Page 100 of Puppy Love

“Harrison, do you have the—?”

She didn’t have to finish the question, as Harrison was already scooping up his puppy with a water bottle in one hand. He poured a cascade in front of the animal’s mouth, allowing her to lap greedily until the initial pangs of her thirst wore away.

“You are never going to do that to me again, do you understand, young lady? I’ve been out of my mind since I woke up this morning.” He glanced anxiously over at Sophie. “She’s okay. Is she okay? She looks okay.”

“Everything looks intact, anyway,” she replied. When that answer won her nothing but a sharp look of rebuke, she added, “I’m not a vet, Harrison. I’m just a dog trainer. And a pretty good one, if I do say so myself.”

“The devil you are.” Harrison’s oath carried zero malice—a thing that was obvious while he continued to allow Bubbles to wriggle and lick rapturously at his face. “You trained this animal to believe I can’t live without you. I always knew there was something wrong with the way you conducted your business.”

“I beg your pardon. Puppy Promise is a one-of-a-kind organization that you were lucky to find. You think we find last-minute placements and training programs for just anyone?”

He took a step closer. “Oscar made you do it.”

She took a step closer too. “No way. Oscar might be the boss of you, but he isn’t in charge of me. No one is.”

“Well, obviously. I’ve known that since day one. The only thing I can’t understand is why you let anyone tell you otherwise.” He drew a long breath. “I’m really sorry, Sophie—for what I said the other day about you not being strong, about you not knowing what it’s like to struggle. I was… Well, shit. I was hurting, and I was scared of losing you. I still am, to be honest. I can’t think of anything worse.”

A sob caught in her throat, preventing her from speech.

“I know why the people in your life are overprotective, and it’s not because they think you’re weak.” He lifted a hand toward her, but when she still couldn’t move to return the gesture, he dropped it. “It’s because they can’t imagine a world without you in it.”

“Oh, Harrison,” she said feebly. It was everything and nothing—and for some reason, her inability to put her feelings into words only caused Harrison to open up even more.

“You saved this dog today,” he said. “You saved me. You called on the power of every godforsaken person under the sun and made them come to my aid. Believe me when I say that they wouldn’t have bothered for anyone else.”

That got Sophie to set her jaw. “Bullshit.”

He almost dropped the puppy in his surprise. He also almost dropped the puppy when a logging truck whisked past, stirring up cold air and a whirl of dust.

But he didn’t drop her. From the looks of it, he wasn’t going to let that poor animal out of his sight for months.

“What did you just say?”

“Bullshit,” she echoed, louder this time. “Every single person out there today would have come for your sake. Derek and Jessica and all the DNR crew. Oscar and that weird, skinny kid with his pants on backward. My sisters. My mother.Yourmother.”

He paused at the mention of his long-lost parent, but Sophie wasn’t buying it. Not now. Not after he’d reluctantly, begrudgingly, oh-so-wholeheartedly professed his love for her in front of his sisters. He might like to pretend that he was a closed book and that no one was allowed to touch the pain he buried deep inside, but she knew better.

He was a marshmallow. He always had been.

“They like you,” she said. “They respect you. The only problem is that you refuse to let any of them in long enough to do something about it. Yes, I know—people leave and people make mistakes and people let you down. So what? Open the door anyway. Step out from behind that wall and see what it feels like to have other people take care of you for a while. I think you might get used to it. In fact, I think you might actually like it.”

Mentioning the wall had the effect of shutting him down. She could see it happening, was watching the transformation with her very own eyes. His eyes went stony. His mouth became a hard line. His shoulders came up.

And then, without a single word, it stopped.

“Okay.”

She stopped as well, too startled by his sudden capitulation to do more than blink at him. “Okay?”

“Okay.” A smile moved across his face. It was the real one—the devastating one. “I like the sound of that, but only if you promise to keep me company in there.”

“Wait—what? That actually worked?”

Harrison tucked Bubbles under one arm and took the final step toward her. He was as exhausted as she was, drained both physically and emotionally, and it showed in every weathered line of his face. The shadow of his beard hinted of dark deeds, and his bull-like stance was as powerful as always, but none of that mattered. No matter how many times she searched his eyes, she didn’t see any sign of the wall. Once again, she’d managed to get him to tear it down.

But this time, he’d taken it down it for good.

“I still think you’re going to push me and poke me and make my life generally uncomfortable,” he said.