“Where hearts and minds are healed, one paw at a time?”
He chuckles. “Archer loved that. It’s definitely going to be our tagline. And it was all your idea.” He kisses my forehead. “It shows you’re fundamental to the creation of the center.”
“Oh, Cullen…”
He tucks a finger under my chin and lifts it so he can look into my eyes. “You are. I wouldn’t be staying if it wasn’t for you.” He kisses my lips, just once. “I’ve fallen in love with you too.”
“Please stop or I’m going to bawl all morning.”
He laughs then and kisses me properly, and we exchange a long, slow kiss that fills me with joy.
“Bleugh,” Max says from behind us.
We break apart with a laugh. “You said it was okay for me to kiss her,” Cullen protests.
Max rolls his eyes. “Not all the time.”
I chuckle. Then I go over to him and lower down so we’re at eye level. I glance at Cullen. “Can you give us a minute?”
He nods and clicks his fingers at Ghost, and the two of them go out.
Max watches them go, then looks back at me, puzzled.
“Sit down,” I say, lowering myself to the floorboards. They’re a bit dusty, but I don’t care about that.
He sits opposite me, both of us cross-legged, and hugs his dinosaur.
“Honey,” I say, “I need to talk to you about something. Cullen has just offered me a job helping to set up PAWS. If I took it, I’d be working here every day, looking after the therapy animals.”
His face lights up. “Really?”
“Yes. And Cullen is going to stay, too. We’d be working together, with Archer and some of the others, to get the place up and running. But I need to talk to you about what you want. I need you to know you’re the most important thing in my life, and your happiness is what matters to me.”
He looks up at me with his huge turquoise eyes, so like mine.
“We haven’t talked much about Dad,” I say softly. “And what happened that day.” I was so upset, angry, and frightened that I just walked out. The preparation for coming up to Sunrise Bay happened quickly, and the two of us haven’t had a heart-to-heart about it. But I know it’s important that we do.
I bend my head to catch his eye. “You know that none of it was your fault, don’t you?”
He fiddles with his dinosaur. “I bumped into him.”
“I know. But you’re a six-year-old boy. That’s what boys do. It was very, very wrong of him to react the way he did.”
“Cullen said that when you’re angry you should walk away, and that you mustn’t take it out on someone else.”
“He’s absolutely right. Listen, Dad will always be your dad. And I know he loves you very much. But at the moment, I don’t feel safe with him, and I’m worried that you aren’t safe either. So I don’t think we can go home. Do you understand?”
He nods. “I don’t want to go back.”
“Me neither.”
We look at each other for a moment, letting that sink in.
“I don’t want him to hit you,” he says.
I stare at him. “Hit me?”
“I know he did. I heard you telling Grandma.”
