Page 25 of My Secret to Protect

‘Hi, what are you working on?’ I ask, acknowledging the training and Arlo approaches, making my heart kick up the same way it always did.

‘Scent work.’ He pulls out a rag from his back pocket, offering it to Beans to smell, then sending him off. He searches around for a minute before bringing back a matching rag to praise and a treat.

‘He’s smart.’ I smile, and Arlo nods, then eyes me curiously.

‘Gimme your hair tie thingy.’

‘My scrunchie?’ I question, amused, and he grimaces.

‘It’s called a scrunchie? That’s like, the real name?’

I can’t help but laugh as I reach up and pull it out of the bottom of my braid. ‘Yeah, that’s the name.’

‘Man, that’s stupid.’

Smiling, I hand it to him, ignoring the butterflies as his fingers brush mine, and I bring up my hand to loosen out my hair. I don’t miss the way his eyes flick up to take in my long brown hair, now wavy from the braid, and I squash down the memories of him running his fingers through it once upon a time.

‘Go up to your porch,’ he says, handing me a dog treat, and I turn, walking away to take a seat as he holds out my scrunchie to Beans. One glance back at me, and he sends Beans off to follow the scent. The dog searches his own yard first before quickly realizing his nose is leading him to mine.

I watch, a wide smile on my face as Beans sniffs along the path leading to me, and as he reaches my porch, I swear he’s smiling just as wide. His tail wags so hard his whole butt wiggles as I give him the treat.

‘Good boy, Beans,’ I say enthusiastically, reaching out to stroke his ears and his massive head.

‘Treatsandscratches, you trying to steal my dog’s affections, sugar?’ Arlo asks as he steps up, and I shrug.

‘Hey, you knew the risks when you sent him my way.’ He smiles and sits in one of the other chairs without invitation, and I quickly realize that I don’t feel nervous or anxious in his company. I feel calm.

‘He’s a good dog,’ he muses as he watches Beans lay his head on my knee.

‘He’s beautiful. How old is he?’

‘Three, just over.’

‘You’re just a baby,’ I say to the beautiful brown eyes gazing lovingly up at me, and I laugh. ‘You can look at me like that all you want. I don’t have any more treats to give you.’

Arlo’s deep, rumbling chuckle next to me has me turning to look at him, and he meets my eye.

‘Sorry, I was a dick the other day.’ His words surprise me. ‘I guess seeing you threw me off.’

‘Yeah, you and me both.’

He holds out my scrunchie, and I grip it, pulling as he holds on, stretching it before letting it go and standing with a smile on his face.

Without another word and simply a click to call Beans, Arlo, and his beautiful dog make their way down from the porch and away, and I pull out my cell, waiting, knowing it’s coming before it does.

Unknown: I warned you, princess. I don’t like having to repeat myself.

And for the first time, pissing him off doesn’t feel scary. It feels necessary.

Thebarisbusybut not uncomfortably so. Given Zoe is the owner, we have no trouble getting a booth big enough for us all, and as the couples file in, I, once again, find myself sitting in a chair at the end of the booth. My three favorite couples fill the seats in front of me, and a bucket full of bottled beers sits on the table between us.

I didn’t want to come, my head has been spinning, and I just wanted to shut myself away, but it was Zoe and Cara’s first night out after having the babies, and it would have been really shitty for me to miss it. I’m on edge, though. I didn’t sleep a wink last night.

For all my bravado and confidence that pissing him off was the right thing to do and that I needed him to make his move, in the dark and quiet of night, when the tiredness took over, and every creak of my old cottage had me trembling and on edge, it became too much. I sat with my gun in my hand, huddled up on the floor of my closet, terrified and convinced Nolan was coming for me.

I thought about Arlo, too. Sitting awake all night left me with a lot of time to go over everything, from our time together, the way it ended, and his cool demeanor towards me now. It hurt, remembering how it felt to lose him back then, then it pissed me off the way he talked about us the other day on his porch.

First, he acted like we were nothing. He broke my heart like we were nothing, and it was like he was rewriting the history we shared.

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