I scolded myself for being foolish and impulsive, silently telling myself that I was setting myself up for the kind of embarrassment and ridicule that would cripple me. It had taken me endless hours of therapy and unwavering amounts of tough love from my family and friends to get to the point where I could leave the house without having a full-on panic attack. Taking a step so far out of my comfort zone felt like I was jumping off a cliff without knowing if there was anything down below to cushion my fall. If Wheeler rejected the gift, if he made me feel stupid for trying to do something nice, it very well might undo all the hard work I’d put into getting back some semblance of a normal life. Trying to cheer up a man that I had no ties to or no investment in seemed like a foolish risk to take, but I still packed up the box and drove down here. I tried to talk myself out of going inside, my mind screaming that this was a mistake. It didn’t work. Even though I was a nervous wreck I still ended up grabbing the box, muttering under my breath at the contents like they could reassure me this wasn’t going to blow up in my face. I was shaking from head to toe as I exited the car.
The box shifted in my hold, making me gasp and mutter a few choice words. My father would hate that I was swearing, so I made it a point to do so at least once a day. I had to shut the car door with my hip and I jumped when it slammed shut. I watched wide-eyed as one of the painted metal doors started to roll up. I squinted behind the dark lenses of my sunglasses as a lone figure walked to the edge of a bay and deftly jumped down, ignoring the ramp that led up into the building. I gulped a little bit because there was no mistaking the tall, lean figure that was making his way toward me. The late-afternoon sun made his already burnished hair glow like autumn fire, and highlighted the dips and valleys in his arms and across his broad chest as he wiped his hands on a red rag that he pulled from his back pocket. He had the top half of his coveralls unfastened and hanging around his waist, leaving him and all that artwork that covered him on display in nothing more than a black tank top that had a hole on the side. He looked dirty and a little rough. Both things totally worked for him … and for me. I’d almost forgotten what lust felt like. I was attracted to him and that terrified me because in my world attraction led to nothing but heartache and hurt. Still, here I was, standing in front of him even though everything inside of me was screaming to run as far away from him as possible.
I moved as the box shifted again and stopped as he lifted his chin up in the direction where I had parked my very nondescript sedan. “Something wrong with the Camry?” Wheeler’s voice was warm and smooth, like expensive liquor sipped on summer nights, but his eyes were cold. They were the palest blue I had ever seen, a blue so washed out and light that they had a silvery shimmer to them. They were also sharp and intent, not missing much, including the box I was having a hard time keeping a hold on as he got closer.
“Um … no. The Camry is fine, thank you.” Rowdy, my sister’s boyfriend and the father of my soon-to-make-an-appearance niece or nephew, had strong-armed me into buying a car from Wheeler when I finally decided I was emotionally well enough to live on my own after I fell apart at the hands of the last man that was supposed to love me. Wheeler tried to sell me a 1957 Bonneville that was hands down the coolest car I had ever seen, but I balked at the idea of riding around in something that was guaranteed to attract unwanted attention. Especially attention of the male variety. Rowdy cringed when I handed over the cash for the Camry but Wheeler just smiled like he understood why I made the choice even if he didn’t think it was the right one.
I nervously shifted my feet and watched as that icy gaze of his landed on the box clutched to my side. Right on time the contents let out a little half bark, half yelp that had Wheeler’s rust colored eyebrows lifting up almost to his hairline and made his tattooed hands pause where they were still wringing the red rag tightly between them.
“Is that a puppy?” He sounded curious and slightly amused, which I took as a good sign. Most of the men I’d dealt with in the past would have been furious that I had not only showed up unannounced but did so with a tiny, wiggling puppy in tow.
“It is a puppy … I … uh … well, someone dropped them off at the vet’s office where I work and I thought that since Dixie is leaving and taking Dolly with her, and you seemed so fond of her that maybe you wanted one of your own … well …” I was rambling and talking too fast but I couldn’t stop the words from rushing out one after the other. Dolly was my neighbor’s pit bull, my neighbor who just happened to be Wheeler’s best friend. “Plus, you own a house, so you can have a pit bull or maybe you need him as a guard dog for the garage. With some training he could be perfect. You can take him to work with you, which is great since most puppies have to live in a crate while they’re being trained.” I shifted my feet again and looked down at the dog, who was whining up at me like he felt sorry for me because even a nonhuman could tell I was making a mess of this. “Pit bulls are illegal in the city limits so we have to adopt them out because shelters will euthanize them if we can’t find them homes, and no animal deserves that.”
He didn’t answer me but he did reach out and take the box from me. The brindle-and-white puppy immediately jumped to the edge of the box and started yipping at and sniffing the new person that was within licking distance. Wheeler put the box on the ground and picked up the solid little body and held the adorable animal up in front of his face while the puppy barked excitedly and wagged his stubby little tail. “He’s cute.”
Oh lordy, was he ever … and I wasn’t talking about the dog.
“Um … I know it’s kind of presumptuous but I thought maybe you two could help each other out.” I cringed as I unwittingly stumbled into personal territory where I absolutely didn’t belong. It had been nothing more than bad timing and admitted curiosity that landed me right in the middle of Wheeler’s personal life imploding. I shouldn’t know that his now-former fiancée had cheated on him, prompting him to cancel the wedding only a few weeks before they were set to walk down the aisle, and I also shouldn’t know that this wasn’t the first time his woman had stepped out on him. But I did know and it had me feeling all kinds of ways about what he had been through. I knew that Wheeler was a nice guy, one that deserved a bit of happiness while he healed from that kind of devastating heartbreak. And really, who couldn’t be happy when they were holding a puppy, especially when that puppy was already clearly in love with him.
“I’m going to miss Dixie more than I’m going to miss Dolly.” He gave me a crooked grin as he mentioned my neighbor.
The fact that I lived next door to Dixie was the reason I knew all the gory details of his recent breakup. She was his ex-fiancée’s sister as well as his best friend. The walls were thin and Dixie was one stranger that I trusted enough to get close to, so I spent a lot of time at her place. It sucked that she was getting ready to move to Mississippi right when Wheeler needed her the most. But her boyfriend was there and she missed him. It was obvious she wasn’t happy being in Denver when Church wasn’t.
I cleared my throat and lifted fingers that had a visible tremor in them to my hair. I pushed some of it behind my ears and winced when the motion knocked my sunglasses sideways. I didn’t know if I could handle this conversation eye to eye but it was move the sunglasses or look like more of a spaz than I already did. With a sigh I pushed them to the top of my head and froze as his frosty eyes locked on mine. They were so cold, they could freeze me from the inside out … instead I suddenly felt warm all over and heated in way that was foreign and strange. I’d never been so physically drawn to anyone and it made me anxious and agitated. I didn’t know what to do with it. I wasn’t in any kind of place emotionally to be crushing on a guy with the kind of complicated history and tangled future Wheeler had. I was only recently able to take care of myself in the most basic of ways. There was no way I had it in me to take care of him as well … and that’s what he needed … a woman that would step up to the plate and fix all the things that woman he wanted had broken. A woman who was selfish and
thoughtless. A woman he very well might still be in love with.
“If you don’t want him I’m going to ask Dixie to take him. Dolly can always use a friend. One of my coworkers took home his sister and the doc I work for found homes out of state for the other two boys in the litter. This little guy was the last one that needed a home. I couldn’t stand seeing him left alone while the rest of his family found forever homes. Like I said …” I shrugged a little and looked away from that piercing stare. “I immediately thought of you.” Wheeler was looking for his forever home too, I just knew it.
He bent down and put the puppy on the ground. The stout little animal started to jump on his lower legs and nipped at the worn leather of his sturdy and stained boots. Wheeler put his hands on his hips as he watched the puppy. I was almost a hundred percent certain that bringing the abandoned ball of slobber and love had been the right call when those arctic-colored eyes lifted back up to me. His expression was hard to read but it was clear something was stopping him from embracing my gift with open arms.
“I don’t know that I have the time to take on a puppy right now, Poppy.” He lifted a hand and rubbed it across the back of his neck. His mahogany-colored eyebrows pulled into a vee over the top of his nose and the corners of his mouth pulled down in a frown that was too harsh for his pretty face. I liked it much better when he smiled and his twin dimples cut deeply into his cheeks.
I bit my bottom lip to keep the distressed noise that I could feel climbing up the back of my throat at bay. I knew he might say no but I couldn’t hide the fact that I was disappointed by his decision. I honestly felt like he and the puppy would be good for one another, that they could bring a little joy into each other’s lives. It stung that Wheeler wasn’t ready to open his heart up again, even when it was to something that was so obviously eager to love him unconditionally and irrevocably, unlike his ex.
“It’s okay. Like I said, I’ll take him home until I can find a place for him.” I crouched down and wiggled my fingers to get the dog’s attention, and grinned when he bounded over, tripping over his front legs as he scrambled in my direction. “I can take him to work with me and hold on to him until I figure something out. One of the boys at the shop will step up if Dixie doesn’t want another dog.”
I heard him sigh and looked up to see him watching me intently. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then snapped it shut, his teeth audibly clicking together. I didn’t know much about Wheeler, but what I did know I liked. He was nice. He was polite. He was thoughtful and he was kind. But more than any of those things, he went out of his way to hold himself in a way that wasn’t threatening or intimidating because he was aware without me saying a word how jumpy I was around people, men in particular. I hated that they were bigger than me. I hated that I knew firsthand how badly they could hurt me if they had a mind to. I hated that I wilted and cowered under their attention, even if it was innocent and friendly. The fact that he took care not to spook me spoke volumes and made me feel awful for putting him in such an awkward position.
“Poppy …” He sounded regretful and I had no interest in dragging the torture out any longer for either of us. I scooped up the dog and buried my nose in the top of his head.
“Seriously it’s no big deal. I love him and I’m happy to hold onto him until I can find him a proper home. It was stupid of me not to consider how busy you are with everything you have going on in your life right now. A puppy is a big commitment and that’s not something you can put on someone else without discussing it with them first.” The dog swiped his tongue across my face, no doubt feeling my distress and rising panic. I wanted to tuck his warm little body to my chest and run away like I was trying to score a touchdown in the other team’s end zone. “I should have known better.” That was a common refrain, one that chased me in my nightmares and blasted through my head every single second I struggled to survive the torturous hands of my abusive husband. I found myself repeating dangerous, harmful patterns where the men in my life were concerned, and through it all I told myself over and over again that I should have known better. My therapist would tell me I was being too hard on myself, that I was shouldering the blame for the actions of men that I had no control over. But blame was hard to let go when it was what you lived and breathed.
Wheeler made a noise that sounded like he was choking and then bent over at the waist so that his hands were resting on his knees as his breath wheezed in and out. His wide shoulders shuddered and then tensed like he had taken a blow that knocked the wind out of him.
I didn’t touch anyone, not even the people that had grown up hugging me and loving me. But I was compelled to reach out a shaky hand and put it on his colorful shoulder. The puppy gave a yip of approval and I tried not to fall to my knees as the warmth from his tattooed skin blazed through my fingers and shot up my arm. It had been a long time since I’d let myself have any kind of human contact, and even longer since that kind of contact didn’t leave bruises and welts on my skin and tattered lesions across every surface of my soul. He felt so vital. So necessary.
“Are you okay?” The shoulder I was lightly touching tensed even tighter and I let go as if his skin burned me when he righted himself and I ended up frozen in that frigid stare of his.
“No. I’m about as far from okay as I have ever been.” He let out a brittle-sounding laugh and narrowed his eyes at me. “When a pretty girl shows up trying to make the shit show that has become your life better, it should be okay, but it’s not.”
He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face like he was tired. “I can count on one hand the times in my life someone bothered to ask if I was okay, Poppy.” His mouth twisted into a wry grin that would look harsh on anyone else but with those dimples of his still managed to look downright adorable. “Most of those times have been Dixie asking. It wasn’t even the right sister.”
I was horrified and didn’t bother to hide it as I huddled the wiggling puppy to my chest like his warm little body could protect me from the images his awful words brought to mind. “That’s terrible, Wheeler.” My voice shook and the words sounded squeaky. I already knew too much about him and this was more information that I didn’t feel like I had earned the right to have.
“It is pretty terrible but not nearly as bad as my ex telling me that she’s knocked up with my kid.” I gasped and took a step backward as his words landed like blows. “A kid we definitely didn’t plan on. A kid I am in no way ready to raise with a woman I can’t stand to be around. A kid that is going to have to bounce between houses and be shuffled from one place to another always trying to figure out exactly where home is.”
He sounded shattered and he looked the same. Those eyes of his were colder than anything I’d ever seen, his skin was pale and taut over the sharp angles of his face, making the smattering of freckles that dotted his nose and cheeks stand out even more than they normally did.
A baby.
Those words always hit something delicate and unprotected deep inside of me. When my sister first told me that she was expecting a baby, I wanted to be happy for her but that happiness had to fight its way through remorse and sorrow so thick it felt like it was crushing me. The same thing was happening right now as Wheeler watched me. Everything inside of me wanted to unravel but I was holding it together, barely. He should be happy that he had a precious little life on the way, even if he was less than thrilled with the circumstances surrounding the arrival.
I took another step backward and almost fell over. Wheeler reached out a hand like he was going to catch me or stop my fall, but I flinched away and tightened my hold on the dog so much so that he yelped in protest. Frantically I pulled my sunglasses from the top of my head and shoved them back over my eyes. I could feel moisture building, and if I started crying I needed something to hide behind. He wouldn’t understand why his words stripped me bare and I didn’t have it in me to explain the reasons why they cut so deeply. I’d used up all my limited courage and nerve getting myself out of the car and
offering up the puppy.
“Well, congratulations on the baby.” I didn’t sound like I meant it even though I honestly did. “I’m gonna take this little guy and head home and make some calls about who might be in the market for a puppy.”
I scrambled back some more and watched wide-eyed behind my sunglasses as Wheeler advanced on me. He followed me until my back was flat against the side of the car and he was looming in front of me with only the puppy to separate his chest from mine. It was the closest I had been to a man in a very long time. Even with him being irritated and riled up, I couldn’t say that I was worried about him taking out his feelings on me. He didn’t scare me. The way he made me feel did.
“I’m sorry, Poppy. If I was in a different place in my life I would be pretty fucking excited that a girl like you had me on her mind and went out of her way to do something really sweet for me. If I wasn’t already struggling to get my head around being a new father, I would happily take on the task of being a puppy parent.” God, he was nice. Even when he was looming over me looking not very nice at all. “There’s something about you, something about those eyes and the soft way that you speak, that makes me want to tell you all my secrets. Secrets that sting. I want to tell you that the last time my life was this fucked up was when my junkie mother was dropping me off at a fire station in some rinky-dink mountain town in the middle of a snowstorm. Our car broke down, because it always did. She didn’t take care of it and she sure as shit didn’t take care of me.” I felt my mouth drop open in shock but couldn’t move as his voice dipped lower and his eyes got even colder. His words sent shivers up and down my spine.