Holding On

by Pamela Clare

  Gizmo had always seemed like a friendly dog to Conrad, one that got along well with dogs and people. But what did Conrad know?

  Kenzie went on. “I think he’ll have an easier time dealing with her when she’s a little older. I was really hoping you could foster her for me—just for a month or so. It’s essential that she begin her training now if she’s going to get certified, but the situation with Gizmo is making that hard for me. He’s jealous.”

  Conrad must have misunderstood. “You want me to foster the puppy?”

  “Yes, please. Just for a little while. I’ll tell you everything you need to know. She’s a really good little girl.”

  “Isn’t there someone else?” The last thing Conrad needed in his life right now was some little creature depending on him.

  Hadn’t he vowed never to take responsibility for another life again?

  Kenzie shook her head. “Most of the people I know work all day or have new babies or dogs. There really isn’t anyone else I would trust with her.”

  Well, shit.

  “I don’t know how my landlord would feel about my having a pet. She might pee on the carpet or something. He’s trying to sell the place.”

  Kenzie glanced down at the worn green shag carpeting. “Anyone who buys this house is going to want to replace this carpet before they move in anyway.”

  Yeah, that was probably true.

  Conrad was running out of excuses.

  “Besides,” Kenzie added, “there are ways to prevent accidents. Puppies aren’t rocket science.”

  “I’m not really in a great space now.” He hated having to admit that.

  “Neither is Gabby.”

  Damn.

  The puppy had wandered over to Conrad’s feet. She sniffed, looked up at him through big, brown eyes, a creamy ball of complete innocence.

  Fuck.

  He was screwed.

  He bent down, picked up the furball, and held her. She was small enough that he could hold her in one hand.

  She licked his face, her little tail wagging.

  Kenzie smiled. “I think she likes you.”

  “She probably likes everyone.” Conrad reluctantly set her down again. “I’d like to help, but I have to find a job.”

  “How’s the job search going?”

  What could he say? It wasn’t going. He hadn’t filled out a single application.

  “I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do.”

  Kenzie nodded as if this made sense. “How about this? If you have a job interview, you can always drop her by the kennel.”

  He supposed that would work. “What about training her? I don’t want her to be an SAR dropout because of me.”

  Kenzie laughed. “Training a puppy this age isn’t very involved, and Gabby is super smart. I’ll help.”

  Conrad watched the puppy bound around his living room, stumbling over a pile of mail and sending letters scattering around the floor.

  “Please, Conrad. It would be such a huge help to me.”

  Conrad met Kenzie’s gaze, about to tell her that he wasn’t the man for this job, but the pleading look in those blue eyes stopped him. “Okay, but don’t hold it against me if she flunks out of rescue school.”

  Kenzie jumped up, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed his cheek. “Thanks so much, Harrison! You’re a life-saver.”

  No. No, he wasn’t. But he could at least help Kenzie with this.

  “Can you help me carry her stuff inside?”

  “Yeah, okay.” How much stuff could a little puppy have?

  Chapter 3

  Kenzie hated lying to Harrison. Not that this was a bad lie. She was trying to help him. Still, what she’d told him wasn’t true.

  She carried a box of puppy toys and the bag of puppy food inside and set them down in the kitchen. Then she went out to grab the bag of groceries she’d bought for him and put the salad veggies, meat, seafood, cheese, milk, and eggs in the prehistoric mint-green fridge. “Does this thing even work?”

  Harrison saw what she was doing. He glanced into the bag from Food Mart, a frown on his face. “What’s all this?”

  “It’s called ‘food.’ Most people keep it around.”

  “You didn’t need to do that.”

  “I can’t have you eating Gabby’s kibble.”

  “Funny.” Harrison glanced around, the sight of him without a shirt almost enough to make Kenzie drool. “I had no idea a puppy needed so many things.”

  Those hairless pecs. That six-pack. His shoulders and biceps. Silky, tanned skin.

  She swallowed. “You think that’s a lot?”

  There wasn’t that much—just Gabby’s crate, her car carrier, her training harnesses and leads, her grooming supplies, her food and water bowls, her toys, her treats, her favorite blanket.

  He grinned. “You don’t?”

  It was the first real smile she’d gotten from him since he’d come back, and it put a flutter in her belly. “I guess I’m used to it.”

  She’d written down instructions for Gabby’s care to make things easier for him. She pulled the pages out of the bag of puppy food and was about to go over them with Harrison when he decided it was time to gather up the pizza boxes and take them out to his recycling bin. He disappeared outside, a stack of pizza boxes in his arms, returning a minute later.

  “That’s better.” He scooped Gabby up and sat at the table with her in his lap. “Okay, go ahead.”

  But Kenzie was in the middle of a hormonal meltdown, the sight of little Gabby against Harrison’s bare chest making her ovaries squeal.

  How was she supposed to get through this?

  She forced her gaze onto the page and read the sections about feeding and crate training first, fighting to stay focused. “Give her a treat every time she goes into the crate. She’ll sleep there at night. She might cry a bit, but she’s okay. Don’t take her out and put her in your bed. That will only make the problem worse.”

  “Got it.”

  “When you let her out of her crate, always take her straight outside to go potty. That way, she’ll come to associate leaving the crate with going outside to do her thing.”

  “Won’t she just go potty in the crate?”

  Kenzie shook her head. “She’ll try very hard not to. That’s why you have to pay attention. Little puppies can’t hold it very long. I’ve been taking her out right before I go to bed at night and then putting her in her crate with a treat and her toy afterward. She usually wakes me up at about four in the morning needing to go out again, and then she lets me sleep until about six or seven.”

  “Six or seven? So, she’s your alarm clock.”

  Kenzie laughed. “A furry clock that doesn’t come with a snooze button.”

  Harrison gave a slight frown, clearly not certain how to feel about the fact that he’d be getting up early for the foreseeable future.

  “It’s important never to use the crate to punish her. Also, no hitting or kicking her or… ” She stopped at the horrified look on Harrison’s face. “You would never do that anyway, I know.”

  “Never.” He kissed the top of Gabby’s head.

  This time, it was Kenzie’s heart that squealed. She had a soft spot for men who loved animals. “Do you want to learn how to train her to follow?”

  “Sure.” Harrison set the puppy down.

  Kenzie took hold of Gabby’s leash and grabbed a few treats. “I hold her leash in one hand, and I hold a treat in the other and bend down like this so that I’m keeping the treat at her face-level next to my leg while I walk. She wants the treat, so she goes right where I want her. Use the command ‘Follow.’ It’s a little awkward to walk like this, but they learn quickly.” Kenzie took a few steps. “Gabby, follow.”

  Gabby trotted along at her heel, taking the treat from her fingers.

  “Then you praise her.” Kenzie knelt. “You’re a good girl, Gabby. Yes, you’re just so smart.”

  “How often do you want me to do that?”

&n
bsp; “I’d say a few times a day. She already knows how to sit.” Kenzie grabbed another treat. “Gabby, sit.”

  Gabby looked up at her, then plopped her little bottom onto the floor.

  Kenzie gave her the treat. “Make sure to praise her. Good puppy! What a good puppy you are!”

  “I thought dog trainers use those clicker things.”

  “I’ve taught clicker training in classes, but I don’t any longer. Whether you use a clicker or not, it’s all about rewarding desired behavior. If I’m consistent, my pups will learn to be consistent.”

  “So be consistent. Got it.”

  He looked so serious that Kenzie had to smile. “Exactly. I wrote it all down in case you forget something.”

  She glanced at her watch, saw that it was just before noon. “The last thing I should show you is puppy runaways. That’s the first step in training her for SAR work.”

  “Puppy runaways? You want her to run away?”

  “No, I want you to run away.”

  “Me?” A dark eyebrow arched.

  Kenzie knew she was taking a chance here, but things had already gone far better than she’d imagined. She gave Gabby credit for that. Harrison had always been fond of Gizmo, and it was clear that he’d fallen in love with the puppy at first sight. Kenzie couldn’t blame him. So had she. “Why don’t we put her in her car carrier and drive to that new park near the library?”

  “Scarlet Springs has a library?”

  Oh, God. He didn’t know.

  “Joe Moffat built a library and donated Silas Moffat’s journals and a bunch of historic photographs. The town had a big book drive. Now we have our own library. They built it on the site of the old schoolhouse. The school became part of the library, and the playground became a pocket park.”

  “Cool. Okay.” He glanced down at his bare chest. “I guess I’d better get dressed.”

  Bummer.

  Well, all good things must come to an end.

  Conrad struggled to get the squirming puppy into her tiny harness. “Okay, that’s too cute to be legal.”

  Kenzie laughed, the sound melodic and sweet. She reached over to help, her arm brushing against Conrad’s, contact sending a jolt through him. “All that cuteness—it’s a survival strategy.”

  What were they talking about? Survival strategy?

  The puppy.

  “Okay, let’s talk about puppy runaways.” Kenzie knelt down in the grass. “I’m going to love her up a bit, and then I’m going to run a short distance away—probably to that little pine tree over there—and hide. Then you let her go and say, ‘Go find!’ Hopefully, she’ll follow me.”

  “What if she doesn’t?”

  “I’ll take her favorite toy with me and give it a few squeaks to give her some incentive. Follow her, and when she finds me, we both praise her and give her a treat.”

  “Okay.” That didn’t sound too complicated.

  Kenzie tousled Gabby’s floppy ears and kissed her. “Who’s my sweet puppy? Are you my sweet puppy? You are too cute.”

  Then Kenzie looked up at Conrad. “Don’t let go of her until I’m hidden.”

  She hopped up and ran to hide behind a pine tree, her ass doing amazing things for her jeans as she moved.

  Head out of the gutter, man.

  The moment she was hidden, Conrad released the puppy. “Gabby, go find!”

  Gabby stood still for a second and cocked her head as if wondering what Kenzie was doing. Then she heard her toy squeak and ran toward the sound. It was only a distance of about twenty feet, so it didn’t take long before Gabby rounded the pine tree and gave an excited bark.

  “Good girl! Good girl!” Kenzie gave Gabby a treat and let her have the little squeak toy. “That went well. Let’s do it again. This time, you run and hide.”

  Conrad played with Gabby, then he took some treats and the toy and bolted for the next pine tree, crouching down behind it.

  “Go find!” Kenzie commanded.

  Conrad peeked through the branches to see the little ball of fluff bounding his way. Halfway there, Gabby sat on the grass. Remembering what Kenzie had done, he gave the squeak toy a squeeze. Gabby jumped to her feet again and ran toward him, rounding the tree and hopping into his arms.

  “Good girl! What a smart doggy!” He gave her a treat then squeaked the toy again before letting her have it.

  Kenzie stood over them, watching, arms crossed. “You’re a pro.”

  “How often should we do this?” He chuckled at the sight of Gabby tumbling through the grass with the squeak toy in her jaws.

  “Every couple of days is good enough, but it shouldn’t always be the two of us. We don’t want to train her to track only us. We need her to get used to following scent trails, so that means using different people.”

  That made sense. “How do I do that?”

  “Give someone a call, meet them somewhere, and tell them what to do. She needs to get used to different distractions and surfaces, so it would be great if you could use a variety of locations—here, your yard, a trail in the mountains, your driveway. Different surfaces interact differently to scent and feel different to her paws.”

  This was a little more responsibility than Conrad had expected. Then again, what the hell else was he doing? Nothing.

  Kenzie seemed to study him. “Am I overwhelming you?”

  He did feel a little overwhelmed, but he couldn’t admit that. “I’ve got this.”

  “Let’s do a couple more.”

  Kenzie ran and hid behind a nearby bench, which forced Gabby to run through the sandbox. The puppy stopped to sniff, apparently intrigued by the texture of the sand, but a few squeaks from her favorite toy got her back on task.

  Then it was Conrad’s turn to hide. He crouched down behind a garbage can some distance down the sidewalk, his heart melting at the sight of Gabby bounding toward him, tongue out, ears flopping. “Good girl!”

  He gave her a treat, let her have the toy.

  She played a bit, shaking the toy furiously, then walked off into the grass and plopped down, dropping the toy near her front paws.

  “I think she’s all tired out.” Kenzie knelt down beside Gabby. “She still little enough that she can only work for a short time before she needs a nap.”

  “I know how she feels.” In truth, Conrad had barely left his house since coming home, and it felt good to be outside again. The sun was shining. The aspens had turned, clothing the mountains in gold. The high peaks were topped with snow.

  Kenzie glanced at her watch. “I need to get going. I’ve got—”

  “Kenzie? Conrad?” A man’s voice came from behind them.

  “Hey, Jesse!” Kenzie waved.

  Conrad turned to see Jesse Moretti walking his way with his twins, Daisy and Daniel, who had grown a lot while Conrad had been away. They didn’t look like babies now. They looked like, well, kids. How old were they? Four?

  Conrad got to his feet. “Hey, Moretti.”

  Moretti drew him into a bear hug, grinning from behind mirrored sunglasses. “You son of a… ”

  He stopped, glanced down at his kids, cleared his throat, and started over. “It’s great to see you. I’d heard you were back in town.”

  Moretti was a former Army Ranger who’d come to Colorado to cope with war trauma and had fallen in love with climbing. He’d stayed, perfected his skill, and become a primary Team member in just a year.

  “Oooh! A puppy!” Daisy shrieked with delight and hurried over to Gabby, her brother turning to follow her.

  Conrad tensed, ready to intervene if the kids were too rough, but Kenzie had it under control.

  “Be careful. She’s just a baby. Pet her gently.” She took first Daisy’s hand and then Daniel’s and showed them how it was done. “Like this.”

  “She’s just a baby, Danny,” Daisy admonished her brother. “Be nice.”

  “I like the puppy, too, Day,” Daniel was especially careful.

  “You’re looking good,” Moretti said.
/>   “You, too.”

  Moretti had married Ellie Meeks, a war widow and the twins’ mother, shortly after Conrad had left for Everest. Conrad had gotten an invitation before he’d flown to Nepal. “Being a married man and a father seems to be working for you.”

  “More than I ever could have imagined.”

  Conrad could see that Moretti meant what he said. The man exuded happiness. “You still working up at Ski Scarlet?”

  “Yep. We’re hiring for Ski Patrol if you’re interested. It doesn’t pay much, but money is money. Megs says you’re looking for a job.”

  Ski Patrol.

  Conrad might be able to do that. “How do I apply?”

  “Go to the website. I’ll put in a word with my boss, if you like.”

  “Sure—if you think that will help.”

  Moretti laughed. “It won’t hurt if that’s what worries you. Once he hears you’re interested, he’ll want to hire you. Are you kidding? You would give him someone to brag about. Harrison Conrad, a member of Ski Scarlet’s Ski Patrol.”

  Conrad wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

  Kenzie swallowed the lump in her throat as she drove away from Harrison’s house. She missed Gabby already. Puppies grew up so quickly, and Kenzie didn’t want to miss any of that precious time. But she’d seen the way Harrison’s gaze had gone soft the moment he’d seen Gabby. He had perked up, put a shirt on, gone down to the park. He’d laughed. He’d gotten some sunshine. He’d even talked about a job with Moretti.

  All because of a puppy.

  He needed Gabby right now.

  She turned left off West Pine onto Highway 119, which bisected the town, an image of Harrison holding Gabby against his bare chest coming into her mind. It was wrong to be jealous of her own puppy, but, damn, she would have loved to trade places with Gabby, to have Harrison look at her with the same adoration.