Soul Scars (Dog Haven Sanctuary Romance) (2 page)

“He is hot, though. You have to give him that.” Lulah grinned.

“He’s hurt, is what he is.”

“Hurt, hot, tempting.” Lulah faked a shiver.

“Go there at your peril.”

That’s what she loved about Marlo. That’s why she was a friend rather than a boss, because she never lectured. Instead she threw out a few words that reminded you what you’d vowed in more sane moments. And sometimes her clear thinking made her as annoying as Adam. “You know your problem? You’ve lived with that Kiwi guy for too long. You’re starting to soak up some of his common sense. It’s…icky.”

Marlo laughed. “Icky? Is that your new word this week?”

“This week’s word is ‘disconsolate’.”

“Oh, save me. Drink your tea.”

Lulah took a sip. “I’m not staying long; I want to be away early today if I can. That assignment’s giving me the usual troubles.”

“How’s the course going?”

“Fantastic.” Lulah tried for a look that brimmed with confidence. The coursework was a freakin’ nightmare, if she was honest.

“Liar.”

She grinned. Unlike her father, she hadn’t mastered the art of the poker face. “I know the theory. And you know how well I’m doing with training Calliope. What’s a degree, huh? Who really needs one?”

“You do, within the next two months if you want to apply for the promotion.”

LULAH RACED THE dogs up the steps to her cabin porch. As usual, they beat her and blocked the door so that she wouldn’t enter without them, showering her with wet kisses as she bent to remove her shoes.

Home. Her home…almost. It would be hers once she saved the final ten grand to buy it. The promotion at the Sanctuary would give her a better chance of reaching that target before another buyer turned up.

She grabbed a cold drink from inside and returned to the porch, settling into her favorite hickory rocker. For much of the year she virtually lived on the porch. Out here, she had a small table with a couple of chairs, her bed, armchairs, and the biggest view of one of Washington State’s finest national parks. Why, she’d often thought, would one want to live inside? The porch was great until the snow came.

She drained her glass and thought about her assignment, but her father and Vince crowded her mind, killing her enthusiasm to open her laptop. Damn her father and his lying. There she was, believing that he hadn’t gambled for the past two years, and now he was back in debt. Lost everything.
Not my problem, Dad. This is your mess, and you have to crawl out of it.
He told her the debt collectors were threatening him. She thought of his grey eyes, so like hers. How they could look like two inanimate stones perched on his poker face and how they could light up, glittering with joy at treating her to something special, something he’d promised, that on a rare occasion he was actually capable of delivering.

She moved over to the porch table and opened her laptop. The night was still light-sweater-warm, and she was not taking calls. Not from her father and not from Vince, who sent an SOS message that left her hanging. She opened her essay and stared at the jumble of letters. Hell, this better be worth it, because what took others only minutes took her an age to decipher. Sure, she
knew
what she intended to write, but she wasn’t confident that what she actually wrote said the same thing.

The transient lifestyle of a gambler’s daughter had caused Lulah to fall behind in basic reading and writing skills until, by age eight, she attended school only sporadically. The lack of resources in small town, USA, meant she’d been placed, educationally, in the too-much-work box and passed along to the next teacher. Even now, writing essays was a nightmare of mammoth proportions.

With Vince’s help, her reading ability improved dramatically, but getting words in the right order, from her head to the keyboard, continued to flummox her.

At the sound of Adam’s car in her drive, she closed her laptop. He greeted the dogs—a chest rub for Joker, reducing the dog to jelly, and a gentle ear massage for Calliope—before covering the porch steps in one big stride. Marlo was lucky to have him. Gentle hands, protective without suffocating her, strong, supportive, hot…not in the UHT, Ultra Heat-Treated way that Vince was, but Adam had casual-sexy down pat.

“Beer?” she offered.

He sank into one of her old armchairs. “Love one.”

Inside, Lulah took a beer from the fridge and poured a glass of wine for herself. What the heck, she could probably read better if she relaxed a bit. Back on the porch the dogs were mugging Adam for more rubs, and she sent them after a ball before handing Adam his drink, and settling in the chair opposite him.

“Don’t tell me…Marlo sent you here to make sure I finished my assignment.” They liked to remind her that without an animal behavior degree she couldn’t apply to be the director of service dog training at the Sanctuary. The position was new in a branch of work they would do: training rescue dogs to become service dogs for those with combat PTSD.

“You wouldn’t let me near your assignment.”

“Damn right I wouldn’t, buddy. So this must be about Vince. Any contact with him, yet?”

Adam set his beer beside him on the porch. “Yeah, I found him. He was in a bad way. I’ve settled him back at his house in town, now, and he’ll be out to pick up Calliope tomorrow. If he can’t make that, he’s promised he will phone.”

“So ‘in a bad way’…what does that mean, exactly?” She watched Adam pick at the label on his beer bottle. “Hello, Adam, Lulah here. Big girl, remember? Don’t sit there sorting your words out to make them all sugar-coated shiny and easy to swallow. I want the truth. What did you see?”

“You really want to know, huh?”

“Hit me, hot guy.”

Adam laughed. “One day, Lulah, your turn of phrase is going to bring you trouble.”

“Stalling much?”

“Marlo’s going to kill me.”

“Actually, I’m going to kill you if you don’t spit it out.”

He raised his hands. “Okay, Vince was in a bad way. He’d had a flashback and he couldn’t pull himself out of it.”

“Where was he? Hiking? On the trails?” She looked at Adam, watched him try and fail to slip on that mask that gave nothing away. Then came the strange ticking in her chest that she hadn’t experienced in years; a forewarning that she was about to be let down.
Daddy’s started gambling again. Mommy’s angry with Daddy, so she left. Vince…

“Vince wasn’t in the forest, Lulah. He was taking care of his daughter. Vince is a father, and he’s married.”

Hell, doesn’t friendly fire sting? She never saw that bullet heading her direction but the way the news winded her made her suck air to speak. “Right, okay. So every time I thought Vince was heading to the forest he’s been visiting his family?”
Why do I feel so betrayed?

“From what I saw, the marriage isn’t in good shape.”

Lulah looked out at Halo Peak, the summit encased in clouds tinged with red and violet by the setting sun. So often she’d looked out there, wondering where Vince was. Was he warm, dry, hungry?

“I don’t think he’s seen his family for months. These other times he really has been in the wilderness. But Vince is pretty damaged. He may continue to improve with the help he’s receiving, if the drive is there to actually make his life better, but right now he is totally controlled and debilitated by his PTSD. As I’ve said before, be his friend. Help him out if he asks for it, listen to him, but try not to involve yourself beyond that.”

“You became involved with Marlo.”

“Ah shit, Lulah.” Adam sighed. “Even at the start, Marlo was more stable than Vince.”

Lulah flashed him a smile. “So what can we do to help him?”

“I can’t speak for Vince. He’s coming over tomorrow to pick up Calliope, and he wants to explain some things to you. Just listen to him, as his friend, and don’t be sucked into his need.”

Yeah, because she was right at the front of the line to catch another needy guy in her life.

Chapter 2

V
INCE’S HEART GAVE a small surge when he saw Calliope waiting, on the top step of Lulah’s porch. His deep feelings for the dog amazed him. Last night, the house was an empty echo without her.

Lulah sat at the porch table, and when she saw Vince, she gave him a wave and a big smile, making that small surge swell like a king tide. He took a moment to watch her, enjoying the smile because that wasn’t for keeps. Whatever he owed her for letting her down, for being less than honest and forthcoming, he could repay by keeping his feelings for her in check. They could be friends, he would allow that, but that was all he had in him. He certainly wasn’t going to create another train wreck like his relationship with Taryn and Gable to haunt him.

He left the truck and braced for Calliope’s whirlwind, shin-thumping welcome, steeling himself at the same time for whatever criticism Lulah launched his way. She must be really pissed off with him. He dealt with Calliope and stepped up onto the porch.

“You look like shit.” Lulah grinned at him.

“This,” he spread his arms wide, “this is awesome. Yesterday I was the dung heap.”

“Adam mentioned something like that. Bad, huh?”

He pulled up a chair and sat across the table from her. Time to be honest; he owed her that. “Yeah, right up there with about the worst it has been. Can we talk?”

“Sure, buddy.”

How do I do this? I don’t talk, that’s the problem. Which bits do I tell her?
Heat rushed through him, his heart hammering, fingers tapping the tabletop in time with that insistent thud-thud-thud in his head.

“Breathe, Vince, take your time.”

“Thanks.” He looked up and right into her gray eyes.
Jesus, just breathe.
“I’m married; well, Taryn and I are separated. I guess you know that now. Did Adam tell you?” Wow, rambling.
She’s nodding; keep going.
“I have a daughter, Gable; she’s precious.”
I scared the crap out of her. I hate myself.
He concentrated on his breathing, because right now, it was the most he could manage.

“How old is Gable?”

He looked up.
God, Lulah’s smile should be compressed in an aerosol can so I can pull it out and spray it around when I feel this way.
“Oh, she’s three, nearly four. She’s so bright and clever; she paints and wants to be a dancer. She has this little plush donkey called Donkey, which she tucks under her chin in this cute way.”

Lulah nodded. “Sounds adorable. I bet she is, too.”

Completely adorable.
He crumbled, turning in on himself like a tall building surprised by a demolition blast. “Yeah, she’s…God, I really lost it, Lulah. What’s wrong with me?”

“You’ll have to tell me, Vince, because if you leave stuff like that for people to guess, they usually get it wrong. And that’s a total piss-off, because your friendship’s doomed before it started.”

Damn, where’s her mind-reading skill when I need it? Why can’t I sit here while Lulah pokes about a bit in my head and finds out what she needs to know without me having to explain?
Even thinking about it became visceral—the grip on his chest, gravel in the throat, and the big word-jam in his head. He shrugged, not intending to dismiss her but trying to explain that he was grappling for stuff here.

“A shrug? Is that the best you can do?”

His head snapped up, ready to defend himself.
Jesus, Lulah!
But she smiled at him. “I’m struggling here, okay?”

“Absolutely fine with struggling, so long as you let me know. Like I said, I don’t do that second-guessing stuff.”

“I want to be the person I used to be. I want to feel normal.”

“You know, normal is just another word for average, and from where I sit, I can see you don’t want to be that. As for being the person you used to be, well, you’ve had some sucky life experiences, buddy, so you’re not going to go back and be the old Vince, either. You have to be a new person, now. But it can be much better than this if you want it to. Better and different.”

Vince gave a small laugh. “Usually people are…”

“Let me guess,” Lulah broke in. “Sympathetic?”

“Yeah.”

“And how’s that worked for you so far?”