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I make a quick detour to grab her training collar and leash and then I’m opening the door. I clip it on her but before I can tell her to heel, she tears out of my hold, bounding through the apartment.

“Lucy!” I shout, hurling after the eight-foot leash that’s trailing behind her. “Heel!”

“Oh!” Cara’s shout sends me into double time and I slide around the corner of the hallway, to see her squatting, ass to heels, her arms around Lucy’s neck as she nuzzles right up to her.

Bright, vivid blue eyes slam into mine and I’m struck stupid.

Lucy doesn’t like anyone. It took weeks to get her to stop trembling when she was dropped off at my place. She’d been badly abused and beaten by her previous owners. I’ve never seen her have this playful reaction to another human being before.

“I’m sorry,” I say, finding my voice. I close the space and grab Lucy’s collar, giving her a quick tug to pull her off Cara. “She usually hides from people, avoids them at all costs.”

“Oh.” Cara pets the top of Lucy’s head and slides her hand to Lucy’s ear, scratching it. “How surprising. She’s really sweet. What is she?”

“Bullmastiff pup. I’m fostering her.”

She smiles and it’s peaceful and sweet. Exactly like how I remember her. A strange heat burns my chest. “She’s big for a pup.”

“She’ll be a hundred pounds full grown.” An awkward silence descends and I hold out my shirt and toothbrush. “I grabbed these for you. I have to get her outside before she pees. Need anything else?”

“No.” Her smile vanishes and she gives Lucy another gentle rubdown as she stands to her feet. Lucy tugs on her leash and collar to get closer. To Cara.

I’m so struck by the dog’s reaction to this woman I barely register it when she stands and steps back into her bedroom doorway. “Thank you, again, for everything. I’ll see you in the morning?”

“Yeah.” My throat has gone dry though. She’s lost and vulnerable and so damn happy to see this dog that’s a pain in my butt even if she’s still sweet. Right now, Cara’s giving me a look that’s a mixture between apologetic and friendly, and I’m so damn tired of hearing her apologize and thank me today I can’t handle any more of it.

I want to kiss her light pink lips and pull her to me and press my hand to her lower abdomen even though I know I can’t feel a baby yet. And I want to do it all, while she wants nothing to do with me.

“Sleep well.” I’m gruff, but it’s necessary.

I’m going to have to learn how to be around Cara, help her through her pregnancy, and raise a kid with her. And I have to do all of that while trying to get over the intense physical reaction I have whenever she so much as glances at me.

Fuck my life.

Chapter 5

Cara

Silence falls in Braxton’s home after he leaves my room with Lucy. It’s amazing he can be so rude to me and yet obviously love animals so much to foster them. I’d like to think it’s because he might be more of an animal person than a people person, but unfortunately, I think the blame of his rudeness sits squarely on my shoulders.

I don’t remember saying it was a disaster to sleep with him. I do remember thinking he was still sleeping when I snuck out of his hotel room the morning after, but the disaster has nothing to do with him or the time we spent together, more because I was just entirely embarrassed I’d had a one-night stand to begin with.

My first, at twenty-four. I didn’t know how to behave. Stick around and wait for him to wake up to regret it or blow me off like I’d heard happened to many of my friends?

Would we have talked and laughed and maybe had another round of hot sex before he kicked me out without getting my number?

All my college friends talked about getting out to avoid all of that, so it’s what I did. If my parents’ disappointing voices echoing in my head, repeating how I’m a disaster and can rarely make the right choices, accidentally came out of my mouth that morning, it’s completely not Braxton’s fault.

And it explains why he was rude to me earlier in the day, why he pretended not to know me at first.

Hell, most days, I don’t even want to know me. But I’m trying. I’m trying to do the right thing and at some point, I have to quit listening to my parents’ constant disapproval of every decision I make and forge my own path.

It’s the entire reason why I dropped out of law school and moved out on my own anyway.

To live for Jimmy. To do all the things we’d always wanted to accomplish outside the umbrella of our parents’ financial help.

And somehow, I keep screwing it up.

But that also means it’s time to make it right too.