Page 12 of Puppy Christmas

Chapter 3

“Knock, knock!”

No sooner had Ford pulled his trusty, if ancient, minivan into his driveway than a singsong voice hailed him from behind a snow berm. The problem with winters in Spokane wasn’t the cold weather or the heavy snowfall, both of which he liked, but the fact that those giant mounds of plowed snow were the perfect hiding places. Not only did they conceal little girls who had a love of snowball fights while he was trying to unload groceries, but they also made it impossible for him to see women like Helen Griswold until they were practically on top of him.

“It’s freezing out here!” She laughed as she knocked again—this time with her glove-covered knuckles on the driver’s-side window. She also made a liberal rolling motion with her hand.

“Don’t do it, Daddy,” Emily warned from the back seat. “Me’nember what happened last time?”

Alas, he me’nembered. He me’nembered all too well. It had taken two hours and a promise to attend her annual Christmas block party to get rid of Helen. Unfortunately, one of them had to be the adult in this car.

That adult was him. It wasalwayshim.

“Don’t be rude, Emily,” he said with a severity he was far from feeling. Complying with Helen’s request to open the window, he turned and put on his blandest smile. “Hello, Helen. You’re looking positively radiant today. Or maybe that’s just the frostbite settling onto your cheeks.”

She blinked her hazel eyes, which were, in fact, looking quite nice. Snowflakes had caught in the lashes and were sparkling in the midday sun. When matched with the rosy glow of her ice-kissed cheekbones and the knit cap pulled down around her ears, she was an unquestionably attractive woman.

She was also an unquestionably nosy one.

“Oh, you,” she said with a titter and a flash of teeth that Ford had to admit were a little too white for his tastes. Maybe Lila was onto something with that whole gleaming-enamel thing. There was something unsettling about it. “Always such a jokester. I haven’t been out here long. I saw you pull up the street and dashed right out. Is Emily with you?”

Without waiting for an answer, she leaned forward and popped her head in the window. “Oh, there you are, love,” she said, raising her voice to a near-shout and painfully enunciating each syllable. “And how are you today?”

“Daddy,” Emily said by way of answer. “Jeeves has to pee.”

“Good afternoon, Em-ee-lee,” Helen repeated, louder this time.

“He’s gonna pee on my new tights.”

Helen pulled her head back out again, her hair tickling against his cheek as she went. “Poor little thing,” she murmured. “Rough day?”

Ford bit back a sigh and turned to his daughter, making a quick hand sign for her to be polite and say hello. Emily complied, but sullenly, not the least bit pleased at finding herself in the wrong. Technically, she wasn’t—the last time he’d lectured her on her behavior toward their neighbor, he’d stressed the importance of saying something nice or not saying anything at all—but he hadn’t expected her to take him quite so literally.

Not that he could blame her for it. No matter how much time Helen spent with them or how many times he tried to explain it, she always seemed to think a loud voice and slow speech were all that were necessary to overcome Emily’s challenges.

“Did you have a doctor’s appointment this morning?” Helen persisted as she stepped back to allow him out of the car. “We missed you at drop-off.”

“Oh, our errand today was much better than a doctor’s visit,” Ford said, careful to keep his tone light. He had to. It was the part of the game they played, the persona he’d cultivated after years of living in a neighborhood like this one.

It contained mostly women—mostly single—and a nicer and more supportive group of people he had yet to meet. Since the day he’d moved in, women like Helen Griswold and Maddie Thomas and Danica DeWinter had gone above and beyond to help him figure out this whole single-parent thing. Most of them had children in Emily’s kindergarten class, and most of them were kind, knowledgeable, genuinely interesting human beings who’d helped him out of a tight corner more times than he cared to admit.

Therein lay the problem. Helikedthem. He appreciated them. But there were times when all he wanted to do was unload his daughter and her new puppy without being interrogated about it. The women were invested in everything, from his childcare to his (lack of a) dating life. He’d once tried making up a girlfriend in Canada in the hope that it would buy him some space, but all that had done was launch a series of questions about maple syrup and universal health care that he was sure he’d failed at the outset.

“Daddy!” came a shout from inside the minivan. “He’s peeing. I told you.”

Helen lifted her brow at him.

“He’s peeing,” Ford apologized. “She told me. I should know better than to doubt a lady’s word.”

Without waiting for her to say more, Ford ducked his head and bolted around the van to extricate his daughter and the wriggling puppy, who was making quick work of turning the upholstery into his own private bathroom.

Lila had warned him that Jeeves might take a few days to settle into his new home and new routine, but she hadn’t mentioned that the animal had little bladder control. Gently lifting the puppy and aiming his pink belly away from the van, Ford had to stand there, looking like a cherub in a stone fountain, until Jeeves had finally reached empty.

“He’s not used to such refined company,” he said when Helen came around to join them, a look of inquiry on her face. “His best friend was a mongrel, his last girlfriend a cur.”

“His last girlfriend…?”

“You can’t hold him like that.” Emily hopped down from the van and held her arms out for her puppy. “Princess Lila said to be gentle. You’re not being gentle.”