Soul Scars (Dog Haven Sanctuary Romance)
Read Soul Scars (Dog Haven Sanctuary Romance) Online
Authors: Tasman Gibb
Tags: #Romance, #Dog Story, #Lovers, #Dog Rescue, #Contemporary Romace
Lulah & Vince ~ Dog Haven Sanctuary Romance Book 2
© 2014 Tasman Gibb
Raised by a gambling-addicted father, dog trainer Lulah Wallis yearns for some security in her life. And everything’s looking good with a job promotion at Dog Haven Sanctuary in her sights, plus the opportunity to buy the modest cabin she calls home. Adding a hot, reliable boyfriend to the mix would see her totally fulfilled.
Combat PTSD from two tours in Afghanistan has left Vince Marr with a failed marriage and blocked access to his precious daughter. Crippled by flashbacks of the war that came home with him, he’s keeping his head down to prevent anyone stateside becoming a victim of his inner battle Finding a kindred spirit in Calliope, a rescued pit bull, he lets Lulah talk him into training her, together, as his service dog.
As Lulah and Vince work together, their connection unintentionally deepens. Vince isn’t the rock Lulah hoped for, but she sees enough hope to persuade him to seek help for his condition. For Vince, having someone see the better man he could be is just what he needs to make the effort. Growing friendship ignites a passion neither can resist, but the doubts cast by their deep scars grow along with it—and old wounds are slow to heal. For both of them love is unsafe, and trust is a terrible risk. This time, it might be worth it.
A Dog Haven Sanctuary Contemporary Romance
Book 2
Tasman Gibb
Copyright © July 2014 Tasman Gibb
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ISBN 978-0-473-28725-2
Kindle Edition
Edited by Jeri Smith
Copy edits by Fiona Lorne, Jacy Mackin and
Ekatarina Sayanova, Red Quill Editing
Beta reader Dale Marie
Cover designer Marya Heiman with
Strong Image Editing
Formatted by
BB eBooks
No part of this ebook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author at
[email protected]
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1
L
ULAH DROPPED INTO a chair, propped her feet on the low table, and scrolled through the phone messages that had come in during her last session training the Dog Haven Sanctuary interns. From the office kitchen Marlo called out, offering tea or coffee, but Lulah remained stuck on the first message, her emotions polarized.
Three short words:
Help me, pls.
“Crappity-crap, we got us a Vince bomb!” Lulah called out.
Geez, here we go again.
Vince Marr was not the guy for her. Not even close. Lulah knew that all the way to the depth of her heart and soul. Still, that hadn’t stopped her spending each spare moment through the morning imagining herself hard-up against totally hot Vince who had promised to stop by this evening and help with her course work.
“What’s up?” Marlo asked.
Lulah tapped out a quick
Where r u?
message and hit the reply button, muttering at the phone. “Can’t help, buddy, if I don’t know where you are.” She rocked back into the armchair. “SOS from Vince.”
“Uh-huh.”
“In trouble.” She passed Marlo the phone. “But he
is
asking for help, so breakthrough, maybe?”
“Or a breaking point,” Marlo replied as she read the short message and handed the phone back. “Where is he?”
Today, Lulah had no idea where he was, because despite their friendship, when Vince moved into self-isolation mode he never told her where he went. He would arrive at her cabin, his usually steady eyes filled with distress as he asked her to take care of his dog, Calliope, for a few days. When he turned up in that state she couldn’t refuse him.
Each time he climbed into his pickup and drove away he left her as disillusioned as the dog sitting at her feet. Left her to work through an infuriating mix of anger and sympathy, vowing this would be the last freaking time she’d collude with his
can’t cope so I’m shipping out
stunt.
What really annoyed her was that when he fixed her with that pain-filled gaze, her resolve dissolved into a messy heap that saw her step up to help him out, one last time.
Combat PTSD from his second tour in Afghanistan kept him teetering on the edge of being permanently broken, and if that latest text message was anything to go by, he might have reached his tipping point.
Despite Lulah spending the past few months training Calliope as a service dog to help Vince with his issues, he had yet to agree that he actually
wanted
a service dog. He said it would define him as a broken person, dependent, when in reality he expected to improve.
Except he wasn’t improving. If anything, he was becoming worse.
Lulah ran her hands through her hair. “You see, that’s the problem. I’m presuming he headed out into the wilderness somewhere, because he looked exhausted when he dropped Calliope to me last night. About crisis-3.”
“Crisis-3, which is…?”
“Oh, a three sits around mid-range, so it isn’t too bad. Elevated stress but recently showered and shaved, wearing clean clothes. Still capable of driving but couldn’t ride the escalator in a shopping mall.”
“Lulah!”
“Hey, those are Vince’s words, not mine. Anyway, I’m guessing he’s up in the mountains somewhere, but…” She shrugged. “I’m just wondering at what stage we call out a search team. If Vince is in the mountains, he could have fallen, cozied up with a bear, or—” Lulah’s phone rang. She reached for it, and her heart tripped, hoping the caller was Vince. “It’s Dad; I’d better take it. Can you contact Adam and see if he can pin a location on Vince? There’s been no response to my text.”
Adam was Marlo’s boyfriend of almost a year. Recently, to be closer to the woman he couldn’t walk away from, he’d transferred from his position as a New Zealand police officer to a job at Dog Haven. Perhaps his understanding and experience with PTSD could help steady Vince now.
Lulah cut her father’s call short and re-entered the office just as Marlo finished talking to Adam.
“Don’t worry about Vince. Adam’s going to try and locate him. Now, how’s that father of yours?” Marlo asked.
Lulah dropped into the chair and went back to dragging the fingers of both hands upwards through her short, platinum blonde hair, so that it stood on end. She pointed to her head. “Ta-da, Nutty Professor.”
“Lulah! Your dad. How is he?”
She smoothed her hair back down, twirling one end. “You see, here’s the thing about men. They drive me freakin’ nuts. They’re unreliable, they break promises, they tell lies, and when their boat starts sinking, they don’t even have the common sense to carry a life jacket. I’m expected to drop everything and turn up with the lifeboat. It’s not enough to be their lighthouse, pointing out the rocks and hazards for them, because they sail about with their heads up their asses, thinking everything is going to be just fine. And even if it’s not, good old Lulah will make it right for them.”
“Ray’s gambling again, huh?”
“Yup. Gambling and in debt. And I just told old un-Lucky Ray that I’m not helping him out because he broke his promise to me. I should feel good about standing up to him, so why do I feel like such a cow?”
“Because being the strong one is so difficult. You did the right thing, Lulah. He’ll thank you one day.”
“He hates me right now.”
“That won’t last.”
Lulah sighed. “Dad
and
Vince—double-whammy Wednesday.” She checked her phone again then slapped it against her thigh. “Why won’t Vince respond to my text? Hell, he reaches out for help, then nothing! If whatever crisis he found himself in has improved, surely he’d have let me know.”
“I know this waiting is difficult…”
“I can’t just sit here. Maybe I should go to his house.”
“Adam’s on his way there now, and if Vince isn’t there, he’ll phone.”
“If he’s not at home, how will he find Vince?”
“Oh, you know Adam, super-powers, secret contacts, and all that. I don’t know how he does it, he just does.”
Lulah knew Vince had his own super-powers, because occasionally she caught a glimpse. Like magically arriving at the Sanctuary on a day he wasn’t scheduled to be there, bringing a sandwich and some fruit for her, and somehow knowing she’d rushed out that morning and missed packing a lunch. He loved to tease her until she laughed. When he joined in, lighting up a room in a way that drew her like a moth to his very unreliable flame, she could scarcely keep her breathing calm or contain herself to the perimeter of the fourteen inches of physical distance that made them friends. But his darker side, his inconsistency, meant that flame could flare, burn, and hell… “Vince, he’s a no-go guy, isn’t he?” Her feelings for him were such that sometimes she needed the reassurance of a friend she trusted to keep her on her stated track.
Marlo handed her a mug of tea. “Using your analogy, he’s probably going to need a lifeboat and crew for a long time yet—maybe forever. Judging by what you just said, I don’t think that’s what you’re after.”
The others at the sanctuary had been wary of Vince—dark, brooding, and blazing hot—but Lulah and he had struck up a friendship that went deep and close in no time. They regularly explored the trails in the parks that bordered the Sanctuary, and she loved the easy way they teased and competed with each other; Vince’s strength countered her agility and knowledge of the area. Recently, dramatic landscape or something like a small, hidden lake on the trail pulled them to a halt, fueling a new kind of connection between them. On those occasions, her heart rate increased as she studied the bow of his mouth and the heat in his eyes, but right when something threatened to snap, one of them would make a joke or a challenge and the moment vanished.