Her laughter as she pushed open the door and led Jujubee out didn’t do much to make him feel better. “And risk our friendship forever? Yeah, right. No offense, Spencer, but as good as you are with animals, my kids would eat you for breakfast.”

* * *

“I brought you a gift.”

Ruby gave a startled jump and dropped the book she was holding, losing her place in the process. It wasn’t the erotic novel she was supposed to be reading for the book club, but that didn’t stop her from feeling guilty at being caught.

Mostly because she was sitting inside Spencer’s house. Alone.

“Caleb said I could stay here while he went back to the dry cleaners.” She pointed toward the door to the patio, where Caesar and Wheezy’s slobbery enthusiasm was painting streaks across the glass. “We were in the middle of dog training when he suddenly remembered a pair of pants that needed to be dropped off.”

Spencer accepted this excuse—and her presence in his house—without so much as a blink. She was technically on Caleb’s side of the living room, so it wasn’t as if she was trespassing, but he was well within his rights to put up a protest.

“Don’t you want to know what the gift is?” he asked.

She did, but nothing would make her admit it. Not when Spencer was watching her with so much intensity. He must have come straight from work, because he was dressed in what she recognized as his “veterinary wear.” Any other person who worked with animals all day would dress in easily washable cottons and dark colors that hid stains. Spencer, however, was every inch the dog-show judge, his buttons securely fastened, his clothes as crisp and fresh as if they’d come straight from the cleaners.

It was enough to make her think that maybe Caleb really did pick up the dry cleaning that much. It had to take a lot of starch for Spencer to maintain that aesthetic.

“If I’m in the way, I can take Wheezy for a run or something until Caleb gets back,” she said by way of answer. “I weighed him this morning, and he’s actually put on three pounds since this whole thing started. Maybe I can drop him off in a field in the middle of nowhere and make him find his own way home. That’ll slim him down.”

Spencer had yet to move from where he stood, his feet carefully positioned on his side of the duct-tape line. At her words, he allowed himself to unbend enough to drop his shoulders. Like the intense stare, it did upsetting things to her equilibrium.

“Is that another pageant tip from your mother?” he asked. “The survivalist’s diet?”

“No, thank goodness. She never went that far. She did sometimes make me reach milestones on the treadmill before I could have dessert, though.”