Page 71 of Eloping with the Laird

He grabbed the bucket by the handle. “Why are you still here?”

“Because I’m not leaving until you hear me out.” Hands on her hips, arms akimbo, she continued. “I can wait until you get your bucket full of snow.”

His jaw tightened. He’d worked hard to forget her. Forget the huge crush he’d had on her. He’d been a gangly teenager with pimples the first time he’d seen her. They had gone to different primary schools, but the same high school, and for two years he’d thought of little else than catching her attention. He finally had, and then had dug deep to find the confidence to ask her out. Bitterness filled him recalling how she’d laughed at him. His hands tightened on the shovel and the bucket handle. “It’s shit, not snow.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m shoveling shit, not snow.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” He let out a whistle and a moment later, Tanner bounded out through the rubber flap installed in the back door for the yellow Lab to enter and exit at will.

As if taken aback by her beauty, Tanner slid to a stop at her side, plopped on his haunches and stared up at her with stars in his big brown dog eyes.

Letting out a cooing sound, she knelt down beside the dog and scratched him behind his ears. “Hello, big guy. You are a handsome one. What’s his name?”

At that moment Jason figuredTraitorwould be a good name for the dog. “Tanner,” Jason answered, growling out the name.

She leaned back and cupped the dog’s head with both hands. “Tanner, is it?”

Tanner barked.

She laughed.

Jason carried the bucket to the back of the yard and dumped it over the fence, into the trash can placed there for just that purpose. After putting the bucket and shovel in the shed, he walked to the porch, where she and the dog were still fawning over each other. “Tanner, inside.”

He could have sworn the dog curled a lip at him as he stood, turned and with his tail between his legs, reentered the house through his doggie door.

She stood, too. “You should take lessons from your dog. He listens.”

“He’s a dog.”

Both of her finely arched brows lifted as she stared at him.

If he wasn’t so irritated, he might have been impressed at her boldness. As things stood right now though, he wanted her gone. Needed her gone. He had tried, but the moment he’d seen her step out of her car, he’d known he’d never gotten her out of his system. “You need to leave.”

“No. You ran away from me once. That won’t happen again.”

“Ran away? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the night you jumped on your motorcycle and sped away before I could—”

“Stop laughing?” He knew the night. It was forever scorched in his brain. An hour after she’d laughed in his face, he’d been arrested, and by the following Monday, he was in reform school.

“My toes are cold. I am going inside.” With that, she turned, opened the door and marched straight into his house.