Page 6 of Leashed

Closing her laptop, she placed it on her desk beside her textbooks, slung her purse over her shoulder, and checked the time. With Nixon due any moment, she called her mom to check in as she stepped into the warmly lit hall of her apartment, locking up before heading outside to wait. After a quick comparison between the damp Seattle weather and the crisp chill of the Midwest, she scanned the street for Nixon’s truck. “I should let you go, Mom. I’m just heading out with Nix for the evening.”

“Have fun, honey,” her mother replied, the warmth in her voice carrying through the speaker. “He’s such a good match for you. One of these days, I expect to hear about a ring.”

Murmuring her agreement, she hung up and slipped her phone into her pocket.

On paper, Nixon was perfect. He was classically handsome, driven, successful, well-connected, and never forgot a birthday or anniversary. Her mother, having only met him once, adored the idea of him, insisting he checked all the future-husband boxes for a long, successful marriage.

It was a checklist burned into Sage’s brain since childhood thanks to her mother’s fear her daughter would marry the wrong man as she had. Sage avoiding a man like her father had consumed her mom, whose driving desire to shelter her daughter took precedence over all else.

Everything Sage did was framed against the checklist, from her education to her clothing to her manners. Breaking free from her childhood home to attend university had required several attempts over the years, her lack of confidence in her ability to survive without her mother or a husband bringing her back to her mother’s home time and again.

A brisk wind kicked up, and she wrapped her arms tight around herself.

“If you backed up three steps, you’d be blocked from the wind.”

She recognized the gritty baritone voice instantly, acutely aware of her heart as it quickened in her chest. “Pot of coffee guy,” she greeted, taking his advice and stepping out of the gusts. “Do you live around here?”

He shook his head, his long blond hair falling in front of his odd eyes. “I walked a friend home up the block and had the urge to go for a run after.” Shoving his hands into his pockets, he focused on the treed path leading past her apartment building and into the mountain park looming over her neighborhood. “Heading to work?”

“Not tonight,” she replied, keeping one eye on the intermittent traffic and the other on him as he moved a fraction closer.

He was taller than Nixon by an inch or two and far more muscled, his mismatched blue and green eyes hard and cagey.

She should have been intimidated by his presence. Her natural reaction to men of his size and stature was usually wariness. But the instincts she trusted to keep her safe raised no red flags around him.

Which, in itself, sent her mind on alert.

As though sensing her rising discomfort with his proximity, the guy backed away and leaned against the streetlamp. “Bo.”

She tucked her fingers inside the sleeve of her coat. “Excuse me?”

“My name. Bo. You have a name, or should I keep thinking of you as the skittish waitress? Little Mouse, maybe?” Before she could reply, he crossed his arms. “I figure after three run-ins, it’s rude to not introduce myself.”

“Sage,” she answered, extending her hand. “Nice to formally meet you, Bo.”

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, his eyes narrowing. “I kept thinking it was Saffron or Basil or some shit.” He wrapped his large hand around hers and shook it before he released her fingers with another curse and clenched his fist. “Ah, hell. Sorry if I shocked you,” he grunted, pushing himself off the streetlight and stepping onto the sidewalk. “Nice to meet you too, Sage.”

With that, he tucked his hair behind his ear and walked off toward the park, leaving her alone with skin still tingling from the jolt of warmth his hand had sent through her.

*

With the moonlightcasting a glow over the eastern mountains looming over Seattle, Bo made his way back through the park, favoring his right paw after miscalculating the strength of a tree branch an hour earlier. The rush of the run was already waning as he approached the entrance, houses and apartment buildings coming into view between the pines. Ducking into a thicket, he shifted and shook the crushed leaves and needles from his clothes, hiking his jeans over his hips with a grumble when cold, damp fabric hit his skin.

As he stepped out of the shelter of the forest, he powered up his phone and ran his hands through his tangled hair, calculating how many hours of sleep he could squeeze in before he needed to get on-site for work. Resigned to a maximum of four hours, he walked toward his truck, brows lifting when he glanced up and spotted Sage wrapped in a blanket and curled up outside on a small second-story balcony.

“Hey,” he called, cutting across the grass slowly to avoid spooking her. “You locked out?”

She blinked slowly and sat up, looking down at him as she shook her head. “No. I’m good, thank you. Just waiting for my boyfriend to cab it over and pick up his truck.”

“And you’re sleeping out here because…”

“He left his jacket with his keys.” She tightened the blanket around her shoulders and scooted back against the armrest, farther away from him. “He has an early morning meeting, and I don’t want him to have to waste time buzzing into the building.”

“Of course you don’t,” he muttered, recalling the guy who yelled to her at the lounge. “You been together long?”

Her face lit up a fraction, the natural downturned pout of her full lips lifting. “Almost five years.” She shifted slightly and drew her legs up under her. “So you’re out here because…?”

What the fuck? Five?

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