I should have told her to watch her mouth, but I didn’t. She was having a moment and I didn’t want to ruin it for her.
“Lion,” she called out as the puppies noticed she was there and started their clumsy puppy runs over to her. “Get in here, quick!”
“Thought you could pick one,” I told her from where I leaned against a tree outside of the enclosure.
“I want to do it together,” she said in a tone that brokered no argument. “Now, get in here.”
The breeder smiled at me as I shook my head and moved through the gate into the pen.
“On your knees,” she ordered again, patting the snow beside herself as the first puppy reached her and jumped up into her arms.
With a huge sigh, I dropped to my knees in the cold, wet snow.
It was worth it when two seconds later a burnished gold puppy put his little paw in the air and batted at me.
“Whatcha want, little buddy?” I asked, bending forward to look in his huge brown eyes.
He jumped up with a little woof and planted a short, quick kiss on my cheek.
Harleigh Rose laughed beside me as the pup did it again.
“Okay, little guy.” I picked up his ridiculously soft body and held him in front of my face so we were eye to eye. “What’re you lookin’ at?”
Again, Rosie giggled beside me, abandoning the four puppies frolicking all over her to shift closer to me and the one in my hands.
“He likes you,” she noted as he tried to kiss my face, his tongue lapping a mile a minute even though he was too far to make contact.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“I think we should take him,” she said suddenly leaping to her feet to say to the breeder. Can we take this one?”
“He’s going to be a police dog, Rosie, don’t you think he’s more of a lover than a fighter?” I asked as the dog growled then tried to launch himself forward in my hands so he could get to me.
“He loves you already, imagine what he’ll do for you if you’re in danger,” she said easily, as if it wasn’t heartbreaking that an eleven-year-old would know enough to say that.
I nodded at the breeder. “We’ll take him.”
It was after dinner at Donovan’s Steak House, a dinner my father recused himself from because of my earlier decision to take Harleigh Rose to see Garro, after we had more cake at home and King gave his sister his gift of an iPod, one I’d helped him pick out but he’d bought with mysterious money I chose not to ask about.
I was tucking Rosie into bed even though she declared she was too old for it. It was her birthday though, so after my mother finished speaking quietly to her about whatever women talked about, I took the new puppy and went to say goodnight.
“He can sleep with me?” she asked immediately.
I laughed. “For now, but I think it’s important in his training that he sleeps with me. We have two months until he’s old enough for the ten-week program, so we have time.”
“Fuck yeah!” she shouted with a little fist pump.
God, she was a cute kid.
I sat on the edge of the bed and let the puppy go. He instantly ran up the bed, tripped over one of her legs and did a head plant into her belly.
Harleigh Rose laughed brightly, happier than I’d ever seen her.
Words couldn’t describe how warm that made me feel. King had looked just like that earlier at dinner too, his plate practically licked clean, his laugh a frequent addition to the ambiance as he charmed my mother and me with his mature-beyond-his-years sense of humor.
I did that for them.
It was, by far and away, the best thing I’d ever done in my nineteen years.
“So, what’re you going to name him?” I asked as she lifted the puppy and placed it on her chest for a snuggle.
“I can name him?” she asked, bewildered by the responsibility.
“Uh huh, think you’re not getting that he may technically be my police dog, but I got him because I thought you could also use a friend.”
She blinked at me, the lamplight turning her eyes a deep turquoise. “I think you’re the best man I’ll ever know.”
It was my turn to blink. “What?”
She shrugged, suddenly embarrassed by her confession. “It’s true. It’s not like a compliment or anything. It just is.”
I didn’t know what to say to that to make her feel less awkward for saying it or me less awkward for hearing it.
“Hero,” she said suddenly, lifting the golden retriever so she could turn him to face me. “His name should be Hero.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, ’cause he’s going to be a police dog and he’s going to be yours so the name suits him twice.”