Love at First Bark Page 26

  She was standing next to Ollie, three feet from Ben, doing her best to stir up some memory of Brad in the auditorium that day, when her breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t picture Brad because she’d not been paying a single ounce of attention to him. Back then, he was the cute guy all the girls swooned over. Except Mia. She’d mostly just ignored him.

  She’d had a couple friends in the class and had done her best not to hold their sympathetic gazes during the speech because she would have cried if she did.

  But for a fleeting minute, she did lock gazes with someone that day.

  Someone she hadn’t known. A guy with impossibly dark and compassionate eyes. And something about his gaze had given her the confidence to keep going when she’d been about to break down and had needed it most.

  The gym floor seemed to be spinning underneath Mia’s feet. She grabbed Ollie’s shoulder and tried to keep her balance. Ben was there that afternoon. It didn’t make sense, but he was. How was it possible that she’d never made the connection?

  She didn’t meet him for months afterward, not until she was married and pregnant with Ollie. She still remembered experiencing a sharp flash of recognition when they were introduced. It was strong enough that she’d called him out on it.

  “I know you,” she’d said, shaking his hand, struggling to place how. “I don’t know where, but I’m sure I’ve met you before.”

  He’d shaken his head and dropped her hand. “If we’d ever met, I would remember.”

  It had been enough to stop her from pursuing it. He’d not been denying it, Mia realized. Not really.

  There was a roar in her ears louder than Mason’s baritone voice booming over the microphone, and her blood pulsed wildly. She must have been grabbing on to Ollie hard, because suddenly he was tugging on one of Ben’s belt loops and pointing at her. Ben turned and gave her a questioning glance.

  “You were there.” It came out as a whisper, barely audible to her own ears, so it was impossible for Ben or Ollie to hear.

  Ben stepped as close as the rope barrier would allow, his forehead knitting in concern. “Hey, are you okay?” It was so loud, he’d needed to yell, and still she barely heard him.

  She nodded, brushing fresh, hot tears from her cheeks, tears that were quelled by the most freeing laughter she’d ever experienced, and all her earlier fears fell away. She had a thousand questions, but she had time to get the answers. She had the rest of their lives. What mattered now was not wasting another minute with indecision or worry about things she couldn’t control anyway, like what other people might think of her.

  She lunged forward, knocking down the closest stanchion and forcing him to catch her.

  “You were there. Ben, you were there. You were there, and you never told me.”

  Ollie was tugging at her, and the field-side commotion drew the attention of the Staffordshire terrier mix as the timer counted down to less than a minute left in the game. The playful young dog dashed over and pounced against Ben’s hip, knocking both Mia and Ben off balance enough to take down another stanchion.

  “Folks, I don’t know how to call this play,” Mason was saying. “It looks like a left-field love tackle to me. I got sideswiped by one of those recently myself, so I know one when I see it. And believe me, a more deserving guy couldn’t get that kind of tackle tonight.”

  The crowd whooped and Mia laughed again, refusing to let go of her hold on him.

  “And since Lilly here just made the best doggone tackle of the night,” Mason continued, “what do you say we give four more points to the home team?” When the crowd went crazy with applause, Mason added, “Folks, with forty-four seconds left in the game, this should give them a solid enough lead to be safe to say these guys will be bringing home the bacon tonight. And don’t tell me that Puppy Bowl trophy is filled with gluten-free, meat-free anything of the sort. These dogs deserve something hearty after this.”

  The crowd went wild, and no one seemed to care that there was still time left on the clock.

  Ben pulled back from Mia just enough to meet her gaze. She read his lips as much as she heard him over the din of noise surrounding them. “I’m not sure what I did to deserve this, but you won’t see me complaining.”

  She opened her mouth to answer him, but the crowd was loud and there weren’t words enough to explain. So instead, she closed her hands at the sides of his face and drew him in for a kiss.

  Chapter 28

  Disbelief washed over Ben in waves after the Puppy Bowl. He’d been resigned to Mia never finding out how much she’d meant to him so early on. But with Lynn’s help, she’d figured it out. It was only then that he realized she needed to know. He thought it had only been him who was hampered by the truth not coming out, but it turned out Mia was set free by it too. In learning it, she let go of the guilt that had been holding her back and embraced the love between them with her whole heart.

  He wondered if he’d ever get used to the ease with which their hands automatically clasped or their arms locked around each other. He’d been with a handful of women and had had his fair share of women friends, climbing buddies, and business colleagues, but he’d never shared this kind of easy physical closeness with a woman. Whether he’d done it purposefully or not, he’d kept a distance from the women he’d gone out with for any extended time. So much so that he only now realized he’d never intentionally touched a woman just for the pleasure of touching her. Before Mia, touch and sex had been entwined.

  Now, he savored a gradient of pleasure he’d never known. They shared a connection, a unity, he’d never experienced. There were things that had never been spoken that somehow she already understood. He loved her completely, and he released any fear of letting her know it.

  At night, once Ollie was in bed, Mia would collapse against him, snuggling into the crook of his arm to talk about little things in her day that made her smile, from emails or texts he sent, to Ollie’s schoolwork, or funny things the dogs had done. Once when he was laughing at one of her stories, she placed the flat of her hand on his chest and closed her eyes. When he asked what she was doing, she said she was memorizing the feel of his laughter. “I’m learning from Sadie and Sam. There’s a whole world in vibration. And sometimes it still hits me how lucky I am to get to know you with all my senses.”

  For Ollie’s sake, he’d continue for some time to go home to his own bed each night, but in the quiet hours after Ollie was asleep and before Ben left, they made love with abandon, then stayed awake talking about the future, present, and past with no reservations, no holding back.

  Without question, it was a love that had been worth waiting for. He’d have waited far longer, had he needed to. Some people passed their whole lives and never got to love the way he and Mia loved each other.

  As days melted into happy weeks and weeks into a few months, and they became more and more woven into each other’s lives, Ben decided it was time to make the move that a part of him had never dreamed could happen.

  * * *

  Mia was ten minutes late when she pulled into the parking lot of the indoor dog-training facility. Now that the baby and dogs were in her life, she seemed to be ten minutes behind schedule for just about everything.

  Ben’s Jeep was here and empty, so Mia figured he was already inside with Taye and Turbo. Two months into openly dating, and it still made her smile to know her shelter friends were embracing him. They more than embraced him; they adored him. The people she was closest to, like Megan, and more recently Tess, had even picked up on how devoted he was to Taye and to Ollie, which Tess said made him the perfect blend of marshmallow and muscle. And Mia couldn’t have agreed more.

  “Mom, do you think Sam’s ready?” Ollie asked from the back seat, mirroring her earlier thoughts. From the outside, the agility center looked massive. It was newly converted from an old gymnastics facility and, judging from the pictures she’d seen online a
nd the size of the warehouse, it would give high-energy dogs like Turbo a course with plenty of space to run.

  “I think he’s ready to start agility training, Ol, but don’t expect him to pick up on things as fast as some of the other dogs that’ll be here today.”

  It was late March, and a small group from the shelter had gotten together to rent out the training facility for a Sunday afternoon.

  At nearly five months old, Sam had mastered all the basic hand signals they’d been teaching him. Off leash in the backyard, he was usually quick to respond to hand-signal commands like sit, stay, lie down, watch me, and come to me. Fairly regularly, though, fresh scents and sights proved more interesting, and he’d ignore Mia and Ollie’s signals until his curiosity was satisfied.

  In a new environment like this, Mia suspected they’d need to keep him leashed most of the time. If not, there’d be no holding his attention. But he was young and energetic, and there was no reason he couldn’t be an amazing agility dog given time and training. Unlike his quiet and content mom, Sam was proving to be as energetic and playful as Turbo, and dog agility would be a great outlet for him.

  Agility was also something Ollie seemed to be passionate about learning, and therefore something Mia wanted to foster.

  She was getting Sam and Sadie out of the other side of the back seat, her body blocking the exit, when she noticed Ben coming out of the training center to meet them. Directing her attention back to the dogs, Mia held her hand out in a stop until she had both dogs’ attention, then turned her hand over and curled her fingers toward her body, stepping back to make room for them to exit.

  She braced for the dogs to pull on the leashes as they hopped out. Sam tugged hard, his fluffy tail raised in excitement, but Sadie stuck by Mia’s side as she did in most new environments.

  Ben first met up with Ollie, giving him a high five and asking how his afternoon had gone. It probably helped that he’d loved Ollie before, but Ben never forgot to take him into consideration as they began to merge lives. Mia was thankful Ben was as committed to being there for Ollie as he was to honoring the memory of Ollie’s father. Brad had had his faults, but they’d not been in fatherhood, and it was equally important to Ben that Ollie have good memories of him. The stories he told Ollie about his father were often as healing for Mia as they were for her son.

  She’d gone through a full range of emotions after learning the whole story—that it had been Ben who’d wanted to connect with her after her speech, and that Brad had stepped in when he’d thought his friend had had a change of heart. And gradually she’d found her way back to that place of forgiveness again.

  After Ben shared the whole story, Mia had first felt cheated out of eight years she could have had with him, but then she’d thought of Ollie and had realized her life wasn’t meant to happen any other way. She and Ben might have been delayed the love they were meant to have, but during that time, they’d both led lives that had enabled each of them to come into their own. And Mia was committed to not looking back. They had the rest of their lives to embrace the love they felt for each other.

  “I missed you,” Mia said, pressing a kiss firmly against Ben’s lips as they met up on Ollie’s side of the car.

  “Ugh! Kissing! Yuck!” Ollie covered his eyes with one arm and extended his other arm in Mia’s direction. “Can I walk Sam in?” He waggled his fingers dramatically with his eyes still covered.

  “Of course,” Mia answered Ollie, “but don’t let him go through the door until he sits and gives you his attention. And it wouldn’t hurt to have him pee first.” Sam was mostly accident-free, but they were still giving him lots of opportunities for success.

  Ollie locked his fingers over the leash and jogged off with Sam toward the nearest strip of grass at the side of the parking lot.

  Since Sadie had a stronger bladder and had just gone to the bathroom before leaving, Mia used the opportunity to plant another kiss on Ben’s lips, letting her mouth open to savor his taste for a second or two. She wondered if she’d ever get used to the feel of him, if her heart would someday stop beating just a bit faster when he was near.

  “How does it feel to no longer be a homeowner?” Ben asked, locking his hand over her hip.

  Mia smiled. She’d closed on the sale of her Central West End home early in the afternoon.

  “Freeing.” She bit her lip, debating. She’d planned on waiting until tonight after Ollie was asleep to bring it up but decided to seize the opportunity. “However, I have a nine-thousand-dollar check burning a hole in my pocket.” She reached up for another short kiss after seeing that Ollie was still focused on Sam. “I know a month ago I said I wanted to wait, but something tells me it’s time. Want to invest in some real estate with me?”

  “What kind of real estate?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow.

  “The very personal kind. With your trained eye, I thought it might be fun to shop around and look for something in need of TLC but with lots of potential and then rehab it like Kelsey and Kurt are doing. Then when it’s finished…” She glanced in Ollie’s direction. He was running their way with Sam chasing his heels. “You know.”

  Ben stared at her a beat too long, and then blinked before turning to face Ollie.

  “Cohabitate,” she finished into his silence, figuring Ollie wouldn’t pick up on the word.

  “He peed,” Ollie said, meeting up with them as they headed to the door and Sam pounced on Sadie.

  Ben locked hands with Mia as they walked, their fingers entwining automatically. He lifted her hand and pressed the back of it to his lips. “I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather do business with.”

  “Or cohabitate with, I hope.” Mia laughed when she said it, but for the first time that she could recall, she had the distinct feeling something was off. But this was Ben, and he’d not been anything but honest with her since the night of the Puppy Bowl, so she tabled it for the evening. She had no doubt where his heart lay, and she was more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  Inside, the gym was even more cavernous than Mia would’ve guessed. She could imagine speedy, energetic dogs like Turbo fitting right in here. The agility court was a massive Astroturf-covered floor with ramps, tunnels, ring jumps, pole jumps, two bridges, and a seesaw. In front of the course was a large waiting area with twenty or thirty plastic chairs for viewing, and tonight, the waiting area was filled with a handful of some of the people most dear to Mia.

  She blinked in surprise when she spotted Megan and her husband, Craig Williams, with their now six-week-old baby swaddled in Craig’s arms. Craig’s teenage daughter, Sophie, was here with her eleven-month-old beagle, Tyson, even though Megan had joked the odds of him ever getting through a course without being distracted by a zillion scents seemed a thousand to one. Tyson was dragging Sophie over toward Ollie and Sam, and once they were close enough, Tyson dropped into a play bow and barked, enticing Sam into play.

  “I’ll watch Sadie if you want to say hello,” Ben offered, reaching for the leash.

  “That’d be great,” Mia said. She beelined to ogle over Evie, who was about as perfect as any little baby she’d ever seen.

  “She’s so beautiful, Megan.” Mia hugged her friend. “And you guys look good too, considering there’s a newborn in your house. Are you sleeping okay?”

  Megan and Craig exchanged easy smiles before Megan answered that they were taking turns on a few shifts each night and napping when they could. “Like all babies, she’s a night owl,” Megan added, laughing. “Give her a little sunlight and noise, and she’s out like a light.”

  “I remember those days,” Mia said, “and I remember worrying people were wrong when they said they didn’t last forever. Brody’s eight months old now, and from what Stacey says, he’s mostly sleeping through the night.”

  As a part of going public that she was dating Ben, Mia had also told a few of her closest friends th
e truth about the baby who’d become a regular part of her and Ollie’s weeks.

  An excited whoop-whoop out on the agility field turned everyone’s attention that way. Tess and Mason were out there with John Ronald. Mason jogged alongside him, no leash in sight, and the long-legged dog trotted up and over the steepest ramp with no hesitation. After watching them for a bit, it seemed that while the dog was having no problem trotting over the bridges and ramps, he was more interested in running beside Mason than he was in doing agility for the sake of doing agility.

  Tess had a goofy grin on her face as she walked over to the group. “It seems I’m not the only one who’s adjusting to Mason being on the road half the time now that the season is in full swing. He was gone for six days straight and came home this morning. John Ronald hasn’t left his side since. He seems happy and content when it’s just me and him. Then Mason gets home, and I could be a fly on the wall.” Tess shrugged good-naturedly. “I’m good with it though.”

  “You need to get him another dog,” Kurt interjected. “Now that you’re moving in across the street, Kelsey and I will dogsit.”

  Tess wrinkled her nose at him. “Likewise. But that goes without saying. I love Frankie as much as I love John Ronald.”

  As the group continued to make small talk, Mia noticed Ben had walked over to Taye with Sadie. Taye was at the edge of the waiting area, and Turbo was hanging out by his feet. Sadie was licking Turbo’s jowls while Taye was whispering in Ben’s ear. Ollie was on the floor a few chairs down, playing some kind of silent game with Sam.

  Mia excused herself and headed over. “Hey, buddy,” she said, giving Taye a little scratch on the shoulder. “You excited to give this a try? Turbo looks surprisingly calm.”

  “Hey, Mia.” Taye looked at Ben, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. “We got here early and were out there already. Turbo didn’t want to go over the ramps while he was on a leash, so I let him off and he ran for like ten minutes without stopping. Once he calmed down, we got him to go over two ramps and that middle jump.”