by Ash Harlow
“And Justice is here?”
“Uh-huh, right here, lying on our feet.”
They both looked down. Justice grinned back and bashed his tail on the floor a couple of times.
“So am I dreaming?”
Adam sucked in a breath. “God, I hope not.” His gaze darted from her eyes to her mouth as if trying to read every confused cue. His mouth was tentative.
The fact that he needed a bit more air, that she witnessed the little tremor of uncertainty…that was what Marlo needed to see. He wasn’t holding this together much better than she was.
She heard a car engine start and glanced to the window, remembering that this is how it had all began…a leaving car, Adam, and a dog he’d just helped deliver. Was this how it would begin again?
Vince drove from the parking lot. So typical of him to slip away when he thought he was no longer needed.
When she turned back, she realized that Jeff had also left the room. Now there was her and Adam and the panting dog that didn’t want to move from her feet.
“I need to sit down.” She took the couple of steps to the waiting room bench seat and sat on its padded vinyl cushion.
Fala came over and pushed her nose into Marlo’s hand.
“Fala’s up.” She swiped her hand over her eyes and stood and called for Jeff. “Fala’s up, walking.”
He entered the waiting room and paused, looking as bewildered as she felt. “I’m not sure where to start,” he said.
Marlo nodded. I’m not, either.
“That’s great about Fala. She’s probably had a bit of a rush from seeing Justice. I’m happy for you to take her home this evening, and I’ll tell you some things to watch out for. If you see any of them, you phone me, even if it’s the middle of the night. Otherwise bring her back in the morning, so I can check her again. Oh, and Sally said that she’ll drop one of her witch’s brews at your house for Fala on her way back from town. It’s probably there already.”
“I think Sally prefers it if you refer to her potions as homeopathic remedies.” Marlo watched Fala, who now lay at Adam’s feet, renewing her status in the fan-club-of-one. That was an image she would happily get used to.
Jeff rolled his eyes. “Sure, got it. Mustn’t upset Spooky Sally or she’ll cast a spell on me. Now, what about Justice? I’d better check ultra-marathon dog out.”
Marlo flicked Adam a do you mind? look. “Can you wait?”
“I’ve got all the time in the world.” He smiled.
Adam poured them each a glass of wine as Marlo fixed dinner for the dogs. Justice had checked out fine. He did appear to have had an altercation with a vehicle at some stage in his journey, but his wounds were scrapes and well-healed. The pads of his paws were worn and had minor lacerations. Mainly, he was hungry.
Even Fala ate a little food before she went to her basket, where Justice soon joined her.
“So…us.” Adam had stepped up behind her as she cleaned the dog dishes.
Marlo turned and leaned against the bench and concentrated on each breath. This close to him, she could feel her body on high alert, little parts of her soliciting his touch. Settle. “Us. Tell me…”
He took her hand and led her through to the sitting room, steering her to the sofa. “Sit with me.”
She sat. Adam joined her, pulling her right in until she was tight with him.
“This is sitting with me.” His arm had draped around her shoulder, but his hand clasped her firmly. “Tense.” His word was hot in her ear.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’m confused. I don’t know why you’re here, and I can’t get on another adrenaline fun ride with you, only to have you leave again.”
He pressed a light kiss to the top of her head. “I’m here. So long as your government will have me, I’m here. That’s not to say there won’t be a few more adrenaline rides. You need them—you’re a shock junkie.”
“Thank you. I think.”
“CRAR offered me a job…”
Marlo pushed herself up. “What? Really? How come I didn’t know?”
“I asked them not to tell you.”
Spores of disappointment settled and clung like a late summer blight. This sounded familiar.
“I know, you’d think I would learn.”
It seemed he still read minds.
“Listen, hon, I tried to settle at home. I resigned from the police and went back to the farm and did my best farmer impersonation. And that’s what it was, an impersonation. I was so unhappy. When I was down at the cottage, all I could think of was having you there, sharing the place with you, watching sunsets together, teaching you to surf. Then came the news that although there would be no funding from any organizations back home for the Flying Squad, CRAR were going to take up the idea. James Mansell phoned and offered me the job.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I would have, but I wanted to be certain that everything would come together. Despite Mansell’s call, the position could quite easily have fallen through, or I could have been refused a work visa…so much potential for stuff going wrong.
“And hell, it really did go wrong. At my farewell dinner my father had a heart attack, which blew apart any notion I had of leaving the farm.”
“Oh, Adam, I’m so sorry. How is he?”
“He needs to take things easy for some time, but he’s going to be okay. Can you see now how it would have been if you’d been told I was coming back, only to have me pull out?”
He had protected her for the right reasons.
“I’ve made promises to you before, and I’ve let you down. I don’t ever want to do that again. The only way I could honestly and with certainty say to you that I was coming back was when I drove up to your door.”
“And now you’re here.” Inside of her was a little tremble, a flutter like the heart pace of a small bird. She tested a smile a couple of times, a small lift at the corner of her mouth, like a tic.
“Now I’m here.” He reached an arm behind her knees and swung her so that she draped over his lap. “I need you closer,” he whispered, and, as his thigh muscles flexed, she allowed herself to find the first ripple of pleasure.
“Marlo, I know in the past I’ve had moments when I’ve made decisions on your behalf, and pretty much all of them backfired. I saw you as fragile and vulnerable, but what I hadn’t seen was your bravery and your ability to step up and take care of yourself. And the dogs. And the people around you. When I was in New Zealand, I was so lost, missing a vital piece of me, and I thought you were probably here getting along fine.”
“Except I wasn’t.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I’ve become stronger because of you, Adam. I always thought that doing things alone would make me stronger, help me through my fears, but you let me see that by asking for help, by partnering up with someone to walk with you through the difficult bits, that’s what makes you stronger.”
He reached up to cup her cheek, and she saw the flash of hurt cross his eyes as she pulled away.
“Stop.”
His hand fell to her lap. “Sure, hon, stopping right now.”
She sat up. “Show me your hands.”
“You going to punish me?”
“Hands.”
“Okay.” He stretched his hands out toward her, and she gripped his fingertips, staring at them. Gradually, she stretched a finger down and rubbed the tip over the indentation on the ring finger of his left hand. Up and down, she moved her finger, unable to stop herself touching the empty spot. When at last she could form the words, she asked, “Did you lose it?”
She waited as he drew a slow, deep breath. “I buried it.”
“Oh…oh, heck. Are you okay with that?”
His eyes gleamed.
“Totally okay. Liberated. You are the person I wanted when I was at home, and, in fairness to you, I had to be certain of that. I am now. I wasn’t going to come back unless I honestly believed in us.”
<
br /> “So you’re staying?” Her voice pitched higher with each question.
“If you’ll have me.”
She leaned back in to him. “You can take that kiss now.”
They met halfway, their lips touching, recognizing, and a little hesitant.
“God, I’ve missed you,” he spoke against her mouth.
“Right with you on that one,” she replied, as she swept the tip of her tongue along his bottom lip.
He caught it with his own tongue and moved in and took control of the kiss, deepening it, asking for everything she had, and the answer she gave him was exactly right. Pleasure and emotion collided and washed through him as he took possession of her, laying her back on the cushions.
He saw movement in his periphery and he broke off the kiss, sighed, and sat up. Fala was beside them.
“Fala needs to go out.” Marlo went to stand, and Adam grabbed her wrist, catching her to him. “First, there’s something I want to say. I’ve said it to myself. I’ve told my parents, and my brother, Clive. Even Emma knows.”
“Emma?”
“Yeah, I know, weird, huh?”
He took hold of her chin and tipped her face towards him. The brilliant blue of his eyes were so bright they startled the breath from her.
“I love you, Marlo. You’re woven through my entire heart so that I’m only complete when I’m with you. I hope that there’s space in your heart, alongside the pieces the dogs have, for some love for me, because I can’t possibly ever leave you again.”
Marlo’s chest pounded because this was more than she could ever have dreamed for. She drew gulps of air as something that mixed joy with tears cascaded through her. “We almost lost each other. I can’t believe you’re back. I love you too, Adam, but it frightens me. I’ve never had this feeling for another person, and I’ve been empty since you left.” She thumped his chest with a balled up fist. “Don’t ever leave me again.”
He caught her fist and kissed it. As he drew it back to her side, Justice reached up with a paw and tapped at their hands.
Adam shook his head, laughing as he turned and saw Fala and Justice eagerly watching them. “It looks like Fala and Justice need to go out, now.” He swung himself from the sofa. “Stay there, I’ll take them. It’s probably my turn.”
Marlo gave a soft laugh. “Welcome home.”
Vince and Lulah’s (and Calliope) story follows next in Soul Scars.
Soul Scars
Dog Haven Sanctuary Romance Book 2
Copyright © (2014) 2016 by Tasman Gibb & Ash Harlow
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
About the book
If I let myself, I would become obsessed with him. I can't do that.
Vince Marr is a veteran Marine volunteering at Dog Haven. Crippled by PTSD and flashbacks of Afghanistan, he's desperate to find some kind of peace in his life. When he meets Lulah, her smile warms his heart to the very core, and she immediately gains his trust.
But there are some things better left unspoken, and when Lulah pushes him to open up, all he can do is run away from her prying eyes. If she knew what he was, what he did, she wouldn't love him anymore.
Lulah has spent her life bailing out her dad from one gambling debt after another. The last thing she needs in her life is another unstable man. But Vince is different from any other man she's ever met, and she can't help longing for the strong, silent hero that she sees behind the scars.
Despite everything, as they train a rescued pit bull together, Vince and Lulah can't help falling more and more in love. But Lulah isn't ready to throw herself headlong into a shaky situation, and Vince isn't ready to reveal the memories that haunt his nightmares. Their relationship teeters between ecstasy and terror, and neither one wants to give up on the promise of love hovering right in front of them.
How does a scarred soul learn to love again?
Chapter One
Lulah had about fifteen seconds to decide whether to call for help. The main gates of Dog Haven Sanctuary were locked each morning once the staff had arrived, reopening at 2 p.m. for visitors who hopefully wanted to adopt a dog.
The guy coming down the drive looked as though breaching the gates would give him about as much trouble as opening a can of soda. His powerful stride was long and quick, filled with purpose.
The Affliction t-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders made it difficult to tell where the design on the shirt stopped and his tattoos began. His jeans were worn but recently cleaned and pressed, and the way he held himself ramrod straight, screamed Military, every muscle of his body contained but battle-ready.
“Can I help you?” Lulah called, squaring her own shoulders, her hand tightening around the dog leash she held. Shame there wasn’t a dog attached to the other end of it, but there were plenty of staff in the building behind her to come to her aid.
He slowed his pace as he neared, not with hesitancy but with some kind of calculated measure, stopping at a polite distance from her. With legs braced he stretched out a heavily tattooed arm, to take her hand in a brisk greeting. When their palms touched, the handshake became a conduit for something remarkable, a jolt that shot right through her. In the meeting of their eyes, she saw disbelief, as if he’d felt it, too.
“Vince Marr.” He said his name like an apology, quickly dropping her hand.
“Hi, Vince Marr. I’m Lulah, and you’re not expected, so, how did you get in?”
“The gates.”
“Which are locked at this time of the day, so, what? You climbed them?”
He shrugged, then curved his lips in what he possibly thought was a smile, but nothing reached his eyes.
Lulah took another look at him, doing a quick calculation as to how many guys she’d need to call for to assist him from the property if he didn’t have a good reason for being there. Had Vince been a dog, she’d have admired his strength and condition. Not a visible ounce of fat, biceps and forearms defined in a way that made Lulah want to give them a test squeeze, and the underlying confidence of an athlete who knows he can call on his body to respond to any physical task.
What went on behind those guarded moss green eyes, though, was an entirely different matter.
“I’d like to volunteer,” he said.
That was the last thing she expected. She shuffled her feet, adding some distance between them because the guy was potent, and unnerving. “Okay. Well, there’s a process. You need to phone and speak to Marlo, our director, and make an appointment for an interview. Right now, though, we have all the staff we need, but give her a call, and if you’re suitable she’ll put you on the waiting list.”
“I’m here. I can help now.”
“I’m sorry, it doesn’t work like that.” Nobody was that desperate to volunteer, but something about him tugged at her.
Energy poured off him. Worse, his tight body language, and the way he scanned his surroundings as if searching for threats, were not the qualities they looked for in staff. They ran a specialist sanctuary, unique to Washington, one that took the difficult dogs, the unadoptables who needed serious rehabilitation before rehoming.
The way this guy appeared was a whistle-call to a dog’s issues, because a person uneasy in himself drew every anxiety to the fore in a dog. A damaged dog needed a calm and confident leader.
A few minutes in his company and Lulah couldn’t think of any reason why he would be a good fit for the sanctuary. Yet this was a place of hope and belief, rather than somewhere where judgment was made on looks and behavior.
Who was she kidding?
With his looks he could be the recruitment poster boy for any branch of the military, which meant she was totally making a call based on all the wrong criteria. She drew a long breath and hoped she wasn’t making a mistake.
“What’s your experience?” she asked in the hope that he’d have some skill they couldn’t do without.
“Marine…two tours of Afghanistan. I’m home for a bit.”
Maybe he’d been a military working dog handler. That would be useful, especially when she had to explain to Marlo that she’d taken on a new volunteer.
“Come with me and I’ll show you around.”
He fell into step beside her, held doors open, and answered her questions with brief, yet efficient responses.
“Do you have much experience with dogs?”
“We had dogs when I was a kid. That’s my experience.”
“Okay.” Great, so no experience. He was going to be a hard sell to the boss. The door he now held for her opened to the corridor running behind the kennels.
“The people who work here are nuts about dogs, so as long as you’re here, you’re going to find that dogs and animal behaviour in general, are the main focus of our day, and our lunchroom conversation. Some of the jobs aren’t much fun. Like cleaning kennels. We rotate the chores roster so that no single person is stuck with a shitty job, but you will be asked to learn everything. Are you good with that?”
Several steps on, when he hadn’t responded Lulah stopped and swung around, smacking straight into his hard chest, and tripping over his foot. Her sudden change in direction caused him to jump sideways, and grab her arm, keeping her upright and off his body in one quick move.
Vince muttered an apology before craning his head to look past her down the corridor as if it were booby-trapped.
“Vince, there’s something that’s really important around here, and that’s communication. The dogs depend on us all getting along and performing in a predictable manner. When I ask anything of you, you need to answer, otherwise I’ll just keep asking. Believe me when I tell you that I can be really annoying in that regard.”
