Page 86 of Ruff and Tumble

“What?” Hailey yanked her hands back as though they’d been touching fire rather than a kind woman’s palms. “He’s here?Now?”

“Well, unless he gave up in despair and drove off,” Regina admitted. “We warned him we couldn’t make any promises. Not after he pulled that ridiculous puppy stunt.”

“His heart was in the right place, poor boy.” Paula sighed. “He thought he needed to do something big. Don’t tell him I said this, but he’s always been a bit of a drama queen.”

Hailey let out a squeak that was part laugh and part alarm and might have continued on in this vein if it weren’t for Cole’s dad. He took her by the arm and started to lead her toward the main doors of the restaurant. They had to maneuver around several puppies as they went, but he managed to make it seem like a completely normal occurrence.

“Don’t worry. He’s still out there,” Julian said and in a way that reminded her so much of her own dad that something in her heart gave a painful lurch. “I imagine he’ll be out there all night. You go on and talk to him if you want to, and if you don’t, then he can sit there forever for all I care.”

“He’s been waiting for me?” Hailey swallowed heavily and tried not to peer out into the mizzling Seattle darkness. “This whole time?”

“Not the whole time. We told him to give us until six or so, since we wanted to make sure you had yourself a nice party first.” He cast a satisfied look around the restaurant and nodded. “Itwasa nice party. Thank you for inviting us.”

“I didn’t invite you,” she pointed out.

“No, and I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you about that.” He leaned down—his large form so much like Cole’s, his movements just as assured and athletic—and pressed a kiss on her cheek. “You invite us next time, okay? And the time after that, and the time after that. We don’t care if you go out and make up with that useless son of ours, or if you kick him to the curb like he deserves, or if you forgive him and then decide you can do better in a week or two. We’refamilynow, Hailey Lincoln. You got that? There’s no one I’d rather watch football games with than you.”

She promptly burst into tears. It would have been very easy to take Julian’s offer as an old man’s kindness, as a good person saying what he could to make a lonely woman feel better, but she believed him. He meant every word.

“Well, now.” He appeared slightly startled. “That wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.”

It might not have been what he expected, but it was what he was going to get if he planned on keeping Hailey around.

“I always cry when I’m happy,” she said as she returned his kiss with one of her own. His cheek was rough under her lips and his scent slightly woodsy. Both of those things felt like coming home. “Then again, I always cry when I’m sad, too.”

“What do you do when the Lumberjacks win the Kickoff Cup?” he asked with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder. “There are only two minutes left. If you go out there now, you’re going to miss it.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to miss it,” she said as she steeled herself to head out the door. Every part of her might be quaking at the thought of seeing Cole again, and she was terrified lest he might no longer be waiting for her, but she could do it. Shewoulddo it. If he was willing to loan her his family on a day like today, to let her bask in their love and support when he could probably use some of it himself, it was the least she could do in return. “I’ll let you know about the tears later.”

* * *

He hadn’t driven his Lexus.

In true football-player style, he’d chosen something flashy and over-the-top instead—an attempt, she assumed, to make her feel even more unsteady than she already was.

“His Aston Martin,” she muttered, spotting the steel-gray sports car that he’d been seen shilling in commercials across the United States for the past year. “Of course he’d bring his Aston Martin.”

She was so annoyed by this that she marched across the street and yanked open the passenger door before he could make some kind of suave move to put her at further disadvantage.

“You have some nerve, coming to my party in a car like this,” she announced as she slid into the seat. The interior smelled strange, like too much cologne and not enough oxygen, which was what she blamed for how long it took her to glance at the man in the driver’s seat. “If you don’t know by now that I’m not impressed by flashy, vain, useless attempts to—”

She noticed with a start that the man in the driver’s seat was not Cole Bennett. He was relatively the same age and dressed in similar clothing, but his mustache and the fact that he weighed about half of what Cole did were dead giveaways.

“Oh God.” She gave a startled glance out the window, where a tall, well-built man in a black peacoat with the collar turned up was approaching them. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she could detect a smirk through the expensively tinted glass. “I’m so sorry. I’m in the wrong car.”

“Flashy?” the man said, frowning so that the ends of his mustache drooped. “Vain?”

“It’s a lovely car,” she said quickly. The door pulled open and a much more pleasant scent—of rain and open fields, of the man she’d been obsessed with for the majority of her adult life—assailed her nostrils. “Very sleek. I’m sure it’s worth every penny.”

She didn’t wait to hear how her compliments were received. Taking the hand that was being held out to her, she allowed herself to be whisked out of the car and to the safe—if wet—sidewalk instead.

Cole didn’t release his grip on her hand, but he didn’t make a move to pull her into his arms, either. He just stood looking down at her. He was damp from head to toe, his hair curling in wet locks around his head and rain dripping from his nose. He looked gorgeous and cold and so good that her heart ached.

“Why aren’t you in your car?” she demanded. “You’ll freeze to death out here.”

“I couldn’t sit still.” He pointed over his shoulder at where an understated black SUV stood parked. “And I wasn’t sure if you’d recognize my car. I should have known better. You have every single vehicle I own cataloged, don’t you?”

“It’s an obscene waste of money to own that many,” she said irritably. “Not to mention a drain on our ever-dwindling natural resources. You and that strange man should be ashamed of yourselves.”