The Perfect Match

“If you’d just quit yelling—”

“I’m not…” Lawless seemed to start suddenly. His voice dropped to something a shade quieter, but no less emphatic. “Yelling,” he finished, his cheekbones darkening.

“Yes, you were, Daddy,” the child with Christmas tree angel curls corrected. “You got to use your indoor voice unless you’re out for recess. Teacher says.”

“Mac, I…”

Rowena raised a brow. What was it with this guy and names? The five-or-so-year-old who looked as if she should be sleeping under a buttercup was named Mac?

Lawless hesitated for a moment, obviously grappling with his temper. “I’ll try to keep that in mind,” he told Mac. Rowena could see just how much effort it cost him to keep his voice below a roar.

He turned back to Charlie, who was clinging to Clancy’s neck as if she really were afraid. Of her father? Rowena wondered. Or of being dragged away from the dog she already loved? The man didn’t look particularly warm and fuzzy at the moment. No wonder Charlie figured Clancy was a better bet.

Rowena could see Lawless suck in a steadying breath. “Charlie, I thought we agreed this place was off-limits.”

“Deputy Lawless,” Rowena said, trying to catch hold of Clancy’s collar before the dog assaulted the officer a second time. “Charlie just wanted to—”

“Sneak away from the car while I was talking to her sister’s teacher? Cross the busiest street in town without the benefit of a crossing guard? Run off to a place I specifically told her not to go? If Mac hadn’t noticed Charlie’s umbrella by the store window I’d still be looking!”

Okay, Rowena admitted to herself. So it did sound like a pretty daunting rap sheet when he put it that way. “Let me explain,” she said. “See, the problem is that the kids at school were saying I had a bear in here. Charlie’s a smart girl and knew that wasn’t possible. So she got this gigantic book of dog breeds to prove she was right, and…well, I’m the one who asked her into the shop. What harm is there in letting her get a closer look?”

That might have been fine, a voice in her head condemned, but you took the child way past “getting a look” and deep into the realm of impossible dreams.

“You know damned well what harm that could do to a lonely little-” Lawless accused, then cut himself off. But not before she saw a flash of self-recrimination in his eyes.

So Lawless knew Charlie was lonely. But why? The child obviously had a father, a little sister and the dog-dumping mother waiting at home. Or was there a mother in the picture after all? Rowena glanced down at the deputy’s ring finger. No glint of gold or telltale white line marked his skin where the ring would have been. Of course, there were plenty of married men who chose not to wear their wedding rings at all. And as for being lonely even in a crowd, Rowena knew from her own childhood how isolated a child could feel, even in a house full of people.

“Isn’t this exactly the reason you opened your shop across from the playground?” Lawless challenged, gesturing to his daughter. “To prey on children and their parents? Con them into—”

“I’m hardly a criminal for wanting to help children find pets! A pet can be the most important relationship in a child’s life!”

“Funny.” Lawless looked her up and down with a glance so scathing it burned her. “I thought that was the parents’ job.”

“Dogs can teach children things they can never learn any other way! How to take care of a creature smaller than they are—”

“Smaller?” Lawless snorted, pointing at the Newfoundland.

“Well, a living being who depends on them, then. Someone they can take care of, tell their secrets to.”

“Someone who tears up the yard, rips up the house and ends up making a hell of a lot of work for the parents? Kids get tired of pets just as soon as the Christmas shine rubs off. So don’t give me the party line, Ms. Brown. I’m not about to fall for it.”

“But, Daddy, if you’d let me have this puppy I’d do everything,” Charlie pleaded. “He’s been waiting for me his whole life!”

“Charlie—” Cash began.

“It’s true!” Charlie burst out. “Rowena talks to animals, and they tell her who they want to love them and, oh, Daddy—” Awe filled the little girl’s voice. “This dog loves me!”

“What the—?”

The deputy’s eyes widened, his mouth twisting in outrage.

Charlie tightened her arms around Clancy’s neck. The dog licked her face.

Lawless looked from Charlie to Rowena, his fury boiling over. “Oh, no, you don’t, Ms. Brown. You tell her the truth, and I mean now! You aren’t some wacko Doctor Doolittle who talks to animals. And that dog should have been—”

Rowena had to give the deputy some credit. Even angry as he was, he managed to stop himself cold before he told Charlie the dog would have been put down months ago if he’d had his way.

“Daddy, Clancy—”

“The dog’s name isn’t even Clancy.”

“Oh, Lord, not that again.” Rowena groaned.

“Its real name is Destroyer, Charlie. And there’s a good reason for that. He chewed the tires off Jeff Jones’s racing bike. He dug up every flower the Volunteer Garden Brigade planted in the park. He just wrecked up that tea shop where your sister had her last birthday party and broke all of that nice old lady’s china.”

“Not my kitty pot that spit tea out his tail!” Mac gasped.

Even Charlie’s eyes widened at the list of Clancy’s transgressions.

Rowena dove in to explain. “Clancy only did those naughty things because he was lonely and bored and wanted attention,” she assured the girls. “He needed a job to do.”

She turned to Lawless, praying she could somehow make him understand. “Working is in a Newfoundland’s blood, and now he’s finally found his life’s work. His…destiny, if you will.” Heat stole into her cheeks at the danger of exposing so many of her vulnerabilities to a man she knew scorned her. “Look in his eyes, Officer,” she pleaded. “When he looks at Charlie, he…”

How could Rowena even begin to describe what she saw in the dog’s expression? Something new, something wonderful, the budding of the nobility of spirit she’d sensed would grow in Clancy once he began taking care of the human he was meant to love.

Once he found Charlie Lawless.

Rowena tried to put it into words the child’s father would understand, feared it was a hopeless endeavor. “Deputy, do you believe in love at first sight?”

“No,” he snapped back so quickly it startled Rowena. Something hard, bleak, tightened the deputy’s face. Then it turned to blistering scorn so quickly anyone but Rowena would have doubted it had been there at all. “Why is it, Ms. Brown, that I’m dead certain you do? Exactly how many times have you done it?”

“Fallen in love at first sight?” Rowena’s cheeks burned even hotter. “Actually, never.”

In fact, she was beginning to think she never would fall in love at all—at least not with anything that walked on two legs instead of four. How many times had her mother warned her that she was so wrapped up in saving everyone else, she’d end up with no life of her own?

Rowena fought back her own doubts and looked straight in Lawless’ eyes. “Just because I’ve never done it myself, doesn’t mean I don’t know it when I see it.”

“Know what?”

“Love, Deputy,” she said, running her hand down Charlie’s ponytail. “Look at your daughter. Before you came barging in here, her eyes were shining. She was absolutely glowing. So happy—”

The officer’s jaw clenched.

“I may not ever have fallen in love at first sight myself,” Rowena asserted, “but give me a little credit. I know soul mates when I see them. Charlie and Clancy were meant for each other. Take him home and I promise you won’t be sorry.”

“Please, Daddy,” Charlie begged softly.

Lawless ran his hand over his close cropped dark hair. “Charlie, you know what I’m up against! I barely have time to take care of you and your sister, let alone a dog.”