Authors: Bella Andre
huge dog pilow in the corner. Instead, he’d stuck right with her
and put his big head in her lap. She stopped rubbing her arms
and stroked his head instead.
“Let me know your schedule so we can plan our
evening with you. Your mother sends her love.”
The message ended and she stared blankly at the phone on
her desk, her hand absentmindedly moving over Atlas’s short,
soft fur. She couldn’t believe how long they’d been playing this
game, the one where her father tried to act like everything was
normal and they had a perfect relationship. Especialy when he
knew that she
knew
for a fact that everything wasn’t perfect, that
his “perfect” marriage to her mother and his “loving” relationship
with his daughter was just a big, stupid lie.
A knock came at her door, jarring her out of her dark
thoughts. “Come in.”
Agnes Mackelroy, a pretty middle-aged woman whom
Heather liked a great deal, poked her head in the door. “Good
morning, Heather. I was hoping you had a few minutes.” Despite
Heather’s smile, the woman seemed to sense something was
wrong. “Is everything al right?”
Heather nodded quickly. “It’s always so lovely to see you.”
Heather nodded quickly. “It’s always so lovely to see you.”
And it was true—she couldn’t be happier to see Agnes and
her dog, Joey, especialy if it meant she didn’t have to think
about her father anymore.
Agnes had been one of Heather’s first clients at Top Dog
when the ink was stil drying on her business cards. Over the
past few years, she’d made dozens of referrals for Heather to
work with her family’s and friends’ dogs.
Heather knelt to say helo to Agnes’s Chow Chow. “Look
at you with your fancy new knee,” she said as she scratched the
dog under his chin, right where he loved it. Atlas soon bumped
her out of the way to say helo. “I take it he’s been doing wel
since surgery?” she asked Agnes.
“Just splendidly! He’s back to his old self, out digging up
my garden morning, noon, and night.”
Heather had to laugh at that, even though stopping that
behavior was something she’d worked on long and hard with
Agnes and Joey last year. “Would you like me to drop by later
this week see if we can get him to celebrate in a different way?”
“No, I’m perfectly happy to let Joey have his fun. I didn’t
much care for the color of the begonias anyway,” Agnes said
with a toss of her hand. “I’m actualy here on behalf of a very
good friend with a new puppy.”
“Perfect timing. I’ve just finished up a group training class
and have several new trainers who would love to get their feet
wet. Why don’t I give you a few of their numbers?”
“I was hoping,” Agnes said, “that you would be available to
help him personaly.”
help him personaly.”
Heather’s business and dog-training staff had grown so
much over the past three years that she spent most of her time
managing the business. While she stil loved to pop out of her
office to play with the dogs that came in and out of her training
campus, at this point she rarely took on one-on-one training
clients. But she couldn’t possibly say no to Agnes, who was
responsible for so much of her early success.
Mentaly reshuffling her busy schedule, Heather said,
“What’s your friend’s name?”
“His name,” Agnes said, “is Zach.”
Something akin to a warning skittered down Heather’s
spine at the woman’s almost worshipful tone. Then again, she
knew Agnes was happily married.
“And I know how much he’d appreciate it if you could
meet with him this morning at the garage where he works. I’m
afraid the little Yorkie is running the poor man in circles.”
Heather wrote down the address for Sulivan Autos, then
gave both Agnes and her dog hugs as they said goodbye.
She couldn’t imagine a mechanic’s boss being too happy
about a madcap puppy running around in an auto shop. Not to
mention that it definitely wasn’t the safest environment for an
untrained dog.
“Ready to go play with a puppy?” she said to the dog lying
at her feet.
Atlas’s ears perked up at his favorite word. It had always
amused her how much her two-hundred-pound Great Dane
loved to play with puppies, even though they tended to nip at him
loved to play with puppies, even though they tended to nip at him
with their sharp little teeth and use their sharp nails to climb onto
his broad back with no concern whatsoever for their own
welfare.
She suspected the reason had to do with the fact that the
early part of his own life hadn’t been at al carefree. Clearly, he
thrived on being around a puppy’s untamed wildness.
It was a warm day out and she puled her long hair up from
her neck into a ponytail as she grabbed her training bag and
headed out to her car. Atlas bounded into the backseat,
immediately sticking his head out of the window in anticipation of
wind in his fur, his tongue flying free.
Ten minutes later, Heather puled up outside Sulivan Autos
and slipped on Atlas’s leash. She could see a half dozen men
onsite and even though her dog was worlds better around men
than he had been when she’d first taken him home four years
ago, she was concerned that so many big men in one place might
overwhelm him. She wasn’t surprised when he stuck close to
her, the stiffness of his ears and tail a teltale sign that he wasn’t
entirely relaxed.
“Everything’s fine,” she soothed him, rubbing gently
between his ears. “We’re just going to play with a puppy,
remember?” His tongue plopped out at that happy news and she
grinned in response. “That’s right, we’ve got nothing to worry
about at
—
”
“Where the hell is that damned puppy!”
The frustrated roar split apart the otherwise normal sounds
of the sprawling auto garage and both Heather and Atlas went
on red alert. She immediately began to scope out the hiding
places a puppy would be likely to go in a place like
this...especialy if it were afraid of its new owner.
Her Great Dane tugged her toward a hedge at the edge of
the parking lot and she folowed his lead. If anyone could find a
lost and helpless little one, it was Atlas. He stopped in front of a
thick hedge on the edge of the parking lot, sniffed at the bush,
then whimpered and pawed at the dirt.
Heather dropped his leash to get down on her hands and
knees to peer inside. Ah yes, she could see black-brown fur
between the leaves and branches.
“Hey there, cutie,” she crooned softly. “Want to come out
and meet a friend I’ve brought to play with you?”
Unfortunately, just then, the man yeled again.
“You’d
better get your furry little butt back here!”
Of course the puppy didn’t come any closer. And why
would it, if al it had to look forward to was more yeling, or
maybe even worse?
Hoping she wasn’t going to end up with fierce little teeth
clamped around her hand or ankle, she started to push in through
the branches. The sharp tips scratched at the bare skin of her
legs in her shorts, but she was too intent on the puppy to pay
legs in her shorts, but she was too intent on the puppy to pay
much attention to the cuts and scrapes.
A large branch snagged on her long-sleeved T-shirt and she
realized she couldn’t go any further. Breaking through a few of
the branches, she finaly managed to squat so that she could get
down on the puppy’s level. Reaching into her pocket, she
prayed she had a smal crumble of a treat left over from the last
time she’d worn these shorts.
Giving thanks that she hadn’t actualy remembered to do
the wash last night, she puled out a smal piece of sausage.
“Mmm. Doesn’t this smel yummy?”
She’d thought the puppy was trembling in the bushes, but
now that she was closer, she realized it wasn’t scared.
It was playing.
And, clearly, the way its whole body was vibrating with
glee, the puppy thought her little predicament of being stuck in
the bushes with it was hilarious.
Despite her jammed-in position between a bunch of sword-
sharp sticks and branches, she had to agree that it kind of was.
Knowing at this point that it was a matter of waiting for the
little guy or girl to get tired of the game, she sat back on her heels
and looked up through the branches and leaves. The clouds
slowly changed shape above her in the blue sky. Huddled in a
bush might not be the standard place in the world for a breather
from her often hectic workday, but she found she was glad for a
moment’s respite.
Unfortunately, she could stil hear the owner yeling for the
dog and vowed to deal with him appropriately once she had the
dog and vowed to deal with him appropriately once she had the
puppy.
“I wouldn’t want to come out either, if I were you,” she
told the puppy in a soft voice. “But don’t worry, Atlas and I
won’t let anything happen to you.”
She ran a training business, not a rescue, but if she found
that an owner and a dog weren’t compatible, she did any and
everything she could to take care of the dog.
“Doing okay out there, big guy?” she asked Atlas.
She heard the loud thump of his tail on the pavement in
response.
“Quite the little adventure Agnes sent us on, isn’t it?”
Which didn’t make sense. How could the man who was
yeling and cursing at the puppy be a close friend of a lovely
woman like Agnes? Having seen the woman interact with the
dog she adored, Heather had thought her training client was
more perceptive than that.
Suddenly, a wet tongue pressed into Heather’s palm and
she looked down to see the puppy trying to climb onto her lap as
it munched on the treat.
“Wel, helo there,” she said to the very cute Yorkie.
Gently, she laid one hand on the puppy’s back and a happy
sound came from its throat as it tried to burrow closer to her
fingertips. Heather spent a few moments massaging the incredibly
soft fur, but with the owner stil yeling for his dog, she knew they
couldn’t stay in here forever.
“How about we go find you a nice ful water bowl?”
And a
much nicer owner, too, while we’re at it.
much nicer owner, too, while we’re at it.
She cradled the dog in her arms to shield it from the
branches and slowly began the backward procession out of the
brambles. She laughed as the puppy licked her chin, even though
the scrapes on her legs were going deeper on the way out than
they had when she’d dived into the bush.
Heather was stil in the process of awkwardly crawling out
of the dirt on her hands and knees while holding on to the
wriggling puppy, when she heard footsteps behind her, along
with the renewed thumping of Atlas’s tail.
Turning her head as far as she could to try and look over
her shoulder, she spotted a pair of large brown boots on the
pavement beside her dog.
“Did you find the little bugger?”
Gritting her teeth, she replied, “If you’re talking about the
puppy, yes, I found her stuck in this bush.”
Okay, so maybe
stuck
wasn’t precisely the truth, given that
the dog had clearly been playing hide-and-seek, but what the
owner didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Besides, her alegiance
was to the puppy in her arms, not to a man who clearly had no
business owning it.
Heather continued to work on getting out of the bush,
which, unfortunately, seemed intent on keeping her prisoner
forever. Just a couple more feet and she’d be free to give the
man in the brown boots a piece of her mind.
She felt a bead of sweat slide between her shoulder blades
as she tried to lift her torso, but no matter how she tugged, she
as she tried to lift her torso, but no matter how she tugged, she
couldn’t move more than an inch in any direction. Frustrated with
being on her hands and knees in front of a stranger, with her
scratched-up kneecaps stinging like crazy, she yanked herself
back. But apart from her shirt ripping at the side of her ribs, she
wasn’t any closer to being free.
“Hold up, you’re caught on a branch.”
The man’s voice, when he wasn’t yeling at innocent
puppies, had a rich, deep timbre that moved through her veins
like potent red wine on an empty stomach.
She felt the stranger reach across her back to thread her T-