Page 8 of Ruff and Tumble

“What is?” Hailey asked. She angled her body over the dog, forming a protective curl around Bess’s panting form. “Don’t come any closer. You can’t just reach in there and start yanking puppies out. It’s not a clogged drain.”

He grinned. It wasn’t the most appropriate response, but he couldn’t help it now any more than he could when Hailey had criticized his football technique. No one, with the exception of his sister, talked to him with such a complete absence of flattery.

“Thank you for that visual. I’ll carry it with me to the grave.” He tilted his head toward the elevator doors. “What am I going to find if I pry those open?”

Hailey followed the line of his gaze with knit brows. They were a few shades darker than her hair and just as expressive as the rest of her.

“An elevator shaft?” she ventured.

“Thank you. I gathered as much. But it says we’re between subfloors, so I’m assuming this is all parking?”

“Yes, but I don’t think you should—”

“Stay down there with Bess,” he said. Hailey made a motion to get to her feet, but he stopped her. “Talk to her like you were before. Keep her calm. If my knowledge of parking garages is any good, there’s not much surrounding us but the occasional concrete pillar. If I can get the doors open, there should be a way to shimmy out.”

“But you can’t,” she protested again. “It’s not safe.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I know, but if anything should happen to you…” She trailed off and glanced at him, concern flooding her eyes. To both his surprise and his amusement, it wasn’t concern for his well-being that made them sparkle like that. “They’ll never forgive me. Not if I break you this close to the Kickoff Cup. Not when you guys are almost there.”

He strove to keep from laughing out loud. Hailey obviously subscribed to the same ridiculous superstitions that everyone else did. If you asked him, the Kickoff Cup Curse was more of a personal torment than a supernatural one. He couldn’t go anywhere these days without people crossing their fingers or throwing salt at him or doing God-knew-what-else they thought would help him get a ball into the end zone and the Lumberjacks into the final game.

He had a much better answer for them. It took hard work, lots of practice, enough painkillers to take down a horse, and the total subjugation of every nonfootball desire he’d had in his lifetime. Unfortunately, none of that made for a good story. People wanted mysticism and pizzazz. People wanted a token good-luck charm.

Behold. He was doing his best to deliver one. Unfortunately,shewas too busy delivering puppies for him to broach the subject.

“And who, if you don’t mind my asking, are ‘they’?”

“Your fans. Your sponsors. The world.” As if just realizing that the world was only the start of her problems, Hailey groaned. “Jasmine.”

“As touching as it is to find that you’re more worried about your boss than the possibility of irreparable harm to my health, you don’t have a choice. I’m doing it anyway.”

He didn’t wait for her to argue further. For one thing, he wanted to get them out of the elevator before the dog’s situation became any more dangerous than it already was. For another, he honestly didn’t know if he could get the doors open anyway. Like the escape panels thatdidn’texist anywhere inside this elevator, he’d only seen this next bit done in the movies.

“I just need something to pry it open,” he said, mostly to himself. A quick survey of his surroundings revealed nothing that might work…unless he counted the items currently on his person. “I hate to do this to you, Hailey Lincoln, but you might want to avert your eyes for this next part.”

“For what next part?”

He began unbuckling his belt with an efficiency that would have done a gigolo proud. “I’m about to damage another article of clothing, and there’s nothing you can say to stop me.”

“I’m not even going to ask how much that cost,” she said, moaning slightly. “Actually, I am… Was it more or less than the jacket?”

“Less,” he said. Unable to help himself, he added, “But not by much. I’ll have my manager send you the bill.”

She moaned again, but he ignored it. He was too busy trying to figure out how to shimmy the buckle into the small space between the doors. To his relief and—he was ashamed to admit—his pride, it turned out to be a much easier task than he’d reckoned on. The metal bent a little, but he managed to create a big enough space to slip his fingers in. From there, nothing was needed but brute force.

Brute force and the leverage of his right shoulder. He realized his mistake about thirty seconds in. The burning sear was a familiar sensation in so many ways. He knew well the strain and tug of overtaxation—knew even better the determination to push through in hopes of reaching the other side.

He also knew that therewasno other side. After years of physical therapy and miraculous surgery that had turned out to be not so miraculous, he could attest to that. Sometimes, the pain just was.

“Thank God. It’s working.” Hailey’s voice reached him just as he was about to give up. “Please hurry. Her breathing is becoming awfully shallow.”

Nothing could have been more calculated to keep him intent on his goal. With a reserve of strength he didn’t know he had, he continued pulling at the doors until they hit an automated system and slid the rest of the way open.

As he expected, there was plenty of room for a man of his size to slip out between the garage levels and go for help. They could probably even lift the dog out and rush her to the vet.

Rather, theycouldhave done those things, had there not been a crowd of feet and flashing lights awaiting them on the other side of those open doors.