Puppy Love

by Lucy Gilmore

  Lila felt an inexplicable need to apologize. “I had some red ribbon left over from our groundbreaking ceremony a few years ago. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “Mr. Ford was delighted by it. And by you, I need hardly add.”

  She didn’t want to ask. It was unprofessional. It made her sound desperate.

  She asked anyway. “What exactly did he say?”

  “That he likes you. That he trusts you. That he couldn’t be happier with the way things are turning out.” Anya let the laugh go, but the soft breathlessness of it was cut short. “Don’t let him down, Lila. He’s counting on you. We all are.”

  Lila barely had time for these heavy words to settle before Anya hung up. It was followed by Sophie flouncing forward with a somber black dress Lila had only worn to funerals.

  “Since you don’t like any of my other choices, how about this?” she asked. She held it up to her frame and grimaced at the overflow of the hem at her feet. Sophie was a good six inches shorter than her two sisters, something that had always been a source of annoyance to her. “Hmm. Maybe not. What was that about, by the way?”

  Lila took the dress and tossed it onto her bed, which was showing signs of becoming the untidy heap so often visible in Dawn’s room. “Anya wanted me to know what a good job I’m doing so far.”

  Sophie perked up, her eyes widening in delight. “Oh, Lil—congratulations. That’s fantastic news.”

  “No, it’s not.” Lila groaned as she surveyed what remained of her closet. The boxy suits and funereal dresses that would keep Ford at bay were no good. Any princess-like confections were out, too, since she was going to be doing a lot of crawling around with a puppy today.

  Judging by Anya’s call—and the implications behind it—she needed something approachable. Something soft. Something so wholly unlike her it was laughable. She had no other choice. People were counting on her. People were always counting on her.

  “Why did we ever think it was a good idea to put me in the same room as a child?” she asked. It was a rhetorical question, so she didn’t bother waiting for an answer. “This is your fault, you know. Yours and Dawn’s. If you hadn’t wrangled me into that piece of pink fluff, none of this would have happened. Everyone would know me for what I am and adjust their expectations accordingly.”

  Sophie blinked at her, not the least bit intimidated by the criticism. “And what are you?” she asked.

  Lila heaved a heavy sigh. That answer was easy.

  “I’m the fun sponge.”

  * * *

  Ford Ford’s house wasn’t at all what Lila had been expecting. Meeting a well-groomed man in a tuxedo—even one with a young daughter—had a way of creating the illusion of secret agents, sleek chrome-filled bachelor pads, and vintage sports cars.

  As Lila double-checked the address and pulled up to a tiny brick house, she realized she couldn’t have been further from the truth. All the houses on this street were boxy and small—less than a thousand square feet apiece—and almost every yard had some variation of a snowman built in it, with discarded carrots and scarves littering the scene. Christmas decorations were already up in abundance, many of the SUVs and family cars bearing fuzzy antlers and red-felt noses on their front bumpers—including Ford’s.

  “A minivan?” she said as she pulled open her car door and stepped out. “He drives a reindeer minivan?”

  “He has to, unfortunately. He’s in charge of car pool one week every month.”

  Lila held back a small shriek of surprise.

  Ford appeared next to the large snow pile that must have been hiding him. “For a while there, I tried cramming the lot of them in my two-door sedan, but it didn’t work. For some reason, kids get mad when you make them ride in the trunk.” He grinned and drew closer. “Well, that’s not true. The kids loved it. Their mothers, however…”

  Lila remembered, almost too late, to breathe. The mortification of having been caught disparaging Ford’s car was paltry compared to the sensation she felt at seeing him in nothing but a pair of red-and-black buffalo-check pajama pants. He had on boots and a coat thrown hastily over the top, not to mention a small puppy clutched to his bare chest, but he had to be freezing. It was all of twenty-five degrees out here, the windows on every parked car frosted over and clouds of her breath coming out in short, panting puffs.

  “We don’t have a fenced yard,” he apologized as he curled the puppy more protectively against his chest. “And it takes at least half an hour to get Emily layered up to go outside, so that makes me the king of potty breaks. Come on in. Have you had coffee?”

  Lila strove to find her tongue, but it was cleaved to the top of her mouth. She’d known that Ford in a tuxedo was attractive, all those folds of dark cloth molded to a body that knew what it was about. Even yesterday at the kennel, in jeans and a sweater, he’d looked a fine figure of a man, his shoulders broad and his stance powerful.

  But this? Bare-chested? In the cold? All those firmly etched lines flexing with his every breath?

  “I haven’t had any either,” he said. “Although I have fed and watered this little beast, so I figure I’m not doing too bad overall. Oh, h-e-l-l. Quick. Let’s get inside before—”

  “Ford! Ford, you’ve got to be kidding. You’re going to catch your death of cold like that.”

  Lila turned to find herself being accosted by a pretty brunette in a puffy parka that went down to her knees. She held a steaming mug of coffee in each hand, which she extended toward the pair of them. It took Lila a moment to process that not only was Ford being offered a hot beverage, but she was, too.

  “Here. I’ll take that little darling so you can hold your cup. Jeeves, you said his name was? Oh—or am I still not supposed to touch him?” This question was directed at Lila, who found herself at a continued loss for words.

  She didn’t know what it was about these people that threw her so far off-balance, but they did. She was normally able to carry herself well in any situation. All it took was a little authority, a little dignity, and—

  “I won’t pet him, see? Just cradle him like this. He’s awfully sweet.” The woman buried her nose in the puppy’s neck and inhaled. It was the exact same thing Lila did whenever presented with a four-legged bundle of joy, so she relaxed a little. “That’s my special brew you’re holding. It has a bit of spice to keep things warm on a morning like this one. I thought you two could use it. My name’s Helen, by the way. You must be Princess Lila.”

  All attempts at relaxation fled, some of the special brew sloshing over the edge of Lila’s mug as she reared back. “Oh, I’m not really a—”

  Ford coughed heavily and cast a knowing look back over his shoulder. Emily stood in the doorway to the house, a long purple nightgown brushing the tops of her bare feet. It was an ideal opportunity for Lila to assert her position as a woman of good sense, a dog trainer who one time wore a pink dress to a party, but Anya’s praise still hung heavily around her neck.

  “I’m not really supposed to talk about my lineage,” she said, resigned to her fate. If getting the Auditory Guild’s seal of approval meant wearing crowns and carrying fairy dust in her pockets, then so be it. Dawn and Sophie were more suited to the post, obviously, but they didn’t have a monopoly on benevolence.

  She could do cheery. She could do light. She was even wearing some kind of gold-threaded sweater to prove it. It was the only thing she and Sophie could find that screamed princess pizzazz.

  “It’s a secret because of matters of immediate political importance,” she added. “Like, um…” She scanned her memory for the most child-friendly diplomatic issues plaguing the world, but nothing seemed to fit. Chemical warfare reserves seemed a touch dark, as did systemic and concentrated genocide. And she was no expert, but she was pretty sure no kid wanted to hear about capital-gains taxes.

  Ford seemed to note her struggle, his lips hovering over a grin. “The evil prince trying to take over her throne,” he supplied.

  Ah, yes. Evil pr
inces. How could she have forgotten that one?

  “He’s my brother,” Lila lied, thinking fast. “My twin brother.”

  Ford winked. “Her evil twin brother.”

  “Oh dear,” Helen murmured sympathetically. “How terrible for your whole country.”

  Lila was impressed by the way Helen took it all in stride. She must have kids of her own. Apparently, a fertile imagination was one of those things they handed out at the hospital after a baby was born, like maternal instincts and those cute knit caps in alternating shades of pink and blue.

  Lila took a sip of the coffee, surprised to find it as delicious as promised, with a hint of cinnamon and cayenne to spice the blood. However, Helen was giving no signs of leaving, which made Lila suspect that it wasn’t really her she’d come over to caffeinate. She’d probably peeked out the window and seen Ford without a shirt. It was enough to get any hot-blooded woman’s morning routine going.

  Emily had disappeared from the doorway, so Lila took that as her cue to follow suit. “I’ll take Jeeves in and start setting up the training.” She reached for the puppy, that warm bundle of fur so easygoing that he took being handed from one person to another in stride. “Thank you for the coffee.”

  “No, wait.” Ford stilled her with a hand on her arm. “I’ll come with you. I’d like to watch how you do things.”

  “I can see I’m only in the way,” Helen said, cheerfully unconcerned with being given the brush-off. “But before you go, Ford, I wanted to see if you’re free this weekend. I hate to ask on such short notice, but I need a plus-one for a holiday party my work is throwing. I already have a sitter lined up for the boys, so you’d be more than welcome to leave Emily with them.”

  Now Lila definitely wished she’d escaped while she had the chance. She might have made another attempt, but Ford was still clinging to her forearm, his grip strangely firm.

  “That’s a tempting offer, but Lila will be keeping me pretty busy for the next few weeks.”

  She opened her mouth to protest. Hard work and diligence were important to ensure a successful placement, yes, but even she wasn’t so unyielding that she required her clients to give up their entire weekends. Before she could utter so much as a syllable to that effect, Ford’s clasp on her tightened even more.

  “Isn’t that right, Princess Lila?”

  Well able to take a hint when it was being imprinted on her skin, she forced a smile. “Oh, yes. Weekdays, weekends, nights… A dog trainer’s work is never done.”

  Helen frowned. “Really? Nights?”

  “She’s very diligent. It’s her royal blood.”

  “But on a Saturday evening?”

  Ford looked at Lila with a note of such appeal in his eyes that she found herself nodding along. She’d always thought she was impervious to that kind of pleading—puppies were notoriously good at it, the wretches—but something about it coming from a fully grown man knocked her sideways.

  “I’m afraid so,” she said. And since the lies seemed to be stacking up around her, she decided to add a bit of truthfulness. With a self-conscious pat on Jeeves’s head, she added, “I’m kind of a stickler about things like that. About everything, really.”

  Ford’s grip on her relaxed. “And you know how obedient I am, Helen.” He winked. “Especially when the commands come from a woman like this one.”

  Lila wasn’t sure she cared to hear what he meant by that—if it was her stern demeanor or her apparent inability to work with children that made her so intimidating—but she should have known better than to trust a word out of his mouth.

  Helen certainly didn’t. “Oh, please. Getting you to do anything you don’t want to is like trying to take one of my kids to the dentist.” She beamed at Lila. “From the way they carry on, you’d think I was dragging them to their deaths. Well, either that or the hairdresser.”

  “They’re not wrong about the hairdresser,” Ford interjected. “I still remember that unfortunate episode you had with the bowl cuts.”

  A laugh escaped Lila before she could prevent it. Nothing about the conversation was in any way out of the ordinary—at least, not considering who Lila was having this conversation with. It didn’t seem to matter to either Helen or Ford that they were discussing haircuts while Lila had a cockapoo held in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other—or that it was below freezing while they did it.

  But at the sound of Lila’s laughter, the other woman glanced back and forth between them, her lips parted in a sudden smile. “Oh, I see,” she said with a knowing nod.

  “See what?” Lila asked with a quick look over her shoulder.

  When she turned back, it was to find Helen pointing at first Ford and then Lila, her smile spreading. “You should have mentioned something earlier,” she said. “I wouldn’t have barged in on you like this if I’d known.”

  Known what? Lila assumed Ford was just as mystified as she was, but his expression had relaxed into a devastating grin—a grin that was pointed directly at her. She was still reeling from it when he spoke again.

  “Am I that obvious?” Ford asked, shaking his head with a mock sigh. “I was hoping to keep the news quiet for a little longer, but it’s impossible now. You found me out.”

  “Well, really,” Helen breathed. “I had no idea.”

  “Neither did I,” Ford admitted. “But there’s no use trying to hide what’s staring us all in the face, is there? I hadn’t spent five minutes in Lila’s company before I realized my life would never be the same.”

  That last bit was directed at Lila. Her shock at hearing the declaration on Ford’s tongue—how easily it tripped off, how natural it sounded—was swallowed in a squeal of delight. And not her own. Despite the fact that Lila was holding both a puppy and a mug of hot coffee, Helen showed every intention of pulling her into a wintry hug.

  Acting on instinct, Lila backed away, but all that did was force her against Ford’s chest. She had no idea how she could feel the heat of him through her thick wool peacoat, but she could have sworn that the temperature of all the places where their bodies touched jumped a good twenty degrees. Although he was no longer holding her arm, his stance made it impossible for her to flee.

  Helen had to settle for a smile that seemed genuine, despite the fact that she’d just been turned down for a date. “Ford, you devil. Leading us all on like that. Maddie and Danica are going to be devastated.”

  “Alas, that’s always been my curse.” Ford clucked his tongue and sighed. “Leaving a trail of broken hearts wherever I go. I warned you how it was from the start.”

  “Well, I’m delighted to finally meet you, Lila, and can only apologize for monopolizing so much of your time.” Helen laughed and shook her head, curls bouncing playfully around her shoulders. “I should have known something was up the moment I saw you two together. It was the royal blood that threw me off. We’d always been told you were from Canada.”

  “Canada?” Lila echoed, so far out of her depth that she was finding it difficult to come up for air.

  “Well, I could hardly tell you her real country of origin, could I?” Ford asked. “What with the succession in so much danger and all.” He still stood at her back, so close that his breath was a warm whisper against her neck. Lila hadn’t worn a scarf that morning, but she firmly resolved to do so tomorrow. There was something caressingly intimate about his lips so close to her skin.

  Touching but not touching. Laughing but not laughing.

  Helen made the motion of a zipper over her lips. “I won’t tell a soul. And bring those coffee cups back whenever, you two. I’m never in a hurry to do dishes.”

  Lila didn’t dare breathe until Helen had walked to the end of the drive, darted a quick look down either side of the street, and dashed into a cozy-looking house situated diagonally to Ford’s. Lila didn’t move for a good thirty seconds after that, either, busy as she was trying to come up with something rational to say.

  “It’s a lovely view of the neighborhood, but would you mind too m
uch if we went inside now?” Ford’s voice was still far too close for her peace of mind. “I don’t know about you, but I’m freezing my t-i-t-s off out here.”

  Lila’s body gave another one of those involuntary twitches. She blamed it on the fact that he’d spelled the word out, making her fear that Emily was standing mere feet away and had overheard everything. But when she whirled around, it was to find the pair of them alone in the yard and Ford’s tits very much on display.

  If you could call them that, anyway. There was nothing soft or bouncing about his wall of a chest and clearly defined pec muscles.

  “Yes, well. That’s not my fault,” she said. She wished she sounded more in control of herself, but it was a wonder that her voice worked at all. “I remembered to cover mine up before I left the house.”

  “I noticed. That was probably wise of you, under the circumstances.” He nodded and took a sip of his coffee, but there was a lurking twinkle in his eye she didn’t quite trust. “The royal circumstances, of course. A princess should be modest and decorous in all things.”

  “That woman doesn’t actually believe I’m a princess, right?”

  “Probably not. Helen’s no fool.”

  “Or that I’m from Canada?”

  “I’d say there’s a fifty percent chance. There’s something very northern about your air.”

  This last one was the most difficult to get out, but it needed to be said. “And she doesn’t really think you’re…in love with me?”

  “Oh, that one was all her.” Ford hunched one shoulder in the same half-shrug from the night of the ball. Turning on his heel, he led the way up the sidewalk, pausing only to cast a sheepish glance over his shoulder. “She could tell the moment she saw us together.”

  “Ford…”

  “T-i-t-s,” he said and pointed at his chest. “I wasn’t kidding about them. A few more minutes out here, and I’m going to start developing hypothermia.”