A Scarred Soul: A Small Town Love Story (Safe Haven Book 2)

C
opyright
© 2016 by Erin Sloane

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

I
f I let myself
, I would become obsessed with him. I can't do that.

Vince Marr is a veteran Marine volunteering at Dog Haven. Crippled by PTSD and flashbacks of Afghanistan, he's desperate to find some kind of peace in his life. When he meets Lulah, her smile warms his heart to the very core, and she immediately gains his trust. 

But there are some things better left unspoken, and when Lulah pushes him to open up, all he can do is run away from her prying eyes. If she knew what he was, what he did, she wouldn't love him anymore.

Lulah has spent her life bailing out her dad from one gambling debt after another. The last thing she needs in her life is another unstable man. But Vince is different from any other man she's ever met, and she can't help longing for the strong, silent hero that she sees behind the scars.

Despite everything, as they train a rescued pit bull together, Vince and Lulah can't help falling more and more in love. But Lulah isn't ready to throw herself headlong into a shaky situation, and Vince isn't ready to reveal the memories that haunt his nightmares. Their relationship teeters between ecstasy and terror, and neither one wants to give up on the promise of love hovering right in front of them.

How does a scarred soul learn to love again?

L
ulah had
about fifteen seconds to decide whether to call for help. The main gates of Dog Haven Sanctuary were locked each morning once the staff had arrived, reopening at 2 p.m. for visitors who hopefully wanted to adopt a dog.

The guy coming down the drive looked as though breaching the gates would give him about as much trouble as opening a can of soda. His powerful stride was long and quick, filled with purpose.

The Affliction t-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders made it difficult to tell where the design on the shirt stopped and his tattoos began. His jeans were worn but recently cleaned and pressed, and the way he held himself ramrod straight, screamed Military, every muscle of his body contained but battle-ready.

“Can I help you?” Lulah called, squaring her own shoulders, her hand tightening around the dog leash she held. Shame there wasn’t a dog attached to the other end of it, but there were plenty of staff in the building behind her to come to her aid.

He slowed his pace as he neared, not with hesitancy but with some kind of calculated measure, stopping at a polite distance from her. With legs braced he stretched out a heavily tattooed arm, to take her hand in a brisk greeting. When their palms touched, the handshake became a conduit for something remarkable, a jolt that shot right through her. In the meeting of their eyes, she saw disbelief, as if he’d felt it, too.

“Vince Marr.” He said his name like an apology, quickly dropping her hand.

“Hi, Vince Marr. I’m Lulah, and you’re not expected, so, how did you get in?”

“The gates.”

“Which are locked at this time of the day, so, what? You climbed them?”

He shrugged, then curved his lips in what he possibly thought was a smile, but nothing reached his eyes.

Lulah took another look at him, doing a quick calculation as to how many guys she’d need to call for to assist him from the property if he didn’t have a good reason for being there. Had Vince been a dog, she’d have admired his strength and condition. Not a visible ounce of fat, biceps and forearms defined in a way that made Lulah want to give them a test squeeze, and the underlying confidence of an athlete who knows he can call on his body to respond to any physical task.

What went on behind those guarded moss green eyes, though, was an entirely different matter.

“I’d like to volunteer,” he said.

That was the last thing she expected. She shuffled her feet, adding some distance between them because the guy was potent, and unnerving. “Okay. Well, there’s a process. You need to phone and speak to Marlo, our director, and make an appointment for an interview. Right now, though, we have all the staff we need, but give her a call, and if you’re suitable she’ll put you on the waiting list.”

“I’m here. I can help now.”

“I’m sorry, it doesn’t work like that.” Nobody was that desperate to volunteer, but something about him tugged at her.

Energy poured off him. Worse, his tight body language, and the way he scanned his surroundings as if searching for threats, were not the qualities they looked for in staff. They ran a specialist sanctuary, unique to Washington, one that took the difficult dogs, the unadoptables who needed serious rehabilitation before rehoming.

The way this guy appeared was a whistle-call to a dog’s issues, because a person uneasy in himself drew every anxiety to the fore in a dog. A damaged dog needed a calm and confident leader.

A few minutes in his company and Lulah couldn’t think of any reason why he would be a good fit for the sanctuary. Yet this was a place of hope and belief, rather than somewhere where judgment was made on looks and behavior.

Who was she kidding?

With his looks he could be the recruitment poster boy for any branch of the military, which meant she was totally making a call based on all the wrong criteria. She drew a long breath and hoped she wasn’t making a mistake.

“What’s your experience?” she asked in the hope that he’d have some skill they couldn’t do without.

“Marine…two tours of Afghanistan. I’m home for a bit.”

Maybe he’d been a military working dog handler. That would be useful, especially when she had to explain to Marlo that she’d taken on a new volunteer.

“Come with me and I’ll show you around.”

He fell into step beside her, held doors open, and answered her questions with brief, yet efficient responses.

“Do you have much experience with dogs?”

“We had dogs when I was a kid. That’s my experience.”

“Okay.” Great, so no experience. He was going to be a hard sell to the boss. The door he now held for her opened to the corridor running behind the kennels.

“The people who work here are nuts about dogs, so as long as you’re here, you’re going to find that dogs and animal behaviour in general, are the main focus of our day, and our lunchroom conversation. Some of the jobs aren’t much fun. Like cleaning kennels. We rotate the chores roster so that no single person is stuck with a shitty job, but you will be asked to learn everything. Are you good with that?”

Several steps on, when he hadn’t responded Lulah stopped and swung around, smacking straight into his hard chest, and tripping over his foot. Her sudden change in direction caused him to jump sideways, and grab her arm, keeping her upright and off his body in one quick move.

Vince muttered an apology before craning his head to look past her down the corridor as if it were booby-trapped.

“Vince, there’s something that’s really important around here, and that’s communication. The dogs depend on us all getting along and performing in a predictable manner. When I ask anything of you, you need to answer, otherwise I’ll just keep asking. Believe me when I tell you that I can be really annoying in that regard.”

“Sure, I understand,” he said, his moss-green eyes for once dropping their guard and giving her a look that suggested he thought she could be anything but annoying. And that look didn’t bother her one bit.

V
olunteering was supposed
to give Vince a sense of purpose, at least, that’s what his counselor insisted. He’d agreed to the idea because physically he was strong and capable, and working at the Dog Sanctuary, he thought, would be an outdoors job. It was close to home and near the mountains where he loved to hike.

Walking down the drive he’d almost faltered, not through any sort of fear or apprehension, even though he’d climbed the locked gates, but the mere presence of the woman standing outside a large building, watching him.

Lulah.

Around five-foot-five, spiky platinum hair, elfin features and grey eyes that seemed speckled with dark flint and bright light. There was this happiness about her, a joy for life that until meeting her, he’d forgotten he’d once had, too. When she took his outstretched hand something passed between them that stayed with him long after she showed him around the sanctuary and gave him a job.

It went beyond anything he’d experienced since returning from Afghanistan and he felt almost sick with hope that it might last. But he couldn’t pin his recovery on simply being in her presence; that gave her a mythical healing ability that even he knew was absurd.

Lulah directed him into the break room that had a kitchen at one end, then tables, chairs and sofas at the other. Open doors led out to a courtyard where a couple of dogs slept. Beyond that was a view across meadows and foothills to the mountains.

“Wait here while I find Marlo,” she said.

In minutes a woman appeared, introducing herself as Marlo. Vince shook her hand then glanced to the door to find Lulah.

“Lulah’s busy training dogs.”

He nodded, uncomfortable that Marlo had pinpointed exactly what he’d been doing. She had a different sort of energy about her, but was more guarded than Lulah.

She led him to the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil. “We’re a bit like the military here, Vince. We have a recruitment policy, and we run a tight organization. It has to be that way because of what we’re dealing with. The dogs take priority over everything, they have to because they’re our reason for existing. Staff must fit in, but I’m guessing you know how to do that through your training. To me you look troubled, like a jack-in-a-box ready to fire when the lid comes off. Am I close?”

She’d picked his state perfectly, and he couldn’t lie about it. What was the point? They’d see for themselves soon enough, if he wasn’t careful. “I thought I might be of help.”

Marlo considered him for long enough that he felt uncomfortable. “I understand, Vince. Come with me and meet Josh. They’re putting a new surface down in the indoor working area, I’m sure he could use some muscle. Be here by nine each morning, and I expect you to stay until lunchtime if you can’t manage a whole day.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Call me Marlo.”

He followed her to where a few guys were barrowing and spreading sawdust in a large, modern indoor work area. At the far end of the building, Lulah worked with a small group of people and a couple of dogs. Just seeing her felt familiar, sending a warm sensation spreading through his chest. Incredible. He couldn’t remember when he’d last experienced anything like it.

Josh handed him a rake and he shifted to a newly-dumped load of sawdust and began to spread it. He enjoyed the physicality of the work, making straight furrows that ran parallel to the wall, with the tines of the rake.

He finished up at Lulah’s end of the building and enjoyed listening to her instructing the interns on various aspects of dog training and behavior. For something he’d never given much thought he found the subject fascinating him. Or maybe that was Lulah.

She passed by during breaks between dogs.

“The surface has never looked so groomed,” she said. “I don’t want to walk on it and mess up your work.”

“I can do patterns and pictures, too, but I figured that would be distracting,” he replied, and she watched him for an extra beat, before agreeing.

By lunchtime, Lulah felt like an old friend, even though throughout the morning they’d exchanged more looks than words.

The following morning as he passed through the Sanctuary gates he couldn’t say whether he’d returned because he liked the work, or because he wanted to spend more time in Lulah’s company.

When it came to cleaning the kennels, all the dogs were either in outdoor runs, or training sessions, so he was surprised when a little blue-and-white pit bull joined him as he was coiling the hose. She was skinny and her lack of muscle made her look gangly and uncoordinated. The person she’d been working with called out for her, but she was deaf to that voice, and followed along after Vince.

The dog’s name was Misty, and it seemed she thought as little of it as a name as Vince did, judging by the way she ignored anyone who called her and stuck to Vince’s side. She was more like a shadow, keeping a constant distance from him, but attached to any movement he made.

At midday he was ready to head for the hills. The strain of working alongside so many strangers, and the sudden noises and barking dogs took their toll. In the lunchroom he grabbed his pack, and announced he’d be back the next day but when Misty tried to follow him he had to enlist Lulah’s help to restrain the dog.

“Why don’t you take her with you, Vince? A walk would do her good. She’d be company for you.”

He shook his head. “I can’t, Lulah, I don’t know how long I’ll be. And, a dog…I wouldn’t know what to do.”

Lulah smiled, as if she understood, and it made him want to touch her lips. Just a finger to the corner of her mouth to see if he could catch some of her happiness.

He was probably like most men who came across Lulah; imagining she needed him when she smiled that way. That impression was wrong; she didn’t need him at all, but even wanting her to want his company was such a big step towards feeling human again, that he ran with it, as a fantasy.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “Misty knows what to do. She’ll stick to your side and make sure you’re okay.”

Vince looked down at the dog. Poor thing. Her head looked too big for her scrawny body. The wounds she had were healing, but she was still a pathetic sight. The dog latched on to his gaze as if his look was a meaty bone, capable of fortifying her.

“My life doesn’t work like that, Lulah. You’re only seeing the good side of me. Other times, it’s dark in here.” He touched his chest. “I don’t get any sort of warning when that’s going to happen.”

In her face he could see the disappointment and it made him want to take Lulah aside, away from the watch of the people in the courtyard who pretended not to look. He wanted to tell her that he was drawn to something in her, and that he knew she felt it, too, but that he ruined good things.

But all that was impossible because words and ideas like that were better left unsaid. Before he had the chance to falter, he turned on his heel and left the Sanctuary. A few yards on he heard Lulah call the dog, and immediately missed its presence.

“
H
ow’s Vince working out
?” Marlo asked a week later.

They’d just finished their regular Monday morning meeting, and Lulah had dived at the box of donuts Marlo had picked up in town. As usual she always snagged two, powdered with lemon cream. Not for the first time, Marlo accused her of harboring a tapeworm and suggested a visit to the veterinarian.

Lulah just stuck her tongue out at her, before poking it into a hole she’d bored into the donut to get access to the cream. She made a hum of satisfaction, adding Vince’s name to the end of it, earning her an eye roll from Marlo.

“Let me see. Physically, he’s amazing, battle-fit, strong and willing to pitch in. Emotionally…hell, it’s hard to explain. The guy’s so deep and brooding. We’ve had a virulent strain of savior-complex run through the kennels that most of the female interns, plus one of the dogs, seem to have caught. Vince appears oblivious. I’ve got staff volunteering to scrub kennels who’d previously have bitched about damage to manicures.”

“It must make rostering easier.”

“No, it makes it worse, because they all want to work alongside Vince. He speaks if when spoken to, works like a trooper, and never makes it much past lunchtime before disappearing into the hills. Afternoons, once he’s gone, those girls aren’t nearly as productive so I schedule the menial tasks for mornings.”