Page 43 of I Hate You More

“You’ll end up having to eat your words… See if you don’t. He’s lost a pound since you last saw him. Once I take him to the groomer and they clear out some of his undercoat, he’ll have lost twice as much.”

“He’s never looked better.”

All this calm acquiescence was starting to alarm her. She turned to face Spencer, arms akimbo and much of her energy restored. “Okay, who are you, and what have you done with Spencer?”

Instead of taking offense, he laughed. “I’m determined not to let you get to me today. Nothing you say or do will move me.”

The idea of Spencer being docile and good-humored was intriguing enough to pique her interest, but not so intriguing that she was willing to accept it at face value. Spencer didn’t makeanythingeasy. It was a large part of his charm.

“Nothing?” she countered. “Those are bold words coming from a man who…rises so willingly to a challenge.”

“Nice try, but it won’t work this time.” He nodded across the yard to where the boys were attempting to roll circles around Wheezy. “And since you can hardly start taking off your clothes while you’re watching those three, I figure that gives me twenty-four hours of safety. Thirty-six, if I know Eva. She’s going to stretch this weekend out as long as she can.”

The prospect of being abandoned to the mercy of those high-adrenaline children for that long didn’t, as it might have a few minutes earlier, daunt Ruby. Thirty-six hours in Spencer’s company—thirty-six hours in which to chip away at his resolve one innuendo at a time—was enough to make her wish Eva and Maury would never return.

“They have to sleep sometime,” she pointed out.

Spencer laughed. “Is that what you think? Oh, my sweet summer child.”

“You have to sleep sometime, too.” She paused as the full implication of thirty-six hours sank in. “Wait… Are you staying here? With me? For the whole weekend?”

A tinge of pink touched his ears. “I won’t if you don’t want me to, but I thought I’d make the offer. Eva and Maury usually tag-team, and they still end up looking like something the dog dragged in by the end of the day.” He hesitated. “It’s not a commentary on your ability to babysit, I swear. I just thought you might like the company.”

It was such a sweet offer—and such an unexpected one—that Ruby could only blink at him. Spencer Wilson seemed like the last person on earth who would willingly indulge in domesticity. Especially the messy, rambunctious, chaotic kind found under this roof.

Then again, he was closer to Eva than he was to anyone. You could tell a lot about a man from the company he kept. Caleb, for example, didn’t seem to see anyone but his own reflection in the mirror. Harry, for another example, hung out with drug addicts who didn’t balk at stealing from the elderly and vulnerable.

Spencer was friends with a chatty, oversharing mother of three and a large-animal vet who was obsessed with tiny dogs. That meant something.

“Thank you,” Ruby said. She got up on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his cheek. He smelled of soap and a freshly mown lawn, but that might have just been because the scent of grass was all over her hair and clothes. “The extra hands will be nice.”

“Ewwww!”

“She kissed you!”

“Girls have cooties!”

Ruby laughed as she pulled away. She laughed even harder when Spencer swallowed so loudly she could hear his throat working up and down. He clearly hadn’t been expecting her easy acceptance of his offer—or the touch of her lips on his skin.

“Are you still sure nothing I do will move you?” she asked. “I hate to break it to you, but there’s a lot more where that came from. A cheek isn’t the only thing I know how to kiss.”

His eyelashes fluttered with interest, but he still didn’t move. “I’m sure,” he said. “A dog-show judge is immune to bribery of all kinds. It’s in our blood.”

“Then it’s only fair to admit that I don’t just kiss,” she said with something almost like a purr. “In the right mood, I also lick and nibble and wrap my tongue around—”

A screech filled the air before she could finish making her threat. She whirled and found that in the five minutes she and Spencer had been talking, Julio had managed to get all the way up an oak tree that stood stately and dangerous in the middle of the yard. He was fine, as were the two little boys egging him on from the ground. The cat he appeared to be chasing up the branches, however, strongly resented the interference.

Instead of reprimanding the boys or running to the rescue, Spencer laughed. It was an amazing sound—a deep, low rumbling that made her feel like nothing in the world could be terrible as long as he was in it. No more did she feel anxious about the future, and gone was the fear that Spencer would discover her lie about being a doctor and look at her the way he had that first day.

In this moment, with that laugh, she felt nothing but happy.

“Oh, I’m not worried,” he said, watching as Julio swung himself from branch to branch as though he’d been born in that very tree. “By the end of today, you won’t even have the ability to blink, let alone wrap your tongue around anything.”

It was her turn to laugh. “There are only three of them, Spencer. Spend an evening with twenty elderly residents doing keg stands with their walkers, and then we’ll talk.”

* * *

“Where are we going, and why does it look like the sort of place you’d abandon a woman and three children you want to conveniently dispose of?”