Page 41 of Ruff and Tumble

“I knew this was going to happen,” Regina muttered. “I knew he wasn’t taking care of himself.”

Hailey rose to her feet at once. She might not know much about having siblings, but she knew that look of shock and self-reproach.

“Let me take Rufus,” she said as she lifted the puppy from Cole’s arms. Although Rufus was quick to whimper his protest, Cole didn’t appear to notice. “You guys probably want to get going.”

Regina transferred her look of anxiety to Hailey. “I’m so sorry to do this. Everything has been so lovely and delicious, but…” She gulped. “It’s our dad. He’s—”

Hailey mentally crossed her fingers and called on all the fake powers of luck that she’d been granted, but it was no use.

“He had a heart attack.” Cole blinked, his gaze not focused on anything at all. “They’re taking him to the hospital now.”

“Then you’ll want to meet him there.” Hailey spoke with a calm authority she was far from feeling. She knew all too well the overwhelming sensations that were filling them right now, the disbelief that this could be real life. She’d gotten a similar call while studying for an economics test in her University of Washington dorm room during freshman year, and the only thing that had gotten her out the door had been her roommate’s steady voice walking her through the steps needed to board the correct bus. “You can leave Philip with me. He’s getting along well with Bess, so he won’t be any trouble for a night or two. We’ll have a sleepover. Mia—?”

“Is with her nanny.” Regina was the first to recover. She reached out and gripped Hailey’s hand with so much strength that Hailey felt her fingers crack. “But thank you for thinking of her.”

“Of course.”

Cole still bore the dazed look of a man who’d been hit with a surprise sack and wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get up again, but as Regina grabbed her purse and started nudging him toward the door, he regained a hold on himself.

“Thank you for today, Hailey. All of it—the puppy draft and the food and the…” He waved his hand over her in a vague, slightly feminine-shaped gesture. “Youknow.”

She didn’t, actually, but she recognized his comment for what it was—the bewildered outburst of a man who’d just felt his world turn upside down.

“Go,” she said as she placed a hand on his back and gave him a gentle push. The ripple of his muscles underneath her touch was undeniable. So was his tension. “Philip and I will be here when—and if—you’re ready to resume our project. Don’t worry about us.”

They didn’t. As Hailey saw them out the front door, the pair of them walking side by side down the short walkway to Regina’s car, they didn’t once look back or remember her existence.

Which was only to be expected, really. She wasn’t their friend, and she wasn’t a member of their family; at this juncture, she barely even qualified as an acquaintance. Philip joined her at the screen door, dropping his football as he watched his beloved master go.

Hailey put her free hand on his head, but it didn’t seem to bring him much comfort. “I know, little buddy,” she said. “But you and I are on our own, I’m afraid. Well, you and me and Rufus.”

That didn’t do much to boost the pit bull’s mood, either. Nor, if she was being honest, did Rufus take as much comfort from her arms as he had from Cole’s.

“All I need is for Bess to start howling that she misses him, and this whole house will have reached maximum absurdity,” she said. “We’ve known him less than two weeks, you guys. Don’t start acting like fools. He was never going to be ours to keep.”

Hailey didn’t wait to watch them drive away, but it didn’t seem to matter. As she shut the door and turned to face the ruins of their quarterback-friendly dinner, she only felt worse. She should probably start cleaning up, but she suddenly felt the full weight of the long day.

“The sleepover starts right now,” she said as she sank into her couch and basked in the two warm bodies pressed in her arms and against her side. They weren’t human bodies, but they were puppy bodies, and—as Mia would be the first to point out—a reasonable alternative.

Almost.

Chapter 11

“The next person who walks in here looking like he’s attending my funeral is getting a swift kick to the head.”

Regina turned to the nurse who’d appeared in the doorway with an apologetic grimace. “I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, he said the same thing to the last three doctors who came in. And one of them has been a friend of the family for over twenty years.”

The nurse must have been accustomed to irascible old men making feeble threats from their hospital beds, because all he did was chuckle and make his way inside, his head bent over the chart in his hand. “If you can manage to reach my head from your current position, then I’ll start the discharge papers myself. How’s that?”

The nurse’s cheerful voice did little to improve their dad’s mood. “Get a little closer, and we’ll see what I can do.”

“I’m not falling for that one so easily. This isn’t my first rodeo.” The nurse checked as soon as he looked up and noticed Cole standing over his father’s bedside. He blinked and swallowed and said the inevitable. “Holy shit. You’re Cole Bennett.”

Cole resisted the urge to deny this claim and stuck out his hand instead, taking note of the man’s name tag as he did. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ah, Kenny, is it? You have my permission to treat this bitter old man the same way you would any patient who doesn’t do what he’s told. I hear restraints are an option.”

As Cole had hoped, this remark helped the nurse regain some of his composure. Kenny laughed slightly and managed, “Oh, I’m sure he’ll be no trouble once we get him comfortable.”

Cole grimaced. “I’m not.”