Letting Go

Chapter 3

But then he was reaching out to the wall, and she realized over the noise of the storm that he was talking quietly to something.

Something that was growling at him fiercely.

“Don’t be scared,” he said softly. “I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.”

The growling got a little louder, but Bolds didn’t back away, he just held eye contact with what sounded like a huge dog that Scarlet still couldn’t see in the dark shadows.

“Okay,” Bolds said. “Come here. Slowly.”

Scarlet realized with a start that he was talking to her . “What? No way. What is it?”

“Come closer and you’ll see.”

Damn him. And damn her insatiable curiosity because she stepped out from beneath the spa’s overhang and immediately got wind and rain in her face for her efforts. Pulling out her cell phone, she accessed her flashlight app and aimed it at the wall.

“Don’t,” he said, wrapping his hand around her wrist, bringing the phone down to her side. “You’ll scare it.”

“Better that than getting eaten.” She shrugged off his warm hand but went still when the growling upped a notch.

“I think it’s hurt,” Bolds said. “Come here, baby,” he coaxed gently. “Let me see.”

Scarlet bet that voice worked for him in the bedroom, but no way would it work here. And yet . . . the matted, drenched shadow scooted away from the wall, not nearly as large as she’d thought. Not a young puppy but not a grown dog either. Its tan-colored body was way too skinny, and black eyes stared out from a black face. “Aw, looks like a young oversize pug,” she murmured.

Bolds shook his head. “Too big for a pug. It’s probably got some bullmastiff in it though.”

A skin-and-bones bullmastiff with only three legs, Scarlet realized as it shifted closer, and her entire heart melted. “Oh my God.” Moving toward it now without hesitation, she got only a few steps before the dog scrambled to escape her approach like a cat on linoleum, heading right at Bolds.

With a surprised grunt, he fell to his ass on the wet cobblestones. “Okay,” he said, hands up, backing up on those fine butt cheeks as if suddenly terrified of the dog trying to get into his lap. “Okay, see? You’re safe now, right? Stay. Stay and sit.”

The dog didn’t stay. Or sit, for that matter. Instead, it leaned on Bolds’s bent legs, leaving dirty beige fur sticking to his pants.

He sucked in a breath and seemed to hold it. “I’d really like to be your person, but I can’t.”

“Arf!” Translation: Too late, buddy, you’re totally my person.

“No, you don’t understand,” Bolds said. “I literally can’t .”

Undeterred by this news, the dog continued to huddle close to his new human, even as that human shifted back, trying to avoid further contact.

Finally, Bolds lifted his head and looked at Scarlet. “Help.”

Fascinated by this unexpected show of weakness in the man who’d always come off as invincible, she shook her head. “I think it thinks you’re its mama.”

He glanced around the courtyard as if to see who the dog might belong to, but there was no one.

“Arf!” the dog repeated and sat on Bolds’s foot.

“Oh, I hear you, and we’re going to help you, I promise.”

“I know you must mean you and the mouse in your pocket because we ”—Scarlet gestured with a finger between him and herself—“are most definitely not a we .”

Ignoring that, he got to his feet, lifting his hands at the dog, giving the universal gesture for stay . But the minute Bolds raised his hands, the dog squeaked in terror and leapt back as if he’d been shoved. Off-balance with only three legs, it fell to its back, exposing its underbelly and the fact that it was a she .

Scarlet didn’t easily attach. To anything. But right then and there, she fell in love with her. Not partially, but all the way in love, because neglected and mistreated meant they were soul mates. “I’m going to kill her owner.”

“Not if I get to them first.” Bolds’s eyes flashed absolute fury, though his voice remained calm as he once again squatted low, trying to get his six-foot-plus frame as nonthreateningly small as he could. “It’s okay, baby,” he crooned softly. “We’re together now, for better or worse, even if you’re going to kill me.”

“What are you talking about?” Scarlet asked. “She wouldn’t hurt a damn fly, much less kill you.”

Proving that, the dog slowly once again scooted toward Bolds, head down, her hind end a little wiggly as she crawled close, trying to get into his lap.

The sweet hope of it had Scarlet’s heart pretty much exploding in her chest.

With a sigh, Bolds wrapped his arms around the dog and hugged her close. In response, the cutie-pie set her oversize head on his broad chest.

“Yeah, that’s some killer,” Scarlet said, shoving her wet hair from her face.

“I’m allergic.”

Bolds said this so nonchalantly that she blinked. “Is that some sort of a euphemism for ‘I hate dogs’?”

“No,” he said. “Reach into my front left pocket.”

She snorted. “You’re kidding me, right? Does anyone actually fall for that?”

“If I pass out, you’ll need my keys to play Nurse Nightingale.”

She paused, staring at his face. She saw no sign that he was teasing—very unusual for the charming, easygoing guy she knew him to be.

“I’m trusting you to not let me die,” he said as if he was discussing the weather.

“This isn’t funny.”

He met her gaze, his own more serious than she’d ever seen him. “If I don’t make it, promise me you’ll at least make up something really good for my funeral, okay? Like, I died heroically saving your sexy ass, and not because a sweet dog like this one hugged me.”

“Okay,” she said slowly, “I’m starting to think you’re really not joking.”

“I never joke about dying.”

Jeffery donald sat on the ground getting wetter by the second as the woman stared at him, her thoughts hooded. Rain had soaked through her gray sweater with the strategic cutouts, one across the top of her breasts and two others baring her shoulders, giving peekaboo hints of skin. Her jeans were jet-black and formfitting, hugged to her curves and tucked into a pair of high-heeled boots that gave a man ideas. Sexy-as-hell ideas. Her hair was half up and half down, the drenched strands teasing her cheeks, jaw, and shoulders. She wore enough earrings and bracelets to set off a metal detector.

Her name was Scarlet jack and she was spirited and maybe also a little wild, but man. He never could take his eyes off of her.

Tonight though, he was distracted with the dog hugged up so close to his face that he was breathing in wet matted fur with each inhale. “My EpiPen’s in my car,” he said. “In the computer case on the passenger seat. Come on, you know you’ve been waiting for the opportunity to legally stab me.”

Scarlet shifted a little closer, every bit as wary as the dog. “You’re making fun at a time like this?”

“What’s the alternative?”

She shook her head. “If this is some sort of stupid come-on or something—”

“If this was a come-on, you’d know it.”

She seemed massively unimpressed by this fact, her eyes deep and unreadable as always. And hey, maybe he’d only have an asthma attack. Maybe he wouldn’t go into complete anaphylactic shock, in which case he’d only need his inhaler—currently also residing in his computer case. Which reminded him, he wasn’t supposed to carry it in his case, it was supposed to be on his person. But it’d been years since he’d had any sort of serious asthma attack, even if the last one had landed him in the hospital practically on his deathbed. “I’m parked right out front,” he said.

“You need more than an EpiPen if you think I’m going to reach into your pants pocket.”

Rolling his eyes, he shifted the dog and pulled out the keys for her.

“If I do this, where am I supposed to jab you?”

“Upper thigh,” he said.

“Not your ass?”

“Definitely not my ass.”

She lifted her face to his. Raindrops were clinging to her long, dark lashes and glinting off the myriad of pretty little mismatched sparkling earrings she had running up the shell of her ear.

“Are you going to drop trou?” she asked.

He couldn’t tell if she was asking with horror or fascination, and he let out a low laugh. “Not unless you take me to dinner first.”

“Dream on, Bolds.”