Chapter 2 - The Scar That Remembered
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The silence at table eleven stretched until the clink of silverware from the dining room sounded miles away.
Brennan did not reach down to pull the dog back.
His gray eyes stayed fixed on Holly with a scrutiny that made the breath catch in her throat.
“You didn’t answer me,” he said, his tone dropping an octave lower than before.
“I told you, I like animals,” Holly replied, keeping her voice as steady as she could manage.
Atlas exhaled a warm, heavy gust against her knees, settling his massive chin directly onto her apron.
The dog’s tail thumped once against the carpet, slow and deliberate, as if declaring that he was not moving for anyone.
“Atlas doesn’t let strangers touch his ears,” Brennan said quietly.
He rested his forearms on the white linen, leaning forward just enough to command the space between them.
“Two years ago, he was stolen from my family’s estate during a rainy night in November,” the man continued, watching her eyelashes flicker.
“When the police found his tracking collar, it had been cut off with heavy shears and tossed into the river.”
Holly felt her pulse hammer against her ribs, but she kept her fingers resting gently on the dog’s velvet fur.
“That sounds awful,” she murmured.
“It was worse than awful,” Brennan said without blinking.
“He showed up on my front porch four days later, soaked to the bone, with three stitched wounds in his flank and a clean bandage wrapped around his hind leg.”
The restaurant terrace suddenly felt far too warm beneath the radiant heaters.
Holly remembered the biting sleet of that night, the iron smell of blood in the dark alleyway, and the terrified whimpers of a ninety-pound animal dying on wet cardboard.
She had spent her entire month’s rent at an emergency veterinary clinic whose back door she had pounded on until a sleepy doctor let her inside.
She had given a fake name at the front desk because she had been terrified of being accused of harming him.
And then, using the address engraved on the hidden underside of the dog’s torn brass collar tag, she had paid a cab driver fifty dollars to help her drop the giant beast near the iron gates of a sprawling mansion across town.
She had watched from the shadow of an oak tree until the security lights flooded the drive and a frantic man in a dark coat ran outside.
She had never forgotten the silhouette of that man kneeling in the rain.
And now, sitting right across from him in an expensive suit, she saw the very same silhouette outlined against the glass windows of Ardith House.
“Whoever brought him home never left a name,” Brennan said, his gaze drilling straight through her defenses.
“All they left was a strip of blue woolen scarf wrapped around his neck to keep out the cold.”
Holly swallowed hard, her mouth dry.
Her blue woolen scarf had been a gift from her late grandmother, and she had never replaced it.
“Dogs wander,” she offered weakly, looking away toward the terrace glass.
“Maybe he found his own way back.”
“He had a severed tendon, Holly,” Brennan countered, pronouncing her name with a sharp, heavy finality.
“He couldn't walk ten feet on his own, let alone seven miles across the city in a freezing storm.”
Atlas shifted slightly, groaning in pure contentment as Holly’s thumb involuntarily stroked the base of his skull.
“He knows your hands,” Brennan whispered, his posture losing a fraction of its rigid formality.
“He hasn't looked at another human being with that kind of devotion since my brother passed away.”
Holly looked up, caught off guard by the raw ache vibrating beneath the man’s stoic composure.
She had seen Brennan dining alone in this restaurant for months, always solitary, always treated like royalty by the terrified management.
She had always assumed he was just another ruthless businessman who viewed the world as something to buy and sell.
She had never imagined the ghost he was carrying on his broad shoulders.
“Your brother?” she asked quietly.
Brennan’s jaw tightened, the muscles along his cheek working before he finally gave a single, slow nod.
May you like
“Liam,” he said, the name sounding like a wound that had never properly closed.
“Atlas was Liam’s dog before that night took everything else from us.”
