A Tempting Engagement. Bronwyn Jameson

her feet. “I have to finish packing.”

      “Is there much more?” Mitch asked.

      “Not really.” She shoved her hands in her jeans pockets, not wanting to think about the implications. Once she finished packing, there’d be nothing left to do but leave. She would be adrift again, homeless. “Just some clothes and personal things.”

      “I’ll call back in a few hours, then?”

      She nodded. Watched as Mitch let his son through the gate, then followed them around to the front of the house. Seeing them together, fair and dark, short and tall, but bonded by blood and love, her own feeling of aloneness swelled from the pit of her stomach, tightening her chest and constricting her throat. She had to sit on her porch steps, had to close her eyes and fight the tears and the clamoring need to call out.

      She also had to ask Mitch about the dog.

      Taking a deep breath, she rose to her feet as he closed the truck door behind Joshua and started around to the driver’s side.

      “Mitch.”

      She waited until he came back, out of Joshua’s earshot, one brow raised in query.

      “It’s about Digger. I can’t keep him.” The reason didn’t need stating—a dog couldn’t be packed away in a storage box. “I was thinking that a dog might be good for Joshua.”

      “It would,” he said slowly, but his expression remained closed. Not the good-idea-Emily smile she’d hoped for. His eyes met hers, hard and direct. “But right now he needs something more than a dog. He needs you, Emily. We both do.”