Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
DOGS
Gabe
My whole tour around the perimeter of the estate, I think on the way she laughed when the giant dog took her to the ground.
When I thought Adrienne’s place was huge, I was sorely mistaken because her mother’s place is massive. My place in Texas is nothing to sneeze at, but it’s more of a compound now than it was a ranch.
It’s nothing like it was when I bought it—a rambling old horse farm with a ramshackle farmhouse on the property. The house is still there but I haven’t slept there in years. Not since my wife died. Now I can’t help but wonder what this woman would think of it.
When I met Adrienne, I was convinced we couldn’t be more different, but now I wonder if we’re far more alike. I’m older than her but not by as much as it seems. We’ve both worked hard to build our businesses, and we both found each other in the middle of heartbreak, in one way or another.
In another lifetime, I bought horses for the woman I loved with all my heart, but now I can’t help but think about what it would be like to give Adrienne a puppy of her own.
When I make it back to the patio, I let her mother feed me a mountain of some kind of chicken salad filled with mayo even though I’ll have to run all night to work it off.
But the way she smiled when I shoveled that delicious food down, and the pointed looks she shot to her gorgeous daughter, is worth every minute I’ll spend on the treadmill.