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“Gage wants the girl with the white fiddle face. She’s over in the corner. See?”
“She’s cute.”
“If you want her, she’s yours. I warned him that you’d have the pick of the litter if you decided you wanted one before they were weaned.”
“They’re all cute. I’m happy to choose a different puppy.”
When she started to step over the fence, he cautioned, “Wait—I haven’t cleaned the pen all day. Take them out one or two at a time to play.”
“You sure? You’re not afraid of them making a mess?”
“Floors clean. What would you like to drink?”
“Whatever you’re having. In a plastic or paper cup, if you have one. No sense risking a repeat of today’s rush to the ER.”
Noah returned to the workshop a few moments later carrying brandy snifters filched from the picnic supplies. Recalling that she’d favored the old-fashioned served at her brother’s wedding, he made two of those. He discovered Willow cuddling a sleeping pup and sitting not on the floor but at his workbench. Delight lit her expression. “Noah, this is fabulous. It’s what you worked on last time I was here, isn’t it? What we painted?”
“Yeah.” He set her drink on the workbench beside her.
“This isn’t one of the dollhouses you set on fire.”
“No.” With a mixture of pride and dismay, he watched her study the dollhouse. He probably wouldn’t get out of the upcoming conversation without telling her why he’d built the toy—one more thing he wasn’t ready to talk about.
“I love all the detail. Have you made this furniture, too?”
“Some of it. I made the beds, tables, and chairs. The really small stuff or intricate pieces like that”—he gestured toward a miniature china cabinet—“I ordered.”
“It’s just fabulous.” Willow gazed up at him in speculation. “I’m pretty sure you told me the day we met that you didn’t make dollhouses for children.”
“This is my first one. I’m just fooling around with it,” Noah responded. Then, anxious to change the subject, he gestured toward the puppy she held. “Is that the one?”
“The one?”
“You’re adopting a puppy, right? I’ve been calling him Paint because of that inch of white on the tip of his tail.”
“That begging note in your voice makes you sound like a puppy,” she teased. “Actually, I did tell my mother today that we were taking one of your pups. I told her we might take two.”
“Seriously?”
She shrugged, and in an instant, misery clouded over the light in her eyes. She rose and walked back to the puppy pen. “This one in my arms is a boy. If I wanted to take a girl puppy, too, which one would you recommend?”
“The one with the socks way in the back. Here, let me get her.” Noah stepped into the pen and scooped up the puppy, pausing to give Marigold a good scratch behind her ears when she lifted her head and gave her tail a couple of thumps in greeting. “She’s a sweetheart.”
Willow accepted Socks and handed Paint back to Noah, who snuggled the sleeping pup close to his littermates. “She’s so cute. They’re all so cute. I don’t know how I can choose.”
“Bring the kids over. Let them choose. One for Emma. One for Drew.”
That’s when the misery cloud began to leak and rained down her cheek. “I absolutely am not taking three puppies.”
“Ah.” Noah was able to put the clues together pretty quickly. “Their grandfather’s stroke. You’re taking in the baby?”
“He’s a toddler now. What else can I do?” She gave him a rundown of the arguments she’d made to her mother and her mother’s responses in return. “I understand where she’s coming from. I do. If I were in her shoes, I’d have thrown the glass, too.”
The pup in Willow’s arms stirred and opened her eyes. Willow smiled down at her and cooed and scratched her ears. Noah sort of wished he were a puppy. “When is all this happening?”
“Tomorrow. The nanny is bringing him tomorrow. I’m not prepared. I have nothing a toddler needs or requires. I think I can borrow a crib from the lodge for a night or two, but I’ll be scrambling for supplies. Until I see what sort of sleeper AJ is, it’ll probably work better for Drew and Emma to share a room. They won’t like that. I’ll need to look at the current real estate market with a new eye.”
An idea fluttered through Noah’s mind, and his gaze slid over to the dollhouse sitting on his workbench. “Willow, I have a crib you can use.”
