‘I know that.’
Rowan looked up then, and Marcus wished he hadn’t. There was no anger blazing in his eyes. Anger would have been easier. This was something colder. Quieter. Something that had been locked away so long it had learned not to make a sound.
‘Do you?’ Rowan asked.
Marcus’s mouth opened, but no clever answer came. No light joke. No bright little comment to smooth the awkward edges. He looked at Atlas instead.
Atlas stood close to Rowan’s leg, his body still too rigid, his ears twitching with every gull cry, every splash of water, every distant shout from the seafront above. His eyes were not frightened exactly. Not in the simple way Marcus understood frightened dogs. They were watchful. Working. Searching for threats nobody else could see.
Marcus’s chest tightened. ‘I thought it might be nice,’ he said carefully. ‘That’s all. Something gentler than Best in Show. Something for dogs who’ve had a hard time, or who aren’t ready for the chaos of the main ring.’
Rowan’s jaw shifted. ‘Dogs don’t need people clapping because they survived something.’
Marcus swallowed. ‘No. Maybe not.’
‘And Atlas doesn’t need a tent full of strangers staring at him because someone has decided his trauma is inspiring.’
That one hurt. Not because Rowan was wrong. Because Marcus could see how easily his lovely, generous idea could become exactly that.
He turned his gaze out to sea, blinking against the brightness glancing off the water. A laugh rose automatically in his throat—the kind of laugh he used when a customer complained, when Mrs Calloway asked too many questions, when one of the women in the bay tried to set him up with a niece or a cousin or a friend from pilates.
He pushed it down. For once, he let the silence stay serious. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
Rowan looked at him sharply, as if he had expected an argument instead.
Marcus tucked his hands into his pockets, his fingers curling against the fabric. ‘I really am. I didn’t think of it like that. I just saw how brave he was yesterday, taking that step towards the door, and I wanted...’ He stopped before the words could make things worse.
Rowan’s expression changed by the smallest amount. ‘Wanted what?’
Marcus glanced at Atlas again. ‘I wanted him to have a win.’
The line between Rowan’s brows deepened. ‘He doesn’t know what a rosette is,’ Rowan said.
‘No, but you do.’ The words slipped out before Marcus had time to make them softer.
Rowan went very still.
Marcus’s stomach dropped. Brilliant. Wonderful. There it was. The reason he was single, probably. His mouth, running half a second ahead of his sense.
He lifted both hands slightly. ‘Ignore me. I’m overstepping. It’s a terrible habit of mine. Christine says I should have a sign made for the parlour wall.’
Rowan did not smile, but something in his eyes shifted. Not warmth. Not quite. But the hard edge dulled a fraction.
Atlas took one careful step forward and lowered his nose towards a ribbon of seaweed half-buried in the sand. He sniffed it once, then jerked his head up when a child shrieked with laughter further along the beach.
Rowan immediately angled his body between Atlas and the sound. Not dramatically. Not with panic. Just a subtle movement, protective and practised.
Marcus noticed.
He was starting to think he could spend days noticing Rowan, and still not understand half of what he saw.
A small brown spaniel came barrelling along the sand, lead trailing behind it, a little girl chasing after it with her bucket bouncing against her leg.
‘Pudding! Come back!’
Marcus saw Atlas’s ears shoot forward.
Rowan saw it too.
