Page 91 of Puppy Love

“Look at me. Check my blood sugar. Take my goddamn temperature if it’ll make you feel better. I’m ready. You heard Sophie—she gave me the all clear last week.”

“She cleared you to train, not to fight fires.”

Harrison grunted. “It’s the same thing.”

Sophie couldn’t step into Oscar’s tiny office without brushing her whole body against Harrison—a thing she was determinednotto do, even with the protection of her khaki pants and blue polo shirt—so she cleared her throat instead.

Both men turned at the sound, one to shoot her a look of relief, the other to freeze as though the world had suddenly turned as icy as his heart.

The frozen one spoke first. “What the devil are you doing here?” Harrison demanded.

“I came to work, obviously.” Sophie was pleased to find that her voice came out perfectly calm, although she did have to fight the anxious urge to check the state of her hair. It was all well and good to joke to her family that she didn’t care how she looked, but a pixie cut with bedhead was no laughing matter.

“Yes, but…” He trailed off, unwilling to finish that sentence in front of Oscar.

The chicken. The coward. The puppy-wearing baby.

“I assume that the air force training is a no-go today?” she asked, directing her question to Oscar. “I don’t want to get in anyone’s way, so I just popped in to make sure I’m not wanted, and then I’ll take myself off again.”

Oscar’s relief increased as he scrubbed a weary hand over his face. “Actually, you are wanted. I hate to admit it, but I could use Harrison today. Do you think he and that puppy are good to go, or is it too risky?”

One look at the flat, desolate line of Harrison’s mouth, and Sophie knew she held all the cards. He’d never admit it, but he needed her. Maybe not to make his heart whole—he obviously didn’t think her capable of that—but in a professional capacity.

It was something. Not much, but something.

“Well?” Oscar prompted. “I hate to rush the decision, but we need to get moving.”

“It’s up to him,” Sophie said, choosing her words carefully. “I have my own opinions, of course, but it’s not my call to make. If he thinks Bubbles can do it, if he feels she’s ready for this, then he’s free to do what he wants.”

“Wait—what?”

“I’m not your puppy’s keeper anymore, Harrison. You are. I even brought the paperwork to prove it.”

For one long, suspended moment, Harrison didn’t move or breathe. He held her stare for one second. For two. About halfway into the third, he crumbled.

“Goddammit, Sophie! Why are you so determined to destroy me?”

Sophie blinked, started by the violence of his reaction. “Um.”

“A normal human being would have answered with a simple yes or no. Yes, they’re ready. No, they’re not. But no. Not you.” He stared at her through those stony and oh-so-familiar eyes. “You’d never make anything that easy on me.”

“Does this mean you…don’twant the papers?”

He appeared not to hear her. “From the very start, you looked into my soul and took full measure of what’s there, didn’t you? You saw my weaknesses. You discovered how to hurt me. You learned where I bleed. And not for one fucking minute have you stopped stabbing me right there.”

She almost laughed out loud at the villainous picture he was conjuring up, but her own emotions were too raw. Mostly because he knew her weaknesses too. He knew how much she valued her independence, how important it was for her to be seen as someone strong, someone confident, someone worth loving. He knew all that and still said those horrible things to her.

Harrison Parks claimed not to be great with words, but he’d managed to cut her down with them just fine.

“Excuse me for believing you capable of making rational, adult decisions about your life,” she replied, her chest tight. “Go fight your fires, Harrison. Or don’t. Alienate yourself from everything and everyone. Or don’t. What you do with your life is no longer of any interest to me.”

There were countless more things she could have said, all of which had to do with vulnerable puppies and the even more vulnerable men who carried them, but she turned to Oscar with a nod. “I’ll stand by whatever he decides. Is there anything else you need before I go?”

It wasn’t Oscar who replied.

“You’re impossible,” Harrison said, his voice heavy with meaning. “You have been since the day I met you, and I can’t wait until I find a way to cut you out from under my skin.”

“I take that to mean you won’t be heading to the fire?” Oscar prodded.