Page 66 of Knot A Chance

His eyes shot to mine. “Wait a second. He reminds you of me? In what way? You just met him and he’s a dog!”

I chuckled and wrapped one arm around Bennett’s shoulders as he looped an arm around my waist and steered us toward his truck.

“Well, first of all, he looks big and strong on the outside, but when I started petting him, he became a total softy, giving me all sorts of love. Watch.” I reached behind Bennett’s ear and scratched him.

Bennett groaned pleasurably and rubbed his head into my hand.

I laughed heartily. “See!”

He scowled at me.

“Babe, you are basically writing this argument for me.”

“Okay fine, even if I can get over the mild offense at being compared to our new puppy. Can we at least call him something that won’t be confusing?”

“I don’t know, I feel like he’s already a Benny.” I looked down at the dog, nearly tripping over the curb as Bennett stopped walking. “We can keep thinking though.”

“Good.” Bennett opened the passenger side of the truck for me and took Benny as I climbed in. He handed me the puppy, and I settled him in the middle of the seat as Bennett rounded the front of his truck.

The scent of fresh urine filled the air, and I grimaced as Bennett sat down and pulled his door shut, his nostrils flaring.

“Handsome, did Benny just pee in my truck?” Bennett asked.

“In his defense, it smelled like pee, so he probably thought it was okay,” I said, prepared to defend my new dog to the ends of the earth. “Also, you just called him Benny.”

“Damnit,” Bennett said, turning the truck on. He looked sternly at the dog and issued a command, “No more peeing in the truck.”

Benny lowered his nose in shame and moved closer to Bennett as if seeking his approval.

Bennett scratched under his chin.

“You did not just alpha bark at my puppy,” I said, jaw dropping in horror.

“This is how you train dogs. You make sure they know who the alpha is.” Benny let out a little whimper as Bennett moved to scratch him behind the ears.

“Alpha bark at Benny again and I’ll show you who is in charge,” I said, moving closer to my dog.

Bennett snorted as he squeezed my knee. “Was that supposed to be a threat? That sounded kind of hot. You should work on your threats.”

I intertwined my fingers with his. “Forget it. I don’t know how to be mad at you.”

Bennett pulled the back of my hand to his lips for a soft kiss while Benny resettled, resting his chin on my lap. Bennett smiled at the puppy and shook his head. “Now I’m going to have two of you turning me into a complete sucker.”

I rested my head on his shoulder and sighed contentedly. “Yep, but you love us already.”

Bennett kissed the top of my head. “That I do, handsome.”

Maybe while I’m in town I should reach out to Ryder and ask him to break our bond. If I was right, and Bennett was my true mate, then technically, his bite would override Ryder’s, but I wouldn’t wish the kind of pain that would cause Ryder on anyone. We may not have had the healthiest relationship, but there was genuine care between us at one point, and I owed it to him to do this the fair way.

If he breaks our bond himself, it won’t hurt him as much, and maybe he’ll be able to move on with his life too. He deserves something real one day.

“So, let me get this straight,” Clara said, holding her virgin mimosa in the air—which was really just orange juice, but she did not like when I’d pointed that out. “You told him to stop the truck, jumped out in the middle of Main Street, and rescued this puppy from a cardboard box on the side of the road?”

“Yes,” I said, annoyed with her recap of the story that we’d just told her and Michael. “What part of that is hard to comprehend?”

“All of it,” Clara said. She tossed her dark brown curls over her shoulder. “This story is ridiculous. Who finds a puppy in a box? That sounds made up, like Hollywood shit.”

“Well, apparently it’s also Crescent River shit,” I said. “I don’t live here. This town’s crazy is not my crazy anymore.” I turned around in my dining room chair and pointed to the dog on the couch that was visible through the arch connecting the two rooms. “But that is my new puppy, Benny, and I found him in a box.”