Page 40 of Puppy Christmas

Chapter 9

“Hey there, Lil. Rough day of training?”

Lila didn’t bother opening her eyes. To let in vision and light would be to ruin the tranquility of her happy place. She breathed deeply and spread her arms instead.

“One…two…three…four?” Dawn’s voice was laughing but sympathetic. “Oh dear. I haven’t seen you take a four-puppy time-out in a long time. Not since—”

“—since Patrick dumped me for being the coldest, least interesting woman on the planet,” Lila supplied for her. She gave in and opened one eye. It was promptly licked by an exuberant pink tongue. “I know. I would have gone for five this time, but Pip is having some tummy troubles over the new puppy chow. I wasn’t going to risk it.”

As if sensing that more playtime was indeed vital to her happiness, the twin golden retrievers began a rollicking game of tug-of-war with the bottom of her shirt. She didn’t mind. It was her turn for kennel cleaning, which meant she was wearing a ratty pair of jeans and a plaid shirt that had seen its best days about a decade ago.

The other two puppies—one a fluffy white Akita with the coldest nose known to mankind and the other a chocolate Lab whose tongue had now found its way to her ear—continued their own playful assault. The Akita was a snuggler through and through; the Lab preferred to gnaw on the long strands of her hair. Lila breathed deeply and basked in it all. Lying on the floor of the kennel covered in warm bellies and wayward puppy kisses might not be the most obvious way to go about handling stress, but she had yet to discover a better method. As long experience had taught her, the puppies would snuffle and climb on top of one another and generally make pests of themselves until they all came crashing down into an exhausted puppy heap—with her at the bottom. For the first time in two weeks, she actually felt calm.

Until Dawn spoke.

“Well, you might want to package one of those honeys up to go, because I have bad news.”

Lila groaned but didn’t move. There was no bad news in the happy place. The happy place was fur tickling her nose. The happy place was tails wagging against her neck. The happy place was—

“Mom’s here.”

“Dawn, you wretch.” Both of Lila’s eyes were open now. She gently lifted two of the puppies away and sat up to glare at her younger sister. “I sent you over there so I wouldn’t have to talk to her.”

“I know, but she insisted. You know how she gets whenever one us shows the least interest in procreating. I think she’s already ordered a layette.”

“What are you talking about? I’m not interested in procreating. All I wanted was for you to pick up my old diary.”

Dawn laughed and held up her hands. “Don’t shoot the messenger. I told her you needed it for a work project, but once she started opening those boxes of our childhood crap, there was no stopping her. She’d like a March wedding, ideally. Apparently, you can get great discounts that time of year.”

Lila groaned and started wrangling the puppies. It took some doing, since they’d discovered a piece of fluff and were doing their best to bring its life to an untimely end, but she eventually got her hands on the two golden retrievers. She held them up to her sister. “Good God. What did you say to set her off?”

“Nothing, I swear!” Dawn paused as she took the wriggling, golden-haired bundles and lowered them to their shared cubby in the corner. A thoughtful purse twisted her lips. “I mean, I mentioned that the diary was for a young client you’re trying to understand better. And of course she wanted to know about Emily’s parents, so I mentioned Ford. That’s it, I swear. The rest was all her. There’s no derailing that train once it pulls away from the station.”

Lila wasn’t buying it. “You sneaked a picture of him, didn’t you?”

Dawn busied herself making sure the puppies had water.

“When?” Lila demanded as she lifted the remaining two animals and placed them back in their beds. “At the tea party? Did he see you do it? Oh my God. Is that why he kept looking at me all weird for the rest of the week?”

“It was Sophie’s idea,” Dawn protested. “And no, he didn’t see me. I’m very discreet. He was probably looking at you weird because you wore a different crown to work every day.”

“I wore those for Emily.”

“Sureyou did. You know, I’ve encountered many a strange fetish in my lifetime, but this princess fixation of Ford’s takes things to a whole new level. Did I tell you that I was looking up royalty-themed lingerie the other day? There’s this one where you literally shove a string of pearls up your—”

Lila was saved from having to hear where the pearls were supposed to go by the appearance of Alice Vasquez. The family matriarch—and a woman for whom the ravages of time hadn’t bothered to stop by—stood in the doorway to the kennel with a photo album clutched to her chest. As usual, her light-brown hair was impeccably framed around her face, her long legs encased in a white pantsuit.

“There you are, my love,” she said.

“Mom!” Lila tugged her shirt into place and did her bestnotto look as though she’d spent the last half hour crawling on the floor with various canines. It was important to put forward the most serene front possible; her mother was even worse than her sisters when it came to sniffing out romantic troubles. “You didn’t have to come over. I only wanted that old diary I used to keep.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I brought it.” Her mother tapped the photo album. “But I thought you might also like to take this to your young man and his little girl. Kids love looking at old pictures.”

Lila turned to glare at her sister.

“I never said he was your young man,” Dawn protested, laughing. “In fact, I distinctly remember telling her that you’ve given up on dating until the entire male population evolves and catches up to you.”

“Such a sweet name, Emily.” Their mother sighed.