Chapter 12 #2
We stood silently, me leaning into him for a few minutes while Bella sniffed blades of grass. He held me, not demanding, not judging. I’d never dated anyone like him. And I still wasn’t, because despite my silly little fantasies about him, that’s not what we were doing here.
I wiped away tears and pasted on a smile. “I think we’re ready for a walk,” I said.
Kyle released me, but watched me carefully.
“Really,” I told him. “Being with Bella is good for me. It helps.”
It was the truth. The part of my heart that I’d closed to get over Sonny’s death was opening ever so slightly with each hour I spent with her.
“Then it’s time for another surprise.” He pulled a plastic sandwich bag out of his pocket. There were small disks of a chopped up hot dog inside it.
I immediately caught on to his plan. “You want to start teaching her to track.”
“I thought it would be something we could do slowly but that would keep her engaged.” He patted her head. “And if she likes it, when she’s allowed to do more, we can continue.”
He held out her leash to me. “You take the lead. If you’re ready...”
I held her leash and patted her head, too. “I am. It’s been a long time, but I really am.”
“Then I’ll create the trail.”
With Bella sitting, he dropped a piece of meat a few feet in front of her.
I kept her leash short so she had to walk with me to get to it.
He dropped another treat several more feet in front of us and we repeated the process.
Outside the gate, he rubbed a cloth over his neck and forearms, then dropped the third hot dog chunk.
This time as Bella ate, he held the cloth by her nose so she could attach his scent to the idea of the treat.
“I’ll head down the path into the woods,” he told me. “There’s a fork in a quarter of a mile. I drop the last treat there, then we’ll see if she can figure out which way I go from there.”
At first, he stayed several feet in front of us, leaving occasional treats.
Then he moved ahead several yards, and then he disappeared from our view.
Bella didn’t miss a single piece of meat, keeping her nose to the ground so she could find and hoover up each one.
When we reached the fork, she ate the final treat, then sniffed in a circle. She looked up at me.
“No more treats,” I said. “You have to find Daddy. Where’s Daddy?”
She whined, then barked, then hung her head as if she was giving up.
She’d had so much disappointment in her short life, it broke my heart to see her so sad.
But a few seconds later, she dropped her nose to the ground and sniffed again.
This time, she tugged me to the right, and we followed the path.
I didn’t know she’d chosen correctly until Kyle called, “She did it!” and stepped out from behind a tree.
He opened his arms wide and I surged forward, ready to hug him. He dropped down onto one knee and embraced Bella, praising her profusely and feeding her one last piece of hot dog.
“May I?” he asked, reaching for the leash.
I handed it to him. We walked back to the yard with Bella keeping to Kyle’s heel. They were already bonded. It was a good day for them. I was truly happy for them.
I was also wrecked. Moments like these made me want more from him. But I had to face the fact that this kind man, my hero, my fantasy lover, might never return my affection.
That afternoon, while Bella napped off the excitement of her morning, I helped Kyle paint the dining room wall that separated it from the office. I started on the left side and he started on the right. My heart was light again as we laughed and joked as we worked.
We met near the middle. He climbed onto a ladder to finish painting the last foot up to the ceiling of my section. I walked around the room, looking at the color from different angles.
“I have bad news,” I said.
Kyle stepped down from the ladder and moved back to stand beside me. “Holy shit!”
“It’s not just me, then?”
He shook his head. “Not you. This color is truly horrible on this wall.”
“What was it called, again?”
“Persimmon.”
I glanced at him. “You seem to have a thing about products named after fruits.”
He scowled at me. “That’s enough out of you, smartass. But this is bad.”
“So bad, we should never speak of it again.”
“So bad, I’m going to the garage to get a can of primer so I can cover it before dinner.”
“Good,” I said, “because we can see that wall from the kitchen table and I don’t think it will help our digestion.”
While he covered the color disaster with a new layer of white primer, I sat at the kitchen island with my computer.
I checked my email, reviewed and approved invoices, and signed off on the schedule of temporary vets who were covering my hours.
Gina and Darla had done it without even being asked.
They were both treasures and someday when I could afford it, I would give them each a nice bonus.
Kyle finished priming the wall, cleaned up the paint rollers, then asked if he could shower before me so he could start dinner when it was my turn.
“Are you saying I need a shower?” I joked. “Is that your way of telling me I smell?”
“Yep.” He grinned. “And also, you have persimmon-colored paint in your hair.”
“No! Do you think it will stain?” I looked at my reflection in the oven door to see it.
“It’ll be fine,” he said. “But if not,” he wrinkled his nose, “that would suck for you because even you can’t pull off that color.”
“Are you serious right now?” I couldn’t see the paint in question, and when I ran my fingers through my hair, I didn’t feel it, either. “You ass! Are you lying to me?”
He burst out laughing. I considered reopening the can of persimmon paint and dumping it on him in retribution, but he took off up the stairs. I could follow him, sneak up on him in the shower, catch him naked again.
I wiped the dirty thoughts from my mind.
The more time we spent together, the more it was apparent that I’d gotten the initial signals wrong and this attraction only worked one way.
It was disappointing and sometimes damned frustrating.
And every now and then, when I caught him with that smoldering look in his eyes, it became downright confusing.
Fifteen minutes later, he returned to the kitchen and I went upstairs for my shower.
I was rinsing shampoo out of my hair when something he’d said that morning came back to me You take the lead.
Yes, he’d been talking about Bella’s leash, but what if it applied to our attraction?
Maybe he was being a gentleman, and waiting for me to express my interest in him.
There was no time like tonight to find out.
And I had just the outfit to test my new theory.
I would wear my white, halter-top sundress with the small, pink embroidered flowers, a pair of lacy pink panties, and nothing else.
I’d make an extra effort with my hair and make-up, too.
Nothing extravagant, but more than my no make-up, ponytail style of the rest of the week.
Then I would flirt with him relentlessly, back him into a corner, probably metaphorically but hell, maybe even physically, offer him a kiss, and see if he took the bait.
If he did, lucky for him, because the rest of me was up for grabs, too. If he didn’t, too bad for me, but I’d have to let go of the fantasy of having him and admit that I’d misread the situation from the moment we met.