Sit...Stay...Beg(74)

“Okay, okay.” Garrett held his hands up in surrender. “She’s yours, Lola. I’ll take what I can get when you’ve had enough.”

Lola paid no attention, still barking and ready to bolt but too well-trained to run off.

“Maybe not,” Jessie teased, reaching for the dog. “Calm down, Lola. You’re my number—”

She jerked away, letting out a series of barks, agitated now, her tail swishing.

“What’s going on with her?” Jessie asked.

“I don’t know.” Garrett leaned forward. “Lola, sit.”

But this time, Lola ignored the order, taking off at a sprint, heading toward the main training area.

“What?” Jessie shot up. “She never does that.”

“Lola!” They called after her in unison.

“Lola, stay!” Jessie yelled, breaking into a run to follow her around the side of the classroom building. “What is going on with her?”

“Level-six distraction,” he said, taking Jessie’s hand to stop her from running as his own protective instincts kicked in. He didn’t want anything to hurt Jessie. Anything, even what he already knew would make that dog respond that way.

She pulled away. “I have to see what’s wrong with her.”

“I don’t think…” Together, they came around the corner to see Lola sprint past the pen and toward the main drive, bolting toward a redheaded woman. “Anything’s wrong.”

“What is she…who is that…” Jessie put her hand over her mouth as Lola leaped in the air, throwing both paws on the woman’s chest, making her hoot and cry out as the dog licked her face and barked and wagged and practically knocked her to the ground.

They both knew who she was.

“Lola’s real number one,” Jessie whispered, tightening her grip on Garrett’s hand.

He pulled their joined hands to his lips to kiss her knuckles. “Trust me, honey, there are worse ways to say goodbye to a dog.”

She nodded, watching the scene unfold as her eyes misted over. “I know. I’m happy for her. I’m really happy for her. Look at her.”

But he looked at Jessie, whose very reaction to this wormed her deeper into his heart.

She swallowed back what he imagined was a golf-ball-size lump in her throat and looked up at him. “Let’s go meet the lucky lady.”

* * *

Sherry Barr was strung awfully damn uptight to have raised a dog as chill as Lola, but she was clearly the real owner. Lola had barely sniffed in Jessie’s direction since her preferred master showed up. The woman, tall, thin, and, yes, her hair was precisely the color and style of Jessie’s, had a brittle smile reserved exclusively for…Trisket.#p#分页标题#e#

A name Jessie loathed on principle. Everything about the woman torqued Jessie, which could have been a bad case of the green-eyed monster. Or it could have been Jessie’s instincts on fire, making her sense that Sherry wasn’t being entirely forthright.

For one thing, the woman was clearly put off by Garrett’s request that she fill out paperwork and file her identification. She’d brought a recent bill from her vet, the Rhode Island vet Garrett had been in touch with, and pointed to Lola’s reaction to her as proof she was the owner.

Garrett agreed and assured her it would be fast and easy, urging the woman toward the administration offices and asking politely about registration. Sherry explained that she got the dog from a neighbor whose border collie hadn’t been fixed and gotten pregnant from a stray, so Sherry took one of the puppies and never got around to registering her.

She’d been out of the country when her vet tried to contact her, but when she got home and listened to his message, she’d called the cell phone number he’d left, which was Garrett’s, but decided not to leave a message. Anxious to get Lola, she drove down here instead.

Really? Jessie had to bite her tongue to hold back the questions. Why hadn’t she told her vet that so they’d known she was coming? Why hadn’t she checked her messages when she was out of the country? Why hadn’t she chipped her damn dog?

“Who was supposed to take care of Lola while you were gone?” Jessie asked, trying to sound conversational and not accusatory.

“A friend, but then she went missing right before I left.”

“And you went out of the country?” Jessie couldn’t keep the judgment out of her voice and got a side-eye in return.

“Would you cancel a trip to Paris because you lost your dog?”

Maybe. Jessie angled her head in concession, but irritation crawled all over her skin. Her story seemed feasible, if careless, and it was obvious that, even on her best day, Lola had never been this happy. She practically mowed the woman down with affection, her tail whipping from side to side with joy, her tongue out, her smile in place.