Page 72 of Puppy Christmas

“It was a compliment!” he protested. “I don’t let my guard down with just everyone, you know. Behind this charming, hilarious facade lurks the soul of a deeply vulnerable man.”

“I do know,” she said quietly. “In fact, I’m starting to wonder if you’ve let anyone meet him.”

He didn’t have a chance to reply as a warm, wriggling body landed on his stomach with a softwhomp. More taken by surprise than by pain, he released a gasp. It was swallowed by an excited bark at his feet and an exuberant tongue on the side of his face.

The tongue wasn’t, as he’d hoped, Lila’s. He could hardly protest, however, when he finally opened his eyes to find four puppies crawling over him, their noses snuffling against his neck and hair and hands as they sought to determine whether he was friend or foe.

Friendmust have won out, because it wasn’t long before he was being overtaken by small paws and even smaller tongues. Two of them were golden retrievers, he knew, and one of them seemed like some kind of Chihuahua, but his ability to discern between them didn’t last long. They were too eager to snuffle into every nook and cranny of his head and neck, licking at him as though they hadn’t seen a human in days. There was nothing the least bit suave about a grown man covered in puppies, but he found he didn’t mind when Lila bent down and stretched herself on the concrete next to him. She released a soft breath, her head pillowed on her hands as she turned toward him.

“At the end of a long day, nothing beats a pile of puppies,” she said. “I’ve been doing this for as long as we’ve had the place. No matter what kind of day I’ve had, these little guys never fail to cheer me up.”

One of his favorite things about Lila was how the woman she presented to the world and the woman she carried inside were such vastly different people. To see her, whether she was poised in a pink ball gown or trying to scare him away in a boxy beige suit, you’d think she’d never even touched a puppy, let alone rolled around with them on a regular basis. Yet here she was, basking in four-legged comfort.

“Is that how you got into this business?” he asked. “Your love of dogs?”

“Not exactly.” One of the fluffier puppies—a white thing with a curled tail—wedged itself between them, its head buried in the soft curve of Lila’s waist. She dropped a negligent hand and began stroking the animal’s fur. “We couldn’t have pets growing up because of Sophie’s compromised immune system, so dogs were out. I’d see service animals around the hospital a lot, though. They always seemed so out of place to me—those flappy tongues and wet noses in such a sterile environment.”

“The appeal of incongruity,” he agreed. “I know it well.”

“Do you?” she asked, latching on to his understanding with eagerness. She was obviously unaware that the incongruity he spoke of, the appeal he couldn’t seem to shake, washers. “Then I’m sure you understand what I mean.”

“Tell me anyway,” he urged. Lying on the floor with puppies wasn’t exactly how he’d imagined this date would end, but he couldn’t regret the direction they’d taken.

She hesitated but allowed herself to continue. “We—all of us, Sophie and Dawn and my parents and me—spent so much time in the hospital. For a few years, it felt more like home than our actual house did. We even celebrated a few of our Christmases on the ward. It was…hard on my parents.”

He could imagine it. The agonies of uncertainty he’d suffered on Emily’s behalf, the lengths he’d go to in order to ensure her safety—he sometimes wondered what it was that parents with perfectly healthy children found to worry about.

“My mom bore the brunt of it, unfortunately,” Lila continued. “She never had much time for anything but looking after Sophie. And that was okay—don’t get me wrong. I didn’t begrudge a single minute of her time. I still don’t. Soph needed her more than I did.”

“But?” he prodded.

“But nothing,” she said and rolled onto her back. If there had been a sky overhead instead of a drop ceiling, he’d have assumed she was gazing at the stars. “It was just that I always felt better after seeing a service dog trotting along the hospital halls next to its owner, going about its day like nothing was out of the ordinary. For those service dogs, nothingwasout of the ordinary. They were happy just to be of use, to do their jobs. Nothing else mattered. That idea stuck with me long after Sophie went into remission and I went away to college. Terrible things happen and life is hard, but someone needs to keep trotting along and getting things done. Turns out, I’m really good at being that someone.”

Ford couldn’t decide if that was the best or the worst thing he’d ever heard, but he was leaning toward the latter. Terrible thingsdidhappen all the time, and life could be a real son of a bitch when it wanted to, but Lila deserved a lot more than being a service dog to someone else. In fact, it was impossible for him not to draw the parallels between her story and his own feelings for her. He’d already admitted to himself that he was drawn to her efficiency and levelheadedness, that he’d willingly hoist all his burdens onto her capable shoulders.

What the hell kind of man does that make me?

The Chihuahua-like puppy burrowed under his hand until he gave in and began running his fingers up and down her spine. “You could have become a doctor instead,” he pointed out. “That would have been the more logical progression.”

“I know. And I did half a year of premed before switching to animal behavior. I don’t know why, but I always kept coming back to this. It might be those incongruities again. Puppies are the last thing anyone associates with me, but I like them. There’s no judgment in them, no reserve. Everything they feel is right there on the surface.” She smiled as the puppy under his fingertips proved her words to perfection. The animal wriggled onto her back, her tongue lolling—happy and heavy—out the side of her mouth. “Don’t tell Sophie I said this, but she’s exactly like Pip there. I’ve always envied that about her. She feels what she feels, and she just puts it out there for anyone to see.”

“Sophie seemed nice,” Ford said.

“Dawn’s like that, too, now that I think about it. But I’d say she’s driven more by her actions than her emotions. She does what she wants to do, and people can either take it or leave it. Most of the time, they take it.”

“Don’t forget Lila.”

Lila stopped petting the fluffy white puppy. “What?”

“You’re like that, too,” he said.

“Me? No, I’m not.”

He reached for her and intertwined his fingers through hers, pausing only to lift her hand to his lips for a gentle kiss. He knew he shouldn’t let himself get drawn in like this, that it would be fairer to them both if he packed up his sorry life and let her get on with her own, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t that strong.

“I hate to break it to you, but you don’t hold much back, either,” he said. “Have you forgotten what happened the first time I ever saw you? You were telling my sobbing, brokenhearted daughter about how little she should trust a man’s teeth.”

Lila choked on a laugh. “That doesn’t count. I got carried away in the moment. I was having a rough night.”