Once Upon a Proposal Read Free Page B

dusted his hands together as he straightened. “I’ll plane the edges. Shave off the warped parts,” he translated when she gave him a blank look. “I’ve got the tools in my truck.” He glanced at the sturdy watch that circled his wrist. “Won’t take me long, and then your door will be back in business.”
    â€œGood grief.” She darted down the steps, grabbing his wrist to look at his watch. “I forgot all about the time. I’ve got a class to get to.” She raced back into the house, straight to the kitchen where she kept the puppies’ kennel cages. Even when she was home, they preferred sleeping there, but when they heard her, the two fourteen-month-old dogs jumped to their feet and dashed out of the opened doors to race in circles around her. She snatched their leashes off the hook on thewall as well as the puppy jackets they wore when she took them out in public, and quickly clipped the leads onto their collars.
    It took only a matter of seconds, yet the exuberant pups nearly pulled her after them, their paws scrambling as they ran across the hardwood floor to the front door. She had them back under control by the time they made it outside, though, and they waited obediently until she allowed them to go sniffing around the bushes that clustered against the foundation of the carriage house.
    â€œHandsome dogs,” Gabriel commented.
    â€œThey are.” Glad for a reason to keep her eyes off of Gabriel’s—well, everything —she crouched down and fondly scrubbed her fingers through Zeus’s golden ruff. His eyes nearly rolled back in his head with pleasure. Archimedes wasn’t so quick to finish his business before seeking out her attention, but that didn’t surprise Bobbie. She’d gotten the pups just after they’d been weaned and even then, their personalities had been developing. “Zeus here is a little lover, plain and simple.” She patted him on the back and nodded toward the other dog. “Archimedes there is the explorer.”
    And the explorer had moved from sniffing his way around the azaleas to the wooden door that was definitely not where he was used to it being.
    He whined a little and trotted back to Bobbie, obviously ready for his share of petting when he sat his too-big-for-his-body paws right on her thigh, nearly knocking her over. She laughed and righted herself even as Gabriel’s hand shot out to catch her arm.
    â€œYou okay?”
    â€œFine.” Except that her arm was tingling all over again from his touch. “After all these years with puppies like these two, I’m pretty used to it. Have a collection of bruises most days,” she added blithely as she moved away from him soshe could breathe normally again and clipped on the leashes once more.
    â€œMaybe you should try smaller dogs,” he suggested dryly. “Ones that aren’t half your size before they’re even full-grown.”
    â€œWhy?” She crouched down with the pups again, getting her face slathered with sloppy tongues while she deftly fastened their guide-puppy-in-training jackets on their backs. “What’s a bruise or two when you get love like this?”
    â€œThere are bruises and then there are bruises.”
    She straightened again, unreasonably curious about the suddenly grim set of his lips, but he was already striding across the lawn toward the big dark blue pickup truck that was parked in the narrow drive in front of her cottage. A sign on the truck’s door said Gannon-Morris Ltd .
    â€œCome on, guys,” she told the dogs as she followed him. “You’ll be all right if I leave you?”
    He reached into the bed of his truck and hefted out a large, red toolbox. “I think I can manage,” he assured her solemnly.
    She smiled. “Right.” Of the two of them, there was no question that he would be the one in the “good at managing” column, whereas she