I caught him up, holding him against my sweaty chest. “Sorry,” I muttered, stroking his head.

Closing my eyes, I pushed back and leaned against the headboard, willing my pulse to slow. It took several minutes to get my bearings, and about that long to realize that petting Lucky was calming me down.

I laughed to myself, then reached for my phone on the nightstand. The time, a little after two in the morning, gave me pause. So did the need to be strong, to handle my own crap.

But a lot had happened since I first called Eva to talk about a nightmare. Good things.

“Hey,” Eva answered, sounding groggy and sexy. “You okay?”

“Better now that I’m hearing your voice.”

“You having puppy troubles? Or a nightmare? Maybe you’re feeling frisky?”

Calm settled over me. I’d been braced for a push. Seemed she was going to ease me into it, instead. Yet another reason for me to try harder to give her what she wanted, regardless of my first instincts about it. Because when Eva was happy, I was happy. “Maybe all of the above.”

“Okay.” Sheets rustled. “Take it from the top, ace.”

“If I latch the crate door, Lucky bitches about it and I can’t sleep.”

She laughed. “You’re a softie. He’s got your number. Did you put him in your office?”

“No. He barks in there and I still can’t sleep. I ended up just closing the crate door without locking it and he settled down.”

“He’s not going to learn to control his bladder if you don’t crate-train him.”

I looked down at the beagle curled up and sleeping in my lap. “He woke me from a nightmare. I think he did it on purpose.”

She was quiet a minute. “Tell me about it.”

I did and she listened. “He’d been trying to jump up to the bed earlier and couldn’t make it,” I finished. “He’s too little and the bed’s too high. But he hauled his ass up here to wake me.”

Her exhale drifted across the line. “Guess he can’t sleep when you’re making noise, either.”

It took me a second, then I laughed. The lingering distress from the dream dissipated like smoke in a breeze. “I feel the sudden urge to take you over my knee and spank you, angel.”

Amusement warmed her voice. “Try it, babe. See what happens.”

I knew what would happen. She was the one who couldn’t see it. Yet.

“Going back to your dream …” she murmured, “I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. I really think you need to bring Hugh up to your mother again. I know it’ll be painful, but I think it has to be done.”

“It won’t change anything.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“I do.” I shifted and Lucky gave a protesting grunt. “I didn’t get around to telling you earlier. Chris filed for divorce.”

“What? When?”

“I’m not sure. I just heard about it today from Ireland. I talked to Chris after work, but he just went over their prenup and let me know that he wanted to make some added concessions. We didn’t discuss his reasons for wanting to end the marriage.”

“Do you think it’s because he found out about Hugh?”

I sighed, grateful I could talk to her about it. “I think it’s too much of a coincidence to be totally unrelated.”

“Wow.” She cleared her throat. “I think I really love your stepfather.”

I couldn’t say how I felt about Chris. I didn’t know. “When I think about my mother being upset about this … I can picture it, Eva. I’ve seen it before.”

“I know you have.”

“I hate it. I hated her like that. It hurt me to see her that way.”

“You love her. That’s okay.”

And I loved Eva. For her lack of judgment. Her unqualified devotion. It gave me the courage to say, “I’m also glad. What kind of asshole feels good that his mother is hurting?”

There was a long pause. “She hurt you. She’s still hurting you. It’s a natural animal instinct to want to see her wounded, too. But I think what you’re glad about is having a … champion. Someone who’s telling her it really did happen to you and it’s not okay.”

My eyes closed. If I had a champion, it was my wife.

“Do you want me to come back over?” she asked.

I almost said no. My routine after a nightmare was a long shower, followed by losing myself in work. It was what I knew, how I dealt with it. But soon she’d be living with me, sharing my life in a way I needed but wasn’t wholly prepared for. I had to start making adjustments for that.

More than the logistics, though, was that I wanted her right then. Wanted to see her, smell her, feel her close.

“I’ll come get you,” I told her. “I’ll take a quick shower and text you before I head out.”

“Okay. I’ll be ready. I love you, Gideon.”

I took a deep breath, let the words flow through me. “I love you, too, angel.”

I woke again with the sun, feeling rested despite the hours I’d spent awake. Stretching, I felt something warm and furry shift against my arm, then the lash of a friendly tongue against my biceps.