Rescuing the Bad Boy (Second Chance #2)(67)

“Will the pup be attending the charity dinner?” Robin asked. “Seems friendly.” He watched Donovan, waiting for an answer.

“That’s Sofie’s area of expertise.”

It was?

“Oh, um. No, probably not the formal dinner.” She smiled brightly. The dog was well behaved but the fancy dinner was no place for her. “She will be attending the campout the night before. Some of the kids relate better to animals than they do people,” she said, remembering what one of the counselors told her. Charlie lowered her camera and Sofie stroked Gertie’s head. “People have let those kids down. Open Arms often uses animals in the facility to get the quieter kids to open up.”

“That’s great. Great stuff, Sofie.” Robin wrote in his notebook. He looked up when he was finished. “Article will run in the next week or two. I’ll shoot you an e-mail when we have the slot finalized.”

“Thank you, Robin.” She extended a hand and he took it, his smile revealing an attractive fan of crow’s feet on either side of his eyes.

Charlie flipped through the photos in the camera, head down as she shuffled through the grass to where they were standing. “I think we have everything. I’ll get these organized and e-mailed over to you,” she told Robin. “By Monday?”

“Perfect.” Robin nodded at her and then turned back to Sofie and Donovan. “Oh, the dog’s name?”

There was an unnaturally long pause hovering in the air between them. A pause that shouldn’t be there. The question was simple enough. A rescued dog, clearly at home at the mansion, obviously had a name. Technically, the dog did have a name. But by Donovan’s silence, he must have realized “Dog” wasn’t the best name to give to the newspaper. Naming a dog “Dog” made him seem either really disconnected or really dim.

And he obviously didn’t want to share the name Sofie had given the pup. Because it would bring up the topic of his grandmother. Just when she was about to make something up, she heard an intake of breath over her shoulder.

“Gertie.” His voice was tight, but she doubted anyone noticed.

The reporter’s pencil stopped on the paper. “Gertie as in Gertrude? Like your grandmother?” Robin smiled gently, not knowing the truth about her. But then, no one knew the truth, did they? It hadn’t been public knowledge the woman who should have cared for Donovan had neglected him.

Sofie would just tell Robin a white lie—that she’d blurted out the name and it stuck. “Actually—”

“Yes,” Donovan interrupted. “Open Arms was important to Gertrude. And the dog showed up at the mansion the night I came back to town…”

He trailed off, and again she felt the truth of that statement spear her heart. What he told Robin was true, yet there was so much more truth buried beneath it.

“Like a sign,” Robin filled.

“Right,” Donovan said, but Sofie heard the flatness in his voice.

“Nice.” Robin tucked his notebook away. “It’s a lovely tribute.”

Sofie smiled, but her heart wasn’t behind it.

Robin shook Donovan’s hand, then Sofie’s again. Charlie said good-bye before she and Robin walked to the driveway, talking the entire way.

Once they’d climbed in their respective cars and driven down the driveway, Sofie turned to Donovan. “I’m sorry about that.” Lame. But it needed to be said.

Donovan was stalking—yes, stalking—toward her, his jaw set. His eyes fierce. For a second she thought he might go on a tear about Gertie, or about Sofie’s insistence to name the dog Gertie. She held up her palms to speak in her defense, but rather than get a single word out, she ended up with two handfuls of very hard, male chest.

An arm wrapped around her lower back and a hand grasped her backside. He lifted her off the ground, knocking her off balance. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her ankles around his lower back. A fraction of a second later, her mouth was accepting his tongue.

Oh. Oh, his mouth was glorious.

The kiss was slow and deep—so deep, she felt a ping between her legs as he lit her on fire again and again. So hot, she would swear the ends of her hair sizzled.

Well. This confrontation was going much better than she’d expected.

Carrying her, he walked them toward the house, Gertie jogging past them to the side door leading to the kitchen. Probably looking forward to a nap on the stack of blankets in the utility room.

Spotting her shoes still in the grass, Sofie pulled her lips from Donovan’s. “My shoes.”

“Don’t need ’em,” he replied lazily, propelling closer to the house, the hand on her back moving into her hair and pushing her lips down over his again. He worked her mouth while she clung to him like a treed cat.

“I need to get them,” she panted when he gave her a chance to breathe. “What if it rains?”

His eyes were not amused. Then they were. Then the corner of his mouth—which was so close she could see the stubble pressing to the surface of his skin—lifted in amusement.

“Seriously,” she whispered.

“I’ll buy you new ones,” he countered.

Before she could argue they were clearance, or the last pair of seven-and-a-halves at Cobbler’s Cove, or tell him the price and cause him to have a seizure, he lit her up again. That same ping and sizzle returned, this time with a vengeance she either didn’t want to want or couldn’t refuse.