Read Online Anywhere You Are by Elisabeth Barrett - Free Book Online

lonely. She should get a pet. A companion. Something to accompany her into the woods while she sketched and to curl up at her feet at night. A giant dog, like this one. She could handle it, as long as he was as gentle as this big guy.
    They played for a while longer until her ankle started aching. She sat down on a bench to rub it while the dog chased a monarch butterfly fluttering across the grass. When the creature flew away, the dog came over to her and simply lay down right next to her. Just perfect.
    “Good dog,” she said, bending to rub his huge head. “Good dog.”
    He started rumbling his contentment again, and she scratched him behind the ears once more. Gentle beast that he was, he simply rumbled louder.
    After a long while, Marc came to join them. He removed his jacket and threw it over the back of the bench, then sat down heavily next to her. The strain on his face was palpable, just for an instant. And then it was gone.
    “Well, that’s over,” he said.
    “Is everyone happy now?”
    “No,” he said bluntly. “I just paid everyone off and it cost me two thousand dollars.” He glared at the dog again. “Demon.”
    “He’s not so bad,” Grace said. “What happened to make him go crazy? The squirrel?”
    Marc nodded. “He jerked the leash right out of my hands, and once he was gone, I couldn’t get him back.”
    “He wouldn’t respond to you?” Grace surmised.
    “No. And if you hadn’t caught him when you did, the damage would have been much worse.”
    “Honestly, I think he just needed some exercise,” she told him. “He’s been doing great with me.”
    “Whatever he needed, I didn’t give him, and you did,” he said, his gaze clear and unwavering. “So thank you again.”
    Grace took a deep breath. It was now or never, and given that she’d just played the role of savior he couldn’t be too angry with her…she hoped.
    “Look,” she said, “I know I already said this, and you might not want to hear it again, but I’m sorry about last weekend. We weren’t being taped. In fact, I haven’t been on the show for a couple of seasons now.” She took a deep breath. “It’s just that for the first time, I think ever, I knew who you were instead of the other way around. I guess I was just trying to pretend that things were…” She stopped and shook her head. “I just didn’t expect things to get so out of hand.”
    “Considering you just saved my ass back there, let’s call it even,” Marc said. “Besides, I was a real dick to you.”
    “You weren’t,” she said quickly. “Okay, you were a little. But I understood why.”
    “I don’t like surprises,” he told her. “Or cameras in my face.”
    “Duly noted. We’ll try to avoid those in the future.” Not that she’d ever have a future with a man like Marc.
    She rubbed the dog behind the ears again in that spot he liked. “What’s his name?”
    Marc’s jaw got tight again, and he hesitated a long time before answering. “Mr. Pipplepotts.”
    “No,” she breathed. “That is just
awesome.
”
    “It’s ridiculous,” he said tightly. “But Aunt Sarah was nothing if not eccentric. She lived that way, and she died that way. She actually said straight-up that she left me the dog to shake up my life.”
    “Sounds like my kind of woman,” Grace said honestly.
    “I loved her.” There was sadness in his voice. Sadness and something more…something she desperately wanted to ask him about, but instinctively, she knew that now wasn’t the time.
    “I don’t want to change his name,” she told him, “but I can’t call him Mr. Pipplepotts. It
is
awesome, but it’s just too long. Hmm…Mr. P? Pip? Nah, those are kind of silly.” She thought for a moment. “His coat’s kind of bluish, so what about Big Blue? It could be his call name. Like the fancy breeders at the kennel club shows use.” The dog leaned into her hand harder and closed his eyes. “Big Blue? It fits. We’ll make it work. That is, if you’re