Page 101 of Puppy Christmas

“The best,” Ford agreed.

“And I’m a very good girl?”

Ford nodded, his throat so tight he could barely swallow. “Absolutely. But even very good girls make mistakes sometimes. You bit yourself, didn’t you?”

She nodded, and with such a woebegone expression that Ford would have forgiven her for biting every single person at this party, if it came to that.

“Can you tell me why?” he prodded.

She shook her head. For the first time in his life, Ford feared he was going to have to take a hard line with his daughter, become one of those parents who laid out punishments that only ended up hurting him more than they hurt his child, but she lifted her eyes to his and blinked.

“I wanted… I thought…” She took a deep breath that rattled in her chest. “Daddy, where’s Seattle?”

“F-u-c-k,” he swore. Emily’s eyes grew wide at the sound of it, as though fully aware of its meaning. It seemed Lila had been right about that—about a lot of things, actually. Spelling out the violence of his feelings wasn’t going to work for much longer. He was going to have to confront them instead.

“Did you hear me talking to Dr. Yarmouth that day in his office?” he asked. “When I said I got a job offer there?”

Emily sniffed and nodded.

“And were you afraid I’m going to make us move?”

She nodded again.

“Andthat’swhy you bit yourself?”

A few more trails of tears joined the one already on her cheek. She didn’t brush those away, either. She didn’t have a chance to, since Ford pulled her into his lap and did it for her.

He had to. He needed something to help his chest from caving in altogether.

“I don’t want to leave Princess Lila,” she said as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Her damp cheek pressed against his. “If Jeeves is bad, then we have to stay, right? So she can fix him? Or maybe train me a brand new puppy?”

Ford recalled her words the night of the attack and felt the last of his resolve give way.Princess Lila can fix it, she’d said. Princess Lila can fix anything.

He pulled back from his daughter so she could clearly see his lips. “You did all that to keep Lila around? You even risked losing your puppy?”

“Jeeves is my first friend,” Emily said, her voice barely above a whisper. “But Lila is mybestfriend. I love her, Daddy. I don’t want to go away.”

“I love her, too, moppet,” he replied. His own voice sounded hoarse, the strain of trying to keep it all together almost too much to bear. But it was the truth, and it needed to be said. Whatever else happened, he and Emily would always share this reality. Lila had changed them. Lila had forced them to remember what was really important in life. “And I don’t want to go away, either.”

She gave a small jump. “You don’t?”

He shook his head. “Not even a little. Not even for all the money in the world.”

Although the tears showed signs of abating, Emily still hadn’t lost the wary look in her large, blue eyes. “Does that mean we can keep Jeeves?”

He nodded.

“And Princess Lila? We can keep her, too?”

He hesitated. Every part of him longed to nod and agree and reassure his daughter that they would keep Lila forever and ever. But that wasn’t fair to her—or to any of them. Without that Seattle job offer, he had literally nothing to offer that woman but his heart.

It wasn’t much, but it was everything he had.

“People aren’t like puppies, moppet. We can’t force them to stay with us. The best we can do is love them and hope that’s enough.”

As he spoke the words aloud, he realized how true they were. There were no guarantees in this world. Jobs would come and go. Money was fleeting. People left. But that didn’t make life any less worth living.

“Mommy didn’t stay with us, did she?” Emily said with painful insight.