Page 88 of Ruff and Tumble

“They’re yours if you want them,” Cole said, confirming it. “With or without me, on any terms you’ll have them. I’ve racked my brains trying to come up with something I can give you—something meaningful, something that matters—but it turns out that the only real thing of value I have is them.”

Cole’s shirt had grown fully damp by this time, the white fabric growing increasingly see-through the longer they stood there. He had to be freezing, standing half-dressed and soaked, but he didn’t seem to notice. Hailey had the feeling that he’d continue standing there, developing pneumonia, until she finally spoke.

“You weren’t entirely wrong,” she said, her voice quiet but determined. “That day at your condo, I mean. You accused me of being too scared to keep my dogs for longer than a few weeks, said I was afraid to open my heart on a permanent basis.”

“I was an idiot. An asshole. I took all my fear out on you because I knew, in that moment, that nothing scared me more than the thought of losing you.” He drew a deep, shaking breath, and Hailey was surprised to find that his hands were shaking, too. “My whole life, I’ve been scared of what would happen if I no longer had football to fall back on. It’s all I’ve been and all I’ve known. But then you came into my life, and I caught a glimpse of what existed on the other side. I saw a future that didn’t just look appealing… It looked like everything I’ve ever wanted.”

His beautifully striking blue eyes met hers. He must have seen something there that gave him courage, because the shaking finally stopped. “That future is you, Hailey Lincoln, and the life we could have—the two of us, together. The thought of missing out on that scared me a hell of a lot more than all the rest.”

He looked so shaken and cold, so much like a puppy who’d been abandoned on a doorstep, that Hailey took pity on him. Since she knew that he wouldn’t break his promise, wouldn’t touch her unless she said it was okay, she flung herself into his arms.

“I’m scared, too,” she admitted, her words muffled by the hard press of his chest. She could feel the beat of his heart, erratic but strong, and knew that there was nowhere else she would rather be. Especially when he wrapped both his arms around her. “Terrified, actually. I’ve been alone for most of my life, and I thought I could stay that way forever, but I can’t anymore. I want to have dogs and friends and family. I want to watch football games and sit with Penny while she takes baths and throw parties for my coworkers. I wantyou, Cole Bennett. With your useless shoulder and your too-tight shirts and your big, generous, beautiful heart.”

“You do? Even after what I said? Even after what I did?”

She had to smile at how uncertain he sounded, how incredulous. That lonely, despairing pang might be new to him, but she knew it well.

She also knew exactly how to fix it.

“Even after what you said,” she agreed. “And even after what you did. You might not know this about me yet, Cole Bennett, but I’m a bit like a hailstorm. You never see me coming, but once I’m here, I’m not so easy to get rid of.”

Cole didn’t wait for her permission to kiss her this time. It might have been the fact that his body temperature was rapidly decreasing and he needed her to stay warm. Perhaps he heard the raucous cries from the restaurant signaling what must be a win for the Lumberjacks.

Or maybe, just maybe, he loved her as much as she loved him. Maybe, just maybe, she’d finally found where she belonged.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Cole said as they stood breathless and panting in the rain, neither one willing to be the first to pull away. “My dad was right.”

“About what?”

“About how I can put my months of convalescence to good use. Grab those puppies of ours and let’s go. It’s time you and I went home.”

She blushed at the implication and the promise—and the fact that Cole had apparently discussed their sex life with his father—but held her head high. “Whichpuppies of ours?” she asked suspiciously.

“As many as we can hold,” came his prompt reply. He grinned and gave her a meaningful squeeze. “I don’t know if you know this, but I’m an unemployed millionaire with a bleeding heart for a girlfriend and a recent Puppy Cup win under my belt. There will be no stopping me now.”

Epilogue

“I’m having a hard time deciding if this is a block party or a family reunion.”

Cole flipped the cap off a bottle of beer and handed it to his sister. “Does it matter?”

Regina cast a look around the backyard of Cole and Hailey’s new house, which abutted her own and was already scattered with more dog and children’s toys than was seemly in a neighborhood like this. “People are going to start thinking there’s something wrong with us. You aren’t supposed to spend this much time with your relatives. It’s weird.”

“Tell that to Mia. She’s having the time of her life.”

It was true. Cole had spent the better part of the morning finishing the small wooden door that led through the hedge from Regina’s yard to his own, and Mia was painstakingly teaching the dogs to use it. Nala and Rufus had picked up on the process right away, but Philip was showing a marked tendency to cower.

Regina paused a moment to watch her daughter before smiling. “You’ll never get rid of her after this, you know. Kids can’t resist secret doorways.”

“It was either this or a tunnel from your basement to ours,” Hailey said, coming up to join them. She was dressed simply but adorably in a yellow dress that made the most of the rare burst of sunlight. Fall in Seattle could be very touch-and-go in terms of weather, but the gods had smiled on them for their barbecue.

The gods had been smiling on them for quite a while now, actually. Hailey liked to say that all their good fortune came from his side of the family, but he knew better. The day he’d walked into her office had been the luckiest day of his life.

“I was only just able to talk Cole out of it,” Hailey added. “He had an excavator picked out and everything.”

“Don’t even think about it. The day you touch my foundation with an excavator is the day I pack up and move away forever.” Regina spoke with all the vehemence of an older sister who was putting her foot down, but Cole and Hailey only laughed. She’d been more excited than the rest of them when the house next door to hers had gone up for sale. She’d had her real estate agent on the phone before Cole could blink. “But I’m serious. If she gets to be too much, let me know and I’ll—”

Hailey touched her arm. “She’s not too much. We love having her around.”