Page 84 of The Geography of Happiness

Was I setting my heart up for a fall? Absolutely. Any day now Terry was going to ask me to back off and he’d have every right. This was a whole lot more than the original pen-pal idea entailed.

“You only like talking to me so that I’ll let you talk tohim,” I said, lifting Miller onto my lap so Hannah could ooh and aah all over the place as she usually did.

“Maybe.” She shot me a cheeky grin. “But I still like you. Gabby, look. Say hello to Miller.”

The retriever’s nose pushed up against the screen and Miller wriggled excitedly in my lap.

“Do you really think they can see each other?” Hannah asked. “Or is it just our emotions they tap into? We’re excited so they are?”

I shrugged. “Nobody really knows exactly what dogs can or can’t see, but I’d say it’s probably a little of both.” I repositioned the EarPod Miller had knocked loose with his nose and set him back on the floor. “But they sure seem to recognise each other.”

“I still can’t believe you actually adopted him.” Terry reappeared, shooed Gabby back into the kitchen, and pulled up a chair alongside Hannah. He looked tired, those blue eyes a little dull, his mouth tight at the corners. “You’re soft as butter.”

“Hey, you take your wins where you can. Miller was at least amenable to my charm, unlike others who shall remain nameless.” I regretted the flippant comment the second Terry cast a worried glance at Hannah. I was pretty sure Hannah already had an inkling that something had happened between her dad and me. She was too smart not to.

“Time to get the salad ready.” Terry kissed Hannah’s head. “And don’t forget the tomatoes.”

“Ew. Why do we have to add tomatoes?”

“You can pick them out.”

“Then I don’t get why I have to add them to start with?” Hannah eased herself gingerly from the chair and gave me a wave. “Bye, Spencer. Remember to send those photos you took of Zach’s new puppies.”

“As soon as I’m done talking to your dad,” I promised. “Talk tomorrow.”

Terry raised an eyebrow at the tomorrow part but said nothing.

The second Hannah was out of earshot, I apologised. “Hey, I’m sorry about the charm comment.”

“It’s okay.” Terry gave a faint smile. “And it’s not true, you know? I fell for your charm just like everyone else. More, probably. It’s not your charm that’s the problem.” He held my gaze. “It’s the genuinely great guy behind the charm that stole my breath away.”

Well, shit.I blinked in surprise and continued to stare at him, speechless, my pulse racing. It was the first time Terry had even come close to admitting any real feelings for me, and I wasn’tsure how to react without scaring him off by saying something ridiculous like I thought I might be falling in love with him.

Yeah, that.

But before I could come up with a response,anyresponse, Terry moved on, cheeks bright red as he prattled on about how Jam, who owned the collectable store across the road, and May, the local hairdresser, were going to switch premises so that May could expand her business to include a nail salon. She’d already swallowed up the premises next to Terry’s store but it still wasn’t big enough. The switch would allow her to almost double her salon size.

That meant Jam and Terry would be next to each other and Jam had suggested opening the wall between their two spaces to encourage more foot traffic and benefit them both. According to Terry, it was a brilliant idea, although that was about as much as I caught because I was still stuck on the stole-my-breath-away confession.

When Terry and Hannah left that day, my life became a sad merry-go-round of work, work, and more work, trying and failing to stop thinking about them. Fat chance when I was calling almost every day. I’d been a pain in the neck, and true to the Mackenzie style, people weren’t shy about telling me, even if they didn’t know the reason. Well, most didn’t. Okay, maybe a few were still in the dark.

It appeared Terry and I hadn’t been flying under the radar as much as we’d hoped. Zach had pretty much put two and two together at the medical centre along with the tension in the air when he’d collected Terry and Hannah that last morning. He didn’t push me with questions, but he did apologise in case he’d stepped on my toes. I’d waved the remark aside like I had no idea what he was talking about, but we both knew I was lying.

If Zach had guessed, then Luke surely knew as well, and probably Jules and Liam. Gil and Holden were another given,considering Gil had actually called to see how I was the day Terry and Hannah flew back. I pretended not to know what he was talking about since that was a bag of snakes I had no intention of opening with him.

Their confusion and disbelief came to a head when I finally admitted my plans for Adelaide. The general reaction was one of dumbfounded shock and unhappiness, the level of which, quite frankly, astonished me. Even Paddy Lane was stunned speechless, before proceeding to tell me that I was the best vet he knew and that he’d miss me sorely. I damn near cried. Talk about a mind-fuck, especially from a guy who’d only recently started to say the word bisexual without throwing up in his mouth.

Sonja, who was still pissy about the whole leaving thing and barely talking to me, perked up a bit when I told her I’d be taking Miller along with me. She went on to ask a whole lot of questions about Terry and Hannah, my ready answers making it obvious I was keeping in touch. Her self-satisfied smirk said it all.

Matt, who’d been pretending to go through the appointment book while not-so-secretly eavesdropping in on our conversation, had lifted his head and added in inimitable Matt fashion,You need to get your head out of your arse, cowboy, before you make a mess of things.Which only told me that he and Sonja had been talking. A. Lot.

Everyone had an opinion on what was best for me.

No surprise there.

But whatwassurprising was that none of them were actually taking the piss about me maybe catching feelings for a guy. I’d expected them to laugh their arses off and give me hell, but no, they were only... concerned. And because I didn’t know how to answer their questions, I said they didn’t know what they were talking about—a lie that earned me a stream of sympathetic glances, which were starting to piss me off. Fucking small towns.

There was only one thing I knew for sure. When Terry and Hannah left that day, I’d been inexplicably mad as hell... at everything. Terry. My annoying friends. The whole fucking world if I was honest. I’d taken a risk and asked for something I never dreamed I’d do—a chance at a relationship.

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