Page 25 of Puppy Love

“Does that mean you pushed him today? Enough to get the wall down, anyway?” Dawn propped her chin in her hand and watched Sophie with a gleam in her eyes. “How?”

Sophie’s grin turned into a giggle. “I threatened to take away his puppy.”

It was a credit to both her sisters that she didn’t have to explain the joke. The idea that Sophie could physically wrestanythingaway from a six-foot tank of a man was preposterous in the extreme. The fact that they were talking about a two-pound Pomeranian puppy only made it that much funnier.

“But I can hardly do that every day. Especially not now that he knows what I’m doing. That’s why I’m asking for your input. I don’t have enough experience with men like Harrison Parks.” Or, if she was being perfectly honest, with men in general. “What else can I do that will send him over the edge?”

Dawn opened her mouth to respond, but Lila forestalled her with a stern look and some advice of her own. “Correct him when he’s wrong and don’t be modest about it. Tell him to smile more. Talk about religion and politics every chance you get, and always act like you’re an expert. Critique his driving. And above all else, never apologize for anything, even—especially—if you’re the one at fault.”

Sophie eyed her oldest sister with a growing sense of wonder. “You didn’t even have to stop and think about any of those.”

“Of course I didn’t.” Lila picked the napkin out of her lap and daintily dabbed the corners of her mouth. “Those are all the things that men do to annoyme. It’ll serve one of them right to have the tables turned for a change. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to run to the ladies’ room.”

Sophie didn’t dare look at Dawn until their sister had woven through the tables and disappeared around a corner. And a good thing too, because the moment their eyes met, they fell into a peal of laughter that drew the attention of every patron in the place.

“Well, crap,” Sophie said. “How long do you think she’s been harboring that particular grudge?”

“Years, at the very least. Poor Lil. She’s too good for ninety-nine percent of the men on this planet. Then again, so are you. The only difference is that you haven’t realized it yet.” The gleam was back in Dawn’s eyes. “Are yousureyou’re only interested in driving him the bad kind of crazy? I wasn’t kidding about how attractive he is, Soph. Men like that don’t come around every day—believe me, I know.”

“Um.” She bit her lip. “Maybe you’d better go over that exposed-shoulder thing before Lila gets back. Just so I know I understand it.”

The irrepressible dimple broke out in Dawn’s cheek. “Oh, Sophie. The shoulder is only the beginning. Just wait until we get to the midriff.”

Chapter 7

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?”

At the sound of Oscar’s voice, Harrison glanced up from the kitchen table, a scowl on his face and a sharp pair of scissors in his hand. If it weren’t for the puppy napping blissfully on his lap, he might have jumped to his feet and used the scissors as a makeshift shiv.

Relentlessly. And with absolute glee.

“You heartless bastard,” he said. “I’m surprised you dare to show your face here after what you’ve done to me.”

“What I’ve done to you?” Oscar tsked gently and lowered himself into the nearest chair. It spoke volumes about their history together that he’d willingly put himself so close to a potential stabbing. “You mean when I called in a personal favor and laid out a huge chunk of my annual DNR budget to keep your sorry ass alive and on the job? You’re right. What was I thinking?”

It was a rhetorical question, so Harrison didn’t bother answering. The next question, however, was more pointed.

“Is that the infamous puppy?”

Harrison glanced down at Bubbles, who was showing signs of waking. It was always a production with her, her tiny limbs twitching, her tinier tongue stretching as she yawned. Awake she might be, but she wouldn’t move from his lap, that much he knew for sure. It was warm there, and the damn dog wouldn’t stop shivering.

And who could blame her? There was a faulty latch on the back door that caused it to swing open at the first sign of a gust of wind, so the blasted thing had been open half the night. The baseboard heaters were older than Harrison was, and the fireplace obviously wasn’t an option. He had no other choice.

“Bubbles, meet the man who betrayed me. Judas, meet the ferocious rescue puppy you’ve saddled me with for the rest of my life.”

“Aw, she’s a cute little thing, isn’t she?” Oscar said, ignoring Harrison’s commentary. He turned his attention to the project Harrison had laid out on the table. “Why are you cutting holes in your socks?”

He waved the scissors at Oscar. “If you know what’s good for you, you won’t ask that question.”

Oscar shrugged. “Suit yourself. Is Wallace around?”

“No, he went into town to run a few errands.”

“And by that, you mean he’s sitting alone at the bar in the bowling alley?”

Harrison glanced at the clock above the stove and snorted. “At eight thirty in the morning? Of course he is. The alternative is to sit around the house all day with me.”

Silence descended over the pair of them, broken only by the snuffling sounds of Bubbles coming to full awareness. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, but itwasheavy. Long before Oscar had become his boss, he’d been his father’s best friend. He knew all of their secrets, all of their problems—including the toll a long period of enforced inactivity was having on a man like Wallace Parks. Without the promise of his job, his dad had nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no one to do it with. And for the first time in his long, miserable life, he was forced to realize it.