put my hands to my cheeks and held my face. I could feel heat under the surface and I could hear the rush of blood between my ears.
“Are you going to be okay? Do you need me to get you something? Should I grab Dixie?” He sounded genuinely concerned about me and that only made me shake even harder.
“No, I’m fine.” I wasn’t fine and hadn’t been in a very long time. “Dixie is in Mississippi. She took Dolly down because Church moved into the house he rented for them and she wanted the dog to get used to their new home and so she could see what it was like to have a yard.” I was babbling but I couldn’t stop the words from pouring out. “How do you move me without laying a hand on me?”
He looked up from where he was watching the puppy dig into his chow. Those blue eyes were like lasers as they cut into me from across the room. He put his hands on the counter and leaned forward. “What are you talking about?” His voice still held that same even tone but there was something in it, some deeper note, that let me know he knew exactly what I was talking about.
I wrapped my arms around myself in a protective hug and met his look with a pointed one of my own. “I get stuck, frozen with fear. I end up caught between memories and reality. Most people grab my arm or touch me somewhere to get me moving again. Either that or they go around me like I’m in the way. You made me move without doing anything.”
His eyebrows shot up and the corners of his mouth pulled down in a frown. “People shouldn’t touch you unless you tell them it’s okay, even if you are in the way.”
His words had me shivering in a completely different way than I had been before and I was the opposite of cold. “I didn’t use to mind it.” The words cracked and sounded almost as broken as I felt on the inside. “I mean being touched. It wasn’t until … after.”
He lowered his gaze and I saw his chest rise and fall as he sucked in a deep breath. “The reason doesn’t matter. If you don’t like it, people should respect that. No one has a right to put their hands on you unless you want them there.”
Right there in that moment I thought I wouldn’t mind it too terribly much if he walked across the room and replaced the frail and thin arms that were currently holding me together with his thick, strong, tattooed ones. It was probably the only touch I would ever crave but I would never be brave enough to ask for it, so I cleared my throat and awkwardly made my way closer to where he was standing. I lifted myself up into one of the barstools that was across the counter from him and put my hands on the cool surface separating us and prayed they would stop shaking.
“So what did you want to talk to me about? I’m assuming you reconsidered my offer and want to take the furry little terror off my hands.” The puppy looked up from where his entire face was buried in his water dish and gave me a look of doggie disdain. I couldn’t help but grin at him. “I’m kind of attached to him now, Wheeler. I don’t think I’m going to give him up.” It felt like months ago that I’d stood in front of him, knees knocking together, offering him the puppy. In reality it had only been a few days but that was time enough for my heart to attach itself to the rambunctious and destructive puppy. I would have to move, buy a house or something, but I would do it save the dog. I could be a hero and not a victim for a change.
His lips twitched and I almost fell out of my seat when those twin dimples flashed at me. The boy was a heartbreaker without even trying. Now that I was close enough to him to actually study him, I was pretty sure the light smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose was going to be my undoing. The dimples were too much, and the freckles were overkill. It wasn’t fair. A man shouldn’t be allowed to look both badass and adorable. Hearts weren’t meant to withstand that kind of onslaught and there was no way a vagina stood a chance against that kind of appeal. Speaking of which, I felt something deep inside of me start to get warm and my thighs clenched in response. I hadn’t been aware of my body and its reactions to the opposite sex in a long time.
“Have you given him a name yet.” The dimples cut deeper when I scowled at him in response.
“No, but that’s because I want the right name. He’s going to be stuck with it forever.” I pouted a little as he laughed and shook his burnished head.
“He’s a dog. Call him Good Boy and he’ll be happy.” He looked down at the dog and then back up at me with a barely noticeable wince. “I shouldn’t have let you leave the other day. I wanted to take him. I should’ve taken him, but my head’s all over the place right now and I can’t even tell which way is up half the time.” He lifted a hand and rubbed it across the back of his neck, which lifted the bottom of the black thermal he was wearing up and revealed the tight cut of his abs over the line of his jeans. I wasn’t surprised that he was tattooed there as well, but I was a little shocked that he seemed to be sporting a clearly defined six-pack. He wasn’t built bulky and thick like a lot of the other guys that were now a regular part of my life thanks to Salem and Rowdy and the tattoo shop. I should have guessed that hauling motors in and out of cars and throwing tires around all day led to having the kind of body that would have a lot of women pinning him to hot guy boards on Pinterest left and right.
“I’m terrified about the prospect of becoming a dad. I let that fear take over most of my life and I dismissed the idea of taking on more responsibility out of hand. The truth is, my house is lonely right now. I’m lonely.” He looked at me like I should have something to say to that but I couldn’t figure out what my response was supposed to be. There was a time when I was young and naive to all the ways a man could hurt a woman and I knew that girl would know what to say to him, but she was long gone. I was here biting my tongue to keep from saying what I was sure was the wrong thing. “I think the puppy might help me settle into the idea of being a new dad.”
I made a face. “You want to practice your parenting skills on a puppy?” It wasn’t a horrible idea but it wasn’t the best one I’d ever heard either. If I was in his shoes I would be hitting up all those buddies of his that were well on their way to populating Denver with the next generation of marked men and women. Hell, his best friend from childhood had recently become a father to an adorable five-year-old, the results of an ill-thought-out one-night stand. Zeb Fuller wasn’t any more prepared for fatherhood than Wheeler seemed to be and yet he’d landed on his feet and found himself a perfect little family with only a few mishaps along the way.
“No … well, kind of … I don’t know. In my head it sounded more reasonable and less crazy than that. What I do know is that I need something in my life to focus on besides the panic and resentment that’s been eating me alive lately. I can give him a good home.”
I looked down at the dog, who was now happily chewing on the dangling end of one of Wheeler’s shoelaces, and sighed. I didn’t want to give him up but the only reason he was here now was because of the man standing in front of me.
I’d spent my entire life trying to make men happy, trying to get them to love me by giving them everything I had. Apparently it was a hard habit to break because even though I didn’t want to, I heard myself begrudgingly tell Wheeler, “Fine. You can have him, but if you get tired of him, or if you think he’s too much to handle and want me to take him back, you have to know that I’ll never forgive you for that. I’ll never forgive myself for trusting you. You can’t do that to him.” Or me, I told him silently. The puppy plopped himself on his butt and looked up at both of us. His head swiveled between the two of us as his tongue lolled out the side of his mouth. I felt my heart squeeze in my chest and tears burned at the back of my eyes. This sucked but I knew it was the right thing to do. I knew all about needing to find something that tethered you to reality. Without it, the past and the possibility of a shattered present could fling you into a really ugly place that was hard to escape from. At the moment I only had one hand out of that particular pit of despair and I was doing my best to pull the
