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Our apartment.
Slowly, I straightened. “Mrs. Peters pretends she doesn’t have a cat, but nobody turns her in.”
“It would be impossible to be low key, especially when the puppies get older.”
I gulped. “The puppies?”
“We can’t separate Copper and Brutus from them,” Beau said as if I’d insinuated we were going to let them free in Central Park.
Copper blinked up at me and whined. Brutus grunted at me.
I patted both of their heads. “Nobody is taking your puppies.”
I had no idea what we were going to do with that many—I’d lost count of how many there were—but I wasn’t going to be the one to separate that family.
Beau tried to coax Brutus out the front door, but he wouldn’t go until he was sure Copper was coming. Miss Adeline was right. He was protective.
“Do you feel any better?” I asked once we were in the elevator.
She sagged against the back wall. “Not like I thought I would. It-it’s all still there.”
“One day at a time.”
“I’m glad you were there.” She lolled her head toward me.
“I’m glad you let me be there.”
It hadn’t been easy watching her relive the nightmare of the past few weeks . . . beyond that, really. I’d tried my hardest to keep it together for her, though I’d wanted to turn over every piece of furniture in that room and break it into pieces.
“Don’t get all crazy on me.” That was never a good way for a sentence to start. “But if we can’t have dogs in your apartment, we need to find somewhere else. I was thinking close to your mom.”
Everything in me recoiled. “We just figured out about the dogs so that was some fast thinking.”
“I said don’t get all crazy.” She rolled her eyes as we exited the elevator.
“You know how I feel about your money.” The tentacles of control around my temper slowly loosened.
“Ourmoney,” she corrected. “If it’s such a big deal, we’ll give it all away.”
She strode past the doorman with a wave, while I struggled to keep up.
“No. You earned it.”
“I can earn more. Is that going to be a problem?” She leveled me with a look when we stopped at a crosswalk.
Was I that guy? Jealous that my wife earned more than me?
No. I was proud of her. Impressed. Actually, blown away. She ran a major company, which was more than I could ever do, and made it look easy.
“Pop taught me to take care of my family,” I said, as a little slash of hurt carved into my chest at the thought of him.
She softened. “I’m good at real estate. I can find us the right place if you’ll help me. And we can finance it. I’ll make half the payment and you make half the payment. Like partners.”
She was trying to find middle ground. Was I willing to meet her there?
“Is this compromise? Because it sure sounds a lot like it,” I said.
She bumped me. “I’m not the one who has issues with it.”
