AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He sighed. He always did like boxers. Something about their faces and personalities drew him in, but he’d worked too much to have a pet before. He didn’t have the space either and they weren’t allowed in his apartment.
Here he could do what he wanted. “Mixed with what?” he asked.
“I didn’t ask. Come check them out. See for yourself.”
“I’ll think about it,” he said. “For now I’ve got to get to work. Either way I’ll see you for dinner tonight.”
Robin laughed and turned around to walk back home and he pushed it from his mind.
The last thing he needed was a dog.
5
Wrangling The Puppy
“Thank you for letting me have Ben for a few hours,” Gillian said to Whitney on Saturday. “I know Trey is working and I figured you had things to do.”
“I’m still putting wedding gifts away. My mother will be here later to talk about a baby shower. I told her it’s too soon, but she says it’s never too soon.”
“We are so excited,” she said. “Ben is going to love having a little sister.”
“No,” Ben said. She looked at her nephew. “I want a brother.”
“Ben,” Whitney said. “You’ll have just as much fun with a sister.”
Ben sat on the floor and pouted. “Has he been doing that a lot?”
“He has his moments. I think it might get worse before it’s better. I’ll never forget I was watching him once in the office and Ruby Turner came in with her son. Caleb was a few months old and I was holding him and Ben got really upset and came over to crawl in my lap and almost pushed the baby away.”
“I didn’t know that,” she said. “He’s good with Ryan’s kids, right?”
“When I’m not holding Colin he is,” Whitney said. “He’ll have to get used to it. I wonder if it’s because he didn’t have a mother so early on.”
She shrugged. “I tried to be there, but Trey is pretty stubborn.”
“You were the stand-in mother for Ben,” Whitney said, rubbing her hand. “We all know it. I’m sorry you don’t get as much time with him now.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “Trey wasn’t going to be single forever. I knew it. He’s too good of a catch.”
“Then it’s a good thing I caught him and wasn’t letting go this time.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I feel great. It’s not even like I’m pregnant,” Whitney said. “I hope it stays this way. Shannon said she was like this with her first two, but had some bad sickness days with Colin. I’m just so happy and I know it’s temporary so I can handle it if it happens.”
She looked over to see Ben sitting there still with his arms crossed and fought the urge not to laugh. “Ben, do you want to go to the park with Aunt Gillian?”
“Park,” Ben said, standing up and running toward the coat closet. Whitney’s house was huge in Paradise Place and she didn’t expect any differently considering her family owned the development and built all the houses in it.
Gillian was still living in her apartment on the second floor of the two-family house Trey bought a few years ago. There were renters downstairs now. When he moved out she told him to charge her rent and he said no, he wasn’t doing it.
She felt horrible about that. It was different when she was watching Ben, but now she wasn’t doing much unless Whitney needed a hand. Her mother even watched Ben while Trey and Whitney were on their honeymoon.
No matter how much she brought it up or tried, Trey shot her down. He’d said the rent he was getting downstairs covered the mortgage he had and he wasn’t making money on his sister. There wasn’t much more she could say and gave up.
It did allow her to put a lot of money away though, so maybe she could buy her own place someday too.
She walked over and pulled Ben’s coat out of the closet while Whitney got his sneakers. “Are you going to drive him over or walk? I can get his stroller out if you want. It’s a nice day.”
