A Puppy's Tale

by Valerie Hansen

  “Well, don’t tell the kids I have to discipline—or my staff, either. I don’t want them thinking I’m a pushover for that sad-eyed puppy look.”

  Laughing softly, Krista turned her head. She rested her cheek on his arm, purposely widened her gaze and batted her lashes. “You mean like this?”

  Mark’s initial surprise was followed seconds later by a hearty chuckle. “I think you need a little more practice, honey. That’s more of a deer-in-the-headlights expression. Or maybe a calf with indigestion.”

  She elbowed him in the ribs. “Thanks a bunch, mister. You really know how to make a girl feel attractive.”

  “You don’t need to try to look pretty,” he said. “You just are. All the time. When I first met you, I thought it would be impossible for you to grow more beautiful the way you have. And it’s not all on the outside, either. You’re gorgeous...all the way to your soul.”

  “I have a long way to go, but I am trying. A lot has changed in the past two years. For a while, I was pretty mad at God for leaving me alone with a child to raise.”

  “I can understand that. I had trouble letting go of my dreams when the woman I loved married somebody else.”

  Krista’s pulse sped up. Her hands trembled. She stared. This wasn’t the first time Mark had alluded to being in love with her. This was, however, the first time she’d listened to him say it and hadn’t had an immediate urge to flee.

  What was happening? What about all her promises to herself to stay single? What about the heartache of marrying the wrong man? Who was to say life with Mark would be any different? Above all, what about Bobby? If she thought she had trouble with the boy now, what would he act like if she announced an intention to wed Mark Vanbruger?

  Then again, Krista added, who said anything about getting married? Amused at the way her imagination had taken Mark’s simple comment and turned it into a serious proposal, she smiled, closed her eyes and sighed.

  “Maybe God doesn’t want you to be alone anymore,” Mark whispered. He leaned down and kissed her gently. “I know I’m probably rushing things, but will you marry me?”

  Krista gasped the moment she felt the touch of his warm lips. Her eyes flew open. “Will I—will I what?”

  “Marry me. I’m ready to take on everybody—you, Bobby and Puddles.” He began to smile and drew her closer. “You already said I’m good with the dog. That’s one down and two to go.”

  Krista felt as if an enormous stone was being lifted off her heart. Caressing Mark’s cheek, she slipped her hand to the back of his neck and encouraged him to kiss her again. And again. Being in his embrace seemed the most natural thing in the world, as if they had always been meant for each other. They had each taken a long detour, yet the Lord had brought them back together. There was only one remaining obstacle. And it was a dandy.

  Gazing at him with all the love she’d so recently acknowledged, Krista said, “That’s two down and one to go. All we have to do now is convince Bobby. And I don’t have a clue how we’re going to do that.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Puddles’s paws still hurt when Krista, Mark and Bobby brought him home the following afternoon. He was too happy to care.

  Oh, boy, oh boy! Home. I was lonesome. I could see a cat in another cage. It hissed when I barked. Real unfriendly. Lazy, too. Bor-r-ring.

  He sniffed the grass when Krista put him down, then he looked up at the humans.

  All my favorite people came to get me. That’s so wonderful. Bobby looks kind of sad but his mama and that nice Mark seem to be getting along really well. Look! They’re holding hands. Ooooh! I wish he’d bite her nose or lick her cheek so I could tell if they’re serious about each other. Wouldn’t that be great? Imagine! Bobby would have a daddy and I’d have a whole family to take care of.

  Wagging his tail and walking gingerly, he approached the little boy. Don’t be shy, Bobby. I forgive you. The doctor says I’ll be good as new soon. She was nice. I didn’t know ladies could be vets. Imagine that.

  Bobby smoothed the puppy’s fur. “He’s not mad at me, is he, Mama?”

  “No, honey. Puddles loves you. I think he knows you didn’t mean to make him walk too far. I’m just thankful you remembered the way home.”

  Tell her what happened. Tell her I did my job. Please? His tail wagged faster.

  “It wasn’t me,” Bobby said. “I was lost. I followed Puddles.”

  Goody, you gave me the credit. Not that I want to brag, mind you, but we sheepdogs have a family reputation to uphold. I just hope I’m a little bigger and stronger before I have to rescue you from a wolf! Oooh, that’s scary.

  Reaching down, Krista petted him, too. Puddles wiggled all over.

  Can we all go back in the house? Huh? Can we? I was too tired to play the last time. There’s a lot of exploring I haven’t done. And the rugs are soft in there. Grass prickles.

  “This is a very smart dog,” Krista said. “Not only did he help you when you were lost, he’s also good at figuring things out. For instance, he can tell you who’s nice and who isn’t.”

  Now you’re talkin’. How about a cookie for such a good dog? I love cookies.

  The boy was nodding slowly, cautiously, and looking from his mother to Mark and back again. His eyes widened with awareness. “No way.”

  Oh, now I get it. C’mon, Bobby. This guy is just what we need. He’s smart, and strong and, and... Hey, Bobby, where’re you going? Wait for me!

  Puddles struggled to follow. Falling behind, he barked for attention.

  “Arf, arf!” Bobby, don’t spoil our new family. Listen to me. Have I ever steered you wrong?

  Bobby hesitated, looking back.

  That’s it. Good. Now watch closely. I’m gonna demonstrate. First I’ll get Mark moving. Then I’ll go after Mama Krista. I’ll herd them together and bring them both to you.

  Awed, the family watched Puddles’s intense concentration. Forgetting to favor his feet, he circled around Mark, barking, and urged him closer to the others. By the time he started to herd Krista, she had apparently figured out his plan because she quickly went to her son and stood beside him. Satisfied, panting, the little dog dropped to the ground in a perfect herding pose and stared at the little group of humans.

  There. Gotcha. Now stay where you belong so I don’t have to go through all that chasing and barking again. It’s exhausting!

  Krista laughed. “Don’t you get it, guys? We’ve just been rounded up like a flock of naughty sheep.” She put one arm around Bobby’s shoulders and slipped the other around Mark’s waist. “They say the Lord sometimes works in mysterious ways. This is certainly one of those times, isn’t it?”

  She gave her son a hug and kissed him on the top of the head. “Cheer up, honey. You and I may get confused sometimes, but Puddles knows best. He obviously thinks we belong with Mark, and so do I. Permanently.”

  The look of bewilderment on Bobby’s face was so funny Puddles wished dogs could laugh out loud the way people did.

  Don’t worry, kid, he thought, panting. Mark’ll be a wonderful father by the time you and I get through breaking him in. I can hardly wait to get started!

  * * * * *

  SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM

  Love Inspired® Suspense

  Addie Ricci once trusted Evan Hawke with her heart—but will she ever trust him with the truth?

  Read on for a sneak peek at the newest book in Jill Lynn’s Colorado Grooms series, Her Hidden Hope, coming soon from Love Inspired!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Evan Hawke no longer considered a particular place home, but the city of Westbend, Colorado—where he’d spent his childhood—was fighting him on that idea like a boxer with a mean left hook. Everything about the frozen-in-time Main Street and the mighty silhouette of the Rocky Mountains lining the west shouted Familiar, known, welcome back. Everything inside him shouted Don’t get too attached.

  He stepped inside Herbert’s Hardware store, momentarily forgetting his golden retriever Belay was attached like a
bur to his left pant leg—the one that hid the prosthesis below his knee and allowed him to go through life with a semblance of normalcy.

  No doubt Herb preferred no animals inside, and since Belay wasn’t a full-on guide dog, she didn’t count. Some stores didn’t care either way, but Evan didn’t like to push or draw attention. He could walk fine without Belay, had been doing so for years. But he hadn’t known how much he needed the girl until she’d bounded into his world unapologetically after failing her guide-dog training.

  “Come on, Bel.” The day was in the mid-fifties and the sun was out. Even with yesterday’s dump of late spring snow, Belay would be fine waiting for him outside. Evan never had to worry about her bothering anyone. The opposite was more often true—people didn’t leave Belay alone. She was too much sunshine wrapped up in one animal—too hard for passing kids and adults to ignore.

  Back outside, he found a dry patch for her under the awning. The snow was already turning to rivers, rushing like rapids down the street, splashing under car tires. “Lay.” Belay obeyed but kept her head off the ground, perked, waiting to see if he’d change his mind. He tied her leash to the bike rack, just in case. “I’ll be back in a minute. You’ll be all right.”

  Her nose drooped as if she were a beauty queen he’d kicked out of a contest.

  Back inside, warmth caused him to unbutton his lined flannel. Evan snagged a cart and scooted through the aisles until he found the tile he’d be installing at his mom’s house. Herbert’s didn’t have an array of colors or shapes or sizes, but Evan was a simple man, and he’d begun fixing up his mom’s place accordingly. He and his brother Jace had agreed to the plan before he’d started patching what could be patched and repairing what needed to be repaired. As long as it was livable and clean and sellable, they’d be good to go.

  He was far more of an outdoorsman than indoor, but his mom’s house had been sitting for three months after her death, and he and Jace had decided it was time. Time to renovate. Time to sell. Time to bury another part of their mother.

  Deep, dark aching sadness like he’d only experienced once before to that level filled his throat, and the tiles swirled and changed shapes in front of him. He’d made it back to see his mom twice before she passed. At the end, when the doctor had told Evan to get home, that she was failing quickly, he’d done exactly that, but it had been too late to say goodbye.

  It was hard not to regret that now. Hard not to regret a lot of things.

  Jace was busy training to be an EMT. It had taken his brother some time to figure out what he wanted to do after retiring from bull riding, and Evan was just glad he’d picked another low-key profession. Insert eye roll. Not that he could blame his brother for needing the tick-tick of a kicked-up heart rate or the surge of adrenaline.

  They both experienced that same tug.

  Which explained why Evan climbed mountains and led groups of trauma victims past the edge of reason and into uncharted waters. There was something healing about doing what you couldn’t or shouldn’t do.

  What didn’t make sense to anyone else.

  His mom, somehow, had understood that. Another reason he missed her.

  Jace and his wife, Mackenzie, had already done enough getting rid of things and purging, cleaning out Mom’s place. It was Evan’s turn to step up.

  He hefted the boxes he needed into his cart, then added a container of grout and some spacers. Footsteps pitter-pattered down his aisle, and a little boy—toddler aged—stopped next to him.

  “Hi.” He shoved the roll of blue painting tape in his hand up to Evan like he was offering a gift to a king.

  “Hi.” Evan smiled. The kid had chocolate hair that sloped across his forehead and matching eyes filled with curiosity. His golden russet skin made Evan’s barely-able-to-hold-a-tan ruddy complexion pale in comparison.

  “Thanks, but you keep the tape.” Evan raised a palm to encourage the boy to hold on to his find, but the kid thrust the item at him again. Not sure what to do, he flipped his hand over. The boy dropped the tape into his palm and then scooted a few steps down the aisle. Removing a mixing paddle from its hook, he trotted back to Evan and placed that in his hand too. Before he could protest, the boy quickly added knee pads and a foam sponge to his loot.

  Did this kid have a mom or dad nearby? A scan of the aisle didn’t reveal anyone. Should he go up front and tell the person behind the counter? If someone wasn’t looking for the boy now, they surely would be any minute.

  While the tyke occupied himself by destroying any organization on the shelf near his level, Evan stealthily set down the items he’d been gifted and continued filling his cart with the supplies he needed. He wouldn’t leave the store without saying anything, but at the same time, he had work to get back to.

  When the little boy took a step into the main, larger aisle along the back of the store, a woman called out. “Sawyer! There you are. Remember you can’t leave Mommy. You have to stay right by me in the store.” There was something so familiar about the woman’s voice…or maybe Evan just recognized that concerned mom/stressed wobble he’d heard her stifle. But she had managed to keep herself calm and not rage at the kid for disappearing. Evan respected that. His mom had been calm too. She’d had a lot to deal with, especially with Dad, but she’d always been good to her sons.

  Dad, on the other hand, had been pretty worthless before getting himself killed in a bar brawl. Perhaps that was one of the reasons it wasn’t easy for Evan to come home. Jaded memories like that didn’t leave a kid when you asked nicely and said please. They stuck around for the long haul. Made it hard to remember that he and Jace had made something of themselves that their dad didn’t deserve one ounce of credit for.

  The boy, sensing he was about to be caught, made a break for it down the aisle Evan still occupied. Should he get out of the way? Block?

  Instinct had him slowly easing his cart so that it fit the whole space. The toddler had to pause to devise a new escape plan, and it gave his mom enough time to catch up to him. She swung him up into her arms.

  “Sawyer, you have to stay by Mommy.” Her eyes flashed to Evan’s. “Thanks for the assist.” Shock registered in her slacked jaw, and all five foot three inches of her froze. A whole truckload of Evan’s past rammed into him in the form of the lithe woman with waterfall black hair and honey-brown skin, compliments of her Filipino American heritage.

  “Addie.” Her name croaked out of him.

  “I didn’t know you were in town.”

  They said the exact same thing at the exact same time.

  “Hi.” The boy—Sawyer—obviously hadn’t had any lessons about uncomfortable situations, because he squirmed to be let down while greeting Evan once again. Or maybe the little tyke knew just what he was doing cracking the ice that had quickly formed.

  “Hi.” Evan’s response seemed to placate him, because he lifted his hand to wave, then studied his own little fingers.

  She put him down on the ground, and he snatched up the blue tape, holding it in Addie’s direction. “I want tape, Mommy. Bue tape.”

  “You can get your bue tape, but I need you to stay in this aisle for me, okay?”

  “Okay, Mommy.” Sawyer began stacking and knocking over the items he’d previously removed from the bins and hooks.

  “So you’re…visiting?” Addie’s question was burdened with so much more than the innocent words, and Evan didn’t blame her. The same curiosity pressed down on him.

  “Yeah. I live in Chattanooga, Tennessee.” Though most of the time his apartment was empty while he traveled and led groups across the U.S. “I’m back because my mom died.” That probably wasn’t the best way to make that kind of announcement, but his brain was nowhere near working condition right now. Addie had always had that effect on him. He’d been hooked on her from the first time they’d met after the rodeo one night. He’d been dating Maisy Tilly at the time, but after one conversation with Addie, he’d broken up with Maisy.

  He still didn’t think Maisy ha
d forgiven him for that.

  “I heard that. I’m so sorry, Evan.”

  “Thanks. I miss her.” Again with the randomness coming from his mouth. Evan wasn’t usually the most sensitive or emotional of creatures, but walking smack into his past messed with his vocal cords. And his ability to think, process or move, it seemed, because he was still glued to the same position he’d been in when they’d recognized each other. He peeled his hand from the cart and dropped it to his side, begging the limb to act as if it knew how to function in social situations. “I’m getting her house ready to sell. Jace and Mackenzie—my brother and his wife—did a bunch of the purging work already. And now I’m just here for the final touches.” How many things could Evan spit out that Addie didn’t care to know about him? “What about you?” He managed to stem the onslaught of useless info by changing the direction of the conversation.

  “I live here now.” Why did that shock him so much? It almost…hurt. What a strange reaction. “I’m reopening the bed-and-breakfast.”

  During the summers in high school, Addie had lived at Little Red Hen Bed & Breakfast with her mom’s cousin Alice and her husband, Benji, whom she affectionately referred to as Tita and Tito.

  But after that last summer, when she’d met Evan and things had gone so incredibly wrong so fast…Evan wasn’t sure she’d ever return.

  “Benji and Alice were always good to you.”

  Moisture pooled in those eyes that were a bottomless, dark well of things that had been and were no more. They pulled him in and latched on tight.

  “They were. That’s why I’m reopening the place. Because it’s what they wanted and what I wanted, and I just had to…” She shrugged. “I had to make that happen.”

  “Is that what your supplies are for?” She’d left her cart at the end of the aisle when she’d stopped to capture Sawyer, but it was filled with home-improvement supplies.

  Sawyer handed Addie a random assortment of his finds, and she absentmindedly accepted. “Yeah. Tita and Tito sold the B & B about two years ago. Tito had already been sick for a while at that point, and after he passed, Tita didn’t last long. It was as if her heart didn’t have a reason to keep pumping without him. The new owners started fixing up the bed-and-breakfast, but they didn’t get far before running out of money and defaulting on the loan. So I’m finishing the projects they started and trying to freshen things up before I hopefully reopen in time for Old Westbend Weekend.” She winced. “I’ve actually already taken some reservations for that weekend, so I don’t really have a choice. It has to get done.”