Wheeler gave his dark head a shake and continued pacing back and forth in front of me. “You can’t leave me alone with this puppy, Poppy.” He stopped in front of me and I realized that the frost coming from his big body wasn’t anger at the mess or the dog but fear. Anger, I had no space for, no tolerance or time for, but fear … that was an old friend and I understood how powerful and consuming it could be. Fear could exclude all else if you let it and I didn’t want that for him. He was wild-eyed and barely containing his panic as his voice shook. “I obviously have no clue what I’m doing. The dog isn’t even here for a few hours and I’m already dropping the ball. What if I get so distracted by my dick that I forget that I’m supposed to be taking care of a baby? Jesus.” He shoved his free hand through his hair. “I’m not ready for this … for any of it.”

The last of his words sliced through my already tender heart like a double-edged knife. I knew he wasn’t ready, that his heartache was still too fresh and new, but having that knowledge validated still hurt.

“Well, I hate to be the bad guy, but you don’t have much of a choice. The puppy needs you and your baby sure as hell is going to need you regardless if you’re ready or not.” I kind of needed him too but I wasn’t sure I was anywhere close to admitting that. “Shoving the responsibility off on someone else isn’t going to help you prepare for everything that’s coming your way, Wheeler.” I tucked some hair behind my ear and reached out to pat the puppy on the head. He whimpered at me and I looked up at Wheeler as he gave me a worried look similar to the one on the puppy’s face. “You can do this, Hudson. I know you can.”

Maybe it was because I used his first name or because I moved my hand from the dog’s head to the center of his chest, but the harsh lines on his face softened and some of the stark terror leaked out of his eyes. He took a shuddering breath and slowly lowered his head so that he was looking at the tips of his boots.

“Sorry for the freak-out. I usually have a better handle on myself than that. Lately, I feel like I’m drowning, and instead of trying to swim for shore, I just keep getting pulled out deeper and deeper.” He did look like a man that was very much adrift, one who was looking for anything that seemed familiar and solid.

Taking a calming breath, I stepped into him and wrapped both him and the now calm puppy in my arms. I hadn’t accepted a hug in forever and it had been twice as long as that since I’d offered one. But this hug felt right. It felt necessary. It felt right. I squeezed him quickly and let him go.

“You might feel like you are flailing but you’re keeping your head above water and that’s all that really matters. I promise I won’t let you sink, even when you want to.” That was a lesson I’d had to learn the hard way. It was difficult to appreciate everyone that was trying to help you when all you wanted to do was wallow in your own misery. I told him the very thing that made me go through with not only showing up at his house tonight but also asking for that kiss. “You will figure all of this out, one step at a time.” I didn’t tell him some days were going to seem impossible because those days always passed. I cleared my throat and made my way over to where my coat was thrown on the back of the couch that was most definitely not meant for a guy like Wheeler. “Thanks for dinner. Next time we get together, we’ll actually work on improving the dog’s behavior instead of ours.”

He didn’t say anything but he did make a strangled noise that might have been a laugh had the circumstances been different. I was at the door ready to let myself back into the real world when he stopped me by saying my name softly. I looked at him over my shoulder and felt my heart turn itself inside out.

The man and the dog, both looking lost and a little bit scared, made me want to take my coat off, put my purse down, and agree to stay so I could hold both of them. They needed to figure this out on their own and Wheeler really needed the time to see that there was no perfect way to be a puppy parent or a people parent. He was going to have to find the way that worked best for him.

He lifted his hand and rubbed the pad of his thumb across the curve of his bottom lip. I watched in mute fascination as his tongue shot out and followed the same trail, almost like he was trying to find any part of our kiss that might be lingering there. The motion made my thighs quiver and had all the air in my lungs whooshing out.

“When I said I wasn’t ready, I didn’t mean I wasn’t ready for you, honey.” Inadvertently my gaze slid across the front of him and landed on the very obvious bulge in the front of his jeans. He chuckled and shook his head at me, his voice deep and rough when he told me, “That’s not what I meant. Any straight guy with working equipment would be ready for you at the drop of a hat if it was only about sex. I’m ready for more than that.”

The butterflies woke back up and they didn’t just flutter, they did the damn electric slide across one side of my belly to the other. He sounded so sure, but with everything else he was dealing with, I didn’t know how he could be. I refused to be one of the weights that was tied around his waist dragging him down under the surface of that dark and murky water he was treading. Besides, I didn’t know that I had more to give to anyone, even myself. Most of the time I felt like I was hollowed out and empty. Half the time I was getting by on the bare minimum. I couldn’t afford to give what I had left to someone else, even if that someone made me act like a girl who had never been broken, a girl that didn’t have anything to fear.

“You only recently got out of a long-term relationship that had a very complicated ending. The last thing you need is to start another one that has a nearly impossible beginning.”

I was out the door and headed toward my car when he called my name once again. I told myself to keep going but my feet stopped moving of their own accord and once again I was looking over my shoulder at him. He was standing in the doorway, shoulder braced against the side, arm above his head with the puppy still in his grasp. I needed to memorize every single thing about that image because it was one that communicated very clearly that while my mind might not be ready for whatever it was he was offering, my body sure as hell was. My heart was caught somewhere in the middle of the two. Never had a game of tug-of-war been so complicated.

“I saw you, Poppy. When I had no right and no reason to be looking, I saw you.” The words hung between us as I paused by the car and stared up at him. “I saw how sad you were, how afraid you were. I saw how angry and alone you were. I saw how desperate you were to hide.” I shivered and opened my mouth to respond but no words came out. It didn’t matter because he kept going. “All those things that you think make this something that is impossible to start, I saw them long before you saw me and I still couldn’t look away.” He tilted his chin up in that badass way guys had and pushed off the doorframe. “Shoot me a text when you get home so I know that you’re safe. I’ll call you if Happy needs you.” Not if he needed me, but if the dog did.