Page 86 of Ridin’ Dirty

“This friend of yours, what’s his name?”

“Alec.”

“Sounds like you might have been close.”

“He was my cellmate.”

I hummed, giving voice to my enlightenment. “Must be strange…getting out and moving on but leaving friends behind. Will you visit? Tell him about tonight?”

“No,” he replied with a decisive shake of his head. “Never goin’ back to that hell hole.”

“Right. Guess that makes sense,” I murmured, not sure what else to say.

“Wouldn’t turn down his call, though,” he spoke into his glass of wine.

I admired him for a moment.

It wasn’t always easy to see, but Riley Wells had soft spots.

I wanted to find them.

All of them.

It wasn’t hard to pinpoint his most obvious one, so I started there.

“Tell me about Reaper,” I suggested, twisting my wine glass by the stem.

He set his glass aside, leaned back in his chair, and rested a hand on his jean clad knee.

“What about her?”

“How old is she? When did you get her? And what language are you speaking when you talk to her?”

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“She’s seven. I’ve had her since she was a puppy. Saw a sign on the side of the road advertising a litter. I’d been wanting a dog for a while, but the timing never seemed right. Not until that day. I’d just closed on my house, which meant I had space, so I called the number and dropped by.

“She had eight brothers and sisters. I knelt down in the middle of all of them, and she leapt right at me. Fought anyone who tried to steal my attention, too.” He freed a soft chuckle, like the memory was playing out in real time right before his eyes. “She was the only one predominantly black, and I liked that—so I made her mine. Named her Reaper. Taught her German. And the rest is history.”

“Oh. German. German Shepherd. Duh,” I teased, rolling my eyes at myself. “Maybe I should learn some.”

“Not a bad idea.”

His comment made me bite my lip.

He kept doing that—poking at the real possibility of us. Of longevity. And as badly as I wanted to let myself go there with him, I didn’t trust it. Not any of it. Not him. Not me.

History was a bitch, and she had my number.

I pushed aside my wine glass, leaned against my forearms atop the table, and flat out asked, “So, are we really going to do this?”

He mimicked my stance; his right forearm ended up in front of his left, his frame too big for the size of our table.

“You’re sittin’ across from me, aren’t you?”

“I also have your ring on my finger, and we both know that hasn’t meant much,” I challenged.

Whatever lighthearted expression he had a second ago was replaced with a glower. It wasn’t exactly dark and broody, but I knew whatever he said next I would take seriously.