Rob’s jaw ached as the jet finally touched down. The beginning of the Texas summer storms had delayed his departure, then his plane had dodged additional weather cells as it flew East. All told, he was landing an hour later than he had expected.
He pulled his phone out and powered it on, tapping the screen as it came to life. When he could finally text, he typed out a message to Kari: Flight was late. Sorry. Home in about an hour.
He hadn’t expected a response, but it came almost immediately. No hurry. We’re here. Front door is unlocked. Let yourself in when you get here.
She had typed here. He had specified home.
He massaged the muscles at the hinges of his jaw. He shouldn’t be trying to play house with the woman whose…house his dog had eaten. But dammit. Hugo’s little cellulose and sheetrock snack couldn’t have been more ill-timed. The bottom edge of the photo she had texted him yesterday was still visible in the texting app and he drew it into full view on the screen.
It was ugly. He had expected…less damage. He hadn’t known Hugo’s jaws were capable of that kind of destruction. An entire piece of baseboard would have to be cut, and the hole in the drywall would need to be patched. He’d need to repaint the entire wall when everything was repaired. And the newly fitted-in piece of baseboard would always be visible unless she elected to paint those as well.
Maybe he should just replace the entire length of baseboard. Hadn’t she said one of the things she loved was the natural, unpainted wood?
His brain hummed with lists and plans as the crew opened the cabin door and people started to get to their feet, retrieve their luggage. Text notifications chimed from various areas of the cabin. Rob got up, careful not to hit his head on the underside of the overhead bin, and retrieved his briefcase and carry-on.
Once he was free of the slow mass of his fellow passengers shuffling up the jet bridge, he strode through the airport at top speed, eager to get home.
Eager to make it up to her.
Kari sat on the rug in the living room, legs stretched out, back resting against the sofa. Hugo’s back was plastered against her leg, nose pointing toward her hip, fast asleep. He woofed softly and twitched. Kari put her sketch pad aside and watched him, fascinated. His paws flicked, the woofs puffing his doggy cheeks, his eyes darting behind closed lids.
He must be dreaming. She smoothed her hand over his shoulder, keeping her touch light on the coarse fur. He sighed, groaning a little, legs stretching, tail giving one heavy thump against her shin.
Kari was beginning to see the appeal of pets, despite the damage done to her dining room. Hell, she was sitting on the floor because of his training not to get on the furniture.
Sam had smiled last night when Kari related this fact to her. “It’s probably for the best. Less wear and tear on your stuff. But if you want to come over and cuddle a dog on the sofa, Graham lets Honey get on the furniture.”
So, here she was on the floor. There was something so incredibly satisfying about Hugo’s warm, furry body pressed against her. The need, the trust. So she’d elected to sit on the floor and sketch out some ideas for a painting for her bedroom. The pale green walls still delighted her, but Rob was right. The room needed more. She picked up the pad again, flipping back through the sketches she’d started and abandoned. An abstract idea, riffing on the ideas off the traditional Scandinavian motifs seemed interesting but somehow flat and unappealing in execution. A realistic representation of her backyard was laughable. Why would she want her own drawing of a thing she could see by looking out the window?
She flipped to a fresh page and let her hand just sweep across the page, the pencil laying down a faint line. Hm. It reminded her of something. She continued to riff with her pencil, humming a pop song from AM radio when she was a kid. The shape of what she was creating was familiar, the composition reminding her of something.
Continuing to let her pencil drift, building the composition, Kari’s eyes widened. Oh. It was the lake shore, where Rob had taken her to draw while he fished. But this time there were no people at all. No people in kayaks and canoes, no Rob standing on the shore, no little Mia beside him. Her pencil seemed to dart up of its own accord, sketching the outline of a heron slicing through the air, the only living, moving thing in the landscape.
Kari’s chest tightened. Was this lonely scene what she wanted? Was this a message from her subconscious or just something she’d drawn recently and looked to recreate without the details?
But no, there were details there. Trees, the riffling of the water against the shoreline, the lone heron. Just no people.
Kari swallowed. Her throat felt thick. She rested her hand on Hugo’s ribcage, the rise and fall of his breathing soothing. A tiny smile curved her lips. Yeah, this pet thing was something she could get behind. She snorted at her own fanciful thoughts. It didn’t have to be all or nothing. Turning over her conversation with Sam the night before she wondered why things had to change. Why did they have to “go further”? What they had was nice. Balanced. Comfortable.
Hugo’s eyes snapped open and he scrambled to his feet, the abrupt motion making Kari gasp, her hand withdrawing from his fur to slam to her chest. At the same time, she heard her door open. She was on her feet before she knew what she was doing, her heart hammering.
“Kari?” Rob’s voice called from the entryway.
“In here.” Kari took a shuddering breath, then another, looking to slow her rabbiting pulse. Hugo was already trotting to meet Rob, ears pricked, tail swinging.
“Are you okay?” Rob came into the room, looking rumpled and worried.
“Yeah. Hugo spooked when he heard you and that startled me, and…” Kari waved a hand to indicate the rest and bent to retrieve her sketch pad, which had landed on the floor when she jumped up.
“Oh.” Rob’s eyes traveled to the dining room. The damage was invisible from where he was standing and he took a restless step toward it before he seemed to remember that this wasn’t his house. “May I?”
Kari nodded, irritated for reasons she couldn’t define, and Rob strode to where Hugo had done his destruction, Kari following.
Rob rubbed the side of his face, his eyes wide. “Holy shit.”
The photograph hadn’t done justice to the damage Hugo had wreaked. Rob blinked, revising his earlier shopping lists of repair materials. He wondered if the dog had somehow done more damage in the interim, despite Kari being here. Crouching, he touched the edges of the hole in the drywall, noting with some relief that the dog had, at least, had the dumb luck not to do his damage near an electrical outlet.
The idea that Hugo could have electrocuted himself and he would have to tell Mia was sickening. The idea Kari would come home to an electrocuted Hugo was equally horrifying. Guilt sat like lead in his gut.
“Okay. I need to get to the home center and pick up a few things, then I can get started fixing this.” Rising to his feet, he noticed a crease between Kari’s brows. Hugo was sitting at her feet, panting, and she was leaning sideways to fiddle with one of his ears. “And I’ll get this beast out of your hair.”
“He’s not a beast,” Kari said, smoothing her hand over Hugo’s head.
“He did this,” Rob said, waving at the hole, “so he’s in the metaphorical doghouse as far as I’m concerned.” Hugo had caused her stress and worry and had eaten her beloved house.
But the bigger problem was that Rob was responsible for Hugo being there at all.
He was responsible for this hole and he was going to fix it. He could do this. He could fix the damage that Hugo had made. He could make Kari’s beloved, anxiety-inducing house whole.
Kari’s eyelids sank closed. There were dark smudges under those lovely blue eyes and her skin looked tightly stretched across the high cheekbones. Dammit.
Rob slapped his thigh. “Come on, boy. Let’s get your stuff and get you next door. Then I can get the things I need to get started on the repairs.”
“Do you need to…” Kari trailed off, her hands flapping.
“Need to what?”
“Need to do everything now?” Now she just seemed exasperated.
Of course he had to do everything now. The faster he could get Hugo out of here, the faster he could get to work, the faster he could smooth this whole thing over, make it like it never happened. They could keep building the precious thing they’d started. It was so obvious, he didn’t know what to say.
“I need to fix this. And I need to pay you for the vet bill.”
The groove between Kari’s eyebrows deepened. “Okay, I get that. It’s just…”
“It’s just what?” It was just glaring, that was what it was. Clear as day. He’d fucked up, he’d fix it, they’d move on.
“Nothing.” Kari’s hand stilled on Hugo’s head. “You want to get started. Okay. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No.” God forbid. He’d made the mess, he’d clean it up.
Kari’s teeth ground as Rob collected Hugo’s things and took the dog next door, promising to return in an hour or so once he’d made a run to the home center. The house seemed hollow without Hugo there, emptier. She had gotten used to his watchful, furry presence so quickly. But the restless, frustrated thread of emotion simmering in Kari had little to do with the dog not being there anymore. She paced from dining room to kitchen, turning on her heel and returning through the dining room to the living room, realization lighting inside her.
It was the way Rob charged in and took over that unsettled her, leaving her restless and almost angry.
No, not almost angry. Furious. She paced across the living room. This was her house. Her space. Did she want her wall repaired? Of course she did. But the way he had rammed in—without so much as a hello—taking stock, making decisions, it made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. The whole point of her purchasing a house was that it was hers. Hers to decide when and how the hole in her wall would be repaired. How dare he come in here all abrupt and take-charge? And why was he in such a hurry?
A new thought intruded: maybe Rob wanted to do this so quickly because he wanted everything to be over.
Kari dropped to the sofa and rested her forehead in her hand. That made sense. He had so much going on in his life. His daughter moving, his workplace drama, the acquisition of a dog, maybe other stuff she didn’t have any clue about. It would make sense that he might try to simplify, to cut away any dead weight.
The thought sliced through her like a serrated blade, jagged and rough. Her breath hitched and she pressed her knuckles to her mouth.
Wait. Think. Wasn’t it just two days ago he told her he missed her?
But that was before The Hole. Maybe now she was just one more mess to be dealt with. One more obligation. Her shoulders went tight at the thought. It was hideous. She was craving closeness, connection. She’d had a little of it, there on the floor with Hugo. And then Rob had come stomping in and…dammit. He hadn’t even kissed her cheek. Just rampaged around, making decisions and then even taking the dog away.
Kari stood, her arms folded tight across her chest. It was her house. And it was time she stood up for herself.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Rob muttered to Hugo as he got his suitcase and briefcase out of the car. The dog, docile and calm, nosed at his leash. “How can you be such a great dog ninety-nine percent of the time and then turn around and literally eat a hole in Kari’s house?”
But, of course, Hugo didn’t have answers for him. He was a dog.
“Let’s get you inside. Or better yet, back yard where you won’t cause any damage. Any more damage.” He hustled Hugo through the house and let him out back, where the dog promptly pounced on his half-deflated football, tossing it in the air with his teeth and looking at Rob, panting as if he should come and play. “Not today, boy. I have to atone for your crimes.”
Rob shut the door and went to his room to change into clothes he could get dirty in. He went over his mental list again, realizing he needed to cut out a sample of the baseboard in order to match it with the stock at the home center. He also needed to measure the hole in the drywall and get the chip for the paint color so he could have the home center mix up some more. He checked his watch. Two o’clock. If he got supplies and got set up, he could do the cutting and dry-fitting before the day was out, then complete the repair tomorrow and paint on Sunday. By the end of the weekend, Kari’s home should be back to normal.
There was a sharp rap at his door. Frowning, Rob went to open it, surprised to see Kari on his doorstep. “I was just going to go over and get a sample of the baseboard, measure the hole,” he said.
“Can we forget about the damn hole for a minute?” She sounded peeved. She had a right to be. But if she was peeved about the destruction in her house, why did she want to forget about it?
“I don’t understand.”
“You just…you come into my house, taking charge and making decisions and…” She waved over at her house. “It’s my house.”
“Of course it’s your house.”
She folded her arms and glared at him. “So stop acting as if it’s yours.”
He blinked, speechless for a moment. “How was I doing that?”
She looked at him as if he was exceptionally stupid. “I just told you. Storm in, take over, make decisions—”
“Do you know what needs to be done to fix it?” he broke in.
“No.”
“Well then, what decisions are there for you to make?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I want a hole in my wall.” Her hands flew out, excess energy seeming to spark off of her.
“That’s absurd.” Anger started to simmer in Rob’s gut. He just wanted to make everything right. Why was she being so goddamned difficult about it?
“Okay, so maybe I want an absurd house. Maybe I don’t care that the hole is there for now. Maybe all this hurry makes it feel like you’re just trying to speed through this because I’m just one more obligation for you. But I’m not an obligation.”
“Of course you’re not.” But his denial was a little too quick. There was a sliver of truth in what she said.
“Two nights ago, you said you missed me.”
His head spun with the sudden change of topic. “I did. I did miss you.”
“So what’s changed? Why am I getting punished?”
“How am I punishing you by wanting to fix what the dog did?” In his stew of confusion and rising anger, his voice was almost a shout. He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. “What the hell is going on here, Kari?” he said in a softer voice.
“It feels like punishment.” Her voice was tight, choked. “Two days ago you miss me and now you want to…get past me? Get this over with?”
He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Get what over with?”
“Us?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You race into my house without even a hello…” She gave a bleak little laugh. “And now I’m standing on your front step, Rob. You don’t even want me inside your home.”