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“Please.”
Beau dropped her head back. I hadn’t seen her this relaxed since we were kids. She always had this put together air around others, but back then, when she was with me, she let loose.
“You eaten?”
Ma had fed me the equivalent of a Thanksgiving meal for lunch, but that was long gone.
“No.” She accepted the beer I offered.
“Other hand.”
She glared, but her injury could still use something cold on it. I took a swig, and she made an exaggerated motion of doing the same, making surenotto do as I’d said.
I flipped through my phone and found the number for Dino’s. They should still be open if we hurried. “Pizza? Or is that not frou-frou enough for you?”
“Only vegetable.”
I groaned as I dialed. “You used to eat meat.”
She flinched. “I still do.”
Instead of what I usually would have ordered—a pizza with no vegetables—I heard myself ask for what Beau wanted.
I’d be starving again in a few hours but didn’t want an argument.
“It’ll be here in half an hour.” I tossed my phone on the table.
We were surrounded by greyhounds. Most of them had found a bed to pass out on. Two were at my feet with their heads on top of them.
Some of them had been a little rowdy, but overall, well-behaved. Better than I expected. Who knew what these dogs had been through?
Lucky put his head in my lap and let out a sigh.
A dog might be good for Ma.
One would be good company and maybe she’d get a little exercise. I could talk to Teague about it. Hell, Ma might like to come visit the dogs here. We’d never had one growing up, so I wasn’t sure she was into them.
For that matter, Bobby’s and Mike’s kids would like a couple of these guys. It might help Joe too.
Who did I think I was? The dog fairy?
Although this had made me understand Teague a bit better. It had surprised me and the guys how much time he’d given Pepper, Miss Adeline, and Grey Paws, but I was starting to get it. These dogs gave back. We gave a lot of ourselves every shift at work, but these dogs gave something back. Unconditionally.
“Did you ever have a dog?” I swallowed a long pull of beer.
Her gold earrings caught in the light. I’d buried my face in that spot behind her ear so many times it felt like home. The skin was soft and faintly tan and smelled so good it made me crazy.
Shemade me crazy.
“I’m not doing this with you.”
I set my beer down. “It’s just a question. What do you think is gonna happen if you answer it?”
I was the one who had more at stake if she did. The more she offered of herself, the more I had to let go of when the time came.
She traced the rim of the bottle, then looked at me with bitterness. “Like my father would ever have allowed a dog in his house.”
The image of a sad and lonely little girl isolated in her father’s kingdom flashed in my head. She’d never talked much about him. Her brothers, on the other hand, she’d chattered away about. But they were a few years older. There had to have been a point when she’d been alone.
