Page 19 of Puppy Love

Partially to avoid having to respond to Harrison and partially because she reallywasworried about Bubbles, she sank to her knees near the bed to peek at the puppy for herself. If the room was grubby, the floor was even more so, with several dust bunnies bigger than Bubbles wafting about underneath. Bubbles hid behind one now, only distinguishable by the dark flash of her wide, terrified eyes.

“Come on, love.” She waited until her own eyes adjusted before shifting to her stomach. Now that she was officially on the job, she wore her usual dog-training attire of khaki pants and their official company polo shirt. There was no chance she’d give Harrison a free peep show.

Not that he’d be the least bit interested in one from me anyway.

“We have lots of work to do today,” she said, adopting the voice of one settling in for a long, comfortable chat. Her ability to hold long, one-sided conversations was a real boon in this line of work. Most dogs, like most people, just wanted to feel as though they weren’t alone. Nothing helped stave off anxiety better than someone chatting away at you as though everything was just fine.

It was a thing she’d learned from personal experience. During her long hospitalizations as a kid, she’d most looked forward to visits from her sisters. With the exception of their parents, they were the only people who didn’t tiptoe around her. They’d done what sisters do best: bickered and complained and generally made pests of themselves.

In moments of vulnerability, nothing was more comforting than bickering sisters. It was a proven fact.

“Rock sends his love by the way.” She used her forearms, army-crawl style, to pull herself even farther under the bed. Harrison was so large that he hadn’t been able to wedge his body very far under here, but she was small enough that she could scoot toward the back where Bubbles stood shivering in a corner. Sophie took one look at that panting, heaving little darling and kept talking. “Actually, I lied. He sends his hate. I’m not sure he’ll ever forgive you for going away. Oh, I know he always acted like he couldn’t stand you, all growly and mean whenever you wanted to play, but you’ve never seen anyone so forlorn now that you’re gone. What do you think he did once he realized you weren’t just out for a walk or getting some training?” She paused a second, as if waiting for Bubbles’s response. “He howled. Like, legit howled. He set off a chain reaction through the whole place.”

She thought she heard Harrison make a noise from somewhere behind her, but she ignored it. Already Bubbles was reacting to the calm friendliness of her voice, allowing herself to be coaxed out of the corner.

“He keeps peeking into your kennel when he thinks no one is watching. I bet he’s hoping you’ll show up underneath a blanket or behind the water dish. I didn’t have the heart to tell him you’ve got a big, important job now and won’t be coming back. It’ll break his poor puppy heart.”

Bubbles pulled forward enough for Sophie to get a hand out for her to sniff.

“Yes, I can see that makes you happy. You had poor Rock wrapped around your little paw, didn’t you? You left a trail of broken hearts back there, you know. Everyone is rooting for you to succeed. You just can’t see it the way we do.”

That last bit of encouragement did the trick, drawing the puppy out enough so Sophie could give her a reassuring pat. As soon as she made physical contact, the fight was over. With one swipe of her tiny pink tongue on Sophie’s finger, Bubbles lost the last of her fear. Sophie scooped the animal carefully in one hand and crawled out from under the bed.

“Ta-da!” she cried, holding the Pomeranian up like a trophy. “See what I mean? She’s not unmanageable. She needs a little extra encouragement, that’s all.”

Her feeling of triumph lasted all of six seconds. She glanced up at Harrison in hopes of being showered with his gratitude, but he was frowning down at the pair of them like a reluctant executioner whose hand was about to be forced.

Sophie didn’t go so far as to quake like Bubbles under the bed, but a definite frisson ran up her spine—not of fear, of course, but of the deep, terrible realization that she’d royally screwed the pooch.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

“This was a mistake.” Sophie spoke up before Harrison could say anything. She couldn’t bear to hear it from his own lips—that Bubbles wasn’t going to be good enough, that Sophie had failed before she even began.

It was going to be awful, crawling back like this, but what else could she do? They were right. All of them—Lila and Dawn and her parents and Oscar. She wasn’t equipped to work on a case like this one. She’d failed to properly communicate with the client. She’d been so dead set on Bubbles proving everyone wrong that she’d proven herself wrong in the process.

Poor, little, fluffy Sophie. You aren’t meant for the real jobs, but I’m sure someone would love to take you on as a pet.

“I honestly thought Bubbles would be a good fit for you, but I can see that I was wrong,” she said. Her lower lip was showing an alarming tendency to quiver, but she forced herself to hold it together. “You obviously have needs that she and I can’t meet. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”

With a start, Harrison reached out and plucked the puppy out of Sophie’s grasp. She barely had time to notice what had happened before he curled his arms around the animal in a protective cocoon.

“What?” he demanded. “You’re taking her away?”

“I thought…” Sophie glanced around, bewildered. Her gaze skimmed over the worn wallpaper and gentle decay of the house before landing back on Harrison. It was such a strange combination, this faded farmhouse and the glorious man contained within it, but somehow it fit. “You were upset. You said she’s no good.”

“I said thesituationisn’t good. And it’s not—I spent half my damn morning crawling around on my hands and knees trying to convince this puppy I’m not out to light her on fire.”

Sophie blinked. The harsh words and guttural way he uttered them should have sent her running. He was all those things Oscar had warned her about and more—gruff and rough and uncompromising. In fact, he was the last man on earth to whom she’d willingly hand over something as precious and vulnerable as a baby Pomeranian.

But he hadn’t shifted his position. If anything, he’d curled himself even more around the puppy, placing himself between the animal and Sophie.

He was protecting the dog. He was protecting the dog fromher.

“It might not be possible for her to get over this kind of fear,” Sophie said, eyeing him as one might a baited bear. “I can do my best to work with her, obviously, but I can’t promise it will be a success.”

“Well, you can’t just take her away from me.”

“Um.”