“Well,I’mnot. I have a healthy respect for any animal that’s feeling aggressive. But once you know dogs, it’s easy to see which ones just want some good loving. Dagger here is one of those. Although I don’t think the name suits him.”
I blew out a breath. I hadn’t managed to intimidate her at all. Neither had Hopkins.
And the longer I stayed, the worse it got.
So I growled out, “Fix your damn tree,” then stalked back to my truck.
It was time to go. And if that traitor Hopkins wanted to hang out with his new girlfriend, he’d have to walk the rest of the way home.
Chapter 5
Poppy
I hadn’t expected Corbin to be so intimidating.
I’d been around grumpy mountain men my whole life.
Hell, my dad was one of them.
But Corbin was somehow bigger, rougher, and gruffer than all of them combined.
I stood there and watched him drive off.
He didn’t feel dangerous to me.
He felt like a mystery waiting to be unraveled.
Like his dog, he seemed to have a lot of wounds. Maybe they weren’t visible like Dagger’s scars were, but they were in there.
Corbin seemed like he’d lost a lot.
It might take time, but I figured in the long run, we’d find a way to live peacefully out here. The land was beautiful, and there was plenty of room for both of us.
He’ll get used to me. I’m sure of it.
“Dagger, why don’t you go home now before you drive your daddy nuts. Go on, baby.” I coaxed him down the driveway in the direction Corbin’s truck had gone.
I knew the cabin wasn’t far, but I hadn’t walked down the gravel road to see exactly where it was. That felt like too much of a violation of his privacy.
And now I knew a few things about Corbin.
He valued his privacy.
He was surprisingly sexy.
And despite what he tried to project to the world, on the inside he was a total cinnamon roll.
Two weeks later.
The piece of wood was winning.
I screeched out involuntarily as the board I’d been trying to nail in place thwacked back, hit me in the boob and knocked me off the ladder.
Then I lay there, winded and humbled, while tiny tears slipped down my cheeks.
What had Corbin said? He’d down-graded my odds to two weeks. And that was after talking to me for less than a minute!
It burned because all I wanted to do was give up.
