by Lucy Gilmore
“I, for one, love sausage and all its incumbent parts.” Derek winked and grinned at Harrison from across the fire. “Tell us, Sophie. Tell us about the meat.”
There was nothing Harrison could do to recoup his position after that. He’d lost his edge. He’d lost his edge, and everyone—with the exception of Marcus, who was still young and new enough to regard him with awe—knew it.
It helped to glance down and check on Bubbles, who was strapped to his chest in what he could only describe as a state of sleepy euphoria. The campfire had been going for a full hour now, with various pots of food-like items bubbling away on top. Other than one scrambling attempt to free herself from the pouch when they first approached, the puppy was doing well. Mostly because her head was burrowed against his chest and she refused to roll her eyes in that direction. As long as she could pretend there were no flames and that her whole world was the steady beat of his heart next to her, she was perfectly fine.
It seemed that Sophie had been right about the pouch all along. Not only had it been easy for him to set up camp with the puppy safely strapped to his chest, but Sophie had known, with her usual insight, exactly what Bubbles needed to feel safe. To be cradled like a baby. To be held somewhere tight and warm.
In fact, if it weren’t for the fact that everyone was watching him with a wariness that made him feel like the village freak, this pouch would have been the ideal solution to all his problems.
“Where’d you learn all that stuff anyway?” Jessica asked. She paused to stir the bowl of roots and dirt that was the only thing she and Sophie had managed to catch after a full afternoon’s harvest.
That, at least, made him feel somewhat better. Sophie could worm her way under his skin, charm his father into lighting aromatherapy candles, and mystify his friends with magic tricks, but her hunting-and-gathering skills could definitely use some work. It was the most primeval of triumphs, to gloat over a woman who couldn’t trap and maim animals, but what he could he do?
He was man. Hear him roar.
Sophie’s gaze shifted to Harrison’s, a somewhat wary light glinting in the reflection of the fire. He immediately regretted his triumph. What an ass I am. Of course Sophie was less than proficient at wilderness survival. He didn’t know all the details of her illness—Oscar wasn’t the kind to just tell someone else’s life story—but he had enough imagination to picture it.
She’s overcome more pain and suffering than most of us see in a lifetime, Oscar had said.
I’ve never gone anywhere or done anything on my own had been the confession from Sophie’s own lips.
The familiar burn of frustration started to mount in Harrison’s gut, but for the first time in his life, it wasn’t directed inward. Diabetes was challenging, yes, and it was something he’d always have to account for, but it was nothing like what Sophie must have gone through—still went through, if her family situation was all that she said it was.
“Um, I spent a lot of time lying in bed when I was a kid,” Sophie admitted, continuing to look at him. He nodded once, hoping to convey even a fraction of the admiration he felt for her. It must have worked, because she quirked her lips in a smile and added, “I’m also weirdly good at crossword puzzles and soap opera trivia.”
Marcus opened his mouth to ask why, but he was stopped when he caught Harrison’s eye.
The silent warning worked in keeping the younger man from badgering Sophie, but Bubbles decided she didn’t much care for it. She snuffled against his chest, whimpering despite the protective wrap holding her close.
As something from one of the pots sizzled and jumped into the campfire, sending crackling flames in all directions, Harrison assumed it was the sudden flare that scared her, so he murmured something low and soothing.
In a louder voice, he asked, “How much longer until we have to eat this monstrosity?”
Jessica dipped a ladle in the pot and tasted its contents, barely managing to hide her grimace in time. “Twenty minutes should do it. I’ll just, ah, add some more salt.”
“Don’t worry. I have beef jerky and granola bars in my pack.” The woman seated next to Jessica, the wife of firefighter named Burke, patted the backpack at her side.
“And we caught enough fish for a feast,” promised another man, Burke’s younger brother and an aspiring firefighter. “We’ve got this competition in the bag. Or, er, the net, I guess I should say.”
“You caught one—one fish, and he looked diseased. His fin was practically falling off.”
“That just means the filet will be tender.”
Under normal circumstances, Harrison would have been more than happy to join in the smack talk, comparing culinary disasters and planning a pizza run for later. It had been a long, wearying day with an even longer night beckoning. Jessica had offered to share her tent with Sophie—and had been accepted—but moving a sleeping bag was no difficult task. If Sophie kept peeking at him through those long lashes, there was a good chance neither one of them would be doing any sleeping of any kind.
So much for preparing myself for the inevitable. Sophie might have one foot out the door, but her other foot was well within his reach.
The fire crackled again, causing Bubbles to whimper louder. Her legs wriggled against his chest, her head moving frantically as she struggled to free herself from her binding.
“It’s just a fire,” he said, keeping his voice low and calm. When he’d had the small fire in the grate that morning, the sound of him talking—however inane the words—had seemed to soothe her. “A chemical reaction between the oxygen in the air and the wood in the pit. Chemistry can explain a lot of things that seem scary at first.”
Attraction, for example. Lust. Desire.
It didn’t work. Instead of having a pacifying effect on the dog this time, his voice only served to increase her anxiety. He rose to his feet in a swift movement, determined to put distance between the dog and the fire.
And between him and Sophie, but that was an effort in futility. No matter where he went, she followed.
Literally. He’d made it no farther than a few hundred feet away from the campfire before he realized Sophie was standing at his back.
“It’s not getting better,” he said, his voice more frantic than he cared to admit. Since his version of frantic sounded more like anger, the words came out as an accusation. “I thought the extra training I was doing with her would help, and that the pouch was making a difference too, but look at her. She’s bound tight and still hates the flames.”
He paused, waiting for Sophie to wince or back away, but she didn’t. She stepped closer, drawing so near he could smell her, feel the residual heat from the fire rising up off her tight-fitting jacket. That small action, that step forward—toward him, to him—almost broke him. Nothing he seemed to say or do caused this woman to back away.
“Extra training?” she asked.
“It was nothing. Just some things she and I were trying together. I wanted to, uh… It sounds dumb now that I’m saying it, but…” He shrugged helplessly. “I wanted to make this work for you.”
There wasn’t much light this far from the campfire, but Sophie’s eyes opened so widely that they captured the full luminosity of the moon and flung it right at him.
He wasn’t sure what to make of that look—that shock—so he cleared his throat and kept going.
“Maybe you were wrong after all,” he said. “Maybe she can’t do this. I want her to succeed, I really do, but that was just one little crackle, one little flare. Do you have any idea how much worse it can get out there?”
“Harrison, stop.”
“You can’t make things happen just because you want them to,” he said. Now that the verbal floodgates had been opened, he didn’t seem to know how to close them again. All the anxiety of the past month, all the worries and agonies and inadequacies, seemed to be tumbling out of him at once. “I know it makes me an asshole to say it, but one of us has to. She’s not fit for the job, and no number of candles an
d camping trips are going to change that. Working around fires will end up hurting her. I will end up hurting her.”
“Harrison, listen.”
“I can’t, Sophie,” he said—pleaded, really. How could he reasonably be expected to drag the poor puppy out into the wild like this? What kind of a man would he have to be to subject her to this kind of whimpering agony day after day? “I’d like to keep her if I can, maybe as a pet, but—”
“For the love of all things stubborn, will you stop talking for five seconds and look at her?”
Harrison glanced down. Even though they were a good distance from the fire now, the Pomeranian hadn’t stopped her shifting, whining movements. He’d assumed she was trying to get free, and that she wouldn’t be happy until she’d put as much distance between herself and the flames as possible, but something about Sophie’s crossed arms gave him pause.
So did her question. “When was the last time you did a finger stick? Or, for that matter, the last time you ate something?”
His eyes flew open as he appraised the tiny dog. She’d managed to free herself from the sling just enough to bring her face to his, her little head nudging his chin with an urgency that couldn’t be denied. Now that he was paying attention, he recognized that nudging as the action they’d been working on for the past few weeks.
It was what she did whenever she was brought the swab containing the smell she was trained to alert him to. It was what she did whenever she was brought the swab containing the smell that meant danger.
“You mean she’s—?”
Sophie’s face broke out in a grin. Even in the deepening twilight, the stars and nearly full moon providing the sole illumination, that grin was breathtaking. It lit up every part of her. “She’s not letting you down, Harrison. She’s not scared of the fire. She’s doing exactly what she’s been trained to do.”
He stared in wonder down at the puppy. He knew, from Sophie’s careful explanation, that this was exactly what he should expect from having a service dog. He could relax some of his own vigilance, slow down to assess Bubbles’s needs and his own at the same time, trust in the puppy to know what he needed before his continuous glucose monitor registered the changes in his blood sugar.
It made sense, from an intellectual standpoint, that Bubbles could handle all this, especially given how well she’d handled training back at the house. To see it in action, however, to know that this tiny, quivering ball of heat was saving his goddamn life right now, was almost more than he could take.
“Come on.” Sophie held out a hand. “Let’s go get you checked. I assume your things are in your tent?”
His first impulse on hearing the words your tent was to dig his feet into the dirt and refuse to allow Sophie anywhere near it. Nothing good could come of having her inside those ten square feet of nylon with him.
But that was ridiculous. She wasn’t going to attack him. She wasn’t going to ravish him.
At least, not without asking first.
“What a good little nugget you are,” she cooed. “So smart. So brave.”
Harrison knew she was complimenting the puppy for a job well done, but he couldn’t help a feeling of pride from swelling up in his chest. Smart and brave were right—and that was his service animal they were talking about.
The raccoon under the porch had nothing on Bubbles.
It was asking too much for Sophie to politely keep her distance while he ducked into his tent to pull out his testing gear. That damnable woman wasn’t happy unless she was pushing him—physically, mentally, emotionally. Before he could suggest she take the puppy back to the campfire, she’d followed him in and promptly arranged herself on top of his sleeping bag. She even grabbed his pillow and held it in her lap like it was a stuffed animal.
He bit back a groan. He’d never get the smell of her out of it now. He’d end up being exactly like the Sleeping Beauty she’d mocked him as—snuggling up with that puff of down and fabric in order to feel close to her once again.
“You could give me a little privacy, you know,” he pointed out, his voice gruff.
“I know.”
“You could also take that comment as the hint it is.”
“I know.” She peeped up at him through her lashes. “But you wouldn’t deny me this moment of triumph, would you? I’m just as curious to see if Bubbles is right as you are.”
She had him there. He was, after all, her project—her job. This puppy and this woman might be rapidly becoming Harrison’s whole world, but she had other things at stake.
He unhooked the sling and let Bubbles down. The puppy still showed signs of distress, but Sophie made no attempt to soothe her. She simply let the dog whimper and snuffle about, watching her with a fond, detached smile.
“I know you want me to pick her up, but you’re going to have to get used to the idea that she has to be uncomfortable sometimes.” Sophie spoke in a calm voice that could have been designed to set his teeth on edge. “It’s literally what we’re training her to do. You want her to be emotionally invested in your health.”
“Easy for you to say,” he muttered as he rummaged around in his bag. He zipped open his kit and pulled out a testing strip. “You’re a cold-blooded monster.”
Sophie’s soft peal of laughter filled the tent. “Do you know no one has ever insulted me as well as you before? Or ever?” She settled more comfortably in her seat, pushing out the sides of the tent as she did. “Tell me what else you think about me, please.”
“You have some serious problems.”
“That doesn’t count. Everyone has problems. Will it help if I go first?”
He glanced up from the prick of blood pooling on his forefinger. “What?”
“You’re right. I should go first.” She tapped one smooth finger in the center of her chin. “Let’s see…you’re a softhearted baby.”
“Excuse me?”
His protest did nothing to deter her. “A marshmallow, really. Soft and squishy and so in love with this little puppy I doubt you’ll ever be able to look at a Great Dane again.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m uncommunicative and stubborn, remember? A difficult bastard. Lots of bark and plenty of bite.”
She ignored him, the smile on her lips so serene he might as well have been speaking in a foreign language. “You even like wearing Bubbles in that pouch, though you won’t admit it. You like having her close, knowing she’s safe.” The smile spread. “You’re a protector—that’s what you are. You’d give your life for this little dog. You’d give your life for anyone who needed it.”
The beep that sounded indicated that his blood sugar was, in fact, low. It was a moment of triumph—for Bubbles and for Sophie and for him—but he needed to focus his attention on regulating his equipment. He also reached for his glucose tablets and popped three of them under his tongue, pausing to commend Bubbles for a job well done and settle her on her favorite blanket in the corner of the tent.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he countered. “You’ve known me for all of four weeks. That doesn’t make you an expert on all things Harrison.”
“The problem, of course, is that you can’t turn it off.” Sophie was still rattling off his apparent flaws in that same cheerful matter, but the smile had dropped from her face.
The moment of seriousness didn’t make her any less attractive. If anything, it only made her more attractive. Fun, cheerful, friendly Sophie was easy to fall for and hopefully just as easy to leave behind. Serious, earnest Sophie was a different matter entirely. Once she got under your skin, she was likely to remain there permanently.
“That’s why you’re so closed up, why you hide behind such thick walls.” Her voice softened. “Why you have such a difficult time letting people past them.”
Something in his chest gave a painful, lurching clench.
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” she asked. “To care so much, to protect everyone from everything that’s terrible in the world? It’s
easier to keep them as far away from your heart as possible.”
“No,” he whispered.
“Yes,” she replied, her gaze so full of sadness and understanding that he wasn’t sure he could take another second of it. “It doesn’t hurt so much then, does it?”
Something inside him roared and broke free. Flying across the tent, he chucked that stupid pillow aside and took Sophie into his arms. She was soft and warm, but his words were anything but.
“You want to know what I think about you?” he demanded. Without waiting for an answer, he said, “You’re a pushing, interfering nuisance I wish I’d never met.”
“Oh dear,” she murmured, undaunted. “Was it something I said?”
“Goddammit, Sophie. It’s not fair. It was never fair.” He spoke into her hairline, down along the side of her nape, into her neckline. She smelled like campfire and the clean, simple soap that would forever haunt his dreams. “How many times can I say it before you finally realize I’m not worth the effort?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But you might be a lot more effective if you weren’t kissing my neck at the time.”
Incongruous laughter shook him. Nothing about this situation warranted joy, but being with Sophie demanded nothing less. Joy, happiness, pleasure—she was offering them for the taking. A smarter man would have pulled away while he still had the chance, but no one had ever accused Harrison of possessing an excess of intelligence.
“Your neck isn’t the part of you I’d like to be kissing, but I’m not going any further unless you ask me to. The least I can do is give you one more chance to make the right decision.”
“Screw the right decisions.” Sophie tilted her head, giving him better access to the soft slope of her clavicle. “Kiss me wherever you want, Harrison. Bite me, if that’s what it takes. I promise I won’t break.”
“No,” he muttered. “But I might.”
He had no way of knowing whether or not Sophie heard him. Before he could gain hold of his sanity and leave the warm safety of the tent, she twined her arms around his neck and pulled him close, not stopping until his mouth was inches from her own. Every move was calculated to cause him anguish, the sweet curve of her mouth too tempting to ignore.