Puppy Love

by Lucy Gilmore

  Just thinking about it caused tears to spring to her eyes—not for her plight, but for Harrison’s. When his world had taken the same path as hers, no one had made him laugh. No one had showed him love.

  And now he won’t even let me try.

  “Sophie, you’re a lot of things, but a quitter isn’t one of them,” Lila said. They all knew, without words, what Lila meant. Although all of their lives had been shaped by Sophie’s childhood illness, it wasn’t something they discussed in the general way of things—mostly because Sophie wouldn’t let them. She was tired of living in the past, exhausted with trying to prove herself worthy of this life she’d been given. “I think every single person in this room can agree about that.”

  “Without a doubt,” Dawn agreed.

  As if by tacit consent, the three sisters looked to the one person in the room they weren’t so sure of—their mother, who was watching them with an air of bewilderment and a frown pulling a line down her forehead.

  “Don’t you agree, Mom?” Dawn prodded.

  “Girls, you’re kidding, right?” That frown was pointed at each of them in succession, full of maternal solicitude and concern. Sophie felt her heart sink, sure she was about to be reduced to the barest minimum yet again—and just as sure that she was going to have to continue being a soft, overprotected piece of fluff for as long as her mother lived.

  When her mom finally spoke, however, it wasn’t to castigate Sophie alone. It was to criticize all three sisters as equals.

  “Please tell me you don’t actually have a clause in your employee handbook about what to do if you sleep with your clients. I raised you better than that.” She paused, expectancy pursing her mouth into a tight bow.

  When no one said anything, all of them mute with mingled surprise and guilt, she sighed and shook her head. “Oh dear. I always meant to raise you better than that. I guess I didn’t do a very good job, did I?”

  Dawn was the first to respond—a thing she did with her usual laugh on her lips. “You failed miserably, I’m afraid,” she said as she took their mother into her arms. “But don’t worry too much about it. The lesson on practicing safe sex went through just fine.”

  Sophie held back an inelegant snort.

  “That one’s not in our handbook though.” Lila’s expression was perfectly grave, but her eyes danced with mischief as she added, “The lawyers insisted we keep it out.”

  * * *

  Sophie arrived at the Department of Natural Resources fully prepared for battle.

  Her armor was the official Puppy Promise uniform, that bland and nondescript khaki outfit that proclaimed her status as an untouchable professional. Dawn had insisted that nothing would be more effective at showing Harrison that she didn’t care than seeing Sophie appear for work unruffled and calm.

  She brought weapons too. A clipboard, a dog clicker, and treats contained in a pouch on her belt might not have looked like much to an outsider, but they filled Sophie with a sense of purpose. She was Sophie the Dog Trainer, ready to report for duty. Forget heartbreak and pain. Screw the man who’d made her feel smaller than any man had ever made her feel before.

  She wasn’t going to apologize for having people who loved her.

  “Oh dear. What’s going on? Is there a fire?” Sophie barely made it through the front door before she realized something was amiss. The woman working at the reception desk didn’t look ruffled as she directed people to and fro, but there was a calm efficiency to her that Sophie knew well. She’d spent enough time around medical professionals in emergency situations to recognize a 9-1-1 situation when she saw it.

  “At the base of Mount Spokane—a house fire that’s spread and is threatening a logging road,” the woman said in a clipped but kind tone. “The local firefighters aren’t able to contain it alone. We have a team prepping to head out now. Can I help you with something?”

  Sophie didn’t waste any time. “Harrison Parks. Is he here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he trying to join the team?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Oscar letting him?”

  The woman laughed. “Go right on through, hon. You seem to know what you’re doing.”

  Sophie didn’t bother correcting her. She had no idea what she was doing, especially where Harrison was concerned, but that hadn’t stopped her before.

  “Half the team is out of town right now, and the other half is working their regular jobs.” Harrison’s voice, loud and resolute, could be heard long before Sophie reached Oscar’s office. “If you don’t let me go, you’ll only have Jessica and Derek and that weird, skinny kid who always puts his pants on backward.”

  “Jessica and Derek are perfectly capable of handling a fire of this size, and Benji almost always gets his pants the right way now.”

  “Dammit, Oscar. You know I’m fine.”

  “I don’t know anything. I’m not a doctor.”

  “Look at me. Check my blood sugar. Take my goddamn temperature if it’ll make you feel better. I’m ready. You heard Sophie—she gave me the all clear last week.”

  “She cleared you to train, not to fight fires.”

  Harrison grunted. “It’s the same thing.”

  Sophie couldn’t step into Oscar’s tiny office without brushing her whole body against Harrison—a thing she was determined not to do, even with the protection of her khaki pants and blue polo shirt—so she cleared her throat instead.

  Both men turned at the sound, one to shoot her a look of relief, the other to freeze as though the world had suddenly turned as icy as his heart.

  The frozen one spoke first. “What the devil are you doing here?” Harrison demanded.

  “I came to work, obviously.” Sophie was pleased to find that her voice came out perfectly calm, although she did have to fight the anxious urge to check the state of her hair. It was all well and good to joke to her family that she didn’t care how she looked, but a pixie cut with bedhead was no laughing matter.

  “Yes, but…” He trailed off, unwilling to finish that sentence in front of Oscar.

  The chicken. The coward. The puppy-wearing baby.

  “I assume that the air force training is a no-go today?” she asked, directing her question to Oscar. “I don’t want to get in anyone’s way, so I just popped in to make sure I’m not wanted, and then I’ll take myself off again.”

  Oscar’s relief increased as he scrubbed a weary hand over his face. “Actually, you are wanted. I hate to admit it, but I could use Harrison today. Do you think he and that puppy are good to go, or is it too risky?”

  One look at the flat, desolate line of Harrison’s mouth, and Sophie knew she held all the cards. He’d never admit it, but he needed her. Maybe not to make his heart whole—he obviously didn’t think her capable of that—but in a professional capacity.

  It was something. Not much, but something.

  “Well?” Oscar prompted. “I hate to rush the decision, but we need to get moving.”

  “It’s up to him,” Sophie said, choosing her words carefully. “I have my own opinions, of course, but it’s not my call to make. If he thinks Bubbles can do it, if he feels she’s ready for this, then he’s free to do what he wants.”

  “Wait—what?”

  “I’m not your puppy’s keeper anymore, Harrison. You are. I even brought the paperwork to prove it.”

  For one long, suspended moment, Harrison didn’t move or breathe. He held her stare for one second. For two. About halfway into the third, he crumbled.

  “Goddammit, Sophie! Why are you so determined to destroy me?”

  Sophie blinked, started by the violence of his reaction. “Um.”

  “A normal human being would have answered with a simple yes or no. Yes, they’re ready. No, they’re not. But no. Not you.” He stared at her through those stony and oh-so-familiar eyes. “You’d never make anything that easy on me.”

  “Does this mean you…don’t want the papers?”

  He appeared not to hear her. �
�From the very start, you looked into my soul and took full measure of what’s there, didn’t you? You saw my weaknesses. You discovered how to hurt me. You learned where I bleed. And not for one fucking minute have you stopped stabbing me right there.”

  She almost laughed out loud at the villainous picture he was conjuring up, but her own emotions were too raw. Mostly because he knew her weaknesses too. He knew how much she valued her independence, how important it was for her to be seen as someone strong, someone confident, someone worth loving. He knew all that and still said those horrible things to her.

  Harrison Parks claimed not to be great with words, but he’d managed to cut her down with them just fine.

  “Excuse me for believing you capable of making rational, adult decisions about your life,” she replied, her chest tight. “Go fight your fires, Harrison. Or don’t. Alienate yourself from everything and everyone. Or don’t. What you do with your life is no longer of any interest to me.”

  There were countless more things she could have said, all of which had to do with vulnerable puppies and the even more vulnerable men who carried them, but she turned to Oscar with a nod. “I’ll stand by whatever he decides. Is there anything else you need before I go?”

  It wasn’t Oscar who replied.

  “You’re impossible,” Harrison said, his voice heavy with meaning. “You have been since the day I met you, and I can’t wait until I find a way to cut you out from under my skin.”

  “I take that to mean you won’t be heading to the fire?” Oscar prodded.

  Harrison threw up one hand, his other arm wrapped around the sling holding Bubbles. “Of course I’m not. It’s what Sophie wanted from the very start, what she’s been plotting since day one. She gave me this…this…” He trailed off and glanced at the puppy before heaving a reluctant sigh. “This beautiful little nugget, and now I’m trapped.”

  The beautiful little nugget licked his fingers obligingly.

  “I won’t put her in harm’s way before she’s ready,” Harrison said. “Or myself. I’m sorry, Oscar. I’d like to spend a few more weeks here on the training field before we start tackling the real fires. You’ll have to fight this one without me.”

  Oscar showed no signs of pleasure or distress at this, merely dismissing them both with a nod and a grab for his phone. Sophie decided to take a similar approach. Turning on her heel, she made it three steps into the hallway before she realized Harrison was right behind her.

  “Sophie, wait,” he called, his voice rough.

  Although it would have been so much more badass to keep walking, her head held high and her pride intact, she slowed her steps to wait for him to catch up. After all, Harrison was technically still her client. At least, he was until she gave him the ownership papers.

  She reached for them now, tucking her hand into her canvas bag to extract the puppy’s vaccination records and the certificate of completion they gave all their clients. “Here,” she said as she held them out. “This finalizes any and all business between us. She’s your dog now, free and clear.”

  He didn’t take them. He didn’t speak either, just stood there glowering at her.

  Shifting from one foot to the other, she searched for something to say. “I’m sorry you won’t get to start your air force training today.”

  That got him to speak. “Bullshit.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You aren’t sorry. In fact, you’re the exact opposite of sorry. You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

  “Um.”

  “You know what this damn puppy did all weekend?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll give you a hint—it involves raisins.”

  “I hope you aren’t going to tell me that she ate any, because grapes are highly toxic to dogs. You should take her to the vet before her kidneys shut down.”

  The muscle at the corner of his mouth twitched. “No, she didn’t eat any raisins. It’s her eyes. She kept looking at me.”

  “You’re complaining because your service animal looked at you? I hate to break it to you, but she’s going to be doing a lot of that over the years. If you’ll note, she’s doing it right now.”

  “You know very well what I mean!” He ran a hand through his hair, sending it into attractive disorder. “She missed you, Sophie. You did the training all wrong, spent too much time at the house helping me. Somewhere along the way, she got the idea that you’re supposed to always be there. And now she blames me because you’re gone.”

  His voice cracked at the end, but that was the only sign of any opening in his hard exterior. The rest of him was as unyielding and wall-like as ever, the harsh lines of his face unwelcoming, his stance squared and closed off.

  Sophie knew, in an instant, that the moment was right for her to tear down the wall. Even though the argument from the other day was still fresh enough to hurt them both, her sisters had given her enough confidence to claw through those bricks and find her way back to him.

  She knew how she could do it too. All she had to do was kiss that hard, stony wall of a man. Hug him. Hold him. Force him to understand that nothing he said or did would ever make her love him any less than she did right now. In other words, she could push.

  And then she could keep doing it every day for the rest of her life.

  But that wasn’t love. That was a prison sentence. If Harrison wanted to escape from that locked hold inside his heart, if he wanted to wake up from the long, deep sleep that held him in its spell, he was going to have to do it himself.

  “Because fairy tales aren’t real,” she muttered aloud, unconcerned with how strange she must sound. “Because there’s no reason why the princess can’t pick up a sword and meet the dragon halfway.”

  “What are you talking about?” Harrison asked. “What princess? I’m talking about my dog, Sophie. You broke her. I think it’s only fair that you fix her.”

  Despite her better judgment, she gave him one last chance. Shifting her weight to one leg, she cocked her head and stared at him. “Are you sure it’s the dog who needs my help?” she asked.

  It didn’t work. Harrison held her look, his gaze pulsating with intensity, but he didn’t yield. “She likes you,” he said. “She trusts you.”

  “And I like her,” she retorted. “But that isn’t reason enough for me to come back. Good luck with your new service dog, Harrison. And on behalf of Puppy Promise, thank you for your business.”

  Chapter 20

  Harrison didn’t know what woke him up while the moon still hung heavily in the night sky, but he knew all the things it wasn’t.

  It wasn’t Sophie waking up early to start the coffeepot. It wasn’t the sound of his father thumping around in irritable insomnia downstairs. It wasn’t the snuffling, shuffling sounds of Bubbles alerting him to low blood sugar. And despite his puppy’s small size, her bladder was like a camel’s hump—it was rare that she needed to go out before his usual wake-up time around six.

  In fact…

  “Bubbles?” he called, extending his hand in an arc all around him. When he hit nothing but the twisted sheets, he sat up. “Bubbles, where are you?”

  All around him, there was nothing but silence. Empty silence, the kind that could only exist inside an ancient farmhouse where he was literally the only remaining Parks in residence. His father had finished packing up and moved out yesterday while Harrison had been at the Department of Natural Resources. He’d returned home to find a set of keys sitting on the kitchen counter…and that was it.

  No forwarding address. No parting gift. Not even a brief, Thanks for sticking around for twenty-two years, Harrison, but I’m outta here. Enjoy what’s left of your sad, solitary life.

  He swung his legs off the side of the bed and flicked on the bedside lamp, but the sudden illumination didn’t make his puppy magically appear. Neither did calling her name a few times—increasingly anxious with each recitation.

  “I don’t smell smoke,” he said, mostly to comfort himself. “And I don’t see any flames. So
where the devil did you go?”

  Given that puppy’s love of the underside of beds, his next move was to check each one: his own functional wood frame, the ruffled skirt of his parent’s once-happy matrimonial bed, the cot-like twin that his father had moved to after his mom left. As much as it would have soothed his soul to find her quivering underneath one of them, he found nothing but the inevitable dust bunnies.

  “This isn’t funny,” he called, his worry increasing with each dark corner and cupboard that turned up empty. “And if you’re playing a game, I don’t think I like it very much.”

  In fact, he kind of hated it. He’d once thought that waking up in a hospital bed with no memory of how he got there was the worst way to greet the day, but he’d been wrong. Having no control over his health was frustrating and difficult, yes, but at least he knew the cause—knew there was hope at the end of the IV bag.

  To arise in an empty house, with Sophie off somewhere enjoying her life without him in it and Bubbles God knows where, was worse. It was as though he had handed them both a half of his heart, and now the whole thing was out there walking around, vulnerable and exposed.

  Which was the only explanation he could offer for why his chest felt so hollow as he reached the kitchen to find the back door swung wide open. The faulty latch had struck once again, making the cracked linoleum feel like ice under his bare feet.

  “This stupid fucking house!” he said, running to the open doorway and scanning the dimming darkness for any sign of Bubbles. He couldn’t see the puppy in the distance, but there were a few tiny footprints in the mud at the bottom of the steps that didn’t bode well for this adventure’s end. Given the size and scope of the land around the house, she could have gone anywhere. “My stupid fucking father!”

  For twenty-two years, that man had frozen himself and his heart here. For twenty-two years, he refused to leave the only piece of his old life he had left. But he had left—and without so much as a backward glance at Harrison in the rearview mirror.