His posture tensed again. “That sounds awful, Ruby. I’m sorry.”

If her equilibrium had been unbalanced by his smile, his ready sympathy flipped it upside down.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” she was quick to say, feeling flushed. “She always made herself do the exercises with me so I never ran alone. Everything she pushed me to do, she pushed herself just as hard.”

“You’re a lot like her.” He didn’t phrase it as a question. He also didn’t phrase it as a negative—a thing that startled as much as it pleased her. Most of the time, discussing her contentious relationship with her mother resulted in sympathy and outrage, as though no one else could imagine a childhood with such a woman.

It had been difficult, yes, and the pressure to succeed had been more than a lot of people could bear, but Laurel was still her mom. For all her flaws, she was—and always had been—a force to be reckoned with.

“More than I want to be sometimes,” she admitted.

Instead of replying, Spencer reached into his pocket and extracted his cell phone. “What’s your phone number?”

There was enough of her mother in her to cause Ruby to reveal a sultry smile. “Why, Spencer Wilson. Are you hitting on me?”

He glanced up just long enough to lock his piercing gaze with hers. It wasn’t an answer, but it wasn’t not one either. Gifts, kindness, phone numbers…if she didn’t know any better, she’d say they were making progress.

“I could always get it from your application,” he warned.

“There’s no need to resort to such tactics. If you want my number, I already told you that all you have to do is say the word.”

He couldn’t pretend not to know what word they were talking about. “Do you want the gift or not?” he demanded.

She gave him her phone number, watching carefully to see how he reacted, but in this, as in most things, he didn’t make it easy.

Her phone chimed with an incoming message. Had it been any other man offering to send her mysterious gifts via text, she’d have assumed she was about to be the recipient of an unsolicited dick pic. Where Spencer was concerned, she had no such fears. She doubted he’d send one even if she expressly asked for it.

“An audio clip?” she asked as soon as she opened up her phone. “Is this one of those dog whistle apps? Because I tried that, and it doesn’t work. Wheezy just whines and covers his ears.”

“It’s not a dog whistle app” was his unhelpful reply.

Curious, she pressed the play button. Much to her surprise, his voice came through loud and clear.

“Mayonnaise. Mayonnaise.”

She darted a quick glance at him, but he was as impassive as always.

“Sit. Sit. Stay. Stay. Heel. Heel.”