“Marmaduke! No! Stop!”

He didn’t listen. I ran past six or seven houses screaming like a lunatic and trying to keep up. The damn dog was pretty fast.

Birdie caught up to me and yelled, “Nein!”

Marmaduke instantly halted.

My hand covered my racing heart. “Oh my God. Thank you. I can’t believe he listened to you.”

“I’ve been working with him every day.”

“Wow. Well, that’s great. Obviously you’ve done really well with him.”

Birdie beamed. “Thank you.”

The rest of our walk was uneventful, and we returned to the Maxwell house after about twenty minutes.

“How was your walk?” Sebastian asked his daughter.

“Good. Marmaduke tried to chase a cat.”

Sebastian looked over at me and frowned. “How’d that go?”

“Well, to be honest, it wasn’t going too well. He caught me off guard, and I couldn’t get him to back down. But Birdie here got him to stop.”

She shrugged. “It was no big deal. Sadie was the one who taught him the word. I just yelled it.”

Sebastian smiled warmly at me. It made my stomach do a little flip.

God, I’m wound tight today. I unclipped the leash from Marmaduke’s collar, and he took a few steps before sprawling out on the area rug. It looked like he might go down for a nap. “I think the pup is sufficiently tuckered out now. So I guess we should get started? I was thinking that today we could work on ‘stay’ and ‘down.’” Lord knows I’d watched about a hundred hours of different videos to learn training techniques for just those two commands.

Sebastian stayed in the room, but he took a seat off to the side and left the training to Birdie and me. Every once in a while, I’d look over and see him watching us. After more than an hour of training, he looked at his watch and stood.

“I think you went over on your session time.”

“It’s okay. They did great today, don’t you think?”

Sebastian walked over. “They sure did.” He crouched down to his daughter. “I think all your hard work deserves some ice cream. What do you say we hit Emack & Bolio’s before I have to go to work?”

Birdie flashed a toothy smile. “Yes!”

“Alright. Why don’t you go get washed up . . . and use soap, okay?”

“Okay, Daddy!” Birdie looked at me. “Sadie, do you want to come? They make this purple ice cream, and it looks so pretty with Cap’n Crunch on top.”

“Umm. That sounds delicious. But I should probably be going.”

She frowned. “Okay. But you’re going to come again, right?”

I smiled. “Yes, definitely.”

“When?”

“Why don’t I work that out with your dad while you get washed up.”

Birdie threw her arms around my waist in a hug. “Thank you for coming back.”

This little girl truly made my heart melt. I bent down and gave her braid a tug. “Thank you for all the practice you did while I couldn’t be here the last few weeks. I’m really proud of you.”

After she skipped off to the bathroom, Sebastian had a funny look on his face.

“What?” I wiped at my cheek. “Do I have dirt on me again from Marmaduke?”

“No. I just . . . She really has a strong connection with you. Honestly, she hasn’t bonded with any woman since her mom died.”

“Are there . . . other women in her life?”

“She has an aunt who lives in Jersey. She comes to visit every few weeks and always brings her a thoughtful gift. But . . . I don’t know . . . whatever you have together is just different.”

I smiled. “I feel connected to her, too. I hope that’s okay?”

Sebastian put his hands in his pockets and looked down. “Yeah, it’s great, actually. I guess I didn’t realize how much she missed a woman in her life until recently.”

A woman in her life . . . That reminded me. I nodded toward the front door. “Do you think we can speak outside for a minute or two?”

His brows drew together, but he said, “Yeah, of course.”

Once we were out front with the door closed, I wasn’t quite sure how to say what I wanted to say.

Sebastian looked troubled as he waited for me to formulate my thoughts. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Everything is fine. It’s just . . . Birdie said something to me that I thought I should make you aware of.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, apparently she knows you talk to a woman online at night.”

Sebastian’s face fell. “Shit. What exactly did she say?”

“She thinks you’re trying to buy a bride . . . a new mom for her.”

“What?” His eyes widened. “Why the heck would she think that?”

“Sometimes at night she eavesdrops on your conversations from outside your bedroom door. She overheard you tell a woman that you didn’t want to date her. So she assumed that meant you were looking for a wife and not a date.”

Sebastian’s eyes shut, and he shook his head. “I meant that I was looking for . . .” He opened his eyes, and our gazes met. “I occasionally will meet a woman online. I try to be up-front about . . . Well, when I said I didn’t want to date, I meant I didn’t want an emotional relationship.” He frowned. “I don’t want more than the physical part. If you know what I mean.”

“Sure. Of course. I sort of figured that’s what you’d meant. But I didn’t explain it to Birdie because obviously it wasn’t my place to tell her that her father was just cruising for a hookup.”

Sebastian dragged a hand through his hair. “There haven’t been too many. I don’t want you to think . . .”

I put my hands up. “No explanation needed. We’re adults. With needs. Trust me, I get it.” I laughed nervously. “Or maybe I understand since I don’t get it enough.”

Sebastian cracked a smile. “Dry spell?”

“The profiles of the people who like my online dating profile look like a sex-offender registry.”

We both laughed.

“Yeah, it’s not easy,” he said. Sebastian’s eyes dropped to do a quick sweep over my body and then rose to meet mine again. Finding that I’d just watched him check me out, he cleared his throat. “So . . . when can you come again?”

Interesting choice of words.

“How about the same time next week?”

“That’d be great. And thanks for letting me know about Birdie’s snooping. I really appreciate it.”

“Of course. See you next week.”

I walked down the front stairs and toward the corner. With every step, I had the strongest urge to look back and see if Sebastian was watching me. When I reached the end of the block, before I turned, I gave in and looked back. Sebastian hadn’t moved from the spot I’d left him.

I sighed to myself. Yeah. It’s not easy out there. But I wouldn’t mind climbing that man like a tree.

CHAPTER 13

SEBASTIAN

“She’s pretty, isn’t she?”

“Hmm?” I pretended not to hear the question that Magdalene had just hit me with. We were alone in the kitchen right after Sadie and Birdie had left to head to the park with Marmaduke.