Praise for Who Rescued Who
“Move over Marley and Enzo—there’s a new dog in town! Fans of John Grogan and Garth Stein will delight in Victoria Schade’s heartwarming new novel, Who Rescued Who. With crackling, whip-smart dialogue and a touching story of redemption, Schade illustrates what it means to be rescued from our worst selves, and transformed into our best. Chock-full of heart and humor, anyone who has ever been redeemed by the love of a dog will treasure this uplifting, big-hearted novel. A treat from start to finish!”
—Lori Nelson Spielman, New York Times bestselling author of The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany
“A funny, emotional story about finding yourself, finding family, and—eventually—finding love. Who Rescued Who is one of my top reads for this year—a swoon-worthy romance! This one had ALL the feels!”
—Jennifer Probst, New York Times bestselling author of All Roads Lead to You
“Victoria Schade is that author who could write anything and I’d read it. Who Rescued Who is the perfect feel-good book with charismatic characters, swoony romance, family secrets, and snuggly puppies. Grab your furry friend and start reading now.”
—Amy E. Reichert, author of The Coincidence of Coconut Cake
“I loved it so, so much. It made me cry, but mostly it made me want to throw away my phone, buy some sheep, and move to the English countryside to rescue dogs and live in a rom-com.”
—Teri Wilson, author of The Accidental Beauty Queen
“You don’t have to be a dog person to love this heartfelt book, but you will be by the time you finish it. Victoria Schade has written a timely, heartwarming story for everyone who longs to break free of the rose-colored filter of our Instagram age and rediscover the messy perfection of life, love, and the people—and pets—who shape us.”
—Lyssa Kay Adams, author of The Bromance Book Club
“The engrossing, evocative prose whisked me away to an utterly charming British chocolate-box village, where I would have loved to stay. Who Rescued Who is certainly a special treat for dog lovers, but also for anyone who enjoys a multilayered story about finally finding a family in every sense.”
—Evie Dunmore, author of Bringing Down the Duke
“A charming fish-out-of-water story about finding your heart and home in the place you least expect. After reading this book, I wanted to adopt a puppy and relocate to rural England. I absolutely adored it.”
—Sarah Smith, author of Faker
“Once again, Schade comes at us with her trademark smarts and humor (or should I say, humour?) to deliver a story with everything to love. The prospect of a great British romance isn’t even the sweetest part of Who Rescued Who—it’s the tender way the author uses her long career as a professional trainer to help us all understand our pets, and our bonds with them, as no one else can. A winner.”
—Kristine Gasbarre, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Love an American Man: A True Story
“As satisfying as a basket of fresh scones and as heartwarming as puppy kisses. I didn’t want this book to end.”
—Lindsay Emory, author of The Royal Runaway
Praise for Life on the Leash
“Charming and heartfelt, Life on the Leash will delight readers. The perfect book for dog lovers!”
—Chanel Cleeton, New York Times bestselling author of When We Left Cuba
“Even cat lovers will get wrapped up in this delightful story of girl, girl’s best friend, girl’s best girlfriends, and a couple of guys. Cora’s canines in training will steal your heart. I couldn’t wait to see what happened next!”
—Shelley Noble, New York Times bestselling author of Lighthouse Beach
“Life on the Leash is the novel you’ve been waiting for all year—a strong, funny, bighearted heroine to cheer for in life and in love, plenty of ‘I’ve-been-there’ dating moments, and adorable, endearing, sometimes mischievous dogs to love on every page.”
—Nicolle Wallace, dog lover, author, and MSNBC host
“A bighearted and witty debut from a writer with remarkable insight into the minds of dogs and those who love them. The winsome cast of characters will have you hooked on Life on the Leash from the first page.”
—Meg Donohue, USA Today bestselling author of Dog Crazy
ALSO BY VICTORIA SCHADE
Life on the Leash
BERKLEY
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2020 by Victoria Schade
Readers Guide copyright © 2020 by Victoria Schade
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Ebook ISBN: 9780593098844
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Schade, Victoria, author.
Title: Who rescued who / Victoria Schade.
Description: First edition. | New York : Berkley, 2020.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019040197 (print) | LCCN 2019040198 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593098837 (paperback) | ISBN 9780593098844 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS3619.C31265 W48 2020 (print) | LCC PS3619.C31265 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019040197
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019040198
First Edition: March 2020
Cover puppy by Iulia Zavalishina / GettyImages
Cover design by Farjana Yasmin
Title page art by Iulia Zavalishina / Shutterstock
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0
Dedicated to the generous volunteers and fosters around the world who open their hearts and homes to dogs in need
contents
Praise for Who Rescued Who
Also by Victoria Schade
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
> Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Acknowledgments
Readers Guide
About the Author
chapter one
Permanent hiatus?”
Elizabeth Barnes repeated the words back as if she were fumbling with a new language.
The human resources manager at Duchess Games pressed her perfect matte lips together in a tight smile and nodded. “That joke you made during the interview at Mobile Expo is still impacting our metrics. You’ve seen what they’re saying about you on Twitter, right? ‘Duchess CMO and the social network sex show.’” Gwen paused. “There’s no way we can spin it to make it fit our narrative. This is our only choice.”
Elizabeth coughed but her throat felt like it was lined with fleece. She glanced at her friend, mentor, and boss Cecelia Wright, who was inspecting a strand of her blond hair for split ends. Cecelia wouldn’t meet her eyes, so focused on her grooming that she couldn’t offer her most devoted employee a comforting smile as she fitted the noose.
The cuffs of Elizabeth’s blouse suddenly felt too tight. Were her wrists sweating? How was that even possible? She wanted to roll up her sleeves, but that might suggest that she was ready to efficiently hash out next steps. And she was anything but ready to face the fact that her entire world was imploding.
“I’m disappointed it came to this,” Cecelia finally said, still not looking up from her hair. “Some of your contributions were impactful.”
Some?
The comment landed like a dropkick. Everyone in the company knew that Elizabeth’s work had helped propel Duchess Games from plucky start-up to an innovator in the mobile gaming world. She’d started in coding and worked her way up to chief marketing officer thanks to her annual vision boards and a work ethic that had made her hair fall out every time they released a new game.
Elizabeth finally spoke up. “I don’t know how many more times I can say I’m sorry, but I’ll try it again: I’m so sorry. I was exhausted. The reporter wouldn’t stop asking about Entomon and I was trying to change his focus. I got flustered and said the wrong thing. I thought it would be funny and he’d change the subject.” She put her elbows on the table and cupped her forehead. The second after she’d made the joke she’d envisioned the Cecelia rage-storm to come, but she’d never imagined she’d end up in front of a literal firing squad.
“Your job isn’t to be funny, it’s to shut down rumors before they get out of hand,” Cecelia replied. “You didn’t even preempt with our talking points.”
Elizabeth stopped herself from mentioning that there were no talking points because according to Cecelia, Entomon didn’t exist. “But . . . what he said . . . it was pretty compelling. He had documentation about Entomon and I wasn’t sure how to respond.”
“Stop saying the E-word,” Cecelia hissed, suddenly locked on Elizabeth. “I don’t want to hear that word in my office again, okay? Or anywhere else. Don’t get any ideas, Elizabeth. We’re lawyered up and ready. Don’t make me use them.”
So now she was threatening.
Elizabeth met Cecelia’s furious gaze and barely recognized the woman she’d spent so many late nights with. Cecelia’s face was under the influence of a variety of fillers, so she couldn’t make a truly angry expression, but the way her nostrils flared telegraphed rage. And something else.
Fear.
The three women sat in silence until a familiar, rhythmic wheezing filled the vacuum.
“Win, baby, are you okay?” Cecelia looked over her shoulder at the beloved Duchess mascot, Winston the English bulldog, her tone so maternal that it was hard to believe that she’d been spitting venom just a few seconds before. Winston snorted and licked his nose, then settled back to a snoring slumber.
Gwen cleared her throat and continued carefully. “We’re reclaiming your options, of course.”
The nausea hit so fast and hard that Elizabeth slapped her hand over her mouth to keep from spewing her feelings all over the artisanal, hand-distressed, reclaimed-wood conference table. Every middle-of-the-night text, endless road show, and stolen idea had been in service of the options she accrued every year. She loved the work, but the security that came with the options was her happily-ever-after.
“Wait, but how . . .” Elizabeth trailed off, unable to put her shock into words.
“‘Unexercised options forfeit upon termination with cause,’” Gwen read from the employee handbook. “And if you refer to page four of the handbook, your initials next to the behavioral agreement and your recent performance very clearly indicate that we have cause for termination.”
The “company reputation” provision. The one that seemed like a punch line, until it wasn’t.
“Cecelia, do you have anything you’d like to add?” Gwen asked.
Cecelia had moved on to studying her manicure, ten tiny red daggers that no one had the courage to tell her didn’t mesh with her crystals-and-daily-affirmations personal brand. She shook her head.
“We’ve got an exit package for you . . .” Gwen rifled through the stack of papers in front of her. “We need a signature and then Frank will escort you out.”
Not only was she getting fired, she was being forced to do a perp walk in front of her colleagues. Or, her former colleagues.
Elizabeth blinked hard when her vision started to swim. She gnawed on the inside of her cheek to derail the tears. “This is insane, Cecelia. And there’s no way I’m going to sign anything now. I need someone to read through it all. You’re taking away my options, that can’t be legal.”
“Trust me, it’s legal.” Cecelia glared at her.
“We need you to sign the termination letter today,” Gwen said, quickly de-escalating the situation. “It outlines the conditions of our separation. You can have your attorney review the rest and get them back to us by the end of the week.”
Elizabeth nodded and stared at the pile of papers on the table, worried that if she looked at Cecelia or Gwen she’d burst into tears. And there was no way she was going to break in front of them.
“Frank?” Cecelia called out when the silence got awkward. “We’re ready.”
The head of building security peeked into the room, evaluating Elizabeth with a head-to-toe sweep that made it clear he was assessing her threat level. She was now a potential criminal in their midst, capable of stealing anything from staplers to corporate secrets.
“I hope you manifest a better fit in your next position,” Cecelia said. Winston barked at Elizabeth as she walked by, cementing the fact that she was now the most hated person at Duchess.
Cecelia’s Zen-inspired open-plan office meant that all of her colleagues could see her walk of shame. She was now a cautionary tale, so of course people would steal glances at her as she left. She straightened her back, happy that she’d worn the wrist-strangling Theory blouse with epaulets on the shoulders, the one that made her look like she was part of an all-girl army. At least she was on-brand.
“I’ll wait out here, okay? You’ve got about five minutes,” Frank said softly, gesturing to the area right outside her office door. He was a buff former Navy
SEAL who took his post in Duchess as seriously as his military service. They’d always had a polite head-nodding relationship, and Elizabeth could tell he was trying to be kind despite Cecelia’s directive to get her off the premises ASAP. He handed her an empty box.
She fought through the fog of shame so she could focus on the work of cleaning out her office. She threw everything on her desk into the box: the stress balls from various vendors that she actually used, a hunk of expensive rose quartz from Cecelia, her diffuser, and the hundreds of packets of wellness dusts she poured in her daily kale smoothies. She sifted through her drawers and paused when she found what looked like a collection of flower petals in a back corner. When was the last time someone had sent her flowers?
She looked closer. It was a Pepto-Bismol wrapper.
Frank cleared his throat to signal that her time was almost up.
“I’m ready,” she called out to him.
Elizabeth met Frank at the door with just her purse slung over her shoulder.
“But where’s your stuff?”
“I don’t need any of it. Let’s go.”
Elizabeth Barnes knew that she was only the second person to be escorted out of Duchess, and she wasn’t going to make the scene any more attention-grabbing than it needed to be. Instead of carting out a box of junk like a homeless person, she pretended she was on a runway in Paris as her heels clacked through the building, shoulders back and head high. Anyone watching might think she was doing a site survey with Frank. She radiated serenity and acceptance, keeping her eyes fixed on a distant point in front of her.
Elizabeth focused on how she was going to frame what had happened on her social media accounts as she paraded through the building, past hundreds of wide eyes. Perhaps an inspirational quote about the future in a vintage typewriter font, overlaid on an image of a wave? Or a single word, like beginning, next to a flower bud? She had nothing but time to figure it out.
None of her devoted followers or former colleagues would have a clue that the second the Duchess campus vanished from her rearview mirror, she pulled over on the side of the highway and cried until her perfectly lined eyes left black tracks on the palms of her hands.
Who Rescued Who Page 1