Page 77 of Wild Justice

Her announcement was out of the blue, but from her tone she’d been thinking about the subject for a long time. Longer than they’d been in the rowboat, anyway.

“What kind of dog?” he asked.

“I don’t know. The kind that wouldn’t mind being outside and getting muddy every now and then, but would be fine inside the house, too, and wouldn’t destroy my furniture.”

“You don’t have any particular breed in mind?”

“No, I think I’d go to a shelter or rescue and adopt.”

“That sounds like a nice thing to do. I like dogs.”

It was a funny conversation, and it was clear that Lulu was tiptoeing around whether he would be someone who would like to have a dog around.

Because she wanted him around, too.

“You do?”

“I do,” he confirmed. “When I was a kid, we always had dogs. I missed them when I was at school. When I was home, they slept in my bed. It drove my mom crazy. She said that dogs don’t belong in people’s beds, but I think that they do.”

“Me, too.” There was a long pause before she continued. “Did you like going to boarding school?”

That was an interesting question. Depending on the day and his mood, he might answer it differently.

“Sometimes,” he finally replied. “I liked my friends, and we had a great deal of fun. But I missed having my own room and my dog. I missed my grandpa that I would visit in the summer. If I ever have a kid, I don’t think I’ll send them to boarding school. I got a great education, but I’m not sure it was worth it…the things I missed.”

“I think my parents would have loved to send me to boarding school during my teen years, but we couldn’t afford something like that.”

“There were a fair number of kids that were there because their parents couldn’t deal with them,” Kai conceded. “It always seemed like a copout to me, though. Like they didn’t want the hassle, so they sent them away for four years except for summer and holidays.”

“I don’t know about that,” Lulu said. “If they were anything like me, they probably drove their parents to almost lose their minds.”

This was becoming some sort of broken record. Lulu was constantly down on herself for her wild-child past.

“Can I ask you a question? Just how bad could you have been? No one died. You didn’t die. From what you’ve said there were no drugs involved. You didn’t torture small animals. You were a teenager who wanted to test your boundaries, and you were far more enthusiastic about it than most other kids. That’s not a sin, Lulu. Give yourself a break. You’re not doing five to ten at the state pen.”

Kai was pretty sure he fucked up their wonderful afternoon, because Lulu didn’t reply at all. She simply stared up at the sky until it was time to go back to the cabin.

He’d hurt her somehow, and now he felt like shit. He’d been trying to make her feel better about herself, but he sucked at it. It was just that she was so hard on herself, even now that she wasn’t giving anyone any trouble.

Did her parents or siblings constantly bring it up? Was she stuck in some sort of “family slot” where they wouldn’t let her escape her troublesome past behaviors? She was going to have to hear about them for the rest of her life?

If so? That was bullshit. He’d bet his trust fund that the rest of her family wasn’t any more perfect.

Calm down. You don’t know that’s what’s going on here.

Kai didn’t know, but he had a few suspicions. When they arrived back at the cabin, he stepped away for a few minutes to shoot Henry a text asking about his theory. He was sure Henry would tell him the truth - no sugarcoating.

Here I am trying to fix things for Lulu. She can do that for herself, of course.

Kai wanted her to realize how amazing she was. Every day he marveled at this woman, and yet she didn’t seem to know that while no one was perfect…in his eyes, she was damn close.

Fuck that. You want her to know that you love her. Go ahead and admit it.

It was becoming harder and harder to ignore the elephant in the room. Kai had fallen hard for Lulu, and it didn’t look like there was an escape hatch. He was in. All in. Damn, if it didn’t feel better than anything. Just walking around with her and floating on a stupid lake with her had made him a happy man.

Everything in the world was better now that Lulu was in his life.

“Should we grill the chicken for dinner?” Lulu asked when he came out of the bedroom.

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