Love at First Bark (Free Short Story)

  More Dana Mentink Romantic Fiction

  LOVE UNLEASHED SERIES

  Sit, Stay, Love

  Fetching Sweetness

  Love at First Bark (e-only novella)

  Paws for Love

  HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

  EUGENE, OREGON

  Cover design by Left Coast Design

  Cover photo by Cover Image © Konstantin Gushcha / Shutterstock

  Published in association with MacGregor Literary, Inc.

  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 persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  LOVE AT FIRST BARK

  Copyright © Dana Mentink

  Published by Harvest House Publishers

  Eugene, Oregon 97402

  www.harvesthousepublishers.com

  ISBN 978-0-7369-7278-9 (eBook)

  All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author’s and publisher’s rights is strictly prohibited.

  I’ve seen a look in dogs’ eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts.

  JOHN STEINBECK

  Contents

  More Dana Mentink Romantic Fiction

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Quarter Moon Oven S’mores

  Excerpt from Dana Mentink’s Paws for Love

  More Lovable Dog Tales in the Love Unleashed Series

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  One

  Marcy Deveraux was surprised to discover she didn’t actually miss the prince very much. The naked truth was, he’d been high maintenance with all that dark broodiness and not much of a sense of humor to speak of. By the end of their time together, he’d even gotten on her nerves just the tiniest bit. Still, Prince Rafé’s departure left her at a loss. It was not as though His Royal Highness was required to save anyone else from assassination, and it had been twelve months since that perilous jungle crossing, complete with poisonous spiders and the one-eyed bandit. The prince had survived more adventures than could be expected of anyone, fictional or not, and he deserved his happy ending.

  So now what?

  Marcy chewed her pencil eraser, staring at the blank pages of her notebook as the summer wind rattled the cabin windows. A series of numbers ran through her mind—sales numbers, Amazon rankings—figures that had steadily plunged downward, statistics she had never paid the slightest attention to before she’d become “a success.”

  Her mother still spoke the words with a reverence that did not quite hide the surprise. The kid who had barely passed high school, flunked the driving test four times, and fallen into the pool at her sister’s wedding was actually a success? No one was as incredulous as Marcy herself. Yet there it was in shiny blue fourteen-point font… her name on the cover of three—count them, three—novels.

  But success, she was beginning to realize, was not as much a destination as an endless freeway clogged with hazards. Or in her case perhaps, stopped traffic.

  “It’s simple. You need to write another blockbuster,” Rhonda, her agent, told her matter-of-factly. “It’s been a year. Off your duff and get it done.”

  Easy for her to say. Marcy’s first book had been written mostly during her bus rides to and from her job at the family restaurant. In a period of sheer insanity, The Prince and the Pirate Queen had shot right to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, and so had the rest of the princely adventures in books two and three. What a ride. What a thrill. She’d gone from waitress in her parents’ diner to successful author in the time it took to drink a latte. People wanted to feature her on blogs and interview her on radio—and on TV, which she had been too petrified to agree to. She even had an agent, the snappily dressed Rhonda, who did something called “hot yoga,” worked around the clock, and frankly scared the daylights out of Marcy.

  The royal stories poured out in one continuous gush of inspiration… and then they didn’t. It was a profound puzzlement to Marcy.

  She’d thought her success was a recompense from God, a reward for all of the ventures that had died on Marcy’s vine. Her failed efforts at a YouTube cooking show, the brief period when she’d decided to open a daycare center, the string of unfinished college degrees. Maybe the bestselling novelist gig was something of a fluke. Perhaps God had meant to gift someone else but the blessing had accidentally fallen in Marcy’s lap.

  All you need is some focus, Marcy, she told herself, trying to wade out of her pool of angst.

  She surveyed her kitchen counter, cluttered with three different types of tomatoes—one dried and leathery, the others smoked and submerged in pressed olive oil—and a cheerful red tapenade, which she was quite sure would be spectacular in a new appetizer recipe she was itching to try out. With some effort, she turned her back on the glorious parade of tomato products.

  Back to the writing. Yet her gaze kept wandering to the tomatoes and her mind to the question of how capers would affect the balance of salt to acid on the bruschetta.

  Two

  Fresh air. That would do the trick. She tried to wrench up the window and allow the warm summer scent of the Sierras to rush in, but it would not budge more than an inch. Through the dirty glass she could barely see across the wide grassy field, the tree-shrouded campground, a thick blanket of oaks, and an occasional tent outlined by the brilliant sunshine. Wilderness, mostly. Just the thing to defeat writer’s block, wasn’t it? It was the only reason she had booked the tiny California cabin—that and the fact that they were offering an end-of-the-summer, fifty-bucks-a-night special. Writers frequently took retreats like this, she’d been told.

  Undeterred by the stuck window, she yanked open the door. Since there was no screen door, she would have to brave the bugs. Marcy Deveraux—fearless, just like her heroes and heroines. Sucking in a bracing lungful, she jogged in place until her body reminded her that she generally did not run unless something was on fire. No matter. The pulse was pounding, the brain waves were firing, and somewhere down deep her muscles were probably high-fiving each other.

  Now, she thought. Now she was ready. Ready to dream up another blockbuster hero in the tradition of Prince Rafé. Handsome, hairy, decisive, and dimpled. Time to jot whatever came to mind. Green-light thinking. Sliding into her chair at the table, she let her thoughts loose, words flowing out so fast she almost could not contain them. Her pencil was practically dancing its way down to the bottom of the page when something hurtled through the missing screen door. Followed by another thing. Soon both things were careening like black missiles through the family room, snapping, hissing, and caterwauling. Marcy screamed and leaped up on a wooden chair, knocking her pad of precious words to the floor.

  Time shuddered to a halt, and so did the wild running things. One scooted under the sofa, and the other, prickled with pointy barbs, took off again, doing laps around the perimeter of the room in a dizzying black arc.

 
; The thing was spreading contagion everywhere. Rabies, ptomaine poisoning, fleas. There was no Prince Rafé to help out in this situation, and with spotty cell reception, she could not even call the fire department, which was headquartered some twenty miles distant anyway.

  Be your own hero, Marcy. When the black thing was at the far end of the room, she made her move, leaping off the chair and grabbing an oven mitt and broom from the kitchen.

  “Stand back,” she hollered to the black thing, which skidded to a stop. It fixed calculating eyes on her as she eased backward toward the door. “Move out peaceably and no one gets hurt.”

  The thing hesitated, its tiny animal brain considering. She thought they might have achieved an understanding until the second thing, which she now realized was a squirrel, streaked from under the sofa. She stumbled back in a panic, and the squirrel surged forward in a hysterical sprint, clawing across the top of her sneakers on its way to the open door.

  She shrieked and rammed back against the door. Outside, the squirrel raced up the nearest tree and began a volley of rodent outrage at the other animal, which she finally concluded was a porcupine.

  And here came the prickly monster now, scrabbling toward her. Brandishing the oven mitt and broom did no good. The thing advanced until all she could do was raise her arm and scream.

  “Bad porcupine,” she hollered, backing out the door and down the rickety front steps. She tripped, her hair falling into her eyes. Fearing the feel of quills puncturing her ankle, she shoved the hair aside. The filthy animal was nowhere to be seen, but another one had taken its place. Her gaze traveled upward to take in a glossy brown horse with a man sitting in the saddle, gloved hands crossed at the wrists, a battered cowboy hat on his head. He looked sweaty, stubbled across his strong chin, and the electric blue eyes regarding her were puzzled.

  “You okay, miss?”

  “Um… yes. Yes, I’m fine. All is well. I was just, um… well, there was an animal.”

  He raised an eyebrow and took in her mitt. “Did it jump out of your oven?”

  “Ah, no. Not exactly. It ran through the door after a squirrel, which is what startled me, so I probably let out a little yell, a small one, due to the possibility of rabies.” Marcy was absolutely astonished that she could not write a novel to save her life, yet a veritable avalanche of syllables was pouring out of her mouth in nonsensical fashion.

  “I think it was a porcupine,” she babbled. “The animal. The one that chased the squirrel.”

  He shook his head. “Not a porcupine.”

  He must be like one of those tracking savants, a wild man of the earth who could sniff the air and tell what kind of bird had recently flown by. “How do you know?”

  He pointed a leather gloved finger. “He’s right behind you.”

  She whirled around and found the critter sitting a foot away, regarding her with black button eyes. He was right. It wasn’t a porcupine.

  “It’s a dog,” she said.

  “Uh-huh. Looks like he’s been galloping through some straw. I think I might have seen him skulking around the stables.”

  “Stables? There are stables?”

  He nodded. “I run the stables at the Quarter Moon Ranch right across the glade.”

  She resisted a stupid grin. A real-life, macho, California cowboy—the perfect hero.

  “Vacationing?” he asked.

  She blinked back to reality. “Yes, I’m working. I’m a writer.” Maybe she should have said novelist. Did that sound more impressive?

  A faint smile crossed his face as he got off of his horse, all six foot four burly muscled inches of him. The guy could have ridden right off the cover of a romance novel. He pulled off one glove with his teeth and offered her a calloused hand. Marcy figured he had to be named Dirk or Rhett or Stone or something.

  “Jackson Parker,” he said.

  Perfect, she thought as she introduced herself. The dog, having grown bored of the social niceties, turned and trotted back into the cabin.

  “Oh no you don’t,” she said, trailing back inside. “You don’t live here.” The dog wagged a muddy tail and sprang up on the sofa, turning little circles in preparation for settling in. When Marcy approached, it leaped down, evading her easily, and ambled along, sniffing the fireplace and hall closet. The thing was long and skinny and no higher than her shin, eleven pounds max, she figured.

  “Need a hand?” Jackson said from the door.

  “Can you catch him?” She figured he’d have a lariat handy and she’d get to see real-live cowboy lassoing in action.

  Jackson strode in and picked up a container from the counter. “Okay to open this?”

  It was a tin of anchovies she’d planned to use in a particularly intriguing recipe she’d been working on—pasta with garlic and pine nuts. “Uh, okay.”

  He extracted a silvery fish from the can and crouched. “Hey, buddy. How about a fish snack?”

  The dog sniffed the air with a quivering, jellybean nose and hurtled to Jackson like a cannonball, skidding to a stop at his booted feet.

  Holding the fish by the tail, Jackson allowed the dog to lick it while he looped a finger around the dog’s filthy collar. Once secure, he gave the dog the entire fish and waited while he delicately devoured it, bones and all. Then he hoisted the dog. “Gonna keep him here?”

  “Here? Like, as in, here… here?” Why was her mouth acting without the consent of her brain? “Oh, well, you know, I’m a cat person, and I’ve got a ton of, um, words to write.”

  Both the dog and the man looked at her. “What kind?”

  “Kind?”

  “What kind of words? What do you write?”

  “Oh. Romantic adventure. My first was called The Prince and the Pirate Queen.”

  To her amazement, he nodded. “That topped the New York Times list for a couple of weeks straight.”

  She gaped. “You read my book?”

  “No, I’m more of a thriller reader myself, but I keep my eye on the lists.”

  The man was an enigma.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Try not to look so surprised. There’s no rule that says cowboys can’t be book people, is there?”

  Her face heated up, and she knew her fish-belly white complexion was now inching its way to crimson. “No, of course not.”

  “Things are quiet here in the winter, so I like to catch up on my reading.”

  He bent with the dog in hand to retrieve her notepad from the floor, eyeing it as he handed it to her. “Here you go. Don’t want to lose your words.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Dog’s got a collar but no tags. I’ll ask around at the campground. Maybe clean him up a little first.”

  She took the notepad. “Thank you, Jackson. He wouldn’t be happy here.”

  His full mouth quirked at the corner. “He’d distract you from all those romantic adventure words you need to write?”

  Was he teasing her? Or ridiculing? Her radar went up because, romance writer though she was, she had a tendency to attract the wrong men. Every. Single. Time. The kind of men who made her feel like less instead of more. Not again. She’d not allow it.

  “I’m creating a hero,” she said with a touch of asperity. “The world needs more of them, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe, unless they just make it harder for us real-life guys.”

  “And how would they do that?”

  “Kinda sets things off balance. Seems like in real life, it’s not one person saving the other… more like both people making each other better. I mean, that’s why God made both genders, right?”

  “Well, I… uh…”

  “Ah, never mind me. Too much philosophizing. See you later.”

  Uncertain how to take his strange remarks, she watched from the door as he walked back outside. With a click of his tongue, the horse ambled over, and he climbed easily into the saddle, the dog held football style under his arm, gazing in apparent adoration at the man who had gifted him with an anchovy.

  With a
tip of his hat—an actual, real hat tip—he rode away.

  She clutched the notepad to her chest, thinking about what he’d said. People making each other better. Another thought swooped in right behind. Exactly how much of an idiot had she made of herself? Glancing down at the notepad, she groaned. All those romantic adventure words? Underneath the scrawled title “New Novel Ideas,” she’d written an entire page of notes… about the anchovy pasta recipe.

  Three

  The morning came offensively early. Some loud creature she took to be a bird was having an avian altercation with another bird before the sun rose. Back home in her San Francisco apartment, Marcy regularly slumbered through an endless cacophony of cab drivers, bus traffic, and the guy who drove the garbage truck with his polka music blaring, but this bird noise cut through her like a knife through sponge cake.

  Wrapped in a robe, she padded into the kitchen. There was only one thought on her mind. Baked French toast. It was an idea born of her mother Diane’s go-to Sunday morning, pre-church meal. Just the whiff of cinnamon took her back to those Sundays in the cramped kitchen above their fifties-style diner in San Francisco, the Big City Griddle, as her mother got the food on the table while her father belted out gospel tunes. It occurred to her that the family routine probably cost them some breakfast business, but her mother would never think of opening the diner until after they’d returned from the early church service.

  “Priorities,” she’d say.

  Marcy smiled, thinking of her older brother and sisters who would be side-by-side with her parents, prepping for the morning rush. It soothed her to think of the daily routine, the crack of eggs, the whipping of pancake batter for the griddle, her young nieces and nephews folding napkins and putting little buckets of crayons onto the tables for the kid visitors. Why couldn’t she be content to make the diner her life’s work, just as they were to make it theirs?

  But there was always that restless coiled spring inside her, the discontent that made her think God wanted something else for Marcy Deveraux. And now she had confirmation. A novelist—that was what He’d decided she should be, and by golly, she would get that next book written if it killed her. Right after breakfast.