Page 33 of Sweet Devotion

A sound that might have been the beginning of a laugh came through the phone. “Something like that.”

“It’s not.” He scratched Romeo’s ear. “It’s more like a working vacation where a mother who could have been a general helps you see the world in a different light.”

Silence.

He stood, carefully, Romeo rising with him. “Just come. As soon as you get your papers, pack a bag and get your ass here. Trust me.”

“Okay.” Simple. Quiet.

“Okay.” He smiled. Hanson didn’t have a clue how healing this place is. “Keep me posted.”

“Will do.”

The call ended and he stood looking around once more.

From inside the house came the sound of voices—two, maybe three—carrying through the kitchen from the direction of the living room. He recognized Alice’s laugh, which meant company, and then another voice, higher and self-possessed and faintly familiar from a Millers Creek sidewalk. He opened the screen door.

Romeo followed him inside.

Alice Sweet couldn’t stop laughing at the chicken egg dishes that Abigail Fine had brought her.

“I saw those and thought they would be perfect for your famous deviled eggs. I only regret they didn’t have more.”

“I have to agree, I’ve never seen anything like this.” One looked like an artist palette with all the egg holes around the perimeter, an egg on each tail feather. Another had ceramic chickens ‘nesting’ in the middle surrounded by egg holes, but her favorite were the two red devils perched on either end of the large dish holding pitch forks. “They’ll be the talk of the day.”

Just then, the screen door opened. Aiden walked inside and to her surprise, Romeo remained on his heel.

“Oh my.” Abigail’s grip on her poofy pooch tightened.

Shoo Shoo’s response was to start yapping like the small snippy dog she was. Romeo, on the other hand, tipped his head to one side and rather than retreat or charge, merely stared at the barking pup. Barking being a word Alice used very loosely around the pocket pooch.

“Nice to see you again so soon.” Aiden gestured for Romeo to stay, and being the well-trained dog that he once was, Romeo remained seated in place. “Nice to see you again too, Shoo Shoo.” Slowly extending his hand, Aiden made an effort to make nice when the dog snapped at him and Aiden jumped back.

“Nothing against you, it’s the dog making her nervous. I should get going. I just wanted you to see the plates.” Turning to a protective angle, Abigail slowly backed up. “It’s going to be the best festival ever.”

The dog was still yapping loudly when Alice closed the front door behind her friend. Leaning back against the door, she shook her head. “If I ever turn into a doting pocket pooch lady, for the love of all that is golden—shoot me.”

Chuckling, Aiden rested his hand on Romeo’s head. “Duly noted, ma’am.”

A warm cup of tea cradled in Colleen’s hands, she stood alone in the garage taking in the boxes, the equipment, and just… thinking.

Taking a long sip of the Earl Gray brew, she walked the perimeter slowly, deliberately, the way she walked a paddock before a session. The corner where the changing room would go. The wall where the mirrors would hang once the floor was down. She stopped at the corner and studied it the way he’d studied it—with the particular attention of someone who could see the finished thing inside the unfinished one. He’d known in thirty seconds what she’d been circling around for weeks. Not just what it needed but in what order and why.

Tell me this. If the room were finished and ready for multiple patients, would you be ready?

She hadn’t answered properly because the question had caught her completely off guard. Everyone else asked about the timeline, the equipment, the money. He’d asked about her.

Her hand straightened the edge of the paper roll on the nearest treatment table—a purely unnecessary adjustment, something for her hands to do while her brain caught up with the rest of the day. Millers Creek. The antique shop. Four movie posters wrapped carefully in the back of his truck like he was transporting something that mattered. Eating. Dancing. The way he’d led—firm enough to know exactly what he wanted, gentle enough that following felt like her own idea. The way he’d held her hand when they walked, the feel of his hand along the small of her back, and how it sent tiny tingles up her spine.

Taking another sip, she considered what was to come. Her mind could see Aiden working. The same way he worked at the Sweet ranch. With precision. With confidence. With strength. The thoughts sent shivers up her arms. This was really going to happen and happen soon. Her dreams were coming together—all thanks to Aiden.

Aiden. She could see it all. The movie posters on the finished walls. The patients who would sit in this room and have no idea that the man who built it had hummed Puccini at a dry creek bed, danced the jitterbug in a honky tonk in Millers Creek, and hand fed a grieving dog until something in both of them came back to life. The man lit up with every inch of progress Romeo made. Just one more thing to love about the guy.

Love. The word landed in the middle of her chest and sat there with the particular stillness of something that had been true for a while and was only now saying so out loud.

“Well, how about that?”

Chapter Fourteen