A Miracle for the Confident Cowboy (Love in Sweet Bloom)

Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sophie stared at the schedule when she showed up at the shelter. Duke might be here today. She’d done her best over the last couple of days to avoid him, but she usually didn’t know his schedule. It almost felt like he was showing up every single day of the week. How was she supposed to volunteer in peace if he was always here?

She groaned as she headed down the hall. If she was lucky, he wouldn’t be here, he’d be at work. She’d arrived earlier than she usually did because it was such a nice day. Duke couldn’t possibly be?—”

Freezing where she stood in the doorway to the dog’s kennels, Sophie watched in near horror as Duke clipped a leash onto one of the dogs. He glanced at her then resumed his task without a word.

Oh, how she wanted to march over there and shake some sense into him. He was doing this on purpose. He had to be. Every day was a new opportunity for him to humiliate her. What a total jerk!

Her jaw tightened and she hurried through the room, past him toward the smaller dogs. She’d learned her lesson the last time. She couldn’t take the bigger ones out on a walk by herself. Duke in particular was a pain to control—the dog, not the cowboy—though the latter definitely had his own issues.

There were several who needed a walk more than they needed to be released into the common area outside. By the time she got three dogs leashed, she found Duke waiting by the door—the cowboy, not the dog. His expression was blank, but he’d clearly been waiting for her.

She wasn’t willing to give him any attention. The last thing he needed was for her to feed that part of him. Sophie marched right past him and headed for the exit, her dogs tugging on the leash with excitement.

They left the decorated lobby that was filled with garlands, Christmas lights, and seasonal wreathes. It was a beautiful day—unseasonably warm for December, even for Sweet Bloom, Texas. The sky was a brilliant shade of blue—the sort that reminded her of spring back home.

Duke remained at her back, walking his own pack of animals. It was quiet except for the few times their wards barked at a critter scurrying across their path. The longer they walked in silence, the harder it became for her to ignore the guilt that started to build in her chest. At the current rate, it would consume her and she’d end up blurting an apology she probably didn’t need to give him.

Okay, okay.

She hadn’t exactly been the most cordial the last time they’d gone on a walk within one another’s company. But she couldn’t exactly apologize for her behavior because that would only put a smug look on Duke’s face and she’d rather die than be the one to cause that.

It wasn’t that she liked him. Absolutely not. Duke was still infuriating. He was the kind of person she preferred to avoid.

Her face flamed at the thought. She was supposed to be avoiding him, but lately they seemed to be bumping into each other no matter what she did. The worst part was she didn’t really mind it. Oh she talked a big game of dislike and annoyance, but he was starting to grow on her. And nobody was more surprised by this turn of events than her. She tried to avoid the truth and tell herself she couldn’t stand him, but she wasn’t buying her own tall tales.

Duke fell into step beside her, his long legs easily helping him close the distance. She half-expected him to pull ahead so they didn’t have to bother sharing the same space on the path.

He didn’t.

She could feel his eyes land on her every so often. Sophie didn’t know what was making it so easy to sense his attention, then again it could all be in her head. She glanced at him to see if she was right, and her heart stumbled.

Duke didn’t even look away when he got caught initially. When he did, she didn’t know what to say or think. She was all flutters and shivers. Then she got mad at herself.

Just because a cute guy was showing interest in her didn’t mean she should be excited about it. This was Duke. He might actually be from Europe and he might actually like animals, but he was still obnoxious and judgmental. She wasn’t ever going to forget what he’d said about her career choice. And anyone who wouldn’t support her choices wasn’t worth the air in front of her.

They made it to the dog park without incident. If it weren’t for the garlands the city had draped over the city street lights, she might have forgotten Christmas was right around the corner. She hummed the tune to Jingle Bells to herself as she kept a keen eye on the pups she’d brought to the park.

Sensing Duke’s presence before seeing him, Sophie exhaled with a resigned sigh. “What do you want?”

He came into view but only barely and she peered at him briefly. Already she could feel her core warming from his presence. Even though her head told her to stay far, far away, the rest of her body didn’t seem to agree with that sentiment. “I don’t want anything.” He said it so simply, so honestly she was almost disappointed in his answer.

“Oh.”

He turned to face her, leaning his elbow on the fence behind them. “That’s not true, actually. I wanted you to answer something for me.”

Sophie’s eyes narrowed. While his tone didn’t hint at anything rude, she couldn’t help but expect he was going to mock her in some way.

Duke chuckled then glanced out in the field at the dozen or so dogs running around with their pals. “Why are you here?”

She lifted a single brow.

He laughed again. “I don’t mean here, here. I mean why are you volunteering at the shelter? I’m sure you have much better things you could be doing with your time.”

“Like finding a real job?” she huffed.

To his credit, Duke grimaced.

Sophie didn’t miss a beat. “My brother is busy. His wife is, too. And I’m currently in limbo with what I’m planning for my blog for the new year.” She shrugged. “I wanted to do something good with my time—I wanted to make a difference.”

The look he gave her was strange. It was like she was seeing it through a filter that prevented her from understanding what it meant. Before she had a chance to dissect what it could mean, he looked away.

“What about you?” she demanded. “Why are you volunteering? You’re busy enough. I know what my brother does for the ranch. Why do you seem to constantly be at the shelter no matter what day of the week it is?”

A smile tugged at the corners of his lips but he didn’t turn it toward her. “I guess you and I have one thing in common.”

She waited with bated breath. There wasn’t an answer she expected from him, not even if she went over what she’d said a thousand times.

“I wanted to make a difference,” he murmured.

That definitely wasn’t what she’d been expecting, though it made sense. Duke could very well be using her words to manipulate her, but for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to believe that. His voice sounded surer of himself, more genuine than it had the entire time she’d known him. Was it possible Duke was exactly what Pippa had claimed him to be?

Handsome.

Charming.

A good guy.

Sophie’s throat dried up and she turned her own attention to the animals around them if only to get her bearings.

“I guess you could say it all started with Gus.”

“Gus?” she heard herself asking.

He nodded, shooting a look in her direction. “My cat. I got him ten years ago.”

Her brows lifted. She wondered if that was a long time to have a cat. She’d heard some lived twenty years and some not so long. Maybe it depended on how pampered they were. Did Duke give Gus a cushy life?

Duke didn’t seem to notice her reaction. His brows creased as if he were trying hard to remember something. “He was the runt of the litter. We found him in a box with other abandoned kittens. Most of the guys picked a cat for their girlfriends—the cutest ones always get picked first.” He eyed Sophie then chuckled. “No one wanted Gus.”

“Except you.”

His lips quirked upward. “Except me.”

The guy was practically a saint. She couldn’t believe she’d gone and treated him like he was a manipulative jerk. When he looked at her, she could almost sense he was reading her mind. A deep flush spread across her cheeks and she shoved her hands in her pockets to keep him from noticing how much his attention to her made her fidget. “Daisy, too.”

His gaze shifted to something more curious.

“My dog,” she explained. “I was volunteering at a shelter back home when someone brought in a litter of yorkies they didn’t want to take care of anymore. They weren’t in good shape and Daisy was the worst of them.” Her blood boiled at the memory. “The second they put Daisy’s information up on the adoption board, I took her. She’s been with me ever since.”

They studied each other then. While they preferred different animals, they’d found something else in common. Neither one of them could stand any animal mistreatment. Duke’s focus on her sent her stomach into several acrobatic flips. There was no reason for her reaction. Hadn’t she told herself over and over again that she wasn’t going to be manipulated by him?

This wasn’t manipulation, a voice in her head seemed to say. This was something else.

“Thanks for saving my life,” she whispered. The statement slipped from her lips without her permission. She hadn’t planned on drawing attention to the fact that she’d needed help in the first place. Sophie dropped her eyes to her feet and tapped her toes together.

“I had no choice,” he murmured back.

She lifted her gaze to meet his, confused. Did he mean what she thought he had? Was he actually suggesting he might have started to develop feelings for her? That thought alone was enough to make her legs go weak and her breath to catch in her chest.

His lips curled into that devastatingly handsome grin. “There was no way I was going to risk getting on Pippa’s bad side.”

And in a flash the whoosh of hopefulness that had filled her entire being drained from her body. She choked a little then cleared her throat and shot him a goofy smile. “Right. No one wants to get on Pippa’s bad side—especially now that she’d married to my brother.”

Duke made a show of exaggerating his grimace this time, to which she couldn’t help but laugh. They glanced at one another; their eyes lingering but only a moment. Duke wasn’t so bad. He might have been obnoxious to begin with, but he’d proven he wasn’t the person she’d thought him to be.

Duke Stephenson was a man of honor and a tender heart.

Sophie stole a couple more glances in his direction while they finished up their walk. She couldn’t help but notice how he’d managed to become more attractive to her in such a short amount of time. What kind of big, gruff, cowboy was willing to take in a tiny kitten for no other reason than to save it from a life of hardship?

Apparently those kinds of cowboys existed.

And one of them was standing right beside her.