“Where’s Martha?” Larry asked after the woman whose job it was to keep the cafeteria clean.
“She threw up, so we sent her home.”
“And Gil?”
“Dealing with clogged toilets.” Mrs. Crowley took off her glasses and wiped it with her sleeve. She replaced them and swiped a greasy strand of gray hair over her ear.
“Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I put my tools away and clean up here.”
“Good.” Having delivered her missive, Mrs. Crowley turned sharply and clip-clopped from the utility room.
So much for being his own boss. Larry thumbed his day planner and checked off the boiler repair.
Most days he enjoyed his job, except there was nothing worse than cleaning up vomit, okay, maybe diarrhea was worse. In either case, not only was the odor gross, but he had to triple disinfect every surface, then throw away the gloves he wore.
Hours later, Larry pulled off his rubber gloves and returned the bleach to the storage closet. The extra cleanup had killed his schedule. School had let out long ago, and he had yet to empty all the wastebaskets in the classrooms.
Wheeling his jumbo garbage can, Larry made the rounds. Most of the teachers were long gone, but there were always a few dedicated ones who stayed back to decorate their classrooms, or found the peace and quiet of a deserted school preferable to working in a noisy apartment.
He couldn’t help it, but his pulse quickened as he neared the kindergarten module and saw that the light was on under his friend, Melisa Hart’s doorway.
Even though he’d been unceremoniously shot down by Miss Hart, his heart still pitter-pattered whenever she smiled at him. These days, she had a lot to smile about since she was finally dating the man she’d had her heart set on, a doctor at San Francisco General Hospital.
Larry knocked on the door out of courtesy, waited a few seconds and turned the knob.
“You’re late today,” Melisa said, looking up from her desk. She was cutting out hearts from construction paper and pasting them onto paper lace backgrounds.
“Fixed the boiler.” Larry bent to grab a wastebasket. “The district’s lucky I’m such a jack of all trades, because a professional boiler repairman would have gouged out the budget.”
She beamed at him with a sweet, cherubic smile. “That’s because you’re our Gold Hill hero.”
Okay, so she wasn’t into him as a boyfriend, but she was still good for his ego. Somehow, being around her, he felt like a kindergarten boy with a crush on the teacher.
“Heard about the mess in the cafeteria?” he asked.
“Not really. My students only attend half-day.” She straightened her desk. “But Valentine’s Day is coming up, and I have to get all of these hearts pinned up.”
“Is this the secret Valentine game?” He picked up a heart which had been folded in half. It had a name inside. “What happens if they pick their own name?”
“If that happens, they trade with anyone else who picked their own name. If there’s no one else, they get to be my valentine.”
Larry took an empty heart and wrote his inside. “Pin this on your board. Maybe I’ll get lucky.”
Okay, so that might have been flirtatious, but truly, he was getting over Melisa Hart, not that it was easy. She was perfect, yet approachable—a real sweetheart all the way around, and the younger sister of his best friend, Connor Hart, who used to be his firefighting buddy. They were the two who went into buildings together to rescue trapped civilians.
“Maybe you’ll make someone lucky.” Melisa snatched the heart from him and pinned it near the top of the bulletin board, safely out of reach of the little five-year-olds in her class.
“Maybe.” Larry forced a smile, one which stretched the side of his face that still felt like a plastic mask.
“Okay, let me amend that,” Melisa said with her hands on her hips. “Definitely, you’ll make someone very lucky.”
She said it with the confidence of a child pronouncing that yes, indeed, there was an Easter bunny, that tooth fairies always visited at night, and golly gee, but everyone knew if you left cookies for Santa, you’d get an extra special gift.
Only problem, she was dead wrong. There was no fairy godfather, no magic wand, and definitely no woman who’d care for a has-been firefighter working as a janitor in an inner-city school.
Fairy tales died with the one child he hadn’t been able to save. He’d never forget those eyes behind the bars on the window right before the fire blew out the glass, leaving him burned over half his body.
Chapter 2
“Ready to go?” Larry peeked back into Melisa’s classroom after he’d emptied the last of the wastebaskets.
“Rob’s meeting me.” Melisa graced him with a shy smile. “Thanks, though. Oh, I forgot to dump out the cake crumbs from the party.”
She pulled a plastic bag from her desk and swept the remnants of a sheet cake into it, along with the used candles. “We had the January birthday party. I saved you a slice.”
“Good thing I stopped by.” Larry took the trash bag and threw it into his rolling garbage can.
“Saved me a trip to the dumpster.” She smiled, handing him a slice of cake.
“Thanks.” He accepted the paper plate with a slice of birthday cake and gobbled it up in two bites.
“You don’t have to wait for me,” Melisa said, when it looked like he was standing around awkwardly.
Maybe she didn’t want her boyfriend to find her here with him. Larry could take the hint.
“Okay, on my way. Let me know if you need anything.” He forced a smile and waved as he rolled the trash can from the classroom.
He was over crushing on her. She was sweet and kind, and at one time, he thought he had a chance because she didn’t look at appearances. Not once since he’d come out of the burn ward did Melisa ever flinch from the sight of him. Her family had accepted him as one of theirs, and of course her brother Connor was still his buddy, even if they were no longer the two-man team they used to be. Unfortunately, now that Connor was promoted to chief, he didn’t hang out as much anymore, which meant Larry was facing a Friday night with a TV dinner in front of a basketball game.
A piercing wind blew as he lifted the dumpster lid, threatening to blow it down. Larry held the lid with one hand and hefted the trash bag into it. Letting the lid slam, he turned toward the warmth of the building.
Something moved near the dumpster, darting behind it. Probably a rat. He should set traps, but not tonight. The wind whined and howled as he opened the door.
Another whine and something furry touched the back of his leg. It was a puppy, likely a basset hound, with a brown and black patchwork face and white paws.
“What’cha doing here, boy?” Larry bent down and held his hand out for the puppy to sniff. There was no collar, but the puppy appeared well groomed and plump. “Did you get lost?”
The puppy licked his hand, and Larry scooped him up. “I bet you’re hungry. Tomorrow I’ll put up a poster. See if anyone lost you.”
He rubbed the puppy’s head and long ears while the puppy licked his jowls and yawned. How could he resist such cuteness?
# # #
“I can’t believe I lost him,” Jenna cried on the phone to her sister, Melisa. “One minute, he was following me to your apartment building, and the next minute he disappeared.”
“Following you?” Melisa glanced at Rob who was driving her home from work. “Didn’t you have him on a leash?”
“The leash and collar were in the shopping bag. I don’t have five hands. I was carrying him and then when I got to the security door, I had to put him down to punch in the code.”
“Couldn’t you have set the bags down?”
“No, that little rascal would have stuck his nose in and stolen a chicken strip.”
“Rob and I are on our way. You stay put and we’ll help you look.”
“Okay, hurry. It’s getting dark, and he’s only a tiny little puppy. I’ve already run all around yo
ur building but no one’s seen him.”
“Maybe he went back home. Where did you get him?”
“The rescue center down near where you work. But there’s no way he could have made it back. He’s so tiny and there’s so much traffic.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll find him,” her sister said. “We’re almost home.”
“Good. I don’t know how much more stress I can take. What with the show, the firemen not cooperating, and now my model gone.”
“Model? Which one?”
“Little Treat, the puppy.” Jenna couldn’t help pulling at her hair. “He’s my signature piece.”
“Signature piece? Wait? What about the gowns and the outfits?”
“Those are a mess. I need to get back home and sew, sew, sew.”
“Then what are you doing with a puppy?” Her sister’s voice took on a motherly, or was it a teacherly, tone. How was it that Melisa was younger than her and so calm?
“He’s supposed to be Connor’s bribe so the firemen can undress for my show!” Jenna wailed. “Now, the show will be a flop, all because I lost Little Treat.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
Melisa’s boyfriend’s Infiniti convertible slid to a halt in front of the apartment building. The passenger door flung open and her sister bounced out, ready to help her.
“I, I, need a paper bag,” Jenna said, blowing and huffing. Her hands were tingly and she wasn’t sure if she could breathe.
Melisa took the cell phone from her and led her to the car. “Get in. Rob, Jenna’s hyperventilating again.”
Again? Did she really stress out that often? She dutifully followed her sister to the car and got in the back seat. Rob, Melisa’s boyfriend, was an ER doctor, but oh, how embarrassing. They should be looking for the puppy, not wasting time treating her.
“I’m okay. I’m fine.” Jenna placed her hand over her belly and held her breath, or tried to. “It’s okay. We need to find Little Treat. It’s getting too dark to see.”
Melisa held a small lunch bag over her mouth and nose and after a few minutes, Jenna was able to focus, even though her heart was full of anxiety and she wished she still chewed her nails.
“What does the puppy look like?” Rob asked. “We need to put up flyers.”
“He’s a basset hound, ten weeks old. He’s so adorable, long, floppy ears and big round eyes. He’s got a black and brown head and a black back with white paws.”
“We should organize a search,” Melisa said. “Last Christmas when I lost Cassie, Larry and Rob went door to door. Let’s go to the Love Bean and gather our friends.”
The Love Bean was a quaint hipster coffee shop in the neighborhood which had somehow survived the influx of Starbucks and Peets in this partly gentrified section of San Francisco.
“I have his picture on my phone to make the posters,” Jenna said. “But don’t you two have a date? I can’t make you miss the opera for this.”
“Hey, it’s not a problem,” Melisa said, eyeing Rob who nodded. “How can I sit in an opera house not knowing if your puppy is safe?”
“We should call Larry,” Rob said. “He has the maps of all the apartment buildings from last time. It’ll be easier to print them out rather than make new ones.”
“Right, then we can go door to door and see if anyone picked up a puppy.”
“I hope this works.” Jenna squeezed her eyes shut, trying to dispel the stars she saw. Part of her dizziness could be due to starvation, but maybe not. Maybe she was about to faint. Not eating could do this, but if she was going to fit into her signature gown and walk down the runway, she’d need to lose ten pounds by Valentine’s Day. “How am I going to lose weight unless Little Treat eats my table scraps? I picked the chubbiest puppy for that reason.”
Chapter 3
Larry fed the puppy a few scraps of meat before fashioning a leash from a piece of rope he had lying around. The puppy wasn’t quite potty-trained and had already had an accident, but then, his tail was wagging so fast and he was so happy and excited to be loved that it was only natural he’d forgotten.
What a sweet little guy. He was chubby and well-fed, and so friendly with plenty of huggable loose skin, floppy ears, and a tail that wagged and wagged like a flag in the wind. The little guy vacuumed up food and was a messy drinker, slobbering water all over the floor.
Larry hugged the puppy and tied the rope around his neck. “What am I going to name you?”
“Waaaroof” the puppy barked, shaking his jowls.
“How about a tough guy name? You a tough guy?”
The puppy raised his head and howled, “Woorrooahh.”
“You like doing motorcycle noises? I bet you do.” Larry nuzzled the puppy who licked or slobbered all of his face, slathering him with drool.
“How about Harley? You like Harley?”
He couldn’t help it. Even though little Harley probably belonged to someone else, until Larry located the owner, he’d need a name, and what with his long brown ears and black body, he looked like a dog in a motorcycle jacket.
“Waaarroof.” Harley shook his ears making a slapping noise as Larry led him from the apartment. His tail stood straight up like a banner and he pulled on the rope, eager to get outside.
The little guy waddled out the door and tumbled down the stairs, tripping over his long ears.
“You silly puppy.” Larry rubbed his belly and put him back on his stubby little legs. “Never gone downstairs before, have you?”
Harley didn’t care. He bounced down the sidewalk, sniffing the air, the sign posts, and every tree trunk, hydrant, and even car tires. His nose wiggled and twitched as he caught something interesting.
With a shake of his head, he bounded toward a streetcar track.
“Whoa there, little guy.” Larry scooped the puppy up. “What’cha doing? Chasing rainbows?”
“Waaroof.” Harley stuck his long tongue out and mopped Larry’s scruffy face. He’d been thinking of growing a beard, although the scarred areas on his left side had lost their hair follicles. It would be uneven at best. What the heck. It wasn’t as if anyone at the school cared what he looked like, and now that he wasn’t a firefighter, he could grow his hair long and wear a beard if he wanted.
“Okay, okay, kissing time is over.” Larry set the puppy down and wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “Race you to the park.”
He didn’t live too far from Golden Gate Park, and he was sure Harley would love to run on the grass, leashed of course. Whoever lost this sweet little puppy had to be careless. Imagine not even putting a tag on the dog, or a collar. Their loss.
The puppy jogged, bouncing up and down the way basset hounds did, his body looking like a caterpillar inching along, but faster. As soon as he scented the park, he tugged and pulled—pretty strong for such a little guy.
Larry lengthened his stride and even though he limped from an old injury, they were soon racing to get to the park. Harley barked happily as he rolled in the green grass which had been revitalized after the winter rains ended the long Californian drought.
“Wooarrohh,” he howled in a cute puppy voice and flopped his ears, rubbing them on the grass. He looked so cute, rolling and getting himself tangled in the rope, ears all akimbo and feet wrapped up. “Aaarroohhh.”
Laughter spilled from Larry’s lips, and he got down on the grass and rolled around with Harley. “You’re such a funny boy.”
Harley only widened his large, droopy eyes and panted, his doggy breath and smile dripping with drool. He burped and let out a large, long fart, then wiggled his nose happily.
Larry hugged Harley and promptly fell in love. Harley didn’t care if he was too ugly to get a date. Harley wouldn’t play games with him and pretend to like him, then turn his back when someone richer or more attractive showed up. And most of all, Harley would love him just because they were both ugly and clumsy, burping, farting goobers.
The only problem. Harley looked to be a purebred basset hound, and he be
longed to somebody else. Larry was still too much of a Boy Scout to not attempt to find his owner. Then again, Harley wasn’t wearing tags or a collar, so who could blame Larry if he wasn’t able to locate the supposed owner?
Larry would do the right thing, just barely. He’d tack up a sign at the school. Let the Vice Principal know and that would be that.
# # #
Jenna stuck her fingernails into her mouth and tasted hot spice. Yikes. What was she doing? She was a fashion designer and she had a major show. True, it was only a charity show, but it was her chance to prove to her boss that she could run things, organize an event, and at the same time, produce all the clothes.
She, Melisa, and Rob walked into the Love Bean Coffee Shop to gather their friends for a search. How could Little Treat have disappeared? No one they met had seen him, and Melisa’s friend, Larry, the guy who’d organized the search when her lovebird flew away wasn’t answering his cell phone.
Jenna didn’t know what she thought about Larry. He seemed to be an ever-present shadow lurking around her family. Aside from having had a crush on Melisa, he was also Connor’s best friend, but Jenna didn’t really know him, since she’d left home as soon as she turned eighteen.
“Do we really need this Larry person?” Jenna heard herself saying. “Sure, he helped you with Cassie, but as I remember, he didn’t turn up any leads.”
“He’s not answering his phone anyway,” Melisa said. “I left a message. Maybe he’s on a date.”
“Little Treat isn’t a bird,” Rob said while texting. “So most likely if someone found him, they’d turn him in to the animal shelter.”
How did he do that? Text and talk at the same time?
“Maybe I should go back to the rescue and ask if they saw him,” Jenna said. “What if he was trying to go home?”
Melisa blew on the foam of her latte. “Didn’t you say it’s close to my school?”
“Yes, around the block. You think Little Treat went back?”
“Could have,” Rob said. “He’s got a great sense of smell. I bet he could follow a trail a mile long.”
Valentine Pets & Kisses: Fourteen All-New, Sweet Valentine Romances Page 2
