Puppy Love Read online

  “No way. I’m not calling her that.”

  “What? Bubbles?” Laughter welled up in her throat. He was totally afraid of her adorableness. “Or precious little ball o’ fluff?”

  His only answer was a snort. Well, that and another one of those wary looks at the puppy.

  “What’s wrong?” Sophie asked. “She’s just a honey-bunny banana muffin.”

  “What?”

  “The fluffiest lady in fluffy town.”

  “Now see here,” he commanded. “You might be able to force this animal on me, but you can’t make me say any of that.”

  No, she couldn’t. Sophie couldn’t make anybody do anything. She couldn’t even get rid of those pushy satellite TV salesmen who still tried door-to-door tactics. The last time someone had asked her to switch cable companies, she’d ended up serving him lemonade and buying 230 sports channels that she and her sisters never watched.

  None of that seemed to matter to this man. He was a good head taller than her, outweighed her by the size of the Great Dane puppy, and wore a scowl that could have stripped paint from the walls. But as she took a step closer, he only shook his head in a frantic effort to keep her at bay. It made her feel unexpectedly powerful. Unexpectedly good.

  “Don’t say any more,” he warned. “I can’t be held responsible for my actions if you do.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, feeding off that sense of power, feeling herself coming alive under it. “I can take it.”

  And then he smiled—for real this time.

  Her heart suddenly felt three sizes too big for her chest. She’d known smiles to change a man’s appearance before, but not like this. This wasn’t a charming smile or a kind smile or even a dashing smile. It was devastating, plain and simple. All those lines and creases, the well-worn care that was etched so deeply into his skin—they disappeared only to be replaced by an expression so startlingly warm and inviting that Sophie had no choice but to fall right in.

  “Sweet, soft snookums,” she said somewhat breathlessly. She could have stopped there, but the urge to babble overcame her. In all honesty, it was a wonder that she was able to speak at all. “Plush princess paddywinkle. Beautiful bitty baby Bubbles.”

  That last one broke him. The smile vanished, but only because it lifted into a laugh.

  “Oh, hell no,” he said. His voice was no less gravelly than it had been before, that deep sound rumbling throughout the kennel, but Sophie detected something new—something alive—underscoring it. “If you think I’m going to stand here and let you make a fool out of me, you’re sorely mistaken. I’m taking that goddamn Great Dane home with me, and nothing you do or say will stop me.” It was said like a dare—almost as if he wanted her to try. Were they…flirting?

  Unfortunately, there was no time to find out. Just as she was about to gamely rise to his bait, a voice spoke up from behind them.

  “I beg your pardon?” Her sister Lila’s voice, normally so polished, acted like a shock of cold water over the proceedings. Sophie turned to find her standing at the top of the steps leading from the kennel to the house they shared. “Is there a problem out here?”

  Sophie did her best to put on her usual bright smile, but Lila wasn’t looking at her. Her oldest sister—a tall, statuesque beauty who could command the attention of an entire room simply by walking into it—was staring at Harrison with a look that would have done their mother proud. It told Harrison that if he said one more word, goddamned or otherwise, he’d risk the full weight of her wrath.

  Of course, when she spoke, her words were nothing but professional.

  “I’m terribly sorry if there’s been a misunderstanding,” she said, and moved elegantly down the steps. Each click of her heels on the cement carried its own warning. “Perhaps I can be of assistance.”

  “Assistance?” Harrison echoed. All signs of laughter and friendliness had been wiped from his face, replaced once again by the hard wall that he had carried in here.

  Lila inclined her head in slight acknowledgment. “Yes. Did I hear you correctly when you stated your preference for the Great Dane over Sophie’s selection?”

  “You mean Rock?”

  Lila nodded.

  “Rock. Yes. Rock.” Harrison swallowed heavily, glancing back and forth between the sisters. “That’s the one I want. The one that’s too big to squish.”

  Lila smiled, but it didn’t touch her eyes. She tsked softly. “You have good taste, but I’m afraid he’s not available. He’s already been assigned to another case. I’m sure Sophie explained that to you already.”

  “Actually, I—” Sophie caught Lila’s eye and clamped her mouth shut. Of course. It hadn’t even occurred to her to try a discreet lie. When a client wanted what they couldn’t have, you were supposed to redirect them, not antagonize them. Why didn’t I think of that? “Um, no. I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”

  “So it would seem. Mr. Parks, why don’t you come inside with me and we’ll work it out? There’s no need to upset the puppies with all this arguing.”

  “He wasn’t arguing.” Sophie tried to explain but was once again quelled by a look from Lila. What else could she do? Technically, he had been arguing—and she’d been egging him on. She’d been loving it.

  What is wrong with me?

  “This is all my boss’s fault,” Harrison said. His words were abrupt, his movements even more so. “I didn’t even want a dog in the first place.”

  “It’s a tricky business, matching people and puppies,” Lila said, trying to soothe. “Every temperament is different—even we don’t always get it right on the first try. Do we, Soph?”

  Sophie knew that her sister was only trying to make up for this intrusion, including her in the conversation so she wouldn’t lose all her professional footing in front of the client, but she couldn’t help but feel miserable. What Lila really meant—and what Lila would never say—was that Sophie didn’t always get it right on the first try.

  She managed a weak smile. “No, it’s not always easy.”

  “There. You see?” Lila extended her hand toward Harrison. “Come inside. We’ll be more comfortable having this conversation in the kitchen.”

  “No.” He jerked back as though Lila had shot a lightning bolt from her fingertips. “I mean, no thank you. I’m leaving. That puppy can’t… There’s no way I…”

  He paused and took one of Sophie’s deep breaths, a thing she might have appreciated if not for the look of painful reproach he shot her as he did it.

  “This was a mistake,” he said curtly.

  And that was all. Turning on his heel, he made for the back door to the kennel.

  Sophie wanted to say something to stop him—apologize maybe, or beg him to give her another chance—but he was already swinging through the door by the time she found her tongue.

  “Well.” Lila was the first to break the silence that followed Harrison’s sudden departure. “Oscar wasn’t exaggerating about him, was he?”

  When Sophie didn’t respond, her eyes still fixed on the gentle sway of the door as if waiting for Harrison to reappear, Lila softened her voice. “That was a pretty nasty scene I walked into. You okay, Soph?”

  It was exactly like her sister to ask that question. Given the way things had turned out, Lila could have dumped any number of reproaches on Sophie’s head, including the fact that she hadn’t wanted Sophie to take on this case in the first place, but of course, she didn’t. She never would.

  Money meant nothing when compared to Sophie’s happiness. Work was secondary to making sure Sophie was taken care of.

  Which was why Sophie shook her head. She wasn’t okay, not by a long shot. She felt humiliated and ashamed and, well, small—but more than that, she felt a strong compulsion to meet Harrison Parks on neutral territory once again. At first, he’d looked at her the way everyone always did, but then, when she’d pushed back, there’d been a spark in his eyes she desperately wanted to see again.

  “I’m a little rattled, to b
e honest,” Sophie said. “He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met before.”

  “No,” Lila agreed. “Some men are just like that, I’m afraid.”

  It was on the tip of Sophie’s tongue to ask what Lila meant, but she stopped herself just in time. She already knew what Lila was thinking, because it was the same thing she’d thought when Harrison Parks had first knocked on the door.

  This is a man who doesn’t like to be told what to do. This is a man to be wary of.

  But Lila hadn’t seen that smile. Lila hadn’t been there when he’d quaked at the mere thought of touching such a precious, golden-haired lump as Bubbles. Lila hadn’t felt the surge of exhilaration that had come from confronting him…and winning.

  “And he wasn’t necessarily wrong,” Lila added. Her hand touched Sophie’s shoulder. “I did warn you that Bubbles might not make a good service dog, sweetie. Not every puppy is cut out for this kind of work.”

  Sophie glanced down at the animal under consideration, a pang of mingled frustration and disappointment filling her gut. Okay, so Bubbles wasn’t the most impressive puppy to come under their care—she was small and soft and had lingering issues from the trauma of the puppy mill—but that didn’t make her useless.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Lila continued softly. “There will be other cases. One unhappy customer won’t make or break us. I’ll call Oscar and get everything straightened out.”

  “No, don’t.” Sophie spoke sharply, using the same tone that had snapped out when Harrison had initially refused Bubbles. At her sister’s raised brow, she hastily amended it with, “I’ll talk to him. It’s my responsibility. I’m the one who mishandled the situation.”

  Lila’s brow didn’t come down, but she accepted Sophie’s decree with a nod. “Sure thing, Soph. Take the rest of the day off. Go see Oscar. He always makes you feel better.”

  Sophie offered her a tight smile but didn’t say anything. Oscar did always make her feel better, but that wasn’t what she meant. She didn’t want a day off. She didn’t want someone to hug her and placate her and tell her everything would be all right.

  What she wanted—no, what she needed—was to get her client back.

  Glancing down at the Pomeranian, who was staring at the back door as if she too expected Harrison to come waltzing back through it at any moment, Sophie decided that was exactly what she’d do too.

  Even if it was only so she could feel that sudden spark of battle coming alive inside her again.

  Chapter 2

  “You said he was going to be tricky.”

  Sophie walked through Oscar’s door at the Deer Park Department of Natural Resources without knocking. His office was a small, one-room affair used mostly for administrative purposes, but he could be found there almost around the clock during the wildfire off-season. The May weather was still damp enough to stave off most forest fires, so she knew he’d be in.

  “Did I?” Oscar didn’t bother to look up from the stack of papers he was sorting on his desk. “I must have been in a good mood.”

  “You said he had a tendency toward stubbornness.”

  “From your tone, I’m guessing you disagree.”

  “You said I should tread warily.”

  “Actually, I believe my exact words were, you should wear a hazmat suit underneath a flak jacket, but you’ve always had more tact than I do.”

  She clamped her lips and crossed her arms, stopping short of tapping her foot on the floor. It took a full twenty seconds for Oscar to give in and glance at her, but Sophie was nothing if not patient. It was the one virtue all good dog trainers needed.

  When he did finally look up, it was with a wry twist to his smile. The heavy lines of the older man’s face were both familiar and friendly, but she knew better than to take the wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose and the bushy gray mustache as signs of a jolly, grandfatherly type. Oscar was as tough as they came.

  He sighed and pulled the glasses off. “Oh dear. What did he do?”

  Sophie lowered herself into the lone chair that was squeezed in the room with him. The DNR, as it was more affectionately known, was at least accommodating enough to give him one extra seat.

  She could be accommodating where this man was concerned too. After all, she owed him her life.

  “Let’s just say he decided to dispense with our services,” she said.

  Oscar sighed again, this time with world-weary resignation, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “He stormed out the second he saw the dog, didn’t he?”

  “Um.”

  “Sophie?”

  “Not exactly?” She frowned and picked at a hangnail. “I mean, he wasn’t happy about Bubbles, but that wasn’t what ruined things. I, um, may have spoken to him in baby talk for a large portion of the time.”

  Oscar’s entire body stilled. “I’m sorry?”

  “It made sense at the time, I swear. He liked it.”

  “He liked it? Harrison Parks—my Harrison Parks—let you whisper sweet nothings to him?”

  “They weren’t sweet nothings,” she protested, hoping she didn’t sound nearly as foolish as she felt. “I was only trying to get him to relax a little. And I did too—he was smiling and everything. But then Lila came in and misunderstood, and, well…” She let her voice trail off.

  Oscar was familiar enough with her sister to fill in the blanks. Sophie was afraid that he’d do that thing where he pinched his nose in dismay again, but all he did was fall into a crack of laughter. Well, that and reach into his desk drawer to extract a bottle of Wild Turkey and two mismatched glasses. He poured out a finger for each of them and pushed one across the crowded desktop.

  She stared at it. “I don’t understand. What’s this for?”

  “Because, my dear, you’ve earned it.”

  She lifted the glass but didn’t sip. “I have? But I told you—he left. Without a puppy.”

  “You also told me that he smiled. That’s half the battle right there. Drink up.”

  Sophie wasn’t much of a day drinker, but the memory of Harrison’s smile seemed deserving of a good toast. Following Oscar’s lead, she clinked her glass against his and took a generous sip. It burned and not in a good way, but she managed to swallow.

  “Now.” Oscar leaned back in his chair, which creaked as his full weight sank in. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened? I should have been clearer about how difficult Harrison can be to work with. He’s a hell of a firefighter, but he’s not what you’d call a people person.”

  “Oh, don’t worry—you were plenty up-front about that. What I don’t understand is why you didn’t tell me how nervous he is.”

  Oscar sat up. “Nervous?”

  She nodded and took another sip of the bourbon. It burned just as much as the first time, but it gave her the courage she needed to keep going. “I think he was afraid that he’d, um, squish Bubbles. That was the impression I got anyway. He wanted the biggest, baddest dog we had, and when I told him that wasn’t an option, he sort of got this panicked look in his eye.”

  “You saw all that?”

  Sophie shrugged. It sounded ridiculous, she knew, but how else could she explain it? “From the way he reacted, it was like I’d asked him to carry around a cracked egg for the rest of his life.”

  “No, he wouldn’t like that.” Oscar chuckled. “He wouldn’t like that at all.”

  “That was where the baby talk came in. Just some cute names I have for Bubbles, you know? I was trying to get him to say a few of them, which was when he started yelling. It wasn’t real yelling, but Lila walked in right in the middle of it and couldn’t tell the difference. Do you know no one has ever yelled at me before?”

  Oscar tugged one end of his mustache. “Is that so?”

  “Not once. Not even a little.” She sighed, remembering. “It was nice.”

  “Nice?”

  “I think you should yell at me for screwing everything up. It might help. Go ahead. I don’t mind.”

  Osc
ar only shook his head, which just went to show how right she was. In the entirety of her childhood and adult memories, she couldn’t even remember anyone sitting her down and giving her a stern talking-to.

  “Anyway, that’s why I’d like to try again,” she said. “If you can convince him to work with me, that is. I’m, um, not sure he’ll want to.”

  For the first time since she’d walked into this office, Oscar allowed a frown to appear. “Oh, he’ll work with you, all right. I don’t care what tactics you have to resort to—baby talk, speaking in tongues, making him carry a dozen cracked eggs. After what happened last week…”

  Sophie didn’t say anything, content to let Oscar lapse into thought for as long as he needed. From the report she’d read, it sounded as though Harrison Parks was lucky to be alive. He’d slipped into a diabetic coma after his continuous glucose monitor malfunctioned during a routine wildfire training exercise. Had he been out on a call somewhere remote or inaccessible by road—both common during the height of the wildfire season—they may not have been able to get him to a hospital in time.

  As if following the exact thread of her thoughts, Oscar’s mouth firmed in a hard line. “If he wants to see any action on the ground this summer, he’ll do it. And he’ll like it, by God. I’m not putting him through that again without some kind of protection in place.”

  “No, of course not,” Sophie said meekly.

  “A puppy’s the only recourse I have left, short of putting him behind a desk.”

  “He doesn’t seem like the sort to appreciate that,” Sophie agreed.

  Oscar sighed and scrubbed a hand over his mouth. His glance, when it met hers, was pointed. “He won’t make this easy on you, Sophie, not for one minute. I’ve never known anyone so wrapped up in barbed wire. Are you sure you’re up for it?”

  “Absolutely,” she said the word automatically.

  It wasn’t automatic enough.

  “You’re saving my skin to take his case at the last minute like this, but I won’t hold it against you if you pass. Especially now that you’ve met him. And Lila wasn’t sure if this dog of yours would be up to the task, so…”