Ruff and Tumble

by Lucy Gilmore

  Hailey could have gone on like that for hours. There were dozens of reasons why it wasn’t a good idea to expose the six squirming puppies and their exhausted mother to new faces, most of which were grounded in science and a hearty dose of common sense. Unfortunately, none of those excuses seemed to matter the moment a lone tear began to trickle down the girl’s face. She made no move to wipe it away—just kept holding Hailey’s hand and looking as through her tiny heart were breaking.

  “Oh dear,” Hailey murmured. “It’s really that important to you?”

  The girl nodded. The action caused the tear to loosen and drip to the top of her shiny black Mary Jane. “My mommy says dogs are messy. And I don’t have a daddy.”

  “Er, I should probably mention that Mia here is my niece. And if you really would like us to go—”

  Hailey squatted down to the girl’s level and took her other hand, clasping both of them in front of her. “I don’t have a daddy either,” she said. “He passed away a long time ago.”

  Mia blinked at her. “That’s sad.”

  “It is sad.”

  “Do you have a mommy?”

  Hailey shook her head.

  “But you have puppies?”

  Hailey couldn’t help but smile at the child’s naivete. The pain of her father’s death was no longer the sharp agony it had been at nineteen, but she still felt the effects of it every day of her life. All the puppies in the world couldn’t fill that aching hole.

  She knew. She’d tried.

  “I do have those,” she agreed. “For the time being, anyway. There’s no more room at the animal shelter, so I’m taking care of them until they find a real home.”

  From the way Mia’s face lit up, Hailey could guess the trend of her thoughts.

  “Do you want one?” she asked. “Is that why you came by? You can’t take one home today, obviously, but you can pick out your favorite and I’ll save it for you.”

  Mia screamed so loud that it was a wonder the entire neighborhood didn’t come running. The area where she lived in West Seattle was more like a beach town than a big metropolis, which meant people actually cared when someone was being murdered next door. In fact, it looked an awful lot like the pink calico curtains belonging to Mrs. Magda across the street were starting to twitch. Mrs. Magda’s sight wasn’t what it used to be, but if word got out that Cole Bennett was hanging out on Hailey’s doorstep…

  “They’re in the kitchen right now, since that’s the warmest room in the house,” she said to Mia. She turned the knob to let the girl inside. “But I should warn you—”

  Mia darted in before Hailey could issue a warning, which was just as well, since she wasn’t sure what she would have said. That her house was a one-woman shrine to the Seattle Lumberjacks? That the afterbirth-covered jersey Cole had laughed at was just one small part of her massive, mortifying collection?

  “That was a low blow,” Cole said as he held open the door and waited for her to walk through. His words were more of a sensation than an actual sound, his mouth closer to her ear than she realized. His breath was warm and his lips dry, though how she could tell, she had no idea. She just knew. “Her mother is going to kill me.”

  “You’re not here for a puppy, are you?” she asked. Since she was struggling to breathe, the words came out strangled.

  “No, Hailey. I’m not here for a puppy.” Although he had every right to be upset with her, his tone was light. “And don’t worry if your house is a mess. I promise not to judge. If I didn’t have a fleet of housekeepers who came by every week, my place would be…”

  Hailey would never learn the extent of Cole’s slovenliness. The moment he followed her into the living room, the words died on his lips. And who could blame him? To call her house a museum would have been pushing things too far, but it could very easily be mistaken for a museum gift shop. Hailey’s only consolation was that the football jerseys, framed posters, and team photographs weren’t only of him; the entire Seattle Lumberjack franchise was included. Some of the items were old and quite valuable. In fact, the hand-stitched football on the mantel was from the very first season the Lumberjacks played. It was older than she was, but you wouldn’t know it to look at it. Her father had gotten it signed by every player and then immediately put it under glass. He’d always said it was his most valuable possession—with the exception of her.

  “You mentioned the kitchen?” Cole asked, a strange thickness to his voice.

  “Yes.” Her cheeks burned, and she could only be grateful that her face was turned away so he couldn’t tell. “It’s through there. I gated it off so Bess and her babies could have some privacy.”

  For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to say anything—that she was going to be gifted an unprecedented show of kindness. She was wrong. Cole brushed past her and got as far as the arched doorway that led out of the living room before he said, “I love what you’ve done with the place.”

  Her cheeks burned hotter. “It’s not what it looks like.”

  “I especially like the team photo next to the couch. I don’t remember posing for that one.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “No?” he said, but with such a mischievous air that her heart sank. “Remind me before we leave, and I’ll have my sister send you another.”

  Hailey could only follow him into the next room and be grateful that the worst was over. The living room was the most decorated of the lot; her kitchen was basically normal, with the exception of a few hand towels and a helmet decal mounted above the fridge, and the bathroom was too small for anything but a Lumberjacks shower curtain.

  It wasn’t, as Cole most likely presumed, as obsessive as it seemed. Very few of the items in the house had been purchased with her own money; in fact, anything dated before the twenty-first century had been bought and installed long before she’d come to live with the man who had become her father. Most of her memories of those early days—when she’d been twelve years old and certain that this foster home, like all her others, wouldn’t last—were of the two of them sitting in front of the television, decked out from head to toe in their matching teal jerseys. At the time, it had seemed a strange way to acclimate a scared, lonely child to a new environment, but it had worked.

  Oh, how it had worked. Bruce—Dad—had breathed football, ate it, slept it. Draft day had been more important to him than Christmas, and Hailey remembered with fondness how jealous her classmates had been when he pulled her out of school every year to celebrate.

  As for the items collected since then, well, that wasn’t her fault. For as long as she could remember, people had been giving her Lumberjacks paraphernalia for presents. Work birthday parties, secret Santa exchanges—you name it, and she was gifted a poster to celebrate it. Other people got jewelry or books or thoughtful items chosen by the people who knew and loved them.

  She got…collectibles.

  “One, two, three, four, five.” Mia twisted to look up at them as they approached. The kitchen was closed off with a child- and dog-resistant gate, which she was straining to peer over. There wasn’t much to see, since Bess was sleeping like a long bar of fur toward the back, but at least the squirming puppies crowding around her midsection were cute. “Where’s six?”

  “That’s very good counting,” Hailey said, surprised.

  “I can on’y go to ten,” Mia admitted. “Is one dead?”

  “Of course not,” Hailey said, though not without a spike of fear. She’d spent most of last night curled up on the floor exactly where Mia stood, doing exactly what Mia was doing—counting puppies. They weren’t very mobile yet, but the darkness had brought terrifying thoughts about straggling babies getting trapped inside a cupboard. “Oh, blast. It’s Rufus again, isn’t it?”

  She lifted a leg to climb over the gate, surprised to find a strong, steady hand extended to help her. Although she would have preferred to keep h
er contact with Cole to a minimum, she couldn’t resist placing her palm against his and accepting his help.

  It was such a small, silly thing—Hailey had climbed over that gate on her own several dozen times already—but her heart still fluttered up from her chest to her throat. His hand was so strong. She could only imagine what the rest of him was like.

  If she were being honest, she had imagined what the rest of him was like. In embarrassing detail.

  She transformed her sigh to a cluck of concern as she approached the resting family. So far, Bess trusted her not to puppy-nap or damage her darlings, but Hailey didn’t want to push the mother’s patience too much.

  “Where’s he gone this time?” she asked, her voice low and calm. “I swear, he’s going to be the death of me.”

  “Which one is Rufus?” Cole asked.

  “The one who caused us all that trouble in the elevator,” she said without looking at him. “He’s darker than the others, all brown except the tips of his toes. He’s not acclimating well. He keeps rolling away.”

  “Let me help.”

  Hailey was about to protest, but there was no stopping a six-foot-two, two-hundred-and-twenty-pound man on a mission. To his credit, he didn’t mention the decal above the fridge or the hand towels, but Hailey was sure he saw them.

  “Be careful about approaching Bess,” she warned. “She’s protective.”

  “Oh, Bess won’t hurt me,” he said as he reached a hand out and allowed the golden retriever to lick it. “We have an understanding. Isn’t that right, girl?”

  “You can’t have an understanding with a dog you’ve known less than twenty-four hours.”

  “Sure I can.”

  Something about his arrogance—and his certainty—struck her hard. In all her lifetime, Hailey had never felt that sure about anything, let alone a relationship with another living being. “You don’t know that. Some animals take longer to warm up than others.”

  “So do some people, it seems,” he said with a sideways look at her.

  She colored deeply but resumed her search for the wayward pup. Her fears led her to first check inside every cupboard, but those were empty. She didn’t think he’d fit under the fridge or behind the stove, but—

  “Ah, here he is.” Before Hailey could protest, Cole swooped down to pull the puppy from a corner near the back door, where her ancient-but-functional stacked washer and dryer were wedged. Rufus had somehow made it all the way across the linoleum and taken up residence in one of her oversized wool sweaters. “All nestled up inside your clothes.”

  “Rufus, you wretch.” She was tempted to take the puppy from Cole, but the less the animal was handled, the better. Besides, Rufus decided that he was exactly where he wanted to be. He sighed, wriggled, and made a home inside Cole’s cupped hands. “There’s no food in that sweater. Or heat. What’s the point?”

  “Maybe he likes your scent,” Cole said. He paused a beat before adding, “I like it, too. You smell like lavender.”

  It was all Hailey could do not to lift her arm and do a sniff test. She’d been allowed to work from home today—reluctantly—to take care of the puppies. Even Jasmine, the workaholic that she was, knew that losing one of Cole Bennett’s famous puppies would result in a public relations nightmare from which none of them would ever recover. Hailey was ashamed to admit that she’d used the day off to not shower and not wash her hair. If she smelled like lavender, it was only because of the laundry detergent she used.

  “Is that the one I get to keep?” Mia asked from her position by the gate. She stood on tiptoe, her small face peering over the top.

  “Er…remember what your mother said.” Cole coughed. “If I come home with a puppy, she’ll never forgive me.”

  “You’re not a’scared of her.”

  “I’m a little bit a’scared of her.”

  “You’re not a’scared of anybody.”

  “I’m a’scared of Miss Lincoln.” Cole lifted the puppy to his cheek and nuzzled it. His eyes met Hailey’s, but they weren’t—as she’d expected—mocking. “She has no idea how much power she has over me right now.”

  The power dynamic in her tiny kitchen swayed so wholly in Cole’s direction that his remark was laughable. Hailey was physically, financially, and socially his inferior, and she couldn’t meet his gaze without falling into a mortified blush. Even the puppy he was cradling was more his than hers; now that the news had picked up the story of his daring rescue, there was nothing she could do to stop him from claiming paternal rights to the entire pack.

  “Mia, could you do a very important job for me?” Hailey asked. Mia’s nod was solemn. “If I put a chair right there, could you sit and watch the puppies to make sure Rufus doesn’t wriggle off again? He’s such a little worm that he refuses to stay in one place for long.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Good call,” Cole said in a voice low enough that Mia couldn’t hear. “That’ll keep her busy while we talk. You must have nieces and nephews.”

  It was an innocent remark, but it hurt more than Cole realized. She didn’t have nieces or nephews. She didn’t have anyone.

  “Try to be gentle when you put the puppy down,” she told him by way of answer. “He’s even more breakable than he looks.”

  With Mia stationed and alert on her chair and the puppies momentarily settled, Hailey went to the living room to await Cole. It would have been nice to have a few minutes to whisk away some of the more embarrassing of her Lumberjacks paraphernalia and run a brush through her hair, but he’d already seen the worst she had to offer.

  And the best, unfortunately. Most of the time, those two things were one and the same.

  “I have a proposal for you,” Cole said as he walked into the living room and lowered himself onto the couch. It was an old couch, and the cushions were well worn, so he sank back. Most people looked ridiculous when they fell into the seats like that, but he only looked relaxed and at ease.

  Hailey, on the other hand, was neither relaxed nor easy. “A proposal?” she squeaked. “Me?”

  “I wanted to ask you yesterday, but things got a little out of hand.” He grinned up at her, his dimple peeping. “It’s not every day that I get to be present at a birth. Thank you for that.”

  He was thanking her? And proposing to her? She needed to sit down.

  She did, but shakily, careful to station herself at the end of a faded recliner.

  “You’re welcome?” she said carefully. When he didn’t respond right away, she rushed to fill the conversational gap. There was no way she was giving herself an opening to repeat yesterday’s disaster. “Technically, I should be the one thanking you. Things moved so fast after you got the elevator doors open… I didn’t have an opportunity to say anything, but that was amazing, what you did. You probably saved Rufus’s life. Bess’s too. I don’t how I’ll ever be able to repay you.”

  His smile deepened. “Don’t worry. I do.”

  She swallowed, unable to look away from that smile. It was the same one he brought out every time a camera was rolling, every time he threw a winning pass or won a big game. Knowing that he pulled it out so easily should have made it less effective, but it wasn’t. If anything, seeing that smile in person only made it worse. On TV and in interviews, Cole always sold himself as a good guy, a strong leader, a team player—and now Hailey was discovering for herself that he was all those things in real life, too. His niece adored him. He was good with puppies. And most surprising of all, he took her awkwardness and weirdly obsessive decor with good humor.

  “I imagine you’re wondering what brought me to your office yesterday,” he said.

  “A little.”

  “And what brings me to your house today.”

  “I thought it was because your niece wants to see the puppies.”

  His smile dimmed. “You don’t make things easy on a man, d
o you?” He sat up, his elbows propped on his knees and an earnest expression on his face. “No, don’t apologize. I’m the one who should be sorry, bursting in on you two times in as many days. The truth is, I need a favor.”

  “From me?”

  “Of course. You’re the person in charge of the Puppy Cup.”

  “Well…” As much as she would have liked to claim credit for the entire production, honesty compelled her to shake her head. “Not really. My job seems fancier than it is. There’s a lot to do now that we’re getting ready for filming, but the rest of the year, I mostly just run errands and answer phones.”

  “But you pick the teams, right? Train them and coach them and all that?”

  “There’s not a whole lot of training you can do for puppies of that age, but yes. I’m also the one who finds them homes afterward.”

  “Finds them homes?”

  She waved a hand. Here, at least, she knew herself to be on solid ground. Puppies were something she could talk about. With the exception of football, they were all she could talk about. “It’s why the project was started in the first place. It’s an adoption ploy. This time of year is always tough for animals, so we take unwanted puppies from shelters in the area and make them football famous. People can’t take them home fast enough after that.”

  He eyed her askance. “Why do you say ‘football famous’ like it’s one step above emptying portable toilets?”

  A giggle escaped before she could stop it. “I mean, it’s not like you’re out saving the world. You’re playing a game.”

  He cast a slow and very obvious look around the living room. There was no mistaking his meaning—that this was not the residence of someone who would call football a game. In here, it was a passion, a way of life. In a lot of ways, that was how Hailey saw it…but not for the reasons Cole thought. Sitting in front of that television, surrounded by the familiar faces of the Lumberjacks and their fans, was the closest thing to family she had.

  “Can I ask where this is going?” she said by way of changing the subject. “I’m assuming it has to do with all that stuff you said to Jasmine yesterday?”