Two giant paws connect straight with my chest, knocking the air from my lungs, and a dog with black and white fur proceeds to lick the side of my face withgreat enthusiasm.
Is this how it ends? Does the Grim Reaper roll around in a lush coat, with black pointed ears, and a long white nose? Or am I about to be dragged off into the afterlife by a hellhound—wearing… is that a candy cane striped bandana?—determined to cover me in saliva first?
“Jesus Christ.Stella.” A gruff voice hollers, to no avail. Those words scolding the furball firmly pinning me beneath every ounce of its seventy-odd pounds, are a little fuzzy to my ringing ears.
The dog planted over my chest starts whining, and I blink up at the bruised-looking clouds in the sky. Okay, well, I’m still here. No portal to the River Styx for me today.
Snow is still set to arrive.
My ex is still walking toward me.
My life still sucks.
I’m still very much just needing to be able to draw some air back into my lungs.
As if the universe hears me, several things happen at once. Cowboy from the bookstore reappears, unexpectedly so. Oh god, he’s looming above me, concern etched in between his brows as he barks out a firm command at the border collie wearing a red striped bandana around her neck.Stella. The culprit who promptly sits at my side wagging her tail enthusiastically, if entirely unhelpfully, considering the fact that she just body slammed me into a snowdrift like a pro wrestler.
His big hands are on me again, and this time, when he assists me to my feet, that size difference between us feels even more dramatic. Out in the open, with his cowboy hat planted on his head, it doesn’t seem real at all, as his massive paws carefully help me to stand and then keep hold of my shoulders.
God. He’s so handsome.
Bookstore-cowboy carefully dusts the snow and ice off my coat, muttering something at the dog under his breath as he does so. She promptly nuzzles my hand, her wet nose and whiskers tickling my palm.
“Mia?”
I wince, knowing the source of the voice calling my name.
This is going to go down as the Christmas spent drowning my sorrows in an attempt to erase all memory of this clusterfuck. My newly engaged ex finding me bedraggled and collapsed in a heap on the ground, whereas his fiancée looks fresh off a green juice cleanse and cover shoot for Women’s Health.
“Oh my god, are you alright? That was quite some fall.” His fiancée looks at me a little pityingly, and my stomach drops when I see her lift a hand to pluck a twig out of my hair; that diamond ring screams for attention as it hovers in my periphery.
“You and Dale know each other?” The woman doesn’t wait for either of us to speak, simply clapping her hands and clearly wanting to make this all about her. “I’m Polly! What a coincidence, running into a friend.” She titters a laugh and waggles her diamond. “We just got engaged! I said, ‘Yes!’”
No fucking shit.
“Mia works in the local library. She helped with that literacy fundraiser the firm ran back in the summer.” My ex-boyfriend—Dipshit Dale—is a slimy jerk. Shrugging off the way we know each other with a lie that comes a little too easily.
Cowboy hasn’t let go of my shoulders, and when I glance up at him, I see his eyes flick to the couple. I see the recognition hit him, that these are the very people I just showed him on my phone. God, this is mortifying. Then, he sees the diamond ring she’s busy waving around like she’s directing incoming planes to land.
“Who’s this?” My ex looks between me and the man mountain holding me upright.
I’m opening my mouth to say something to the effect ofhe’s a stranger who’s just picked my sorry ass up off the floor twice in ten minuteswhen cowboy beats me to it.
His heavy arm drapes around my shoulder, tugging me against his side, and I must’ve hit my head much harder than I realized, because the words that come out of his mouth can’t possibly be real.
“I’m Reid Landon. Her boyfriend.”
CHAPTER THREE
The prettiest green eyes to ever exist stare up at me. Going rounder by the second.
Yeah. To be fair, I don’t know why I just said that either.
But I’ll be damned if I’m letting such a captivating, mesmerizing girl face this alone.
“Gosh, aren’t you two quite something… a cute couple.” The blond with the engagement ring she keeps insisting on waving around looks at me, and then the girl I’m holding on to. Her mouth says one thing, but her nose wrinkles a fraction in silent judgment, looking between the two of us.
I couldn’t care less what she thinks. The girl I have in my hands is achingly beautiful.
