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Doug’s eyes widened. “I wouldn’t mind that. I could use the caffeine.”
“Great. You can help me get my new pup settled, and I’ll put on a pot of coffee. I keep your favorite hazelnut creamer at the house.” She shrugged.
My mouth gaped open, and I looked up to see River watching me with a smile on his face.
We’d recently discovered that we had a gift for communicating without words. Basically, I could tell him he was annoying me without saying it aloud, and he could do the same.
So, I gave him a look.Midge still has feelings for Doug, and I think he has feelings for her, too.
He raised a brow, and one side of his mouth quirked up like the cocky bastard he was.No shit, Sherlock.
Doug led us into the back, and we walked past two rows of kennels with adorable dogs just waiting to be adopted.
I wouldn’t mind adopting one myself. Hell, I’d been out riding horses with Demi and Cutler every weekend, and a part of me wondered what it would be like to have a ranch house with animals here.
A totally different life than the one I’d just agreed to start living in a few weeks.
twenty-seven
. . .
River
“I can’t believeeveryone is going to help paint the new place for my brothers,” she said, as we pulled in front of the rental house that Zane, Rico, and Panda were moving into.
“I offered them free pizza and beer, and they were all in.” I put the car in park. Rico had attached himself to me, and I can’t say I minded it. Maybe it was that he was her brother. Hell, I didn’t know, but I was all right with the dude needing to lean on me. At least for now. “Hey, I emailed you the contract back. That pretentious prick of a dean you are going to work for actually agreed to everything we’d asked for. He upped your salary, increased your vacation time, and took out some of that fucked-up wording he’d had in there.”
She was leaving in ten days. Her dad would be home in three days. Everything was about to change.
I’d known it was coming.
Hell, this was my MO. Short and sweet. No feelings. We were just having a good time.
Nothing more.
She’d been ready to get out of this place since the day she’d arrived. She talked about it often. How this wasn’t her home.Maybe there were too many memories here that she wanted to forget.
But like it or not, her time here had been better than she’d expected. She’d made friends. She was out riding horses every weekend, which was something she couldn’t do in the city. She was spending a lot of time with her father, helping out the kids at the Fresh Start, and whether either of us wanted to admit it or not, we’d grown attached to one another. It hadn’t been the plan, but I couldn’t have stopped it if I’d wanted to.
The good thing about me—I was a pro at turning off my feelings. I’d had losses that were devastating, and I’d learned how to bounce back.
Losing my parents at a young age taught me that attachments were not permanent. You had to set your life up in a way that meant you could survive if any of it were taken away.
Maybe it was a good thing that Ruby was leaving. Because if she stayed much longer, I knew in my gut that I wouldn’t survive if she left me, and that scared the shit out of me.
It was for the better.
This was a fling. Nothing more.
Hell, I’d found the only woman that was as guarded as I was. We were a safe bet. We’d known that there was an expiration date for us from the beginning.
I just had to remember that it was coming soon.
“Thanks for doing that for me.” She turned to face me. “Do you think you’ll miss me when I leave?”
Do bears shit in the woods? Fuck yeah, I’ll miss you.
“It’ll be fine. This was the plan.” I studied her, saying something I knew I shouldn’t. “You want to take the job there, right?”
