Page 13 of Love Out Loud

The woman laughed. “I thought she was throwing up blood. Instead, it was just wild cherry cough drops. She ate the whole package of them, the rascal.”

From the next booth, a huge dog woofed, and Jake’s heart lurched. He forced himself to stand still despite the growing urge to bolt for the door. Little dogs didn’t bother him nearly as much as bigger ones, and the one in the next booth was enormous.

Rhodesian Ridgebackin green letters decorated the back wall of the booth. Two calm brown dogs with weird stripes of hair going the wrong way up their backs lounged in a playpen area in the corner. One lifted its head and gave another loud woof, causing Jake to flinch in spite of his heroic attempt to look calm.

To his relief, Fiona didn’t stop at the booth with the monster dogs or the next three housing equally large animals. Instead, she stopped at a pink booth with small black-and-white dogs with big, hairy ears. “Dr. Nichol!” called a woman wearing a headband with butterfly wings. “Good to see you again. I was hoping you’d make an appearance.”

Fiona didn’t answer. She simply smiled, and Jake found himself relaxing a little bit. Not only was her smile beautiful, the dog on the display table was too small to cause him any issues. Letters covered in purple glitter on the back booth wall readPapillon.

“What’s your name?” Fiona asked the dog, who stared up at her adoringly.

Jake marveled at how seamlessly and naturally she engaged in conversation without directly speaking to the woman.

“That’s Buzzy. His full name is Everdale Buzzkill Party Boy,” the woman said.

“Big name for a small guy.” Fiona scratched under the dog’s chin with one finger. Jake envied her ease with the animal. As he studied her, he again noticed how relaxed she seemed when dealing with dogs versus people—the complete opposite of him—and wondered how he could use that in their speech preparation.

After another “I’m allergic” lie to avoid touching the dogs, they were on their way again.

“You should have warned me you were taking me to a dog show,” Jake said as they headed up the long aisle with booths full of barking dogs on either side. He had been utilizing all the calming techniques he taught his clients. At the moment, he was counting backward from one hundred, breathing in for five and out for five as he did so. It wasn’t working.

“Like you warned me that I’d be attending a group session?” Her voice was light and dismissive. “Are you grateful and happy yet?”

As if on cue, an enormous hairy dog the size and shape of a bear gave a bark to their right. As Jake fought back a grimace, Fiona grinned and approached the beast. “Lucy! I thought you were home with puppies.”

She glanced at him briefly as she hugged the huge, hairy animal. “Lucy is a Bouvier des Flandres. My favorite breed outside of cairn terriers.”

Cairn terriers must be what her two dogs were.

“Well, hello there, Dr. Nichol!” said a woman in a red dress. She didn’t have a gimmicky costume like the others. “Betty is home with a new litter. Lucy had her pups almost four months ago. She’s an empty nester now, so we thought a little travel would do her good, even though she’s not in the show ring this season. My other two are, though.”

“Great. Best of luck with your two, and give Betty and her pups my love.” Not taking her eyes off of the dog, she added, “This is Jacob Ward. Jacob, this is Lucille Barrow.” She ruffled the dog’s hair. “Lucille and I met two years ago when Lucy got a scratch on her eye before hitting the show ring. You won best of breed anyway, though, didn’t you, Lucy?”

The woman gave Jake a thorough once-over, and he tried to appear relaxed while never taking his eye off of the huge, hairy black dog with tiny pointed ears and small, intelligent eyes. Images of a gate and a black handle with a latch flickered through his mind. He pushed the memory away with a shudder.Small talk.Yeah, that would get his mind off of it. “Nice to meet you, Lucille. Is Lucy named after you?”

She nodded. “My husband named her. Said he wanted one woman in his life named Lucille to follow his orders, and this was his only chance.” She grinned and winked at a man on a stool in the booth, who looked up from his paper briefly and gave a nod.

“Touch her,” Fiona whispered.

No fucking way. The dog was huge. Even bigger than…

“Come on, Jacob, touch her. Her coat is amazing.”

Damn. The sound of her airy whisper made him want to comply, but he didn’t. Hell, he couldn’t even move as memories of a black dog and a gate flashed through his brain like a slideshow, causing his mind and body to lock up exactly as it had all those years ago.

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