She wasn’t kidding. She really loved yarn that much.

Since Sophie had decided that knitting was the only way—short of regularly making out in front of his barn—of breaking down his barriers and integrating Bubbles into his life, he turned his attention to the task at hand.

What other choice did he have? Yarn was a much safer activity than kissing.

“It’s all the same to me, to be honest,” he said. “Maybe I should let Bubbles pick, since she’s the one who’s going to have to wear it.”

He didn’t wait for an answer or look at Sophie, since he could guess how she looked right now.

Smiling. At him.

Laughing. At him.

“As much as you love your sock, Bubbles, Sophie said you don’t look up to snuff. She thinks you need to be dressed up in handmade finery.” He ignored the choking sound of Sophie’s laughter behind him and picked up the puppy, who had been sitting patiently at his feet. Holding her up to the wall of yarn, he asked, “Which one do you like?”

Bubbles gave a Pomeranian squirm—a movement he was rapidly coming to realize was her standard expression of joy. Since he had no other way to interpret her mysterious canine desires, he decided to go with it, passing her over the wall and seeing which wooly bundle caused her to wriggle the most.

“White?” he asked as she worked her way toward a pearly, bridal-looking thing in one corner. “Are you kidding? After Labor Day?” That was a thing, right? He vaguely remembered that being a thing.

The choking sound became strangled.

“Pick something more practical, please,” he admonished the puppy. “Black is what I recommend. The color of soot and ashes. You have no idea how hard those are to get out of clothes after a few weeks of nonstop exposure.”

“Maybe fire engine red? That seems appropriate.” Sophie stepped forward to stand next to him. As he expected, her voice and her shoulders were shaking with laughter. “A lady always looks striking in red. They say women who wear it are more attractive to members of the opposite sex.”

As Sophie had chosen to wear a deeply vibrant pair of red pants that day, Harrison could only assume she was pushing him again. The pants themselves weren’t overwhelming—other than the color, which drew the eye inevitably toward the rounded curves of her ass, they were like any other pair of pants. Except, for some godforsaken reason, they stopped just above Sophie’s ankles. Capri pants, he’d heard them called. In no way, shape, or form an item of clothing to be sexualized—especially since she’d paired them with a simple black T-shirt.