Page 32 of I Hate You More

He shrugged. “It’s like you said. She’s going to fight her way into the dog show no matter what. I might as well do my part to avoid a disaster.”

Jujubee gave a sudden whimper. Spencer soothed him with some nonsense about how much better he’d feel after his surgery. Hewouldfeel better, but not right away. Like most things in life, it took time, patience, and hard work before things started to really improve. Everyone always seemed to want a shortcut in life.

Everyone except Ruby Taylor, that was.

He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he’d been wrong that first day, when he’d assumed she coasted along on her good looks. It would have been easy for her to use her charm to get her way, twisting Spencer and Caleb around in knots, capitalizing on Eva’s admiration, and begging favors from dog-show strangers, but she didn’t. She was a sneaky, stubborn cheat, yes, but she had grit.

He liked that about her. Herespectedit.

“Fine,” Eva capitulated. “But you’d better not jeopardize my free babysitting weekend, or I’ll never forgive you. Maury and I haven’t gone away in ages. We’re looking forward to this more than we did our wedding.”

He felt oddly hurt by this. “You could have asked me to take them. I’m always willing to help out.”

Her laughter as she pushed open the door and led Jujubee out didn’t do much to make him feel better. “And risk our friendship forever? Yeah, right. No offense, Spencer, but as good as you are with animals, my kids would eat you for breakfast.”

* * *

“I brought you a gift.”

Ruby gave a startled jump and dropped the book she was holding, losing her place in the process. Itwasn’tthe erotic novel she was supposed to be reading for the book club, but that didn’t stop her from feeling guilty at being caught.

Mostly because she was sitting inside Spencer’s house. Alone.

“Caleb said I could stay here while he went back to the dry cleaners.” She pointed toward the door to the patio, where Caesar and Wheezy’s slobbery enthusiasm was painting streaks across the glass. “We were in the middle of dog training when he suddenly remembered a pair of pants that needed to be dropped off.”

Spencer accepted this excuse—and her presence in his house—without so much as a blink. She wastechnicallyon Caleb’s side of the living room, so it wasn’t as if she was trespassing, but he was well within his rights to put up a protest.

“Don’t you want to know what the gift is?” he asked.

She did, but nothing would make her admit it. Not when Spencer was watching her with so much intensity. He must have come straight from work, because he was dressed in what she recognized as his “veterinary wear.” Any other person who worked with animals all day would dress in easily washable cottons and dark colors that hid stains. Spencer, however, was every inch the dog-show judge, his buttons securely fastened, his clothes as crisp and fresh as if they’d come straight from the cleaners.

It was enough to make her think that maybe Caleb really did pick up the dry cleaning that much. It had to take a lot of starch for Spencer to maintain that aesthetic.

“If I’m in the way, I can take Wheezy for a run or something until Caleb gets back,” she said by way of answer. “I weighed him this morning, and he’s actually put on three pounds since this whole thing started. Maybe I can drop him off in a field in the middle of nowhere and make him find his own way home. That’ll slim him down.”

Spencer had yet to move from where he stood, his feet carefully positioned on his side of the duct-tape line. At her words, he allowed himself to unbend enough to drop his shoulders. Like the intense stare, it did upsetting things to her equilibrium.

“Is that another pageant tip from your mother?” he asked. “The survivalist’s diet?”

“No, thank goodness. She never went that far. Shedidsometimes make me reach milestones on the treadmill before I could have dessert, though.”

His posture tensed again. “That sounds awful, Ruby. I’m sorry.”

If her equilibrium had been unbalanced by his smile, his ready sympathy flipped it upside down.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” she was quick to say, feeling flushed. “She always made herself do the exercises with me so I never ran alone. Everything she pushed me to do, she pushed herself just as hard.”

“You’re a lot like her.” He didn’t phrase it as a question. He also didn’t phrase it as a negative—a thing that startled as much as it pleased her. Most of the time, discussing her contentious relationship with her mother resulted in sympathy and outrage, as though no one else could imagine a childhood with such a woman.

It had been difficult, yes, and the pressure to succeed had been more than a lot of people could bear, but Laurel was still her mom. For all her flaws, she was—and always had been—a force to be reckoned with.

“More than I want to be sometimes,” she admitted.

Instead of replying, Spencer reached into his pocket and extracted his cell phone. “What’s your phone number?”

There was enough of her mother in her to cause Ruby to reveal a sultry smile. “Why, Spencer Wilson. Are you hitting on me?”

He glanced up just long enough to lock his piercing gaze with hers. It wasn’t an answer, but it wasn’t not one either. Gifts, kindness, phone numbers…if she didn’t know any better, she’d say they were making progress.