The truth was that she felt anything but awesome. Especially when what stretched out before her was an endless rinse-and-repeat of work and faking smiles for her friends and a bed that had never felt so empty.
Atlas missed his best friend terribly and he’d been sluggish all week. So had she.
Because she missed the man who had become her best friend.
In the span of two weeks, Zach Sullivan hadn’t just managed to get into her pants...he’d charmed his way into her heart. Even worse, his laughter and warmth had taken up residence in her soul.
Just as Atlas couldn’t seem to move on from Cuddles, she hadn’t even come close to shaking herself free of the puppy’s temporary owner.
The worst part about their breakup, though, was that as the days crept by and the dust settled around her bruised heart, she couldn’t help feeling that she’d let him down.
Those first few nights she’d hated herself for thinking she was different, that she could be the one woman a man like Zach could actually fall in love with. But that had been anger, and pride, spinning her wheels. Because regardless of the way the awful scene had played out between them, she couldn’t deny that he’d been hurting.
And that was why he’d let her go.
Okay, so maybe love hadn’t been enough for them...at least, not in that crucial moment of making the choice between staying and going, between keeping and giving away. But could it be? If she gave it another chance and stayed this time, to push past his walls and find out what had hurt him so badly?
Atlas’s sighs turned to snores as he let the warm sun and her hand on his back lull him to sleep. Heather lay down, her head on his back, and closed her eyes. What she wouldn’t do for an hour of restful sleep.
She took in the smells of leaves and fresh-cut grass, the sounds of birds chirping overhead, the laughter from strangers all around her. But instead of feeling a sense of peace at the soothing sounds and sensations, she saw her father’s face in her mind’s eye
Heather found herself watching a seventeen-year-old girl confronting her father with his lies. The girl was so brave, so strong, as the man she had to thank for her dark hair, her long fingers, had laughed in her face as he told her that what she’d found out about his secret life on the road wasn’t true, as he swore she and her mother meant everything to him.
From a distance, she watched that girl turn into a woman, one who believed her duplicitous father was the blueprint for all charming men. That laughing eyes and easy professions of love couldn’t possibly be real.
And then, with perfect clarity, she cut to that moment in the kitchen when the man she loved wrapped his arms around her and the dogs to try to shield her from both past and future pain by simply being there for her.
She sat up suddenly, her eyes opening wide.
All along, Zach had fought for her. From that first moment when he’d insisted she work with him and Cuddles, until he’d gotten in that race car last Saturday, he’d been unrelenting in his insistence that they belonged together. At first, just as friends-with-benefits, until neither of them could keep denying that they were so much more than that.
Her stomach twisted as she realized what she’d done. Or, rather, what she hadn’t.
Don’t stop loving me. No matter what happens, promise me you won’t ever stop.
He’d begged her for that promise as if he’d known it would all come down to one moment when he’d try to push her away.
But instead of fighting for him the way he always fought for her, instead of forcing him to own up to the reasons he was working so hard to push love out of his life, she’d decided it was safer to walk away from him instead. Safer for her.
Atlas opened one eye as she clipped on his leash and leaned in close to his muzzle. “Time to go get the girl and the boy. It’s not going to be easy to win them back,” she said with her first real smile in a week, “but they’re worth it. And we’re not going to give up, this time. No matter what.”
* * *
“Goddamned flat tire!”
Zach should have been able to change a tire in his sleep. But the spare wasn’t cooperating, kept slipping off the studs, while Cuddles sat on the sidewalk beside him and panted her encouragement.
He needed to get out of here to start figuring out a way to win Heather back. He couldn’t stand to waste one more second without her.
A new spare dropped down next to his head and Zach looked up to see Ryan standing there, shaking his head. After all the cracks he’d made about his brothers falling in love during the past year, Zach had expected at least one of them to come out to heckle him.
“You’re a mess. Can’t even change a tire without her around, can you?”
Zach knew he should be thanking his brother for the new tire. Instead, he growled, “You’re not safe, ass**le. If this can happen to me—” This being falling in love, of course. “—it can happen to anyone.”
But the brother that was close enough in age for them to practically be twins didn’t look worried as he walked away. He should be, thought Zach. And when the day came that Ryan lost it over a girl, he was going to make sure to rub his brother’s guts in it.
Finally, with the new spare in hand, he started making headway. Five minutes and he’d be out of here and working out a way to make up his colossal screwup to Heather. There had to be some way to get her to accept his apology, he just wished he knew what it was...
Just then, something wet and sticky and overly warm moved over his cheek. He was so surprised, he banged his head on the side mirror. But even though his ears were ringing and it took his vision a couple of seconds to right itself, he could make out the huge paws.
Atlas’s huge paws.
Heather.
He jammed his shoulder against hard metal as he shot to his feet. The woman he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about for one single second stood on the sidewalk.
My God, she was beautiful. The most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
His fingers itched with the need to grab her, to pull her into his arms, to thread his fingers into her hair and kiss her.
“Hi.”
The one short word, more breath than sound from her lips, rocketed through skin and bone, straight into Zach’s heart. A heart that had finally started beating again. Just because she was near.
“I’m sorry.” He’d never apologized for a damn thing in his life, but he would say the words over and over to her until she believed him. “I’m so damned sorry. I was just trying to get this tire on so I could come and tell you. I miss you. I love you. Please come back to me. And bring your mutt for Cuddles. I’m not going to hide anything from you anymore. I’m going to tell you everything, so many things that you’re going to wish I’d never opened the floodgates.”