but my brother would leave with Amy long before I sought out the bottom of the barrel.
“You Hope?” a deep, smooth voice asked with enough of a rumble to curl my toes in my foot-torture devices otherwise known as shoes.
I turned to behold a vision of male perfection, too tall for my good, with warm brown eyes and chestnut hair tinged with red. Add in a smooth jawline, a mouth well accustomed to smiling, and dimples, and I’d need at least a few weeks to recover. “I’m Hope.”
“Sorry for the fuss. My dog pulled the invitation off the counter right before my flight.” He reached into his jacket and revealed a chewed envelope. “She doesn’t like when I leave home.”
I’d do a lot more than chew on an envelope to keep him at home if he were mine. “I’m afraid I require pictures of your dog to verify your claim.”
His smile widened into a grin, and he retrieved his phone. “You just want to see pictures of my dog.”
“And if she’s cute, I’ll be forced to scold you for accusing her of wrongdoing.”
“Let me guess. You think all dogs are cute.”
“Was it obvious?” I made a show of tapping my forehead. “Did I finally get it tattooed to my face?”
“Mat hadn’t told me about your sense of humor.” My brother’s friend held out his phone. “This is Annabel Lee.”
A big, white, gray, and fluffy dog grinned for the camera. “Well, in good news for you, that kind of dog won’t get cold even when near the sea. What is she?”
“For all her paperwork claims she’s a purebred, I think she might be a mutt. From the looks of her, she must be part Alaskan Malamute, part pony. Mat neglected to tell me you’re a poetry fan.”
Annabel Lee didn’t look like a Malamute to me, but I couldn’t tell what breed she actually was. “I’m more of an abandoned English literature major who ditched to major in accounting instead after translating the original Canterbury Tales. Quoth the Hope, ‘Nevermore!’ I thought it was wise to quit before I murdered my professor. I see red whenever someone asks me to quote from the Raven. But Annabel Lee is a favorite.”
“My mother loved the poem, so I named my dog Annabel Lee.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. My mother stopped loving it when eight-year-old me recited it approximately ten thousand times. I live to vex my mother, and she loves my dog despite her name.”
There had to be something horribly wrong with my brother’s friend, but what? Did he snore? Steal the blankets? Hover sexily at inappropriate times? “Mat didn’t tell me your name.”
“That’s like him. I’m Fredrick, but please call me Rick.” He shuffled his phone to his left hand and offered to shake with me.
Instead of the expected shake, I got a light kiss to the back of my hand.
All right. How had my brother become friends with a gentleman? “I’m Hope, and I don’t have any nicknames because the last person who tried to give me one called me Ho, and my brother punched him. I was in high school at the time, and it was a teacher.”
“Believe it or not, I heard about that incident from Mat. He got the teacher fired but spent the night in holding. No charges were ultimately filed though, right?”
“No charges,” I confirmed. “He recorded the teacher pestering me with his phone and threatened to bring up sexual harassment charges against the school. Honestly, I was about to punch the teacher, too.”
Rick released my hand and grinned. “No worries about anything like that from me, Hope. Does my incredibly sweet but mischievous dog earn me a pass for the damaged ticket?”
Laughing, I nodded and gestured to the ticket booth. “I’ll get you sorted. I have open tickets, but we need to give them your residency info. You don’t mind?”
“Of course not. Honestly, I was just going to buy my own replacement ticket, but Mat got pissy. It seems insulting your hard work is simply not allowed. To be fair, we were betting Amy would run, even him—and he’s been working out to make sure he could catch her if she took off. That woman loves running him in circles. How on Earth did you convince her not to run? Everyone’s saying you’re a miracle worker.”
Ew. I didn’t want anyone’s attention on me as a result of my brother’s wedding actually succeeding. I masked my dismay with a roll of my eyes. “If you really must know, I