His voice trailed off, his question unasked.
“Do I think what?” She wasn’t thinking much of anything right now to be honest, his touch warm, mesmerizing, intoxicating.
Snap out of it!
She was an idiot to let this affect her. Even if Harrison were truly interested in her—and he wasn’t—he was still the kind of man who would leave her for a pile of rocks one day. She was done with that. Wasn’t she?
He shook his head. “I’m being stupid.”
Kenzie tried to piece together his unasked question. “Are you asking whether Gabby knew something was wrong and woke you up on purpose?”
His gaze met hers, his lips quirking in a grin. “Stupid, right?”
She traced her thumb over his knuckles. “It’s not stupid at all. Dogs can be very sensitive to the emotions of their humans. When I’m upset about something, Gizmo will whine, lick my hands, and try to get me to pet him. He wants to help, to cheer me up. I’m sure Gabby, as little as she is, realized something was wrong.”
“You knew what you were doing when you chose her. She’s special.” Harrison returned the caress, sending shivers up Kenzie’s arm.
Then it hit her.
She gaped at him open-mouthed. “You let Gabby sleep in your bed! Don’t try to deny it. How else could she have licked your face when you were dreaming?”
Harrison’s gaze met hers, guilt on his handsome face. “Busted.”
* * *
“Isit too late to plead the Fifth?”
Kenzie pinned him with her gaze. “You can’t plead the Fifthafteryou confess. That’s not how it works.”
Conrad could tell from the gleam of humor in her eyes that she wasn’t truly angry with him. She hadn’t pulled her hand away, either. He liked that. Her touch was electric, her fingers delicate, her hand silky soft and so much smaller than his.
If this is how it felt to hold her hand, how would it feel to kiss her?
Don’t go there.
Kenzie was saying something. “I know how hard the first several weeks with a new puppy can be, but if she doesn’t learn good habits now, it will be tougher for her to learn them later.”
“I know. Sorry.” He looked down at the sleeping puppy again. “She was crying, and it seemed so heartless to leave her there.”
“Did you have dogs growing up?”
“Oh, yeah—sled dogs. Thirty-five of them.”
Kenzie gaped at him. “Thirty-fivesleddogs?”
“Alaskan Huskies. I grew up there, remember?”
“Yeah, but … thirty-five Huskies? I guess you didn’t have an HOA.”
That made him laugh. “No, no HOA. No neighbors, either. My parents homesteaded along the Copper River. My dad built the house and the outbuildings from the ground up. We lived completely off the grid with a boat as our only motorized transportation. My dad trained sled dogs so that we could get around in the winter to get wood, forage, hunt.”
“That’s totally bananas!”
“Bananas?” Conrad laughed at her reaction. “I didn’t know anyone lived any other way until I was five. My mom got sick of roughing it after the next baby was stillborn. She blamed my dad for not calling a bush pilot to get her to a hospital. My father helped her bundle me and one of the dogs into the boat and brought us downriver. He left us in Cordova and headed back to the homestead alone. My mom made her way with me in tow to Anchorage and got a job at a diner.”
“God! How awful for your parents. It couldn’t have been easy for you, either. It must have been a shock to find yourself in a modern town.”
“When you’re a kid, you just take it all as it comes, but I do remember how much I loved electric lights and warm running water. I drove my mom nuts flicking the light switches on and off and playing with faucets.”
