Page 66 of Puppy Christmas

“You look pretty in the pictures,” Emily added, blithely uninterested in the adult half of the conversation. “And in that costume. Please will you get it?”

It had been Lila’s intention to dress modestly for the party, conceding to the pirate theme with a boat-neck shirt or by cutting a pair of pants into ragged edges at the knee, but the Fords were an oddly compelling pair. Once upon a time, she’d been a woman of resolve and dignity, a woman who’d dressed with all the neatness and propriety expected of someone her age.

Once upon a time, she’d also been stiff and unyielding, her heart and body untouched by anything real.

“Of course I will,” she said. “If you approve of it, then that’s all I need to hear.”

Emily squealed her excitement. This unprecedented action startled Jeeves, who pricked his ears and began looking around for the cause of his mistress’s distress. Lila could almost sense his dismay at having missed something potentially important; he knew it was his job to interpret the sounds of the outside world. The mall Santa and the gaggles of children waiting in line to see him hadn’t upset him. The elf with jangling shoes working at the food court had been a mere nothing. But Emily’s burst of enthusiasm had him all in a twitter.

It took a full five minutes of careful training before both the puppy and his human were capable of standing at attention again. Lila could only be grateful for the distraction, as it relieved her of the burden of witnessing Ford’s reaction to her capitulation.

He’d be triumphant, she knew. He’d also be staring at her corset again, making it almost impossible for her to withstand the intensity of his gaze. Helen obviously had no idea what she was getting into with this pirate theme for her Christmas party.

Lila glanced up to catch Ford staring—not at her chest this time, but at the tight binding of her waist—and was unable to stop a flush from stealing over every inch of skin she had exposed.

Then again, maybe Helen was a genius in disguise.

* * *

“They’re just a rough sketch.” Ford stood at his desk with a clutch of papers held between his hands. From where she and Emily stood, Lila could only make out a few black-and-white scribbles in a vaguely humanlike shape. “I haven’t made any touch-ups or refinements.”

“Noted.”

“And you’re much more difficult to capture than Judge Judy. She’s all grimaces and smiles, but your tendency is to hide your emotions as best you can.”

“They’re rough, and your subject is an expressionless monster. Got it.”

Ford didn’t, as she’d hoped, hand over the sketches. He stared at her instead, his continued abeyance making her nervous. She shifted from one foot to another in anticipation.

“See that?” he said, pointing a finger at her.

“What?” she asked and cast a quick glance around her.

“When you moved just now. You’ve been standing perfectly still for like five minutes waiting for me to get these out. That tiny shuffle of your feet is the only indication you’ve given that you’re the least bit interested in me or my pictures.”

The only indication?She goggled at him. There was the most ridiculous pirate costume in the world in a shopping bag by the door, and she had every intention of wearing it in public for no reason other than the way he looked at her when she had it on. She’d spent all day in a state of squirming discomfort, doing her best not to acknowledge that she could feel Ford’s eyes on her every movement. Her mouth was dry, her palms were sweaty, and her lungs constricted every time he drew near.

And he thought that one small shift was her sole sign of interest?

“I’m only warning you so you realize how much intense study had to go into these pictures. Hours of it, in fact. So if there’s anything you don’t think I got right—”

“Oh, give me the dratted things already.” She reached out and plucked them from his hands before he could stop her. However, she reallywasn’tan expressionless monster, so she paused before glancing at them. “And for the record, Ford, I’m interested. In both you and your pictures. Does that help?”

The smile that broke across his face could have shattered glass. In a way, that was exactly what it did, cracking anything that might have remained of the ice around her heart.

“Yes,” he said. “That helps.”

“Can I see them, too?” Emily jumped up on her tiptoes and tugged at Lila’s hand. As much as Lila enjoyed the little girl’s company, she felt oddly reluctant to share this moment with anyone. No one had ever drawn her before—at least, not to her knowledge, and not in an outfit that sounded as though it was one small nip-slip away from a serious wardrobe malfunction. But both she and the demands of her body were coming to realize that when a child was involved, certain sacrifices had to be made. Sex took place over the phone in the dead of night, and she couldn’t bury herself away in a hole and pore over every detail of Ford’s sketches by herself.

She dropped to the kitchen stool and patted the one next to her, waiting until Emily was settled before spreading the papers out before her. There were quite a few of them—over a dozen in all—each page progressing through what looked an awful lot like an actual story line. One Ford had put thought and time into.Care, even.

The first few pages were simple, but she was able to follow along. In them, a cartoon version of Lila, dressed like a pirate princess, sat in a beautiful garden like an ornamental statue. She might have been insulted at the idea that she was a decoration to be admired if it weren’t for the quick story-line progression. A huge, beast-like creature with several rows of teeth emerged from behind a bush shaped like a candy cane, at which point Lila transitioned from a stately pirate princess to a pirate princess with a lizard-like tail and a forked tongue. Lizard Lila lost no time in extracting a braided whip that was coiled underneath her skirt and lashing at the toothed beast with it.

The beast, with a laceration forming on his cheek, howled his dismay, but he wasn’t beaten. Before Lizard Lila could lash at him again, he grabbed some kind of wrapped package from the middle of a stone fountain and ran off with it.

There wasn’t any text to accompany the pictures, so she couldn’t say for sure what was happening, but it looked as though Lizard Lila then began a quest to retrieve the package from the beast. About five pages in, a small street urchin with Emily’s cochlear implants and an armor-clad cockapoo that was every inch the image of Jeeves joined the fight. Urchin Emily was a scrappy little thing, too. She even staved off a few evil-looking Christmas elves with only the dog to aid her.

Emily noted the likeness with glee. “There’s me!” she cried, clapping her hands and running her finger over every inch of the image. “I told you. I’m getting the bad guys, too. Look, Lila. We’re getting the bad guys together!”