Page 47 of Puppy Christmas

Since the crowd had gathered closer, a stomp of her foot on top of his was the only retort Lila could make without giving their location away.

“That’s strange. I don’t see your father or Ms. Vasquez anywhere,” came Principal Brown’s voice from just to the right of their hidey-hole. “Did you notice them leaving the gymnasium, Ms. Griswold?”

“Nope,” Helen said cheerfully. She leapt up from her perch and bounded down the bleachers, shaking the rickety wooden structure around them. “It’s just been me in here the whole time. I see you’ve managed to gather my children around you. I’m sorry if they got in your way. Hello. I don’t believe we’ve met before, have we?”

One of the adults replied to Helen’s chatter in a soft, breathy voice Ford recognized almost immediately. “No, we haven’t, although this isn’t my first site visit here. I’m Anya Askari. I work with some of Emily’s service providers.”

The name must have also registered with Lila, because she stopped breathing altogether.

“And I’m one of those providers” came a male voice. Ford recognized that one, too, and it caused his own lungs to seize up. “Patrick. Patrick Yarmouth. It’s nice to meet you.”

Ford couldn’t help stealing a look at Lila to see how she was reacting to this news. He had no way of knowing for sure that this was the man with the teeth, but one look at her rigidity, and he had a feeling he was on the right track. The feeling wasn’t a good one.

What on earth did Yarmouth do to her?

Ford didn’t have to voice the question aloud. He was no expert in relationships, as his failed marriage indicated, but he could tell a broken heart when he was looking at one. His own heart gave a creak in empathy. Patrick Yarmouth had obviously worked a number on this woman.

Given Lila’s reaction to Patrick and Anya, Ford was prepared to retreat even further under the bleachers and stay there for eternity, basketball shoe urinals notwithstanding. Which was why he was so surprised when Lila reached down and slipped the sparkling pink shoe from her foot before tossing it to him.

He caught both the shoe and her meaning in an instant.

“I found it!” he called in a voice that was too loud to be mistaken. “It must have gotten wedged between two of the seats as it fell.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Lila replied, her own voice projecting. “My sister would have never forgiven me if I lost this. It’s her favorite.”

“Our very own Cinderella story,” he joked as they emerged from underneath the bleachers. The entire party was surprised to see them—with the sole exception of Jeeves. The cockapoo, dressed in a stately red vest that he wore as though it were a suit of armor, looked up at them as though he’d known they were there the whole time.

Ford caught his daughter’s eye and winked. “You’ll appreciate this, moppet. I almost had to go scouring over the entire school to find Princess Lila’s glass slipper. I’m her Prince Charming.”

“Daddy,” Emily admonished. “You’re not a prince. You’re all dirty.”

“Am I?” He glanced down to find that he was covered with grime from his sojourn under the bleachers. All that kissing must have raised quite a lot of dust. “Well, it wasn’t an easy shoe to find. And why would it be? The best princesses require a little extra effort. Hello, Principal Brown. How did the tour go? And Dr. Yarmouth. What are you doing here?”

He thought he’d done a fairly decent job of showing surprise, but Helen laughed and lifted a hand to his lips. With a maternal gesture he’d seen repeated countless times on Byron and Neil, she wiped at his mouth with the pad of her thumb. Even in his slightly startled daze, he noticed the pink lipstick that came away.

Thanks to her quick thinking, however, they were the only ones.

“Sorry,” she apologized with a wink. “There was a cobweb right there. I was afraid you might have swallowed a spider. Isn’t it strange how I could have been sitting here all along and never heard you two down there?”

“Very strange,” he agreed, unable to suppress a quick glance in Lila’s direction.

By this time, she’d finished putting the shoe back on her foot. The pink flush in her cheeks could have been explained by the way her head was ducked down, but Ford wasn’t going to lay any odds on it. She was mortified, plain and simple. Helen had heard every last bit of their interaction. Or she’d at least caught the juicy part, which was all that mattered.

Lila, however, was able to get control of herself fairly easily. With a fake, bright smile that did nothing to bring out the dimple on the side of her mouth, she turned to Patrick and Anya.

“I didn’t know you had a site visit scheduled today. I wish you’d have said something earlier. I’m rather…” She lifted a hand to her head in a gesture that was as feeble as it was futile. Not only was she just as dirty as him, but her hair had gotten worse with time and no one had bothered to wipe the lipstick from the side ofhermouth. “It’s been a bit of a morning.”

“I like your shirt, Lil,” Patrick said, ignoring the bulk of this commentary. He spoke with a familiarity that was as easy as it was unsettling. “Is it new?”

She glanced down at her shirt, doing a good impression of a woman who wasn’t horrified to find that her clothes were just as disheveled as the rest of her. “Of course not,” she said. “I always dress like this, remember? My mother,the queen, thinks it’s important to look the part whenever I’m in public.”

As if in solidarity, Emily reached up and slipped her hand into Lila’s. Lila gave only a slight start before smiling down at her. The dimple was clearly visible this time.

“I think you look beautiful,” Emily said.

Lila lifted her free hand to her chin and dropped it again in the sign forthank you. “You look beautiful, too,” she said.

Still holding hands, they confronted the rest of the gathered assembly. Helen had managed to get a grip on her two squirming sons, but she was staring at Patrick Yarmouth with a dazed expression on her face. It was all that was needed to confirm Ford’s suspicion that a broad-shouldered, white-toothed doctor was exactly the sort of man who could bowl over every woman in his path. In all her years of flirting with him, Helen had never looked at him quite like that.