Page 27 of Puppy Love

I’m here to do a job, that uniform said.I’m here because of the dog.

Today, she’d gone back to wearing her own clothes. He wasn’t sure why the sight of her in faded jeans and a loose gray top should be so alarming, but he suspected it had something to do with the gentle curve of neck exposed on one side of her shirt. He’d seen women wear similar clothes before, but there was something about the sight of Sophie’s bare clavicle that made it difficult for him to breathe.

He wanted to kiss her there. He wanted to run his fingers up and down that slope of perfect skin until she shivered under his touch.

She shifted slightly, the shirt shifting with her. As if aware he was watching, the material slid even farther, giving him a glimpse of the rounded softness of her shoulder, broken only by a thin pink bra strap.

Shit.What was he doing? He couldn’t lust after Sophie. Not when she showed no signs of reciprocation. Harrison might go numb at the sight of her dressed in casual wear, but he doubted his jogging pants and decades-old Pink Floyd T-shirt were doing anything in return. Nor was she likely to lose herself at the sound of his rough grumbling.

“Sorry,” he said in a voice that was, unfortunately, both roughandgrumbling. “The doorbell doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked in years.”

“Nothing around this place has worked in years,” Oscar added with a cheerfulness that seemed inappropriate, given how recently he’d been threatening Harrison’s life and livelihood. “Except for Harrison and Wallace, of course. Two more dedicated workaholics I’ve never met in my life—it’s the only thing they’re good at, if you want the truth.”

He wasn’t wrong. As much as Harrison would have liked to leap to his own defense, there wasn’t much to say. He wasn’t a man with varied interests or a whole hell of a lot going on in his personal life. Fighting fires was literally the only thing he was good at—the only thing he’d ever been good at since the summer he’d turned fourteen and made friends with a group of delinquent kids from around town.

His dad had been working around the clock at the time—his default for as long as Harrison could remember—so when he’d caught his son in the middle of a tractor-stealing incident, he’d handed him over to Oscar with plea that hedo something with the blasted boy.

Oscar had done it, of course, and in the process, created a monster. An irritable, overworked, firefighting monster who had nothing to offer a woman except a newfound talent for making dog sweaters out of socks.

“Speaking of, when can I expect to have him back?” Oscar asked. “I’ve got a contract to start training a team from Fairchild Air Force Base with his name written all over it.”

“Right now.” Harrison almost shot out of his chair in his enthusiasm. Work would get him away from this house. Work would distance him from Sophie and her goddamn shoulder. “Pull the crew together, and I can start the training as soon as you want. You know how valuable the air force support can be for the flyovers. We’ve been after a contract with them for years.”

“I do know, which is why I’m going to delay the training until you’re free to run it.” Oscar turned his attention to Sophie. “What do you anticipate? What’s the expected timeline?”

Sophie glanced down at the puppy, considering. Not by so much as a flicker of a long, curled eyelash did she betray that she noticed anything out of the ordinary about Bubbles’s appearance.

Harrison couldn’t decide whether to be grateful for her tact or outraged at her disinterest. He’d worked really hard on that sock.

“Well, I set aside a total of six weeks, but there’s natural chemistry between Harrison and Bubbles, so it might go faster.”

“Natural chemistry?” Oscar said.

“Oh yeah. It can take some dogs months to warm up to their new owners and vice versa. But I don’t think I could tear this pair apart now even if I wanted to. Isn’t that right, Bubbles?”

Bubbles yapped an affirmative.

“See? She agrees with me. She took one look at Harrison and fell hard.” Sophie glanced up at Harrison, a challenge in her dark eyes. “It doesn’t always happen that way, unfortunately. A lot of times, canine attraction is a one-sided thing.”

Harrison might not have been an expert on canine attraction, but he knew enough about the human kind to realize he was on shaky ground.

“She’s not bad, as far as puppies go,” he said. The frankness of Sophie’s gaze made him more flustered than usual, which was the only reason for what he said next. “Except for the fact that her very existence is going to keep me from properly doing my job. She’s scared of fire.”

The smile vanished from Sophie’s face.

At the sight of that stricken look, Harrison felt as though he’d been sucker punched, all the air leaving his lungs at once. He would have taken it back—said something to smooth over his misstep—but his chest felt too tight to let air in or words out.

Like it usually does.

“I did tell you Bubbles was skittish, Oscar, remember?” Sophie said. There was a plea underscoring her voice, a desperation that hit Harrison on a visceral level. “We’re having a few minor issues where she’s concerned, but it’s not a big deal, I swear. I’m fully confident that we can get through them. Harrison might not ever be able to work the front lines again, but that was going to be the case no matter which dog we chose. All I can promise is that we’ll get Bubbles as close as we can.”

“Then there you have it,” Oscar said with maddening calm. “We’ll get Bubbles as close as we can, even if that means Harrison has to stick to training from here on out. His health and safety are too important to risk.”

“Like hell they are,” Harrison said.

He may as well have not spoken. In fact, his terse defiance had Sophie squaring her shoulders and lifting her head, confidence radiating from every part of her.

“I’ll need to see how Bubbles reacts to different stimuli and in different environments,” she said. “Including places like the wildfire training grounds and the DNR office. We can work up to those though. It’s better to start in more low-key social environments—parks, libraries, bars. Wherever you go for fun.”