggled; and Harper felt something inside her heart just melt.
“I don’t know the first thing about dogs,” she told him, determined to establish the parameters of her relationship with the canine. “So I’m not looking after it when you go to work this afternoon.”
Anticipating just such a response, Ryan had wisely booked the day off, and after lunch he persuaded Harper to accompany them to the park.
There was a matching pink leash to go with the collar but Ryan didn’t dare ask Harper to hold it while they walked. She’d made it more than clear that the puppy was his responsibility—at least until Braden picked him up.
They weren’t halfway to the park when he noticed that Coco was having trouble keeping up. Though her tail was still wagging, her little legs simply couldn’t match their pace, so he picked her up and put her in the basket beneath Oliver’s seat. Coco promptly curled into a ball and fell asleep.
By the time they arrived at their destination, Coco proved that she’d been rejuvenated by her short nap, racing in circles around the climber while Oliver played on it.
Although Harper tried to hold herself aloof, several times Ryan caught her laughing at the puppy’s antics. He loved to hear her laugh, and neither of them had had much reason to laugh over the past couple of months. When it was time to make the return trip home, she took Coco’s leash, and when the puppy began to fall behind again, she picked her up and carried her.
He kept a close eye on Coco throughout the rest of the day. Although it seemed apparent that Harper had fallen for the puppy as quickly as he had, he’d promised that he wouldn’t let Coco roam freely through the house so they wouldn’t have to worry about little puddles on the floor or presents behind the furniture. He had caught the puppy starting to squat in the house a couple of times, but he’d managed to get her outside before she actually piddled. But at some point, while he’d been at the computer, Coco had got up from her bed beside the desk and wandered off—and he had no idea where.
He poked his head into the family room, where Harper had set herself up with her tablet after Oliver had gone to bed. The TV was now on, the tablet had been set aside, and Coco was in her lap.
“She’s only going to be here for about a week,” he reminded Harper.
The hand that was absently stroking the soft fur behind the puppy’s ears stilled. “I see you finally realized she was missing.”
“She hasn’t been gone that long,” he said, though he really wasn’t sure.
“Almost an hour,” she told him, resuming her stroking.
He sat on the arm of the sofa and scratched the puppy under her chin. Coco sighed.
“Whatever made your brother think to get his wife a puppy as an anniversary present?” she asked curiously.
“I think Braden’s grasping at straws, desperately trying to make her happy.”
“It must be hard for her,” she said. “To be surrounded by people with babies and not be able to have one herself.”
“There are other options for a woman who really wants a child,” he pointed out. “And a lot of kids in this world in need of a family.”
“Why aren’t they considering adoption?”
“Because adoption is a viable option.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Claiming to want a baby but not being able to have one keeps the focus on Dana. If they adopted, the attention would shift to the baby.”
“That’s harsh,” Harper chided, continuing to stroke the puppy’s back.
“It is,” he agreed. “But not inaccurate.”
“Since I’ve never met your sister-in-law, I’m hardly in a position to argue,” she admitted.
“And if you had met her, you wouldn’t.”
“But speaking of women I have met—was Aubrey here today?”
“No,” he told her, wondering at the odd segue to that question.
“I thought I saw her this afternoon,” Harper said. “But I’m sure if she’d been in town, she would have wanted to see Oliver.”
Ryan frowned. “Where did you think you saw her?”
“When I was leaving the studio. I glanced across the street and she was there, looking in the window of the bookstore. I only caught a quick glimpse, and when I looked back again, she was gone.”
“So you’re not sure it was her?”
“No,” she admitted, but he could tell by the tone of her voice that she felt uneasy. “Like I said, it was a quick glimpse and then she was gone.”
“They say everyone has a twin somewhere,” he reminded her.
“It just seems too much of a coincidence—a woman who looks like Aubrey hovering in the area where I work.” She shook her head. “Or maybe I’m just paranoid. Because if it was Aubrey—why wouldn’t she stop by to see Oliver?”
“That’s a good question,” he agreed.
“So the answer is most likely that the woman I saw wasn’t Aubrey at all,” she decided.
He hoped she was right.
* * *
As Aubrey drove back to Martinsville, she was already thinking about everything she wanted to do to get the house ready for Oliver’s arrival.
Early in their marriage, she and Jeremy planned to fill their house with children. Two miscarriages in the first three years of their marriage had proved that it wouldn’t be easy, but neither of them had given up. For the next year, Jeremy had been diligent about birth control until the doctor said it was safe to try again. Two months later, she was pregnant.
When she made it to week sixteen, she and Jeremy had a quiet celebration. At week twenty, they started talking about decorating a room for their baby. In week twenty-four, they ordered the crib and change table. She marveled at the changes to her body, relished every movement of the baby in her womb. Week twenty-six, they painted. Week twenty-eight, the baby stopped moving.
She didn’t tell anyone. She refused to believe that God could be so cruel as to take another child from her. At her thirty-week checkup, the doctor couldn’t detect a heartbeat. He sent her to the hospital, where they took the dead baby girl from her womb. They named their daughter Angel and buried her beside Jeremy’s mother at Holy Cross Cemetery.
Jeremy moved the crib and change table into the attic and painted over the pale yellow walls of the nursery, turning it into a ho
me office. She cried and pleaded with him not to give up, but he said that he couldn’t stand to watch her heart break over and over again.
She knew he grieved for their lost babies, too, but it was different for him. He had four children from his first marriage. In fact, by that time, his eldest son was about to have a child of his own—Jeremy was going to be a grandfather, and she had never experienced the joy of holding her own child in her arms.
But now it was finally going to happen.
Jeremy had warned her not to get her hopes up when she told him she wanted to raise her brother’s child. As an attorney, he knew to expect the unexpected in court. But she was confident that when the judge finally heard their case, he would decide that she and Jeremy could provide a better home for Oliver than his appointed guardians could.
And she was determined to have everything ready for him when that happened. When they finally got to bring him home, she wanted him to know that he would be there to stay—with his family, where he belonged.
* * *
Harper’s invitation for Aubrey to visit Oliver anytime she wanted had been sincere. She wanted the little boy to have a relationship with his father’s sister and her husband, but the whole being-sued-for-custody thing had made her less inclined to welcome the other couple into their home.
Of course, now that Aubrey and Jeremy had instigated legal action, she didn’t really have a choice. Shelly had told them that they had to play nice with Oliver’s aunt and uncle, which meant allowing them to visit and establish a relationship with the child. And even that might not have been so bad if they hadn’t stopped by the previous weekend when Oliver’s litigation guardian happened to be there at the same time.
Harper had been surprised to discover how much of an age difference there was between Aubrey and Jeremy—at least twenty years, she guessed, and understood why that had been an issue for Aubrey’s parents when she was only eighteen. But there was no disputing that he was good with Oliver—or that he was going along with the custody application because it was what Aubrey wanted.
He explained to the litigation guardian that his busy criminal law practice required that his wife would be the primary caregiver if their application for custody was successful. And although Aubrey currently worked—primarily with the infants in a local day care in Martinsville—she would happily give up her job to be a full-time caregiver to their nephew.
After that visit, Harper wasn’t nearly as confident that a judge would rule in favor of the status quo.
And when the bell rang the following Saturday morning—followed by Coco’s incessant barking to ensure she was aware that someone was at the door—Harper was understandably cautious. She peeked through the living room window before responding to the summons. Pleasure overcame wariness when she recognized the woman and little boy at the door.
“Ohmygod,” Kenna said when Harper opened the door with Oliver by her side and Coco in her arms. “You got a puppy.”
“No,” she said quickly. “We’re just puppy-sitting for a short while.”
“Oh, but she’s so cute.”
“Cute and loud and demanding,” Harper said. “Kind of like having a second child.”
Kenna chuckled and hitched Jacob a little higher on her hip. “Do you want a third?”
“Not forever, but you’re welcome to come in for a visit.”
“We’re just out dropping off invitations for Jacob’s first birthday party,” Kenna told her, prompting the baby to give Harper the envelope in his hand.
“That’s a big event.”
“And it’s probably going to be a big party, but I didn’t want to leave anyone off the list,” Kenna said. “And then Daniel’s mom added a few more names. We’ve been delivering invitations all morning, so if you don’t mind us coming in, I know Jacob would enjoy some playtime with Oliver.”
“Of course I don’t mind.” Harper stepped away from the door so that they could enter.
Kenna followed her into the living room, where they put the babies on the blanket already spread out on the floor and scattered with some of Oliver’s favorite toys. Of course, Coco had to be right in the middle of everything, too.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Harper asked. “Lemonade or sweet tea?”
“Sweet tea would be nice,” Kenna agreed.
Harper slipped out to the kitchen and returned with two tall glasses and a plate of cookies.
Kenna’s glance lingered on the plate. “Are those my mother-in-law’s snickerdoodles?”
“They are,” Harper confirmed.
Kenna wrapped both hands around her glass as if to resist the temptation. “Those cookies are deliciously addictive.”
“That’s why I serve them to company—so that I don’t eat them all myself.” She sipped her tea. “Have you ever seen our show when we’ve had Kane Holland on?”
“I never miss ‘In the Kitchen with Kane,’” Kenna assured her.
“He did a favorite-cookies segment, and one of the recipes was snickerdoodles. But I have to admit, his weren’t nearly as good as Jane Garrett’s.”
“You’ll have to tell her that when you come to Jacob’s birthday party next week.” Kenna gave in and selected a cookie.
“Isn’t the party a family thing?”
“Mostly,” Kenna agreed. “But you’re connected to Oliver and Oliver’s connected to Ryan and Ryan is Daniel’s cousin, which means that you’re family, too.”
The logic was convoluted, but because she liked Kenna, she was willing to be persuaded. “In that case, we’ll be there.”
“Good,” she said.
“Kee?” Oliver said, abandoning his blocks and cars and toddling over to the table where she’d put the plate of cookies.
“Yes, you can have a cookie,” Harper told him.
He took two from the plate, one in each fist.
“One for Jacob,” she said, because she knew he’d eat both if he wasn’t encouraged to share.
He toddled back over to Jacob and held one of the cookies toward his mouth, as if to feed it to him. His little friend didn’t seem overly interested—until Coco snatched the treat out of Oliver’s hand. Then, of course, Jacob started to cry, which made Oliver cry, too, and Coco—not understanding that she’d started the whole thing—began to bark.
Kenna picked up her son to settle him down, then sat him on her lap and offered him another cookie. Jacob took two tiny bites, then wriggled to get down so that he could go back to playing with Oliver, who was driving toy cars on the carpet. Coco sat on her butt, her eyes focused on the plate, her tail wagging hopefully.
Then the back door opened, and she raced in that direction, barking a happy greeting for Ryan, who had been outside cutting the grass.
Sure enough, when he came through the living room half a minute later, the puppy was dancing around his feet. “It’s got to be ninety degrees out— Oh.” He paused in the doorway when he saw Kenna sitting on the sofa.
Harper glanced at him, noting the way his broad shoulders strained the seams of his T-shirt, his hard body glistened with perspiration, and his square jaw was dark with stubble. He looked hot and sexy and just a little dangerous, and every nerve ending in her body tingled.
“I didn’t realize we had company,” he finished.
“I’m not company—I’m family,” his cousin’s wife reminded him.
Oliver, distracted by the sound of their conversation, had abandoned his play and raced to the doorway, lifting his arms toward Ryan. “Up.”
Ryan took an instinctive step back. “Sorry, buddy—I need a shower first.”
Oliver’s brow furrowed. “Up,” he insisted.
Harper crossed the room to intercept the little boy. “Uncle Ryan needs a bath,” she explained, as he was more likely to understand bath than shower. “He’s all sweaty and stinky.”
But he wasn’t really. Sweaty, yes—but not in a bad way. And not stinky at all. He smelled like a man who had been working outdoors, and the scent of sun-kissed ma
le and fresh-cut grass wasn’t unappealing. In fact, it was almost arousing.
Oliver tried to copy holding his nose. “Baff.”
Ryan chuckled and rumpled his hair. “Yes, I’m going to have a bath,” he promised.
Then his gaze shifted to Harper, skimmed over her from head to toe, making a different promise, and she felt as if it was ninety degrees inside the house.
“Excuse me, ladies,” he said.
Harper set Oliver back down beside Jacob to resume his play. Kenna waited until she heard Ryan climb the stairs to the second level before she turned to her and said, “So how was it?”
“How was what?”
“Sex with Ryan.”
Harper choked on her tea. “What?”
Her friend laughed. “Come on—the air was buzzing with electricity when he walked in here. And the way he looked at you...” She fanned her face with her hand.
Harper wished she had a fan herself as heat rushed into her cheeks. “Please tell me it isn’t that obvious.”
Kenna smiled. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but it’s that obvious.”
* * *
Harper was cleaning crumbs from the seat of Oliver’s high chair when Ryan came back downstairs after his shower.
“Is Oliver down for his nap already?”
She nodded. “He was falling asleep in his chair.”
He looked at the spotless table. “I guess I missed lunch?”
“There are a couple of sandwiches in the fridge.”
He moved toward her, deliberately crowding her against the counter. “Do I smell better now?”
She inhaled deeply. “Mmm...you smell good,” she confirmed. “But you really didn’t smell so bad before.”
“You said I was sweaty and stinky,” he reminded her.
“I was trying to refrain from jumping you in front of your cousin’s wife.”
“Kenna knows the Garrett men are irresistible.”
“Apparently.” She moved past him and took the plate of sandwiches from the fridge, setting it on the table for him.
But he wasn’t as interested in his lunch as he was curious about the reason for the obvious pique in her tone. He turned her to face him, looked at her questioningly.
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