Liam bolted out into the room and Mina’s heart stopped. He’d been bathing Lucky, she saw now, in a pair of boxer shorts. They were soaked. The fabric stuck to his skin. Heat rushed to her cheeks like he’d added ten thousand logs to the fireplace. Nothing was left to the imagination. Nothing. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of him, muscular and dripping. “Well, what are you looking at?” A smile flashed across Liam’s face. “Get the dog!”
“I’m getting him!” she yelled back, but Lucky was already past her again, back to the living room. He circled the room twice before Mina could get hold of herself. Liam blocked the entrance to the kitchen.
“Okay,” he called. “When Lucky comes around again, we’re both going to corral him into the bathroom. It’ll take both of us, so be ready.”
“I’m ready,” she yelled, adrenaline spiking like a chorus of bells in her veins. “I’m ready. I got this—”
But on the next go-round, Lucky slipped right through her fingers. The dog was just too wet. Liam came running after, arms wide, his fingertips brushing against her collarbone. It lit up her body from the inside out. Mina wanted to sag against the wall and just breathe through the sensation, but no—no way. Not when there was a dog loose in the house. Not when she was supposed to be helping.
She got to the bathroom door a few seconds after Liam. Lucky circled his legs and tried to get out one last time, but Mina dropped to her knees, throwing her arms around Lucky’s neck. The dog licked her face over and over again, tail beating the floor. Mina laughed. She was not the type to let dogs lick her face, but this was for a higher purpose.
“Come on, Lucky, over here!” Liam clapped his hands, and finally, finally Lucky wheeled around and trotted back into the tub. Mina knelt down next to Liam and the two of them took turns rinsing the remaining soap from Lucky’s fur, all three of them breathing hard. Team effort, Mina kept thinking, though it had mostly been Liam who caught him in the end. She tried her best to keep her eyes firmly on the dog and not on Liam’s boxers.
Finally, Liam scooped up Lucky, wrapped him in a towel, and brought him out in front of the fireplace. He stood there with water dripping from the ends of his hair. “Think you could dry him off?” A twinkle of laughter lit up his eyes. “I could really use a shower.”
“Seems like you’re already soaked,” said Mina, then turned away so he couldn’t see the heat rising to her cheeks. “Yeah, I can dry him off. You go get clean.”
A sharp inhale from Liam made her think he might say something, but after a pause his footsteps padded away.
She worked the towel over Lucky’s fur. The bathroom door shut, the shower started, and Mina’s shoulders sagged. “Oh, man, I can’t believe I’m going to say this to a dog, but—I’ve really screwed this one up.”
Lucky wagged his tail.
“Yeah, I did.” She dried off his ears. “This whole baby venture is going to cost a fortune. And I’m worried about the snow. Very worried about the snow, in fact.”
She rocked back on her heels and sat in silence for a minute or two, then sighed. “The thing is, I really want to have a baby.” The full impact of the storm hit her in stages—first a light rain, then a thunderstorm. The appointment was today. If she missed it—and she was going to miss it—she’d have to wait until she could afford to do it again. That could be months. A year, even. “But I have to make that call and tell them I won’t be in today, which means I’ll lose the deposit. I don’t know what else to do except start all over.” Mina blinked a few tears from the corners of her eyes. “Oh, man, I really wanted to have a baby.”
“You know, Lucky, if she has a baby, she’ll have to get a dog, too.” Mina jumped. She hadn’t heard Liam finish with his shower and come back out. He knelt next to her, smelling fresh and clothed in jeans and flannel that made her want to tackle him to the floor. And do other things. “A kid can’t grow up without a dog.”
“Well, Lucky.” She cleared her throat. “A kid can’t grow up with a dog if there is no kid. And there’s only one way to make that happen right now. And that way is in the city, where I’ve just lost my deposit and any hope of going through with this…fertility procedure.” Mina felt Liam watching her out of the corner of her eye. She gathered her nerves and looked at him, seeing a question there in his eyes. “Did you—want to ask Lucky something?”
“I wanted to ask you something.”
“Go ahead and ask it.”
Liam took a deep breath. “If it’s so expensive, why don’t you have a baby the old-fashioned way?”
7
The stricken look on Mina’s face flew through his heart like a bullet. Regret followed after, filling the raw hole. What had possessed him to ask that question? He never should have dreamed of it. He wanted to run outside and plunge himself into a snowbank to soothe the burn of embarrassment that wounded his skin. Instead, he inched closer to Mina’s side. “Mina, I—” Her blue eyes held lightning bolts of pain. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. That was—”
“You really don’t know, do you?” Those eyes went wide, and her mouth twisted into something between disgust and surprise. Despite her shock she was gorgeous. He was seized by the urge to kiss the pain out of her face, but that wasn’t on the menu. It had never been, not for a long time. “Oh, wow.” Her eyes traced his face. “You really don’t know.”
He took a wild guess, going back to the only time they’d ever been in each other’s orbit. “Is this—” Was she honestly angry about that now? And it couldn’t have to do with the baby. “God, Mina, don’t make me guess.”
Her eyes flickered away from his face and came back again. “I haven’t been the same since the horse incident.”
The horse incident. Liam wanted to lie down flat on the floor and get his bearings in this crazy world. “The horse incident,” he said gravely. “I didn’t expect you to lie for me. I didn’t know you got in trouble for that. But now I can see how you might—”
Mina snorted, and it was the cutest sound he’d ever heard. “I didn’t get in trouble for that. The old man hadn’t even realized the horse was gone. I told him I found him out wandering. He took the horse back and thanked me for it. That was it.” She narrowed her eyes. “Did you really think I was angry with you all these years for asking me to return a horse you ‘borrowed’ because you thought you could ride it?”
“No,” he said. “Maybe. I don’t know.” He felt like he was two steps away from walking into a wall. “I just don’t see it, Mina. Is that why you—you haven’t had a baby yet?”
“That’s not quite it.” Mina looked down into her lap.
“Then what is it?”
She stared at her hands, folded on her legs, then met his eyes. Mina squared her jaw. “The horse—that wasn’t the problem. Even taking you back to the house and fixing your clothes after it threw you off its back—that was fine. I’d have done that for anybody. I couldn’t be mad about it. I’m hurt by what happened afterward.”