That one was easy. Because if keeping the walls up around her heart with Zach while they were fully clothed and training the dogs was hard...well, it would be downright impossible if she were naked and in his arms.
But all she said was, “It wouldn’t be a good idea.”
Heather could tell Brenda wanted to say something more, but she simply put her arm around her and said, “Let’s do this again soon, okay? Maybe make it a double date?”
Heather shook her head. “Ever the hopeful one, aren’t you?”
“For love,” her friend replied, “always.”
Chapter Nine
The next morning when Heather got to work, feeling cranky and tired, Tina was clearly excited about something. “A package came for you a few minutes ago.”
The sugar from last night’s slushie had given Heather a headache, which was exacerbated by the fact that every time she closed her eyes, she saw Zach and herself dressed in the period clothes from the movie acting out a scene where he pulled her into his arms and kissed her like he’d been waiting his whole life for her love.
She stopped at the threshold of her office when she saw the big red rectangular box sitting on her desk. Atlas immediately ran to it and started sniffing it, his tail wagging fast.
No one ever sent her gifts.
She had her hand over her pounding heart as she moved close enough to pick it up. Even though her assistant was clearly dying to know what it was, thankfully, Tina respected Heather’s privacy enough to give her some space.
She looked for a card, but there wasn’t anything but a huge red bow on the outside of the box. Slowly lifting the cover, she had to blink a couple of times to make sure she was seeing things right.
She couldn’t contain her smile as she lifted the huge dog bone from the soft velvet fabric it had been sitting in.
“Looks like you have a secret admirer,” she told Atlas as he sat like the very good dog he was and looked longingly at the bone. She held it out to him and he gently took it from her before trotting to his pillow bed in the corner.
That was when she saw the small card almost buried beneath the thick red velvet.
Atlas,
I missed you yesterday. Training wasn’t the same without you to play with afterward. I hope I’ll see you tonight.
Your friend,
Cuddles
Heather’s heart turned over in her chest as she carefully put the note back inside the box. She felt funny, right in the region of her chest. Her eyes felt strange too, like they had something in them.
“You just got your first love note, Atlas,” she said in a voice made raw with unwanted emotion.
Her dog’s ears perked up at his name, but he was too focused on his bone to pay much attention to his owner.
Which was a very good thing, because right then Heather didn’t want anyone to look too carefully at her reaction to the gift.
Not even her dog.
* * *
Zach nearly smashed his phone a half-dozen times throughout the day. Everyone on the goddamned planet had called him.
Except for the one person he’d wanted to hear from.
He’d been so sure the dog bone would thaw Heather’s resistance to him, that she’d call him laughing at the note, picking up where they’d left off in the park when they were laughing together on the grass.
But nothing.
Not a goddamned thing.
Rather than keep her distance due to his foul mood, Cuddles had truly lived up to her name all day long. Every time he turned around, she was rubbing up against his leg or begging to be picked up. The guys at the garage had gotten so used to seeing him haul her around with him that they’d pretty much stopped making sarcastic comments.
The puppy burrowed onto his lap as he drove over to Top Dog and he was surprised to realize he didn’t hate having a warm bundle of fur attached to him as much as he thought he would. For a couple of weeks, he supposed it wouldn’t be so bad having the furball around.
When they turned the corner and Cuddles saw Heather’s building, she stood up and pawed excitedly at the window. “Don’t worry,” he told her in a grim voice filled with purpose, “we won’t leave until you’ve had some quality time with your friend tonight.”
If Heather tried to hide from his 5 p.m. training session with a meeting or some other lame excuse, he was going to wait her out and force her to face the attraction simmering between them, no matter how long it took or what she was in the middle of.
Damn it, he wanted her. And he knew she wanted him, too. Not acting on their mutual desire was just plain stupid.
He headed straight for Heather’s office and when she looked up and saw him, he could have sworn her eyes flashed with a mixture of happiness and attraction.
Of course, she didn’t act on either of those. Instead, she pointedly looked at Cuddles in his arms and said, “She has legs, you know.”
He held the puppy closer to his chest as he walked into Heather’s office. “She likes it up here.”
Heather muttered something he couldn’t quite make out, but he didn’t need to hear it to know it wasn’t flattering. Atlas nearly tackled him to get to the puppy. Cuddles leapt out of his arms and practically landed on the Great Dane’s back.
Heather watched the two dogs tangle with one another in horror. “Please don’t tell anyone you just saw my dog do that.”
“What will you trade me for my silence?”
Because he’d sure like that kiss sooner rather than later. It was making him cranky, all this waiting. Especially when he wasn’t used to waiting for a woman.
Hell, he’d never waited for anything in his life before Heather.
She pinned him with a look that told him he wasn’t going to corner her into a kiss that easily. “I’m here tonight to work with you and Cuddles, aren’t I?”
“What changed your mind?”
She looked surprised by his question. Frankly, he was a little surprised himself.
Zach wasn’t one to spend a lot of time trying to figure women out. Apart from his sisters, who he could barely make heads or tails of, and his mother, he hadn’t had any long-running relationships with women. He hadn’t wanted one.
And even though he still never planned on making vows, or sticking a ring on someone, he wanted to know her answer anyway.
In lieu of answering, she looked over at the dogs. When he followed her gaze, he saw that Atlas and Cuddles were playing a hilariously off-balance game of tug-of-war with a rope. Atlas was patiently holding the wet, frayed rope in his mouth and Cuddles was losing her furry mind trying to shred it. Suddenly, the big dog tugged on the rope and the puppy went sprawling in a slobbery heap on the floor.