by Lucy Gilmore
Harrison placed his hand on the puppy’s back and glared at his father. Bubbles ruined the gesture’s efficacy by turning her head into his caress and licking his thumb. He maintained his pose anyway. At least one of them was going to have a little dignity.
“She’s very sensitive about her size,” he said. “She’s also tired after a long day. What do you have that might perk her up a little?”
Meg leaned on the counter and stared at the puppy. Her eyes, heavily lined in black, moved up and down between Bubbles and Harrison, as if she was waiting for the catch.
She could wait forever as far as Harrison was concerned. He knew it was ridiculous to saunter around a town like Deer Park with a designer dog wearing a red training vest layered over a sock. He’d grown up here, gone to school here, worked here. Almost everyone knew him as the hard-ass at the Department of Natural Resources who lived like a hermit on the outskirts of town and liked it. The last thing he needed was for any of them to point out that he was more likely to tattoo daisies on his eyelids and take up, well, knitting as a hobby.
“Maybe she’d like some whiskey?” Meg eventually suggested.
It was Harrison’s turn to guffaw. He could only imagine Sophie’s reaction if she found out he’d even considered giving Bubbles hard alcohol. She’d yell again. Either that, or she’d kiss him.
With that woman, it was hard to tell.
“Water will be fine,” he said. “For both of us. I mostly just needed to get out of the house.”
“That girl still there?” his dad asked with a surprising show of astuteness.
“No,” Harrison admitted. She’d left at exactly five o’clock with a promise to return the next day at nine. She was a consummate professional from head to toe—well, except for the part where she made out with him in the kitchen and filled up his calendar with a whirl of social activities that he in no way, shape, or form wanted to take part in. “But she did make a few changes around the place.”
“Good for her.” Meg set down a glass of water in front of Harrison and a small bowl in front of Bubbles, both of them on coasters—Meg was a consummate professional too. “It’s about damn time someone took that place in hand. That gorgeous old farmhouse, just sitting there going to ruin…”
“It is not going to ruin,” his father said. “It took me years to get it exactly the way I like it. You’d better tell her not to touch anything without my permission.”
“You can tell her yourself. I’m not that brave.” He balanced the water dish on his lap so Bubbles could reach it, which the puppy did gratefully. She was exhausted, poor thing. It had been a long day of sitting and smelling and trying not to be distracted by Sophie.
Well, that last one had been mostly him.
“What’d she do?” his dad demanded.
“Candles.”
“Candles?” Those two syllables were all it took to voice his outrage and alarm.
“They’re everywhere,” Harrison said. “She put unscented ones in jars in the living room and those long, skinny ones that people use at holidays in the kitchen. And there are a few bigger ones in the fireplace instead of logs, but we aren’t supposed to light them yet. I have a schedule for you.”
“You have a candle schedule? Are you trying to ruin my life?”
Harrison dug in his pocket and extracted the notes Sophie had handed him as she’d placed the candles around the house. She’d also pointed out several hazards that he might want to take care of, including the precarious stacks of books in the living room and a hallway floorboard that had a jagged hole just big enough for a puppy leg to fall through.
She seemed to excel at highlighting flaws—and it hurt. He knew that floorboard was bad. He’d been meaning to fix it for years.
“It’s to get Bubbles used to small flames,” he said. “We’re supposed to light them and then ignore them in hopes that she’ll do the same. Normalizing the situation, she calls it. There’s even one in your room.”
“No.”
Harrison had to laugh at the expression of disgust on his father’s face—an expression that would only get worse once he realized it was lavender-scented one. “It’s known to have soporific effects,” she’d said. “Bubbles won’t be in here very much, so she won’t be distracted by it during scent training. And who knows? He might end up liking it.”
There was a much better chance it would end up chucked out the window and broken on the front lawn, but Harrison hadn’t said so. He’d have plenty of opportunities to crush Sophie’s enthusiasm for reforming the Parks household. No need to go all-in before they barely got started.
“What sort of plague have you brought down on our house?” his father demanded. “This is how it always goes. The candles are just the beginning. Before you realize it…”
“What?” Harrison asked, genuinely interested in the answer. It seemed wise to be prepared for whatever she had planned next. Never go in unprepared. That was good advice for battling wildfires and petite, beguiling women.
“Tablecloths.” His dad set his jaw and stared mulishly at him. “Fresh flowers. Piles of fruit arranged on a bowl on the table, but woe to the man who actually picks one up and eats it.”
Meg fell into laughter. “If that’s your idea of a plague, Wallace, I’m beginning to realize why you’re such a miserable bastard all the time.”
Harrison could have easily enlightened Meg as to the true source of his dad’s misery. He’d never been a happy man—not the kind who laughed and played and enjoyed long walks on the beach—but Harrison could remember a time when he hadn’t been quite so hard.
Once upon a time, their house had been a home—well cared for and full of light, the sort of place most people only dreamed of growing up in. But that light had gone out the day his mother left. Even though Harrison had tried to get that flicker going again, his father quashed any and all attempts at illumination.
Better not to see the cracks. Better not to know what lurks in the corners.
“When I see an apple, I’m going to eat an apple,” his dad said. “And no one—not God and certainly not your dog trainer—is going to tell me otherwise.”
“I’m sure Sophie won’t start putting fruit out,” Harrison said, though he couldn’t be at all sure. That woman made him do things. She made him feel things. “Besides, I thought you liked her. You promised to send her a Christmas card and everything.”
“That was before she brought candles into my house,” his dad muttered.
Meg laughed again. “She doesn’t sound so bad, if you ask me.”
“Good thing no one asked you, then.”
Meg could have easily taken offense at his dad’s harsh words, but she was far too used to him to bother. Instead, she shrugged and took herself off to tend to customers at the window leading to the bowling alley side of the bar.
“I meant what I said about the tablecloths, Harrison,” his dad warned. “It always starts with tablecloths.”
Harrison pictured their kitchen table, the rough-hewn planks and serviceable build, and nodded his understanding. That table had been there for a decade, built by his dad’s own two hands. It might have been ugly, but it was functional. To cover it with something soft and floral would only make a mockery of it.
You can’t hide a table’s true nature.
He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrored wall behind the bar, his expression grim and so much like his father’s it was uncanny. He might be younger and not quite so hard, but there was no denying they were cast from the same rough mold.
It was only a matter of time before he was just as old and miserable as his dad.
Guess you can’t hide a man’s true nature either.
Chapter 8
“You’re sure you don’t mind keeping an eye on Bubbles while we go for a run?” Sophie turned her sunniest smile on Harrison’s dad. “Considering what good shape Harrison is in, we’ll probably have to do five miles before we start to see his blood sugar dip enough to register. We may have to go
even farther.”
Harrison fully expected his father to refuse—a thing as natural to him as breathing—but the man took one look at Sophie’s bright expression and blinked.
“She might not like it, since we’re training her to avoid separation from Harrison at all costs, but you should be able to distract her with this.”
The this in question was a squeaky toy in the shape of miniature rubber chicken. Sophie squeezed it once, the long whine of it causing Bubbles to leap out of Harrison’s arms and station herself at Sophie’s feet.
“What am I supposed to do with it?” Harrison’s dad asked doubtfully.
“Throw it. Squeak it. Hide it.” She beamed up at him. “It doesn’t really matter. Just play with her.”
His dad blinked again. “What if I just put her in a box and close the flap?”
“I imagine she’d have something to say about that.” Sophie laughed and handed over the toy. “Thank you, Wallace.”
Wallace? Since when were Sophie and his father on a first-name basis? Come to think of it, when had his father done anything remotely resembling play? Unless you counted their annual Alone for Thanksgiving Poker Tournament, where they sat and played cards for eight hours, smoking cigars and eating cold lunch meat, he couldn’t remember the last time his father had willingly participated in a game.
“By the way,” Sophie added, “did you have a chance to burn the candle in your room? It’s nice, right? My sister Dawn makes them, so there’s plenty more where that came from.”
Harrison braced himself for the inevitable outburst.
“It was all right,” his dad said with a soft grunt. “Little flowery for my taste.”
She nodded as if that made perfect sense. “I was afraid it might be. How’d the puppy do with it?”
“Little flowery for her too,” his dad said.
Harrison could only stare at his father. He’d been satisfied with how little attention Bubbles had paid to the lit candles as long as they were on tabletops and well out of reach, but to his knowledge, his father refused to have anything to do with the candle schedule. In fact, he’d taken one look at it posted on the refrigerator and muttered his intention to invite the raccoon inside to put an end to this whole sorry mess.
“Maybe you should bring me a bacon one,” his dad added.
Sophie laughed. “Dawn doesn’t make those, unfortunately. But I’ll bring you a cedar-and-bergamot scented one tomorrow—it’s just as calming, but the fragrance is a lot more understated. Well, Harrison, are we ready?”
Wait—that was it? He paused, waiting for those promises of telling Sophie off, of taking a stand against encroaching tablecloths, but his dad wouldn’t even meet his eyes.
The coward. All that talk at the bar had been nothing but braggadocio. His father could no more stand up to Sophie Vasquez than Harrison could.
Not that he could blame his father. She’d shown up this morning with her shoulders fully covered by a long-sleeved athletic shirt—a thing he’d noted with profound relief. Unfortunately, she’d paired it with a pair of running pants with inexplicable bands of sheer material wrapped around her thighs. How was that even a thing? Her legs were technically covered against the biting spring wind, but those fabric windows offered glimpses of skin and muscle that no one should have to face this early in the morning.
At least, not without a cold shower first. An arctic one, in fact. A painful, plunging descent into numbness.
“Are we sure this is such a good idea?” Harrison asked, casting a careful look at first Bubbles and then his father. Bubbles was still too intrigued by the rubber chicken to notice she was about to be abandoned, but the realization would come soon enough—and so would the howls of betrayal. “He was only halfway kidding about that box thing. She’s going to cry.”
Sophie tilted her head and stared at them. “Of course she is. You just have to think of it like dropping a kid off at daycare.”
“Daycare?” his dad echoed.
“Yeah—you know. While the parents are watching, the kid acts like the world is going to end. Then, the second Mom and Dad finally tear themselves away in their guilt and despair, the kid shrugs it off and has a perfectly good time. Didn’t you ever have to leave Harrison with someone?”
Harrison could count the number of times his dad had willingly spoken of his childhood on one and a half hands. There weren’t many rules in their household, but two of them stood out loud and clear: Parks men didn’t discuss the past, and Parks men didn’t discuss the future. Theirs were lives lived in the moment. The past contained too many memories, and the future too many dreams—neither of which had any place in their terse, stoic existence.
In their experience, memories only caused pain. So did dreams.
“My sister used to help out a lot,” his dad said after only a brief struggle with himself. “When Harrison was little and I had to go work, I mean.”
Sophie had no idea the ground she’d just shattered, so she was perfectly serene as she asked, “And did he cry when you left?”
“Well, no.” His dad laughed. “He saved that for when I came back.”
“I did no such thing,” Harrison said through his teeth. If his dad was going to finally take a trip down memory lane, he could at least turn on the right road.
“What are you talking about?” his dad asked. “You wailed every time I walked in the door. The second I stepped in, you ran and clung to your aunt’s leg like I was going to feed you to a pack of wolves.”
“I wasn’t upset because you were home. I was upset because Aunt Caroline was leaving.”
“How is that different?” his dad demanded.
Harrison could have given him a thousand answers. His dad’s only sister was a Parks through and through. She was brusque and hardworking. She had a temper like a berserker on a bender. And she’d taken none of the attitude thrown her way by an eight-year-old boy who’d just been diagnosed with diabetes and was learning to live in a world without cookies.
But she’d also kissed him. Hugged him. Loved him, in her own bristly way.
In other words, she was the closest thing he’d had to a mom after his own had left. She’d packed up and gone without once visiting the hospital bed where Harrison had woken up from the coma that led to his diagnosis.
His aunt, however, had stationed herself firmly at his bedside and held his hand until that first—and only—bout of tears finally ended.
Forgive him for growing attached.
“She smelled better than you,” Harrison eventually said.
His dad laughed. “If that’s how you measure a person’s worth, then Sophie over here must be your goddamn queen.”
He tried not to look at her—he really did. Nothing good would come of turning his gaze in that direction and letting her see just how true that statement was. Sophie smelled amazing. She tasted even better.
He looked anyway. As if fully aware of what he was thinking—and how hard he was fighting it—her lips twitched even more. There was only one good way he could wipe that smirk off her face, and it involved making her mouth so exhausted she could do nothing more than moan his name. Repeatedly.
Which was why he did the one thing necessary to keep himself in check. He didn’t bother fumbling for the right words, and he didn’t sweep her into his arms.
Instead, he ran.
* * *
Sophie watched Harrison go, trying not to look as disheartened by his rapid departure as she felt.
He’d taken off down his drive at a brisk clip, his long legs eating up the distance as though it were nothing. One look at him in his track bottoms and tight-fitting shirt had been enough to set every feminine feeling she had fluttering. He was powerful without being aware of it, his movements graceful and easy.
In other words, he was as hard on the outside as he was on the inside.
His speed only confirmed it. As he loped away from the house, it was obvious he couldn’t get away fast enough—from Bubbles, from his father, from her.
Which, okay, wasn’t exactly the outcome she’d been looking for, but no one had said this was going to be easy. That was how walls worked, right? Every time they came down, he had to rebuild them. Except he used stronger materials, better techniques.
He was learning. Like artificial intelligence gone rogue, he was becoming more powerful with each passing day.
With a sigh, Sophie took off after him. Although she’d hoped he might be a little more approachable after that kiss in the kitchen, it seemed she was out of luck. A hard, painful run it would have to be.
To be fair, it wasn’t the worst possible way to approach this task. For Bubbles to learn what Harrison’s low blood sugar smelled like, he had to have low blood sugar. And since his was so often caused by physical exertion, a long and carefully supervised jog was the best way to do it. They’d gotten his doctor’s approval and calibrated his continuous glucose monitor, which meant all that was left was the actual task of running.
But if he thought he was going to outpace her, he had no idea what was coming. For years, Sophie’s primary job had been puppy care. She fed the animals, cleaned up after them, taught them the basics. She also took them for runs—long, tiresome, rambling runs to build up their stamina and reveal their personalities under stress.
There was no better way to get to know someone—human or canine—than to gently push them to the brink of exhaustion and see how they reacted. Sophie already knew that Bubbles would keep going, even though her short legs and less-than-impressive physique weren’t built for long distances.
She was mightily curious how Harrison, with those formidable thighs and a body like a tree trunk, would handle it.
“I don’t want us to go too far from the house, since your safety is the most important thing,” she said as she pulled up alongside him. “So I mapped out a loop that goes through that patch of forest over there and down the field behind the house. It’s about a mile, so we’ll just put it on repeat as many times as necessary to get your levels down. We’ll keep an eye on your monitor, of course, but you’ll let me know if you start to feel faint?”