He burst out laughing.

Pressing her face into his neck, he heard it and felt it when his girl did the same.

* * * * *

Four Days Later

Nick was tossing a log into the fireplace when he saw movement in his peripheral vision.

He looked that way and caught it as Whiz entered, doing it galloping, puppy ears flopping.

Not long after, Olivia came in holding a shoe.

“You are correct,” she announced haughtily. “He’s fast. The name Whiz suits him.” She shoved the shoe toward him, a shoe he now saw was chewed to shit. “I’m also correct. He’s also a punk.”

Whiz made a whining sound.

“He doesn’t like Punk, baby,” Nick told Liv something she knew because the dog spoke fucking English and whined every time that word was uttered in reference to him.

“Then he should stop being a punk, sweetheart,” Liv shot back.

Another whine from Whiz.

“He’s not a punk, he’s a pup,” Nick pointed out.

“The closet door was closed,” she returned. “He’s not only a puppy punk. He’s a puppy magician punk.”

Fuck.

He’d gone in to get a flannel to wear when he brought in wood and hadn’t closed the closet door.

Liv read him and her hand dropped to her side as her eyes went to the ceiling.

“Nick,” she snapped at the ceiling.

“I’ll buy you another shoe.” He grinned. “Two of them, if you’re a good girl.”

She returned her gaze to him. “You’ll need to. This shoe,” she shook it at him again, “isn’t suitable to country living. But when we’re back in Denver, I’ll need it and the meager other selection I brought with me that didn’t go up in smoke.”

Taking in the strappy sandal that was minus a number of straps, some of a spike heel and a good deal of its sole, he mentally considered a visit to the vet as he advised, “Best to stock up for country living. Time we’re in Denver, you won’t need that many of those type of shoes.”

“Sorry?”

He looked to her. “Does Whiz have half your shoe in his belly?”

“No, Punk decorated our bedroom floor with half this shoe so it’s now in the garbage.”

Thank Christ for that.

Whiz whined.

“Nick,” she called.

He turned his attention back to her, straightening from the fireplace to take his feet.

“The time we’re in Denver?” she asked.

“Yeah. We should think about when we can go back. A visit. Knight’s gettin’ impatient and Kasha’s definitely—”

Her head tipped sharply to the side. “A visit?”

“A visit,” he confirmed. “Maybe a week. But we gotta think of Whiz. Whether he comes with us, which means drivin’ with a puppy, which might be the seventh circle of hell. Or he stays, which means we don’t have him for very long and then we take off on him. I don’t think that’d be cool. So we should wait a few weeks, a month, long as I can push it with Knight and Kash, and then not be gone too long.”

She stared at him so long it was his turn to call, “Liv?”

“A visit,” she said.

“Yeah, a visit,” he reiterated. “What the fuck?” he asked when she kept staring at him.

“What about your Jag?” she asked.

“Jed is gonna drive it out. He’s lookin’ forward to it. He’ll fly back. We got you your Lexus, so we don’t need it. He can do it in the spring.”

She didn’t move and began again to stare at him.

“Jesus, Liv, what the fuck?” he asked.

When she spoke, her voice had changed. There was something in it he couldn’t read.

“We’re not moving back, are we?” she asked.

She thought they were moving back?

He’d bought that house, she knew that.

Her painting was there.

Whiz was there.

Liv was there and she loved it there.

“You wanted the mountains,” he reminded her. “You wanted to be away from it all.” He swung an arm out. “So we’re here.”

“Your business is in Denver. Your life is there. Your family—”

He cut her off. “You’re here.”

She snapped her mouth shut.

Whiz attacked the rug under the coffee table.

Nick went to his woman and wound his arms around her.

“You like it here?” he asked.

“I love it here,” she answered.

“So we’re stayin’.”

“But—”

“We’re stayin’.”

“Nicky—”

He squeezed her.

She shut up.

“You get the perfect world, you don’t leave it. You love it here. I love you. We live here.”

She pressed her lips together but that didn’t stop her eyes from getting bright with wet.

She unpressed them to ask, “What are you gonna do here?”

“We’ll figure it out.”

“What am I gonna do here?”

“We’ll figure that out too.”

“Your family—” she tried again.

“Livvie, we’re in Tennessee, not Timbuktu.”

She shut up again.

Then she quit shutting up. “I love you, Sebring.”

He grinned.

“Back at you, Shade.”

She smiled.