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They fell into a routine of sorts that seemed to work for everyone. Buck made sure the dogs had been out before Sadie got home so they could fix dinner together without doggie interruptions.

She was a good cook, but then so was he, so they took turns, and every so often they had dinner delivered.

After dinner, they took the time to play in the yard with the dogs. Before bed, they’d sit on the floor. Buck would hold Butch while doing his best to entice Tish into his lap. So far, it hadn’t worked. She’d stopped being so jumpy, but she remained a long way from trusting.

Still, to Buck, they felt like a family—and he wanted to protect that. He wanted Sadie and Tish to be happy. But tomorrow, Riley and Regina would return home. They’d take Butch, and that would be one more thing for Tish to adjust to.

The September nights were unseasonably cool, making it necessary to wear a jacket or flannel when sitting outside. But neither Buck nor Sadie wanted to give up the time outdoors with the dogs. Buck had created a removable, adjustable fence that covered about ten square feet. Each day they set it up differently so the dogs could explore new areas.

The fence worked out great, except that with more freedom, Tish found more bugs. At least half the time she went outside, she caught a spider or a grasshopper or a night crawler, which she always presented to Sadie.

Thankfully, she hadn’t located any more cicadas. Butch was a more discriminating Chihuahua and didn’t care for bugs. He even seemed a little creeped out when Tish caught them, but he always ended up helping her, as if it were a game.

The little dogs had become inseparable friends, and Tish seemed happiest when she was with Butch.

Now Sadie sat curled next to Buck on her small back porch. Without looking at him, she wondered aloud, “Maybe I should bring in another dog, just so Tish won’t be lonely when Butch has to leave tomorrow.”

Buck swallowed. He hated that idea. “Oh sure, that’s fine for Tish. Maybe she’ll even forget about him. But what about Butch? Think how lonely he’ll be.” He glanced at the dogs, and had the perfect opportunity to prove his point. “Look at the little guy. He’s snuggled up against Tish as if she’s his better half.”

Sadie sighed. “I know. Maybe…that is, if you wanted to…”

Buck waited, almost holding his breath. “What?”

“You could bring him over every so often to visit.”

He scowled at her. Her suggestion was far from what he’d hoped to hear. “I could do that.” He stared at her, trying to read her thoughts. “Or I could take Tish to see him. The wives have everyone over at least once a week.”

“The wives? That’s what you call them?”

“That’s what they are.” Sadie had already been to one of those gatherings last weekend to meet Clair and Rosie. The dogs had played while the people had conversed. Sadie had seemed to like them, and Buck knew they liked her. Things were moving along in that regard. “We, meaning the guys, had kinda figured the wives would put an end to us hanging out together. But we were wrong. We still hang out, we just usually do it with the wives there. Not that they mind if we take off to fish or play cards late one night or something.”

Sadie stared at him, arrested by this outpouring of confidences. “I’m sure they’re very understanding. Why wouldn’t they be?”

Buck felt like an idiot. “All I’m saying is that Regina wouldn’t mind if we brought Tish with us, and even when Rosie’s the one doing the cooking, or Clair, they like Butch, so I know they’d love Tish, too.”

They’d better, because Tish was going to damn well be part of his family. As he’d told Sadie early on, he understood they were a package deal. The little dog had been through enough without being left behind.

Buck was waiting for Sadie’s reaction when Harris and Clair rounded the corner of the building. “There you are,” Harris said, as if he hadn’t just interrupted Buck’s attempts to settle the future.

“We knocked at Buck’s,” Clair explained, “but when we didn’t get an answer, we decided to check out here.”

Butch raced to greet them, and Harris knelt down close to the low fence. Tish cowered back into the farthest corner of her contained play area.

“She’s still so shy,” Harris said with a worried frown. “It just breaks my heart. I swear, Sadie, I don’t know how you do this.”

Butch allowed Harris to pat him a few times, then he ran back to Tish.

Sadie sent a fond smile to Tish. “Some cases are harder than others.” She stood. “Can I get you something to drink?”

Harris shook his head. “No, that’s okay. We just stopped by because I have a suggestion.” He gave Buck a surreptitious glance and then cleared his throat. “There’s a house for sale next door to Riley’s.”

Buck stilled. His brain went blank. “There is?”

“It’s small,” Harris hurried to explain, “and like the one we picked, it needs some work. But if you bought it, the dogs would be close together.” He winked—and Buck caught on.

Bless Harris, even he had a good idea every now and then.

Clair knelt down and offered her hand for the dogs to sniff. “Assuming you’d want to keep Tish,” she told Sadie. “I mean, I know you’re supposed to be getting her ready for a family, but she’s…special.” She glanced at Sadie. “Isn’t she?”

With her bottom lip caught in her teeth, a sure sign she felt unsure of the situation, Sadie nodded. Her voice was faint, and touched with emotion.

“Very special. I’d already thought of keeping her.” She glanced at Buck, then away. “She’s going to need a lot more care before she’s comfortable with being held. She’s shy by nature, I think, and whatever she went through set her back more than I’d realized.”

Harris cleared his throat. “If she was able to see Butch every day, that’d help, don’t you think?”

“Yes, being with Butch comforts her.”

Buck watched Sadie, foolishly wondering if she loved Tish enough to marry him, buy a house and make a home.

“How much is the house?” Sadie asked. Then she added, “I’m not sure I could afford it.”

Harris again glanced at Buck. “With your combined incomes…”

Buck stood, cutting off Harris’s suggestion. He wanted Sadie, more than he’d ever wanted anything else in his life, but damn it, he didn’t need his friend to propose for him, and he didn’t want a house to be the reason she married him.

She had to love him.

“You said you were just stopping by. You on your way somewhere?”

Taking the hint, Clair said, “We’re having dinner with my boss and his wife. We just wanted to tell you about the house.” And because Sadie had asked, Clair turned to her. “It’s cheap enough that Rosie doesn’t think it’ll stay on the market long.”

“Thanks. We’ll check into it.” Buck stepped past Sadie. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your car.”

Sadie also stood. “Thank you,” she called to them before Buck could haul them away.

After they’d rounded the corner and were out of earshot, he thumped Harris on the back. “Thanks.”

Clair smiled. “We figured it couldn’t hurt to put the thought in your heads.”

“The thought’s been in mine almost from the first. Sadie’s the one who needs to be convinced. And I’m working on that.”

“Work fast,” Harris suggested. “Riley and Red will be back tomorrow, and the house won’t last.”

“Gotcha.” But Sadie didn’t deserve to be rushed. She deserved a slow, romantic courtship. Still, when he thought of Tish alone, without Butch as a companion…

When he returned, Sadie was sitting in a sunny spot inside the fence, stroking Butch and crooning to Tish. With his arms crossed over his chest, Buck stopped to stare down at her. “So, what do you think?”

She continued to pet the dog. “About what?”

His temper edged up a notch. He pointed a finger at her. “You know damn good and well about what. The house.”

She ducked her head and shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

Frustrated, Buck stepped over the fence and sat beside her. “You are planning to keep Tish, aren’t you? Because I gotta tell you, if you don’t, I will.”

Sadie’s head jerked up. “Really?”

“Damn right. She needs someone to love her a lot. Forever. She needs calm and quiet. In just the two weeks I’ve known her, she’s gotten back more fur.”

Sadie looked caught between laughing and crying. “She looks like a sleek little seal now, doesn’t she?”

“She’s beautiful.” Buck touched Sadie’s cheek, and he was appalled to see his hand shake. “Just as you said she’d be.”

Sadie’s eyes were sad, and her smile wobbled. “She’s fatter, too.”

“She reminds me of a little sumo wrestler, especially when she’s sneaking up to steal something from me.” He peered down at her. “She’s not exactly graceful.”

Sadie leaned against Buck and laughed.

Buck melted.

And suddenly, Tish crept over.

They both froze. The little dog had her ears flat on her head, her big brown eyes watchful—and hopeful. She slowly, so very slowly, did an army crawl…right into Sadie’s lap.

“Ohmigod,” Sadie whispered.

Butch blinked his big eyes in stunned surprise at this change. Since he’d been in Sadie’s lap first, Tish was now half sitting on him. She outweighed Butch by at least a pound, and for four-pound Butch, that pound was a lot.

But he didn’t complain.

“Slow,” Buck whispered. “Go real slow.” He reached out with one finger and tickled the dog’s chin. Her worried gaze transferred to him, and her tail lifted in a one-wag thump. She looked very undecided about things, but she didn’t run off.

Holding his breath, Buck carefully tickled his way over her muzzle, to her ear, and then to the top of her little round head, which was no longer bald, but soft with chocolate-brown fur.

Tish let out a long, doggie sigh, dropped her head onto Sadie’s thigh and closed her eyes.

“You did it, Sadie.” Buck’s heart swelled so big, it felt ready to pop out of his chest.

Enormous tears swam in Sadie’s eyes. “This is stupid,” she whispered on a shaky laugh, “but I feel like bawling.”

“Yeah,” Buck admitted, “me, too.”

Sadie leaned on his shoulder. “Butch has to have most of the credit.”

Reminded of his goal, Buck was quick to agree. “It’d be a damn shame to separate them now, don’t you think? I bet Regina would love the idea of letting them play together. She’s taken only freelance jobs lately so she could be home more with Butch. And when she has to be away for regular business hours, she or Riley come home at lunchtime. If we were right next door—”

With her head still on his shoulder, Sadie squeaked,
“We?”
She twisted to see him. “You think we should buy the house—”

“Together.” He smoothed his hand over the dogs, taking turns petting them. “It’s a good plan.”

She stared at him in mute surprise.

That irritated Buck. “You know the dogs would like it.”

Sadie nodded. “Yes. But…would you like it?”

He touched her cheek. “I’d love it.”

She bit her bottom lip, drew a deep breath, then nodded. “I’d love it, too.”

The tension left Buck in a rush. Then Sadie said, “Because I love you.”

His back snapped straight. “What did you say?”

His strangled voice startled the dogs, and he rushed to calm them with soft pats.

Sadie held his gaze. “I love you, Buck Boswell. You’re the most wonderful, loving, giving man. Even in my imagination, I didn’t think anyone like you could exist. But here you are, sitting in the yard, petting little dogs and offering to buy houses and being so wonderful…how could I not love you?”

He almost hyperventilated. “I love you, too.” He wanted to grab her up and swing her around and laugh out loud. But he didn’t want to upset Tish. “I’ve loved you since the day you ran into my place in your nightie, demanding I go head to head with a killer cicada.”

She blushed. “I am sorry about that.”

“I’m not. If Tish hadn’t caught the nasty bug, we might not have gotten together. And I never would have realized that you and one tiny bald dog were the very things missing in my life.”

She didn’t laugh the way he expected. Instead, she bit her lip.

Buck kissed her, licked her bottom lip to soothe it, then asked, “What is it?”

“Will you marry me?”

He stared at her, then burst out laughing. The dogs barely paid him any mind, but Sadie blushed hotly. “I would have been on one knee within the next five minutes. Thank you for saving me the trouble.”

Her cheeks turned pink. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

“I love you. Everything about you,” he reminded her. “Thank you for proposing to me, and yes, I accept.”

“There’ll probably be more dogs. I can’t give up what I do.”

The cautious warning only made him grin again. “Okay by me. After all, the dogs are nothing compared to my loony friends.”

Her smile warmed his heart. “Your friends are wonderful.”

“Yeah, they are.”

“Do you think we should get ahold of Rosie and make an offer on the house right away?” She bubbled with new enthusiasm.

“Yeah.” He stood, pulled Sadie to her feet, and then his voice lowered to a husky rumble. “We’ll get right to that.”

“After?” Sadie asked, and her voice, too, grew rough.

“After,” he agreed.

A FEW MONTHS LATER, they closed on the house. Once they moved in, Sadie did indeed bring in more dogs. But with the means to keep them, she couldn’t bear to give them away.

They ended up with three—which Buck claimed was fair, since he had the same number of buddies.

Ethan ended up with two dogs, and Harris had a dog and a cat. Every get-together did resemble a zoo—not that anyone minded.

In fact, the men began speculating that the dogs needed kids to play with. And judging by the love and attention they gave their pets, the women had no doubts that they’d make doting fathers.

Butch and Tish remained the best of friends. Whenever there was a crowd, they crawled under a couch together—curled up in Buck’s yellow boxers.

Sadie claimed that Tish saw the boxers as a security blanket.

Buck saw Sadie the same way. His life had always been good.

Now, with Sadie as his wife, it was perfect.

* * * * *