by Deb Kastner
Mommy Loves The Doggy Doctor
Mommy’s Little Matchmakers #6
Deb Kastner
© 2019, Deb Kastner
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Cover Design by RockSolidBookDesign.com
Proofread by Alice Shepherd
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
Sweet Promise Press
PO Box 72
Brighton, MI 48116
To my husband Joe. You always believe in me, even when I don't believe in myself.
Contents
Publisher’s Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
What’s Next?
You May Also Like
More from Sweet Promise Press
More from Deb Kastner
Acknowledgments
About the Author
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Prologue
“When my mommy looks at me, she always gets sad.”
Gwenny Alvine couldn’t pump her legs back and forth on the swing like most little girls, so it was harder for her to swing as high as other little girls her age. Because of a car accident, she was completely paralyzed from the waist down.
She used to love to run and play like the rest of the kids, but now her legs didn’t move at all. Now her legs hung like her rag dolly’s. Her doctor told her that her muscles had atrophied—a big word for such a little girl, but Gwenny loved learning new words. Mommy said she had a really big vo-ca-bu-la-ry for her age, and that made her proud, because it made her Mommy smile when she said it.
Being in a wheelchair didn’t stop Gwenny from using the swing on the school playground, or most anything else she wanted to do. She’d found by experimenting she just had to do things differently than other girls. Sometimes it was harder for her to do a thing, but when had something being hard stopped Gwenny Alvine?
In the case of the swing, she had to work harder pumping her arms and pulling her shoulders back and forth than the other kids with working legs did, that was all.
She could do that—and she did.
Oh—and of course she needed someone to help her onto and off the swing and back into her wheelchair. Luckily, she had a really nice teacher here at Barton Elementary, Ms. Johnson, who was happy to help Gwenny get where she needed to go so she could have fun during recess.
“My mommy used to be sad, too, until she met my new daddy, Jett. He’s a rock star, and he’s so cool! I’ll bet if you get your mommy a new daddy, she’ll be happy again, too,” offered her friend Camille.
Gwenny thought about that for a moment. She knew Mommy missed Daddy a lot. He had been in the same accident that paralyzed Gwenny, but he had died in the hospital a few days later.
Gwenny was sad her daddy was gone, too, but not as much as mommy was. She sometimes heard Mommy crying in the night when she thought Gwenny was asleep.
There was nothing she’d like better than to make Mommy happy again. And if that meant finding her a new husband and herself a new daddy, then that is what she would do.
“Maybe you’re right,” Gwenny said thoughtfully. “Maybe Mommy does need a new husband.”
Gwenny waved to Ms. Johnson and asked to be picked off the swing and returned her to her wheelchair.
“Let’s go over by the tunnel and you can tell me how you got your mommy to fall in love with your new daddy.”
Camille smiled. “First, you have to find the exact right man for your mommy and you. Then it’s super fun and sneaky. You just have to plan ways for them to be together, and before you know it, you have an awesome new daddy.”
Gwenny knit her brow in concern. “I don’t think my mommy knows any men who would be good for her to marry.”
“Hmmm,” her friend said, climbing atop the tunnel.
For a moment, Gwenny wished she could stand up out of her wheelchair and climb on top of the tunnel like Camille, or even crawl inside it and put her legs up.
But only for a moment.
She wasn’t going to let being stuck in a wheelchair get her down. She had too many fun things to do.
And now, she had something new and exciting to plan—something she could definitely do from a wheelchair.
Find a new daddy for Mommy to fall in love with.
Chapter One
With a large plate of cookies in one hand, Ashley Alvine shoved her keys into her jeans pocket and opened the van door, lowering the ramp so her seven-year-old daughter Gwenny could guide her electric wheelchair down onto the pavement. An athlete at heart, sometimes Gwenny liked to use her regular wheelchair because she had more agility that way, but today’s activity could more easily be done using her electric wheelchair.
“Here, Mommy. Let me carry the cookies in my lap and you can get the juice.”
Ashley smiled softly at her daughter. “I was hoping you’d say that. I don’t think I could have carried everything on my own.”
Somehow, despite everything, Gwenny’s heart was full to bursting with life and she was always so willing to help—anyone and everyone in need, she would say tenderly—as if she wasn’t disabled herself. The child had a smile that could melt Antarctica and she used it often, on as many hearts as she could find with whom to share it.
Ashley couldn’t comprehend why Gwenny didn’t count herself among the unfortunate, having been paralyzed at the age of five in the same ATV accident that had taken her father’s life. She’d lost her father and the use of her legs in a single second, but Gwenny was an overcomer.
For whatever reason, Gwenny had the ability to look beyond her own struggles and lived a life of gratitude Ashley could only hope on her best days to even try to imitate
. Ashley learned something new and good from her daughter every day.
Today, she and Gwenny had decided to visit a nearby nursing home and hand out homemade cookies they’d made earlier and paper cups of apple juice. It wasn’t the first time they’d done something similar. The residents here adored Gwenny and looked forward to her frequent visits, whether she brought cookies and juice or just her contagious attitude and smile.
As soon as they entered the building, they headed to the right side, toward what the residents called the Free Room. The large, brightly-painted room had two large-screen TVs in either corner, with one usually playing a talk show and the opposite some kind of sport or other, everything from golf to football. Nearly all the seniors had flat-screen 4K televisions in their own suites, so the TVs were more for the staff as they performed their daily duties.
The residents preferred to play games, talk amongst themselves and do crafts or puzzles together. It was all about socializing between these old folks. Ashley was amused by the amount of flirting that went on between the men and women here. Ashley had quickly learned that while the seniors’ bodies were old, most of them were whip-smart and enjoyed company of every sort. Their bodies might be slow, but their minds hadn’t aged.
The moment they turned the corner into the Free Room, they heard the high-pitched sound of yipping puppies. Today, evidently, someone else had beat them to the punch, bringing dogs to visit and offer the seniors a little more excitement in their day. Somehow, Ashley figured their cookies wouldn’t hold a candle to a cute little wiggling-tailed puppy.
That was her first thought.
Her second was--Oh, crap.
Gwenny had already pressed the platter of cookies into Ashley’s hand and was aiming her wheelchair for the back of the room where the friendly barking sounds were coming from.
It had been a painful ongoing discussion between Ashley and Gwenny where puppies were concerned. Gwenny begged for a dog on a regular basis. She’d even put together a presentation of sorts on service dogs—supposedly for a school project but, Ashley suspected, more for Ashley’s benefit. It had been good enough to have received an A+ in school, but as far as Ashley concerned, Gwenny had slipped that one under the door, a crafty little girl trying to get her own way.
Ashley had to admit Gwenny presented some good points where having a service dog was concerned. It was possible a service dog would be really useful for her. But Ashley had her own reasons for having never owned a dog.
When she was in middle school, a boy who’d used to bully her had grabbed a bone from the mouth of an enormous dog—Ashley had no idea what breed, just that it was big—and threw the bone into Ashley’s lap when she was sitting on a bench eating her lunch.
The dog had leapt on her, terrifying her beyond belief and leaving a trail of thick scratch-marks across her thigh. Her dad had called animal control, while her mother had taken her to the doctor to get the wound cleaned and stitched so it didn’t fester. Her whole leg had been bruised and she had scars where the scratches had been.
To this day, Ashley didn’t know whether or not the dog had actually attacked her, or whether he’d just been after his bone. For all she knew, he could have been the friendliest dog in the world, and it had been her panicked reaction which had caused all the distress.
And yet, she’d never quite been able to get rid of the instinctual fear that bolted through her whenever a dog was near. Which was why, no matter how sweetly and logically Gwenny begged, Ashley continued to nix the idea of getting a dog.
Gwenny had already wheeled her way into the middle of the crowded circle, where everyone was exclaiming over the cute puppies. With a sigh, Ashley joined her daughter, who was laughing as one of the white-coated puppies propped its front paws on Gwenny’s leg and barked for her attention.
A pleasantly-plump gray-haired woman with coiffed hair and a smile nearly as big as Gwenny’s scooped the wiggling ball of fur into her arms and dropped it on Gwenny’s lap.
“Here you go, dear,” she said sweetly. “My name is Ruth, and I’m the owner of these little guys. I can see this one really likes you. We call her Pink, because of her collar. She’s usually our shy one, but just look at the way she’s warmed up to you.”
Gwenny beamed, and Ashley’s heart broke just a little bit more. What was this woman doing? Trying to pawn her puppies off on the unsuspecting? Did she not realize how difficult it would be for Gwenny to leave the puppies behind when it was time to leave?
But no. Ruth couldn’t possibly be trying to sell the puppies here. For one thing, she looked like too nice of a person to try to do something underhanded. And for another, it wasn’t as if any of the seniors could take a dog into their small apartments even if they wanted to. As far as Ashley knew, this center didn’t allow pets of any kind. And even if they did, none of the seniors would be up for puppy antics, chewing and the inevitable house-training. They would need a senior dog—a couch potato.
Ashley glanced around, suddenly noticing all the happy faces around her, and saw Ruth’s deed for what it really was—giving these seniors a reason to smile. Many of them had no doubt had dogs of their own at some point in their lives. Maybe some were missing their canine companions.
Even so, Ashley still thought bringing an entire litter of puppies into the building was a bit excessive. Wouldn’t it have been better to have brought in a trained therapy dog or two?
“These pups are the last litter of my husband’s dog Britely, isn’t that right, sweetie?” The kindhearted old woman who’d only moments before helped Gwenny with Pink was now lovingly rubbing the shoulders of a hunched-over old man with a vague stare suggesting dementia.
Ashley’s heart gave a tic . That explained a lot.
Why Ruth was here today. Why she’d brought the entire litter of puppies.
“And this is our son, Luke,” Ruth introduced, gesturing to a spot behind the old man.
Having been in the middle of what could almost be termed a panic attack, it was only then that Ashley noticed the nice-looking thirty-ish-year-old man hanging back away from the crowd behind Ruth’s husband’s chair, his hands jammed into the front pockets of a nice pair of slacks that went along nicely with a blue button-down dress shirt. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with thick black hair, a neatly-trimmed beard and a concerned expression on his face.
Luke looked up for a moment and Ashley’s breath caught at the piercing blue of his eyes. She smiled and nodded in greeting but his brow knit, and he dropped his gaze without returning her smile.
At first, Ashley assumed he was rude or self-centered and her temper flared, but after watching him for a few more seconds, she decided she may have jumped to the wrong conclusion too quickly—a bad habit of hers when it came to meeting new people.
Luke had turned his attention to corralling the other three puppies. It took him a moment, and from his expression, Ashley suspected he was having an equally difficult time corralling his emotions.
She couldn’t blame him. It couldn’t be easy visiting a father who suffered from dementia. She didn’t have any firsthand experience with the disease, but she’d been around other friends and acquaintances who’d gone through the heartbreak of losing a family member to this terrible disease, one which was equally as painful to the family as to the one suffering from it. How awful would it be to have someone you loved no longer recognize your face?
“Look here, Pops. These are Britely’s last litter of puppies,” Luke said, repeating what Ruth had said. He scooped up the nearest dog and held him up for his father’s inspection. “This little guy is pudgy, isn’t he?” Luke’s voice was deeper than she’d expected and rich in tone.
Ashley wasn’t certain whether Luke was referring to the puppy’s name or the state of his round belly. He was a cute little thing, and Pudgy was a good, accurate name for him.
Deciding she wasn’t going to interest anyone in cookies and juice when there were puppies running around, she set the platter and jug on the counter and jumped in
to the wiggling fray.
She was here to make a difference, after all, and today, puppies were the event of the hour. She took a deep breath and tried to inhale the excitement everyone else was feeling, while pushing down her own insecurities. She brushed a hand across Gwenny’s silky blond hair as she passed her daughter, but as she’d expected, Gwenny wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to her. Not with a puppy on her lap and a nice grandmother-figure giving her tips and tricks on how to properly hold the wiggling bundle of fur.
She glanced at Luke, wondering if she should try to get over her own emotional barriers she’d built up after her husband Chase’s death. She considered attempting to start a conversation with Luke, but he still refused to meet her eyes, so instead she crouched before Ruth’s husband, who was absently stroking Pudgy’s soft white fur with a vague half smile on his face.
Was he remembering his youth? His dog Britely?
“What kind of dog is this?” she asked, thinking it might spur the old man’s thoughts and memories. But to her surprise, it was Ruth’s apparently introverted son who answered.
“They’re Dalmatians.”
She glanced up in astonishment. This time Luke met and held her gaze. His lips even curled up slightly, transforming him from a pleasant-enough looking man into a lady-killer—except Ashley suspected Luke had absolutely no idea of the kind of effect he could have on women or he would be using his charm to his benefit.
