Page 13 of Ruff and Tumble

For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to say anything—that she was going to be gifted an unprecedented show of kindness. She was wrong. Cole brushed past her and got as far as the arched doorway that led out of the living room before he said, “I love what you’ve done with the place.”

Her cheeks burned hotter. “It’s not what it looks like.”

“I especially like the team photo next to the couch. I don’t remember posing for that one.”

“You didn’t.”

“No?” he said, but with such a mischievous air that her heart sank. “Remind me before we leave, and I’ll have my sister send you another.”

Hailey could only follow him into the next room and be grateful that the worst was over. The living room was the most decorated of the lot; her kitchen was basically normal, with the exception of a few hand towels and a helmet decal mounted above the fridge, and the bathroom was too small for anything but a Lumberjacks shower curtain.

It wasn’t, as Cole most likely presumed, as obsessive as it seemed. Very few of the items in the house had been purchased with her own money; in fact, anything dated before the twenty-first century had been bought and installed long before she’d come to live with the man who had become her father. Most of her memories of those early days—when she’d been twelve years old and certain that this foster home, like all her others, wouldn’t last—were of the two of them sitting in front of the television, decked out from head to toe in their matching teal jerseys. At the time, it had seemed a strange way to acclimate a scared, lonely child to a new environment, but it had worked.

Oh, how it had worked. Bruce—Dad—had breathed football, ate it, slept it. Draft day had been more important to him than Christmas, and Hailey remembered with fondness how jealous her classmates had been when he pulled her out of school every year to celebrate.

As for the items collected since then, well, that wasn’t her fault. For as long as she could remember, people had been giving her Lumberjacks paraphernalia for presents. Work birthday parties, secret Santa exchanges—you name it, and she was gifted a poster to celebrate it. Other people got jewelry or books or thoughtful items chosen by the people who knew and loved them.

She got…collectibles.

“One, two, three, four, five.” Mia twisted to look up at them as they approached. The kitchen was closed off with a child- and dog-resistant gate, which she was straining to peer over. There wasn’t much to see, since Bess was sleeping like a long bar of fur toward the back, but at least the squirming puppies crowding around her midsection were cute. “Where’s six?”

“That’s very good counting,” Hailey said, surprised.

“I can on’y go to ten,” Mia admitted. “Is one dead?”

“Of course not,” Hailey said, though not without a spike of fear. She’d spent most of last night curled up on the floor exactly where Mia stood, doing exactly what Mia was doing—counting puppies. They weren’t very mobile yet, but the darkness had brought terrifying thoughts about straggling babies getting trapped inside a cupboard. “Oh, blast. It’s Rufus again, isn’t it?”

She lifted a leg to climb over the gate, surprised to find a strong, steady hand extended to help her. Although she would have preferred to keep her contact with Cole to a minimum, she couldn’t resist placing her palm against his and accepting his help.

It was such a small, silly thing—Hailey had climbed over that gate on her own several dozen times already—but her heart still fluttered up from her chest to her throat. His hand was so strong. She could only imagine what the rest of him was like.

If she were being honest, shehadimagined what the rest of him was like. In embarrassing detail.

She transformed her sigh to a cluck of concern as she approached the resting family. So far, Bess trusted her not to puppy-nap or damage her darlings, but Hailey didn’t want to push the mother’s patience too much.

“Where’s he gone this time?” she asked, her voice low and calm. “I swear, he’s going to be the death of me.”

“Which one is Rufus?” Cole asked.

“The one who caused us all that trouble in the elevator,” she said without looking at him. “He’s darker than the others, all brown except the tips of his toes. He’s not acclimating well. He keeps rolling away.”

“Let me help.”

Hailey was about to protest, but there was no stopping a six-foot-two, two-hundred-and-twenty-pound man on a mission. To his credit, he didn’t mention the decal above the fridge or the hand towels, but Hailey was sure he saw them.

“Be careful about approaching Bess,” she warned. “She’s protective.”

“Oh, Bess won’t hurt me,” he said as he reached a hand out and allowed the golden retriever to lick it. “We have an understanding. Isn’t that right, girl?”

“You can’t have an understanding with a dog you’ve known less than twenty-four hours.”

“Sure I can.”

Something about his arrogance—and his certainty—struck her hard. In all her lifetime, Hailey had never felt that sure aboutanything, let alone a relationship with another living being. “You don’t know that. Some animals take longer to warm up than others.”

“So do some people, it seems,” he said with a sideways look at her.

She colored deeply but resumed her search for the wayward pup. Her fears led her to first check inside every cupboard, but those were empty. She didn’tthinkhe’d fit under the fridge or behind the stove, but—