Page 15 of A Miracle for the Confident Cowboy

“Like finding arealjob?” she huffed.

To his credit, Duke grimaced.

Sophie didn’t miss a beat. “My brother is busy. His wife is, too. And I’m currently in limbo with what I’m planning for my blog for the new year.” She shrugged. “I wanted to do something good with my time—I wanted to make a difference.”

The look he gave her was strange. It was like she was seeing it through a filter that prevented her from understanding what it meant. Before she had a chance to dissect what it could mean, he looked away.

“What about you?” she demanded. “Why are you volunteering? You’re busy enough. I know what my brother does for the ranch. Why do you seem to constantly be at the shelter no matter what day of the week it is?”

A smile tugged at the corners of his lips but he didn’t turn it toward her. “I guess you and I have one thing in common.”

She waited with bated breath. There wasn’t an answer she expected from him, not even if she went over what she’d said a thousand times.

“I wanted to make a difference,” he murmured.

Thatdefinitelywasn’t what she’d been expecting, though it made sense. Duke could very well be using her words to manipulate her, but for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to believe that. His voice sounded surer of himself, more genuine than it had the entire time she’d known him. Was it possible Duke was exactly what Pippa had claimed him to be?

Handsome.

Charming.

A good guy.

Sophie’s throat dried up and she turned her own attention to the animals around them if only to get her bearings.

“I guess you could say it all started with Gus.”

“Gus?” she heard herself asking.

He nodded, shooting a look in her direction. “My cat. I got him ten years ago.”

Her brows lifted. She wondered if that was a long time to have a cat. She’d heard some lived twenty years and some not so long. Maybe it depended on how pampered they were. Did Duke give Gus a cushy life?

Duke didn’t seem to notice her reaction. His brows creased as if he were trying hard to remember something. “He was the runt of the litter. We found him in a box with other abandoned kittens. Most of the guys picked a cat for their girlfriends—the cutest ones always get picked first.” He eyed Sophie then chuckled. “No one wanted Gus.”

“Except you.”

His lips quirked upward. “Except me.”

The guy was practically a saint. She couldn’t believe she’d gone and treated him like he was a manipulative jerk. When he looked at her, she could almost sense he was reading her mind. A deep flush spread across her cheeks and she shoved her hands in her pockets to keep him from noticing how much his attention to her made her fidget. “Daisy, too.”

His gaze shifted to something more curious.

“My dog,” she explained. “I was volunteering at a shelter back home when someone brought in a litter of yorkies they didn’t want to take care of anymore. They weren’t in good shape and Daisy was the worst of them.” Her blood boiled at the memory. “The second they put Daisy’s information up on the adoption board, I took her. She’s been with me ever since.”

They studied each other then. While they preferred different animals, they’d found something else in common. Neither one of them could stand any animal mistreatment. Duke’s focus on her sent her stomach into several acrobatic flips. There was no reason for her reaction. Hadn’t she told herself over and over again that she wasn’t going to be manipulated by him?

This wasn’t manipulation, a voice in her head seemed to say. This was something else.

“Thanks for saving my life,” she whispered. The statement slipped from her lips without her permission. She hadn’t planned on drawing attention to the fact that she’d needed help in the first place. Sophie dropped her eyes to her feet and tapped her toes together.

“I had no choice,” he murmured back.

She lifted her gaze to meet his, confused. Did he mean what she thought he had? Was he actually suggesting he might have started to develop feelings for her? That thought alone was enough to make her legs go weak and her breath to catch in her chest.

His lips curled into that devastatingly handsome grin. “There was no way I was going to risk getting on Pippa’s bad side.”

And in a flash the whoosh of hopefulness that had filled her entire being drained from her body. She choked a little thencleared her throat and shot him a goofy smile. “Right. No one wants to get on Pippa’s bad side—especially now that she’d married to my brother.”

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