He handed me the harness. “Has Percy ever pulled a wagon before?”
“Nope,” I said, with fresh nerves coming alive in my stomach. “There’s nothing quite like your friend’s wedding depending on whether or not your dog behaves.”
Zane’s brows rose.
I shrugged. “I told Bri I wasn’t so sure this was a good idea from day one. Percy has never done anything remotely like this. But you know Bri. Once she gets an idea in her head?—”
“There’s no changing her mind,” Zane finished my thought with a soft chuckle. He patted Percy’s head. “We’ll make it work.”
Somehow Zane’s quiet confidence soothed my anxiety. I wrestled with theharness as Percy’s tail thumped against the wagon.
“Let me help you with that.” Zane’s hot hands touched mine, lingering for a moment as he took hold of the straps and buckles. My breath hitched in my throat as I watched him at work, securing Percy to the wagon. He gave Percy’s side a solid pat when he finished.
I sat the doll up on the pillow, sucking in a deep breath and releasing it through pursed lips. “I guess this is the moment of truth. Wish us luck.”
“I’ll cross my fingersandmy toes,” Zane joked.
Music played from speakers set up in the gazebo, and I started down the aisle, holding the lead on Percy’s harness. He played it cool, as if he’d been pulling adorable wagons all his life. I breathed a sigh of relief, silently thanking God that at least one thing about this weekend would be easy.
Tension melted off me once we were halfway down theaisle. “We’re home free, buddy,” I said. “Who’s the best boy?”
Percy froze, and I made a note to myselfnotto distract him with praise as we made our way to the altar during the wedding. I glanced over my shoulder at the doll. She was still there. Perfectly upright on her pillow.
“Come on, Percy.” I jiggled the lead. “We need to go.”
He stood his ground with his head cocked to the side and his ears perked up. I followed his intense gaze to an ancient oak tree in the meadow. My heart sank the moment I spotted a fluffy-tailed creature skittering around in the grass beneath it.
It was then that I realized that I wasn’t the one who had distracted him enough to stop him dead in his tracks. It was the squirrel.
His head lowered and his body stiffened as he snorted, taking in an absurd amount of air to catch the scent.
“Percy, don’t do it. Don’t even thinkabout it. Don’t—” Before I could utter another word of caution, a second squirrel made an appearance on the ground. Percy’s self-control was no match for two chattering rodents zigzagging across the grass and then chasing each other in a winding path up the tree trunk.
He bolted, snatching the leash from my hands.
The wagon lurched, bouncing around behind him and falling apart as if it were made of wood no stronger than match sticks.
“Percy, no!” I shouted after him.
I stood frozen in place, horror-stricken as I watched one wheel wobble and the other fly off and roll into a nearby pond, almost smacking a Canadian goose on his tail feathers. But what was worse than witnessing the waterfowl’s near-death experience was the sight of the baby doll Percy had in tow. She bounced around like a crash-test dummy, and all I couldthink of was the child that was supposed to ride in that wagon during the ceremony.
No way was that happening—not unless we could figure out how to evict all squirrels from the park before the wedding.
While I was still trying to see past visions of a tiara-wearing toddler being thrown into the pond like that unfortunate wheel, Zane shot past me. His athletic build was on full display as he closed the distance between him and my squirrel-crazed dog.
“If only you’d skated that fast last night,” Uncle Bob called out after Zane, “you would’ve scored twice as many goals.”
I shot a glare Bob’s way, restraining myself from shouting back that it was Zane who had scored both the first go-ahead goalandthe winning goal the night before. But instead of putting dear, old Uncle Bob in his place, I took off after my dog and my…
What was Zane to me?
My crush? The guy I couldn’t get out of my head? The guy I was afraid to fall for?
I tried to figure out the answer to my question as I ran. Zane was the man who’d smiled when I spilled his smoothie all over his shirt. The guy who thought enough of my dog to bring him a snack wrapped in a napkin after a hard-fought win on the ice. He was the man who made me smile whenever he was around. The one who stepped up to help when I was having parking troubles. Last, but not least, he was the one chasing down my demolition crew of a dog.
I think more than anything else, Zane had become… my friend.
By the time I caught up, Percy was spread out on the grass, scarfing down Zane’s beef jerky like he’d just won the jackpot. Zane worked at the buckle on the harness with a grin on his face. “I think I know what yousee in this big guy,” he said, smiling up at me. “You’re into books, right?”
