because I didn’t want to let the puppy go. In just a few days I’d grown attached even though I knew I wasn’t allowed to keep him in my apartment. I’d already asked since Dixie was allowed to keep Dolly, but the landlord informed me they were grandfathered in before the laws surrounding pit bulls in Denver changed. My little guy wasn’t that lucky.
My response made Wheeler chuckle. He stared at me silently as he held out the coat he’d taken off in his free hand.
“Put this on.” I stared at him like he’d suddenly started speaking Russian until he shook the coat again and frowned at me. His voice was serious and left no room for argument when he repeated the command. “Put this on, Poppy. I want to talk to you and I know you aren’t comfortable inviting me up to your apartment.”
I winced at the reminder of how spazzy and skittish I acted when I’d had to knock on Dixie’s door while he was house-sitting for her. He’d invited me into the apartment and it took every single ounce of courage I had to step over the threshold. Once inside with him, I’d been so jumpy and twitchy that both Wheeler and Dolly had given me a wide berth and plenty of space to freak out. Wheeler went to find what I needed for Dolly and didn’t even try to hand it off to me. He set it on the floor a few feet away from where I was quaking and shivering and then took himself all the way back across the room to the kitchen so I could gather everything up and make my escape without having to get too close to him. I’d wanted to cry tears of gratitude and sob with remorse at the same time. I hated that I couldn’t fight through the fear and just act normal.
I took the jacket he was holding out for me with shaking hands and fought the urge to bury my nose in it to see if it smelled like him. I liked the way that he always kind of smelled like he’d had his hands in something mechanical and messy. There was no expensive cologne for Wheeler, just the clean smell of soap, the lemony scent of whatever he used in that thick head of reddish-brown hair, and the persistent trace of how he made his living. It was honest and it was real. The way it surrounded me was intoxicating as I slid my arms into the sleeves of his jacket. The material went down well past my fingertips and the bottom hit me at midthigh. I was instantly warm, wrapped up in his scent and his lingering body heat. In fact, I couldn’t recall ever being this cozy.
I took a deep breath and moved my hands so I could push the hair that had escaped my messy topknot out of my face. “It’s cold, you can come up. I can’t promise that I’m going to be a great hostess or anything but I think I can handle a quick conversation without passing out at your feet.” He’d never asked on any of the occasions when we were together why I acted like such a basketcase around him. I figured somewhere along the line someone had given him the CliffsNotes version of what had happened to me. He could fill in the blanks with a quick Google search from there. My nightmare had a million links.
It was his turn to rub his arms up and down to keep warm as he considered me for a second. Apparently deciding he was going to take me up on my less than hospitable offer, he put the puppy down on the sidewalk, wrapped the end of the leash around his tattooed wrist, and nodded toward the front of the building. I scowled as the little troublemaker immediately fell into trotting steps right next to those booted feet like a good boy.
I followed Wheeler up the cement steps and almost bumped into his back as the big, glass security doors swung open. He shifted to the side with the dog but I was still right in the line of fire as four men who appeared to be college aged came out of the building. It was an affordable complex right in the heart of Capitol Hill, so there were a lot of young professionals and students that occupied the apartments around mine. Typically, I was sequestered, safe and sound, in my apartment with the locks thrown by this time. I rarely encountered anyone coming and going, and when I did, I kept my head down and stuck strictly to my side of the hallway. This random run-in was a first and it was going to end horribly as I stood stuck, like a deer caught in headlights. I was going to throw up. I was going to make myself a liar because there was a very real chance that I might end up passing out at Wheeler’s feet the closer the men got to me.
The laughter coming from the young men rasped across my skin and had my breath wheezing out of me in short, shallow pants. I needed to move. I needed to get out of the way. I needed to get safe. I put up a shaking hand as if I could ward off the oncoming collision and closed my eyes, mentally taking myself someplace far far away as I braced for the impact.
It never came.
My breath rushed out and my knees almost buckled as I heard Wheeler’s deep and unfailingly steady voice tell the other men, “Hey, fellas, how about you let the lady slide past you real quick?” There was nothing in his tone but friendly inquiry and maybe a hint of gentle warning that they didn’t want to ignore his request. Since I had my eyes closed I didn’t see, but rather heard, the guys offer up an easy agreement. I couldn’t tell how close they were to me, but in the span of a heartbeat I could tell they had stepped aside and my path to the doorway was clear.
A fuzzy handful was shoved into my unsteady grasp and I could feel Wheeler’s body heat as he stepped next to me, close and reassuring, but not touching. “Come on, honey, let’s get you and the pup out of the cold.”
I forced my eyes open and gave a jerky nod as I buried my face in the puppy’s warm neck. One foot in front of the other, I forced myself through the security door Wheeler was holding open.
“Thanks, fellas.” He flicked his fingers out from his forehead as I kept my gaze locked firmly on him instead of the men that had to be wondering what on earth was wrong with me. I heard the other men mutter back a bunch of “no problems” and “anytimes” but I couldn’t bring myself to look in their direction.
Thankfully my apartment was located on the ground floor. Moving out of Rowdy’s sister’s house and into a place of my own had been a huge step forward in my healing process, but I knew that there was no way I could ever chance being stuck in an elevator alone with a man I didn’t know. That would send me into a full-on breakdown. Fortunately, I found a place on the ground floor that luckily happened to be located right next to Dixie Carmichael’s apartment. I knew Dixie from the bar that Rowdy liked to hang out at, so it wasn’t like there was a stranger sharing the wall with mine. Eventually Dixie and her bubbly, sunny disposition wore me down to the point that I could go over to her place and didn’t freak out if she came into mine. I was going to miss her when she was gone. And I really didn’t want to think about the prospect of having a new person living that close to me.
“Give me your keys, Poppy.” Wheeler’s voice was still even and calm as could be even when he had to repeat himself for the third time because I was just standing in front of my door staring at it like it would magically open for me.
“What?” I looked at him dumbly as I continued to cuddle the dog trapped uncomfortably in my too tight grip.
He held out his hand, palm up, and lifted one of his mahogany-colored eyebrows at me. “Keys, unless you want to hang out in the hallway the rest of the night. I can do that but I think the puppy needs something to chew on because he’s about to make his way through the cuff of my jacket.” He nodded at my arms and I gasped when I noticed that the dog had indeed chewed his way through the too long material that was hanging over my hands.
“Oh no! I’m so sorry. I didn’t notice.” I scrambled to pull my keys out of the wide pocket that ran across the bottom of my hoodie. My fingers were still shaking so badly that I immediately dropped the keys on the ground by my feet. Before I could bend to pick them up, Wheeler moved and not only had them in his hand but had the door open and me moving forward with nothing more than a shift of his body behind mine.
Once we were inside, he took the dog from me so I could strip his coat off and get control of my violently shaking body. Effortlessly, he found the spot in the tiny kitchen where I had been keeping the Puppy Chow and settled the tiny terror
