Page 10 of Ruff and Tumble

Neither of them was.

“I promise to never force open another elevator door for as long as I live.” He held out his pinkie but yanked it back just as his sister was about to seal his vow in their time-honored tradition. “Unless there’s a dog trapped inside and giving birth.”

“Cole…”

“You’re right. If there’s a woman trapped inside and giving birth, I should probably save her, too.”

Although Regina was laughing as she hooked her finger against his, there were etched lines of worry on either side of her mouth. They seemed to be getting deeper and more pronounced with every passing day, a thing he knew full well was his fault. He was her only client, which meant that the day he gave up football was likely to be the end of the line for her, too.

“Uncle Cole!” A squeal from the kitchen doorway prevented them both from saying more. Even though he knew it was a terrible idea and that Regina wouldn’t approve, he swooped down and lifted his four-year-old niece into his arms.

“Just the person I came to see,” he announced. Mia’s face was sticky with some unknown red substance, but that didn’t stop him from dropping a hearty kiss on her cheek. Strawberry jam was his guess—and not the cheap kind, either. “You’ll never guess what I did yesterday.”

“I wanna see the puppies.”

“Hmm. Maybe youcanguess.” He glanced at his sister over the top of the girl’s head. She had the same dark-brown hair that both he and Regina sported, but hers was done up in a pair of tufty pigtails. “Please tell me you didn’t show her that YouTube clip. It’s embarrassing enough as it is.”

“Ididn’t show her anything.” Regina tsked and lifted Mia out of his clasp. She frowned at the stiff way he moved his shoulder but didn’t comment on it. “It was You-know-who. She was watching Mia yesterday, and she keeps the television on the Cole Bennett Channel at all hours of the day and night.”

Cole laughed. “Weird. I don’t get that one with my cable package.”

“You laugh now, but it’s becoming an obsession. No one should love you that much. It’s obscene.”

“I think my own mother is allowed to love me that much.”

“Sure thing, Norman Bates. It’s totally normal.”

Mia was unwilling to let the conversation veer so far off course. “I wanna see the puppies,” she said again, this time with a wobbling undertone to her voice. “Please, Uncle Cole?”

“Of course you can,” he promised. “But you’ll have to wait a few weeks until they’re old enough. Right now, they’re too little to do much of anything. They can’t even open their eyes yet.”

“But I want to see them,” Mia insisted. Her face screwed up into a tight ball. It was a cute face—all round cheeks and long lashes—and she knew how to work its assets to the fullest. “I won’t touch, I promise. I just want to see. I just want to love.”

“Don’t do it,” Regina warned. “Don’t you dare give in.”

“I don’t have a puppy to love.” Mia allowed a single tear to fall from her eye. Cole had no idea how she did it—manufactured tears one at a time, each drop designed to wrench his heart from his chest—but he was powerless against it.

She clinched matters by wiping the tear away and looking woefully up into his face. “I on’y have you.”

It was so far from the truth—this child with a loving mother, doting grandparents, a full-time nanny, and who knew how many other adults wrapped around her little finger—that Cole could only laugh and give in.

“I’m sorry, Reggie, but there’s nothing I can do. She only has me.” With a fond smile for his niece, he said, “Of course I’ll take you to see them. I’m sure Miss Lincoln would be more than happy to show them off.”

In all honesty, he wasn’t sure that Miss Lincoln was eager to see him so soon after their last parting, but it was as good an excuse as any. If he was going to run a successful puppy football campaign to break a “curse” and provide himself with a foolproof exit strategy, then he needed to get things moving.

“In fact, I think we should go over there right now,” he said. “And if she tries to shut the door in my face, you have to cryexactlylike that, got it?”

“You are not using my child as a passport to some poor woman’s private residence,” Regina protested.

“But she has the puppies,” Mia said, her lower lip quivering.

Cole forced his lip to do the same. “But she has the puppies.”

Regina stared at them both for a total of three seconds before heaving an exasperated sigh. “Fine. You can take her. But only because the nanny has the morning off and I need to make sure the optics on yesterday’s stunt are where we want them.”

“A glorified babysitter, that’s me. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

Regina treated his commentary exactly the same way that Hailey had—by ignoring it.