My Sunshine by Catherine Anderson
“Well, you did. What are you doing here?”
He planted his hands at his hips. This morning he wore a lined denim jacket, open at the front to reveal a red plaid shirt neatly tucked into a belted pair of faded Wranglers. His dark hair lay in silky waves over his high forehead, some of the strands so long they touched his brows. “You haven’t been here alone for a while. I just wanted to stop by and check on you.”
Laura couldn’t help but feel touched. “I’m fine.”
“No problems?”
For an instant she considered not telling him about James’s early-morning visit, but honesty was always the best policy. “Not a problem, really.”
Isaiah’s expression became more intent. “What?”
“James dropped by to talk with me.”
Isaiah’s jaw muscle started to ripple. “I thought we agreed that you’d call me if he came around.”
“I’m sorry.” Laura could think of little to say in her own defense. Letting James into the building hadn’t been the smartest decision she’d ever made. “I got out my cell phone and almost did. But I just couldn’t believe he posed a threat.”
“What if you’d been wrong? Damn it, Laura. If the guy is a fruitcake, he could go from pussycat to tiger in a blink. You could have been hurt, lying here for hours waiting for help to come.”
“But he isn’t a fruitcake. My instinct was right.”
She went on to recount the conversation with James. Toward the end of her tale, Isaiah’s eyes were twinkling with laughter. “He thought I called that night to fire him?”
Laura nodded. “That’s what he said. I think that’s why he wouldn’t go to dinner at your parents’ house. He felt sure you were on to us.”
His firm mouth slid into a slow grin. “Well, I was right on one count. He fancies himself in love with you.”
Laura bent to give the dog a farewell pat before exiting the cage. “Not anymore. To protect his future, we’ve agreed that we have to ignore our feelings and just be friends.”
Isaiah chuckled. “A great sacrifice for both of you, I take it?”
Laura gave him an innocent look. “Of course. I think James feels bad about choosing his job over me. But, as he pointed out, we’re not a sure thing, and the job is. I had to applaud his good sense. His future is at stake.”
Isaiah shook his head. “You’re a sweetheart. You know it? A lot of women would have told him he presumed too much and where to get off.”
Laura dropped the gate latch and tugged to make sure it had caught. “Why do that? He already wanted out.”
“No matter that you never even realized he was in?”
Laura shrugged and smiled. “He’s a nice young man. I wouldn’t want to hurt his feelings.”
“Like I said, a sweetheart.” He fell into step with her as she moved up the center aisle. Glancing at his watch, he said, “You’re about finished here, aren’t you?”
“Almost.”
“How about an early lunch?”
The invitation took her by surprise. She gave him a questioning look. “Lunch?”
He flashed a crooked grin that gave her a glimmer of how devastatingly cute he must have been as a boy. “Yeah, you know.” He pretended to shovel food into his mouth. “The meal most people eat midway between breakfast and dinner. You hungry?”
The bagel that Laura had eaten at five that morning had long since evaporated. “Starving.”
“Well, then? There’s a great little diner in Old Towne. Fabulous food, a view of the river. We can eat hot soup and watch the snowflakes drift down.”
Laura’s eyes widened. “It’s snowing?”
“That’s one of the drawbacks of working in a huge building without many windows. A blizzard could happen, and you’d never even know.”
As Isaiah navigated stop-and-start traffic to reach the diner, he had to ask himself what the hell he was doing. Lunch? What was it about Laura that made him go brain-dead? So it was snowing. Big deal. Just because she loved the white stuff and seeing it had made him think of her was no sign that he had to sit with her by a window and eat soup for lunch.
He absolutely had to get a handle on the impulsive behavior that seemed to besiege him whenever he was around her. He wasn’t in the market for a wife, and a wife was what he might get if he didn’t damned well watch his step. A quick lunch, he promised himself. Afterward he’d drop her off at the clinic to get her car, and from that moment forward he’d stop this craziness before it got him in trouble.
“Stop!” she suddenly shrieked.
Isaiah’s foot hit the brake almost before he registered the word. The Hummer’s antilock brakes caught and then released as the vehicle went into a slide. Ice. It went hand in hand with snow. Even as he struggled to bring the heavy SUV to a safe stop, Laura was unbuckling her seat belt and fumbling to open the passenger door.
“Oh, God!” she cried. “He’ll get run over!”
Who would get run over? Before Isaiah could verbalize the question, Laura had spilled from the vehicle. They were still in a traffic lane, and cars were coming from both directions. “Laura?” Sweet Christ. Isaiah’s heart shot clear into his throat when she careened, slipping and sliding on the ice and slush, around the front bumper of the Hummer, the only visible part of her the top of her blond head. “Laura!”
He threw open the driver-side door, tried to leap out, and found himself anchored by the seat belt he’d forgotten to unlatch. A car skidded to a stop behind them, its front bumper getting too up close and personal with the rear end of the Hummer for Isaiah’s peace of mind.
“Laura!” he yelled again when his boots finally connected with the slush-covered pavement. Through the downfall of snowflakes, he glimpsed the shimmer of her golden hair. Damn. She was jogging right up the center of the street, heedless of the automobiles that braked and fishtailed to avoid hitting her. “Have you lost your mind? Get back here!”
Isaiah’s shouts never even slowed her down. Leaving the driver door open, he took off after her, shouting her name every few steps. Ahead of him she’d finally stopped, her slender, denim-sheathed legs spread wide, her arms held out at her sides to stop traffic. Isaiah wore slick-soled Western boots and almost fell several times as he raced up the street. By the time he arrived at his destination, the cars going in both directions had come to a dead halt, and Laura was scooping an oversize puppy into her arms.
“What the hell are you trying to do, kill yourself?” he cried.
“Oh, Isaiah, isn’t he sweet?”
Laura was nose-to-nose with the puppy. Before Isaiah could reply that the dog was the homeliest critter he’d ever clapped eyes on, she was making kiss-kiss noises.
“Are you out of your mind?” he cried again.
She gave him a wide-eyed, incredulous look. “He was about to get run over. I had to save him.”
The drivers of the cars backed up in both directions, bumper to bumper, were starting to blow their horns. Isaiah grasped Laura’s arm. “We’ve got to get back in the Hummer. We’re blocking traffic.”
Laura tightened her arms around the puppy. A second look at the mutt confirmed Isaiah’s first impression: It was the ugliest puppy he’d ever seen. Oversize didn’t say it by half. The thing had paws the size of flapjacks, and its block-shaped head promised to be massive in adulthood. Worse than the puppy’s incredible size, though, was its coloring. It looked as if it were part dalmatian, with rottweiler ears tossed in for good measure, and the loose skin of a shar-pei to make homely downright ugly. The poor thing was white with black splotches and spots, only the splotches and spots had run together, creating an overall blue effect.
“Come on.” Isaiah led Laura toward the Hummer. Once there, he said, “The cars have stopped now. You can turn him loose.”
Her eyes went as round as quarters. “I can’t do that!”
Isaiah was starting to get a very bad feeling. He met her imploring gaze over the hood of the vehicle. “Why?” he asked cautiously.
“Well,
He hated it when women said that. Because. What the hell did that mean? In Isaiah’s experience, it usually led to trouble. His mother used this tactic. So did his sister, Bethany, and all of his sisters-in-law. When they had no rational explanation for a decision, they always said, “Well, because,” the overall implication being that no male of the species could possibly understand the intricacies of their reasoning because all men were somewhat mentally impaired.
“Laura,” he said in a reasoning tone, “he probably belongs to someone.”
“No, sir. He has no collar.”
Oh, boy. Through the drifting snowflakes he gave the dog a long look, ignoring the fact that people were now beginning to lay on their horns. Both the animal’s eyes looked as if they’d been blacked. And its ears were oddly asymmetrical, one partially black and cocked forward over its right shiner, the other gray and hanging straight.
“The absence of a collar means nothing with a puppy,” he tried. “Some people don’t put a collar on a dog until they’re older.”
“His ribs are poking out. I’m not leaving him. He was nearly killed!” She looked at Isaiah as if he’d suddenly been transformed into a monster—a heartless puppy murderer. “How can you ask me to do that?”
Oh, boy. Isaiah glanced at the cars. Those in the opposite lane were now starting to move, and the street was narrow. He would have to shut the Hummer door for them to get by. He sighed, accepting that this discussion would have to be resumed later.
“Get in the car then,” he commanded. “We’re blocking traffic.”
“With the puppy?”
“Yes,” he replied resignedly, “with the puppy.”
Once all three of them were safely inside the Hummer, Isaiah drove slowly up the street. Laura crooned to the puppy, saying, “Poor hapless baby.” The windshield wipers went swish-whack, swish-whack, pushing snow into mounds at either side of the glass.
“You can’t keep him, honey.”
“Of course I can’t. But I can find a home for him.” She made more kiss-kiss noises and brushed her cheek over the top of the puppy’s head. “Isn’t he darling?”
Isaiah had just been thinking that no one in his right mind would adopt the poor thing. He was the last person on earth to hold a dog’s bloodlines against it, but this pup had a really bad case of the uglies. Laura held him as she might a baby, on his back in the crook of her arm, putting his nether regions in full view. Definitely a male. And he was going to be a huge animal. Normally Isaiah could look at a mongrel and make an educated guess as to its origins, but this pup was a boiling pot with blotched fur. Part mastiff, possibly? Those ears were definitely rottweiler, though, and the loose, wrinkly skin around the head and shoulders still screamed shar-pei. Some fool hadn’t kept the gate locked. Maybe several damned fools. A generous dose of dalmatian blood had surely been tossed into the mix.
“Well,” he said cheerfully, “we’ll just drop him off at the Humane Society before we go for lunch. How’s that for an idea?”
“No!” she cried. “What if no one adopts him?”
So, Isaiah thought sagely, he wasn’t the only one who thought the pup’s looks were lacking. “A cutie like that? He’ll get sprung from jail in a couple of days.”
Laura thrust out her chin. “He isn’t going to the pound.”
“Pound? Sweetheart, the term is archaic.” Isaiah fleetingly wondered when he had gone from calling her Laura to calling her sweetheart. Even worse, it felt really right. “Nowadays strays are in high cotton until they’re adopted. They have bedding, just like at the clinic, and all the volunteers who absolutely love animals take care of them. The Humane Society even has a Web site. They have pictures and write-ups about each animal. They also advertise on the radio. He has the best chance of finding a good home there. They screen applicants very carefully.”
“I think we should call him Hapless,” she said. “Isn’t that a cute name? It was almost the first thing I said, that he was a poor hapless baby.”
Inwardly, Isaiah groaned. He’d known that drawn-out because would lead to trouble. “Sweet—” He caught himself and backtracked. “Laura,” he said with exaggerated patience, “let’s really think, okay?” When he glanced over at her, the sharp gleam of intelligence in her eyes had been replaced by bewildered confusion. She clearly wasn’t in the mood to be rational. “Where will you keep him until you can find him a home?”
She just kept looking at him. At him. Isaiah returned his gaze to the road, saw that the light had turned red, and slammed on the brakes so hard that the puppy almost catapulted from Laura’s arms into the dash. “Jesus Christ.”
“That is uncalled for,” she said heatedly. “Just because you’re miffed is no excuse to take the Lord’s name in vain.”
“I’m sorry.” When had she turned into his mother? “It’s just . . .” It was just what? That he’d almost killed all of them, including the self-satisfied-looking Hapless, by running a red light? “I can’t keep a dog, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“He’s not a dog.”
True. He was a spotted version of Attila the Hun. “If not a dog, what is he?”
“A tiny puppy.”
Tiny was not a word to describe that dog. Isaiah glanced askance at one of the paws dangling over Laura’s arm. “Well, puppy, dog, whatever, I can’t keep him. Get it straight out of your head.”
Forty minutes later Isaiah was making a bed for Hapless in the metal shop behind his house. As he plumped up an old pillow on a pile of towels and blankets, he found himself understanding his father for the first time in his life. More than once he’d watched his dad wage verbal war with his mother and always come out the loser. Given the fact that his mom wasn’t much bigger than a minute and Harv Coulter was a rugged, well-muscled man who stood over six feet tall, Isaiah had never understood the dynamics that took place between his parents during an argument. How could a big man who’d never taken shit off anybody always end up the loser in a disagreement with his wife?
Now Isaiah had an inkling. He couldn’t recall volunteering to keep Hapless at his place, but somehow Laura had maneuvered him into it anyway. It was something about her eyes. She’d looked at him in a certain way, which in retrospect Isaiah could describe only as pathetic, and the first thing he knew, he’d been saying, Well, okay, but only for a couple of days. Now here he was, creating a dog bed for a puppy who had missed his calling to the stage.
“Oh, sweetie, you’ll like it here,” Laura was saying in that slow, soft way of hers. “You’ll see. Isaiah is a vet. He’ll take very good care of you.”
Hapless made a mournful sound, half whimper and half growl. When Isaiah glanced over his shoulder, he saw that Laura had crouched down to pet the puppy, which was now draped over her bent knee.
“Don’t carry on so.” Laura looked up. “I’m afraid he’ll get cold out here.”
There was absolutely no way that Isaiah meant to put a pooping, peeing puppy in his house. “Nah. He’ll be fine. Dogs are amazingly resilient.”
“He isn’t a dog. He’s just a baby.”
He was also a con artist, Isaiah thought, but that was beside the point. Laura had taken the bait, hook, line, and sinker, and Isaiah couldn’t quite bring himself to tell her no. What was that all about? He’d never had a problem telling a woman no. It was a simple word, no, and it could be expressed in several creative ways, by simply saying, “No,” or by saying, “No way, babe.” In pressing situations, he’d even been known to tell a woman, “No damned way.” But somehow, with Laura, not even the short, straight-to-the-point version had found its way to his lips.
“Do you have a heating pad?”
Christ. Next thing Isaiah knew, the damned mutt would be sharing his bed. “No. A heating pad’s not necessary. He was wandering the streets, Laura. This shop is warm enough. It’ll seem like a palace to him.”
“Oh, sweetie,” she whispered, her tone aching with sympathy. “I wish I could take you home with me.”
“He’ll be fine, Laura. He’s got plenty of food.” Isaiah pointed to the sack of Science Diet puppy kibble that they’d picked up at the clinic. “That stuff isn’t cheap, you know. It’s the canine version of T-bone steak. And he’s got water and chew bones. Not to mention a nice bed. He’ll be absolutely fine out here for a couple of days.” Just as a precaution, Isaiah tacked on, “He’ll only be here long enough for you to find someone to adopt him. Right?”
Laura nodded and kissed the top of the puppy’s head. “You’ll be fine, Hapless. Yes, you will.”
Hapless groaned and whimpered, stretching his neck as far as possible to lick Laura’s face. Isaiah straightened and put his hands on his hips—a typical stance for a Coulter male when he felt outflanked. He’d seen his father and all his married brothers assume the same posture when they tried to reason with their wives.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m famished. Let’s leave Hapless to eat his lunch while we go have ours.”
Groan, whimper, groan. Isaiah could have sworn the mottled, overgrown puppy had a Mensa IQ, and he was quickly becoming convinced that this particular canine had played the part of Romeo Montague in a former life.
“Come on, honey. I’ve agreed to put him up for a few days. He’s got great accommodations here. What else do you want?”
She gave him a look that made him wish he hadn’t asked. “I’d just feel better if he were in the house, where it’s warmer. He’s so little and helpless. What kind of person dumps a tiny puppy on a busy downtown street?”
Isaiah raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t know why people dump animals, period, let alone a young puppy,” he finally replied.
The admission forced Isaiah to take a mental step back and try to analyze his unreasoning reaction to this puppy. He was a vet. He spent every hour of every day devoting himself to the welfare of all kinds of animals. Why, then, did this young dog, who’d never done anything to deserve this kind of abuse, make him feel so resentful?
Normally Isaiah loved all animals on sight, but he’d taken an instant dislike to Hapless, undoubtedly because Laura had so foolishly put herself in danger to rescue him. Every time Isaiah remembered how she’d dashed out into traffic, causing countless drivers to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting her, he did a slow burn. Even worse, each time he recalled how the automobiles had fishtailed on the ice, his balls shriveled to the size of peanuts.