Copyright © 2021 Lizzie Shane

Cover illustration © Sophie Ellis for Headline Publishing

The right of Lizzie Shane to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by arrangement with Forever
an imprint of Grand Central Publishing

First published in Great Britain in 2021
by HEADLINE ETERNAL
An imprint of HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

eISBN 978 1 4722 7870 8

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About the Author

Contemporary romance author Lizzie Shane was born in Alaska and still calls the frozen north home, though she can frequently be found indulging her travel addiction. Thankfully, her laptop travels with her and she has written her way through all fifty states and over fifty countries.

Lizzie has been honored to win the Golden Heart Award and HOLT Medallion, and has been named a finalist three times for Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA Award®, but her main claim to fame is that she lost on Jeopardy!

For more about Lizzie and her books, please visit www.lizzieshane.com.

Praise for Lizzie Shane:

‘The endearing characters will capture readers’ hearts from the first page . . . It’s hard not to fall in love with this spirited tale’

Publishers Weekly

‘Once Upon a Puppy is a must read for all fans of rom-coms and contemporary romance . . . I enjoyed this sweet heartfelt rivalry more than I can put into words’

Urban Book Reviews

‘An irresistible blend of heart, humour, nostalgic moments, misunderstandings, family, friendship, tension, chemistry, attraction, spirited shenanigans, Christmas cheer, and a whole lot of puppy love’

What’s Better Than Books?

‘A dog lovers dream come true, mixed in with Christmas And the most adorable romance’

Breakfast at Shelby’s

‘A magical read . . . If you read one holiday romance this year make it this one, I don’t think you’ll regret it!’

Novel Gossip

‘Could not put it down . . . Beautifully written’

Harlequin Junkie

‘Shane’s heart-warming plot, perfect mix of small-town charm and buoyant wit, perfectly imperfect human characters, and adorable canines truly capture the thrill of love and the magic of the dogs-and-people connection’

Booklist

Also by Lizzie Shane

The Twelve Dogs of Christmas

Once Upon a Puppy

To All The Dogs I’ve Loved Before

About the Book

Sometimes a second chance at first love requires a little push . . .

The last person Elinor Rodriguez wants to spend time with is her first love, Levi Jackson. The quietly intense lawman broke Elinor’s heart once before, and she’s determined to never risk trusting him again. Unfortunately, her mischievous rescue dog seems to have other plans. Somehow Dory always manages to escape Elinor at the worst possible moment. And in the small town of Pine Hollow, Levi is the man to call when a dog is disrupting traffic.

As the kid who barely graduated – and still struggles to hide his dyslexia – Levi always believed that Elinor was way out of his league. Even though he ended their engagement all those years ago, Elinor continues to take Levi’s breath away whenever he sees her. Now, with a little help from a four-legged friend, Levi and Elinor may just get the second chance they deserve.

For everyone who believes sometimes love needs a second chance

Chapter One

The chief’s on-again-off-again relationship with a certain librarian has been stuck in the “off” position for years now, but several eyewitnesses reported seeing him playing with her dog in the square last Friday. Could these two lovebirds finally be patching things up?

—Pine Hollow Newsletter,
Monday, September 27

The dog was a menace.

Some days Levi was convinced she’d been put on this earth for the sole purpose of messing with his peace of mind—and her owner wasn’t any better.

Levi mentally cursed the pair of them as he chased the furry troublemaker through the Pine Hollow town square on a sunny Friday afternoon. Again. He’d spent entirely too much time running after that fluffy white tail over the last nine months.

The mottled white-and-brown Australian shepherd ran a zigzag pattern through the hay bales set up for the fall festival before leaping up onto the gazebo platform and looking back at him with eager eyes.

Tactical mistake, Levi thought, keeping the critique silent. He refused to become the guy talking to a dog as if she understood him.

Moving quickly to the base of the gazebo, he cut off her exit. He’d learned his lesson since the first call about a loose dog back in January—the little demon was fast, and he’d never catch her if he just followed her.

It was all about maneuvering. And usually about keeping treats in his Explorer, but he’d run out two weeks ago and hadn’t remembered to pick up more of the liver-flavored ones she liked.

“Come on,” Levi coaxed, creeping slowly closer with the leash—something else he’d started keeping in his glove box—hidden behind his back so she wouldn’t spot it.

The little Aussie crouched, watching him eagerly with her mismatched eyes, her tail sweeping back and forth.

“Good girl,” he murmured, one hand out to the side to cut off her last avenue of escape. Just a few more inches.

“Hi, Levi!” a cheerful voice called across the square.

Levi didn’t react. He didn’t take his eyes off the canine menace for a second.

So he had a clear view when she whirled, bounding up onto the railing he’d been certain was higher than she could jump without a running start. He lunged, but she was already scampering along the top of the railing like a high-wire act. When a post blocked her route, she launched herself over the hedges and took off across the open green of the square at breakneck speed.

Levi swore under his breath and jogged down the gazebo steps to give chase, but that chipper voice came again.

“That Elinor’s dog you’re playing with?” called Linda Hilson, the nosiest gossip in Pine Hollow. “You two back together?”

The blare of a car horn jerked his attention toward the street, where Elinor’s menace of a dog was trying to herd cars again. Because of course she was.

“No,” Levi bit out to answer both questions as he sprinted toward the street before the dog got herself killed. He was not back together with Elinor, and he was not playing with her pain-in-the-ass dog.

Since Pine Hollow was too small for its own animal control department, calls about everything from bears knocking over trash cans to dogs on the loose went through Levi’s office—and even though Levi had two part-time deputies working for him, he always seemed to be the one to hear about it when Elinor’s nuisance of a dog got out.

It would be one thing if this were the first time. Or the second. Or even the tenth. But complaints about the dog running amok through town had become almost a weekly occurrence ever since Elinor adopted her last Christmas. The calls had paused during the summer when Elinor was on hiatus from her job as the school librarian and could keep track of her own damn dog, but they’d picked up like clockwork again when the school year started last month.

The calendar hadn’t even tripped over into October yet, the town just starting to gear up for the annual fall festival, and Levi could not take another month of this. Elinor needed to find a way to keep the forty-pound fluffball contained.

He made it to the street bracketing the square in time to see the menace in question veer down the alleyway beside Magda’s bakery.

“Thank you,” Levi growled, jogging across the street to block the dog in. The alley dead-ended where the back of the bakery met the back of the historic Pine Hollow Inn—not to be confused with the Inn at Pine Hollow or the Inn of Pine Hollow.

Levi stepped into the alley, scanning the shadows for signs of her. He’d definitely seen that tail disappear back here. She had to be here somewhere. Even Dory the Menace couldn’t leap three-story buildings in a single bound. But all he saw were the trash bins tucked against the side of the building—and a swath of graffiti that hadn’t been there yesterday on the inn wall.

Levi swore under his breath, momentarily distracted from the pursuit in progress by the new development in his other ongoing headache. There’d been a string of small thefts and minor vandalism around town over the summer. He’d been hoping the new school year would distract the likely underage perpetrators, but the paint splashed across the brick of the historic building told a different story.

Pine Hollow was a quiet town. He’d only had to arrest three people all year—and two of those had been DUIs. His job was mostly about listening to what the town needed and finding solutions before situations could worsen. That was what Elton, the previous police chief, had always taught him, and Levi tried to live by it. The benefit—and the curse—of a small town was that everyone was in everyone else’s business. So if he kept his ears open, he could usually catch wind of things before they got too bad. Usually.

Which was what was so frustrating about the times when he couldn’t. And about incidents like the vandalism—where no one seemed to have any idea who was doing it. This town was his responsibility, and he had the sleepless nights to prove it.

One of the trash cans rattled, pulling Levi’s gaze away from the spray paint and back to the culprit at hand. He rounded the can, squaring off against Elinor’s dog. She looked up at him, her ears pricked forward, tongue flopping out the side of her mouth as she panted happily.

“You pleased with yourself?” he grumbled.

She wriggled into a crouch, bouncing up to sit, then back down on her belly, watching him as he approached. He kept his hands loose in front of him like a soccer goalie, ready to lunge if she tried to dart past him. There was no way out of the back of the alley. Just the cans, a brick wall, and the back door to Magda’s place. As long as Magda didn’t open it to investigate the rattling trash cans, he was home free.

“It’s okay…nice and easy…” He stretched out one hand—and the dog bounced sideways with a bark.

Farther down the alley.

“You wanna go that way, we’ll go that way. That’s a dead end,” he said—and then reminded himself that he did not talk to Elinor’s crazy dog.

She danced in three quick circles, spiraling out of reach.

“Just come quietly. There’s no way out…”

She cocked her head—giving him a look that he could almost swear meant she took those words as a challenge. Then she bolted for the closed door. He straightened, not bothering to immediately give chase—where could she go? It wasn’t like dogs could open doors.

She bounced up on her hind legs, her front paws pushing down on the handle.

No way.

The latch released, and the door cracked open.

“No, no, no!” Levi lunged—but Elinor’s diabolical pet had already wedged her nose into the opening, working it wide enough to dart inside.

He resisted the urge to roar in frustration and flung open the door, charging into the employees-only area of Magda’s bakery—through the dry storage room, chasing the wisp of fluffy white tail into the kitchen and the storefront beyond.

“Levi, what the hell?” Magda yelped as he burst into the front of the shop in pursuit of the fiendish Aussie.

“Sorry.” He dodged around the counter.

“Why did you set a dog loose in my bakery?” Magda blocked his path, thunder gathering in her eyes. “Did Mac put you up to this? He’d better not be calling the health inspector.”

“Is that Elinor Rodriguez’s dog?” asked Gayle Danvers, one hand holding the front door open.

“Don’t let her out!” Levi shouted, but it was too late. The menace had escaped past Mrs. Danvers back into the square.

He called out another apology to everyone in the shop, slowing down respectfully as he moved past Mrs. Danvers, before breaking into a sprint as he saw the streak of brown-on-white fur vanishing back into the props for the Harvest Festival that dotted the square.

Townspeople watched him race past with amused expressions. He must have chased down Elinor’s dog dozens of times by now, but in the past she’d tended to frequent less-populated areas. He’d found her in Elinor’s neighborhood or near the school more times than he could count—probably trying to track down her owner. Twice she’d been hanging around the Furry Friends shelter, where she’d lived for a few weeks before Elinor adopted her. And once he’d even found her cavorting around the old mill, a wreck of a building outside town that wasn’t safe for anyone, man or dog, though tourists loved to take pictures in front of the crumbling stones. But this was only her second visit to the square.

And hopefully her last.

If Elinor didn’t find some way to lock her up, he was going to do it himself. He had an empty jail cell. He’d like to see her open that door.

Levi saw a flash of white, only a few feet away, weaving between the hay bales, and desperation drove him into a dive. He landed on his stomach on the hay bale, his arms stretched out in front of him—with no dog to show for it, only the feel of fur brushing past his fingertips.

“What are you doing?”

Levi looked up, silently waving goodbye to the last shreds of his dignity as he met two pairs of curious eleven-year-old eyes. Astrid Williams and Kimber Kwan. School must be out. Which meant he’d been chasing Elinor’s menace of a dog for at least thirty minutes. It had been too early when the first call came in about a loose dog to just call Elinor and tell her to get control of her own damn pooch.

“Astrid. Kimber.” Levi came to his feet, dusting stray bits of hay off the front of his uniform. “Just catching a loose dog,” he said, mentally calculating the likelihood that this wasn’t going to get back to his friends and become a source of ribbing at poker nights for the next month.

Considering Ben was Astrid’s uncle and legal guardian, he didn’t like his odds.

Astrid cocked her head at him, frowning as if he’d said something inexplicable. “You mean Dory? Why don’t you just call her?”

“I tried that,” he explained, keeping his voice calm and his frustration to himself. “She thinks we’re playing chase.”

Astrid nodded sagely. “She does that,” she said. “Aunt Elinor said the trick is to offer her a treat. Or a game she likes even better.” The girl turned to where Dory was peeking out from behind a hay bale. “Dory want the ball?” she asked in a high-pitched voice, cupping her hand like she was holding an invisible ball.

The dog instantly raced out of hiding, rushing to sit angelically at Astrid’s feet, her focus fixed diligently on the nonexistent ball in Astrid’s grip.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Levi muttered—but he wasted no time clipping the leash to Dory’s collar while the dog was still fixated on the pretend ball. Astrid offered the “ball” to Dory, and the dog licked her empty hand—as Levi tried not to take it too hard that he’d just been outsmarted by an eleven-year-old in under two minutes. Ego was overrated anyway. At least he finally had the freaking dog under control.

Now all he had to do was return her to his ex-fiancée and convince the woman who had been angry at him for three years to do him a favor and padlock her dog inside when she was going to be at work.

No problem.

Chapter Two

No one knows for sure why the chief and the librarian mysteriously called off their engagement three years ago, but many a Pine Hollow resident is hopeful that this could be a sign that our favorite couple will be headed back to the altar soon.

—Pine Hollow Newsletter,
Monday, September 27

The downside of living in the same small town as her ex-fiancé was that it was virtually impossible to avoid bumping into him. Particularly when that ex was the chief of police and couldn’t resist butting his nose into other people’s business. Especially hers.

Elinor groaned as she pulled onto her street and saw the all-too-familiar black Explorer in her driveway, the Pine Hollow Police seal on the driver’s door glinting in the sunlight.

It had been such a good day.

Or, more accurately, it had been an absolute crap day during which she’d been hanging on to her good mood by her fingernails.

She’d woken up with the beginnings of a sinus headache. Then Jeremiah Svec, who seemed to pride himself on being the class clown, had chosen this morning during the before-school hot breakfast program to dump his juice all over her shoes. She was pretty sure it had been intentional, but she pretended to believe it was an accident, even as she squelched her way through the morning classes.

Because Murphy’s Law was alive and well, a bear had been spotted not far from the school. So in an excess of caution, recess had been moved to the gymnasium—and the kids obviously hadn’t gotten their wiggles out as well as they did outside, because the entire day was an exercise in enforcing the library rules against running and shouting when what she really wanted to be doing was fostering a love of the written word.

She loved her job, but even on a good day it was exhausting—and today she was a little ashamed of how relieved she felt that she wasn’t on duty for the after-school program and could just go home.

Except, of course, her baby sister had called as soon as she pulled her phone out of her desk and turned the ringer back on—as if Charlotte had a hidden camera on Elinor, letting her know the exact second she could make demands.

She should have let it go to voice mail. She should have known by the fact that it was a call and not a text that Charlotte was asking for a favor. But she’d picked up anyway. And immediately succumbed to the “best of all possible sisters” wheedling.

So instead of going home, she’d found herself at Magda’s bakery picking up cupcakes—literally the only thing Charlotte had been tasked with picking up for the party tonight.

The traffic around the square had been a mess, thanks to all the weekend tourists coming up to Vermont for the fall foliage and gawking at the picturesque small-townness—one of the hazards of living in adorable Pine Hollow. Elinor had to park so far away from Magda’s she might as well have walked from the school, but she’d pushed away her irritation and squelched her way in her still-moist shoes to the cute little bakery to collect the goodies.

It was Anne Day—a holiday that only existed in her family—and she was determined to be happy. She just needed five minutes curled up with her sweet dog and a good book to reset her mood.

But Murphy’s Law ruled her life, so, of course, Levi was sitting in her driveway.

If a man was going to declare that he didn’t want to marry you after the world’s longest engagement, he ought to at least have the decency to leave town. But no. Not Levi. He’d just moved into a cabin by the old Keller place and loomed over her life.

Though he wasn’t in the habit of dropping by for no reason.

Elinor pulled alongside him, and the reason he was there flung herself against the Explorer’s passenger window, barking her joy that Elinor was home.

Dory.

Who was supposed to be secured inside the house while Elinor was at work—but who always seemed to find new ways of escaping.

Elinor shut off her car and took a moment to tug the hair tie out of her hair, the thick, dark brown length falling around her shoulders for only a moment before she raked her hands back through it, yanking it back into her standard ponytail—a habit that Levi used to tease her about, saying she did it when she wanted to compose herself, his gray eyes glinting at her in that knowing way.

“This is a good day,” she said to herself, smashing the memory and focusing on Anne as she reached for the cupcakes and climbed out of the car.

She automatically glanced toward the house as she heard Levi’s door creak open, looking for evidence of Dory’s latest jailbreak, but there were no open doors or windows on the front side. She must have made it out the back this time.

Levi rounded his front bumper, unhurried, letting his irritation roll out in front of him in an intangible wave. He held the leash in one hand, and Dory bounced toward Elinor, eager and ridiculously proud of herself.

Elinor quickly set the bakery box on her hood so the cupcakes wouldn’t go flying when Dory reached her.

She wasn’t a bad dog—in fact, Elinor would argue to the death that she was the best of dogs—but Dory kept finding new ways of getting out, no matter what Elinor did to try to contain her. The only locks that seemed to stop her were padlocks—so Elinor had tried padlocking Dory in her puppy crate. It had worked until she’d come home the following week to find the padlock still attached to the crate door, which had been removed at the hinges and lay discarded on the kitchen floor.

She was pretty sure Dory had snuck out a second-story window that day. One of the neighbors had reported seeing her on the roof.

She just kept getting loose.

And Levi always seemed to be the one to find her. Always with that same disapproving frown on his face when he brought her back.

Not that his frown was noticeable to the naked eye. Levi was a master of the blank stare. But Elinor had known him since they were seven. She’d always been able to read him.

He was a below-the-surface kind of guy. She’d been intrigued by that when they were kids. Fascinated by his stillness. Dying of curiosity to know what he was thinking because he said so little. Her personal jigsaw puzzle.

When she was thirteen, she’d filled journals with dissertations on every flicker of his eyelashes.

He’d been gangly then, tall for his age and so thin it looked like a stiff breeze would blow him right over, but he’d always had that stillness. That quiet intensity. And he’d always had her. No one had ever caught her attention quite as completely as Levi Jackson.

He’d filled out while she was away at college, his shoulders finally catching up to his height. When she’d come back, he’d been sexy in a way that had actually been a little intimidating. Other girls had stared at him then, gawking at his muscles, fawning over his eerily pale gray eyes and how good he looked in his uniform. But he’d still been her Levi, and they’d fallen easily back into being friends. And then, later, back into being more than friends.

She’d felt sort of smug then. Possessive and proud of the fact that she’d wanted him before he grew into his hunkiness.

Now the sexiness was just salt in the wound. He’d never have trouble finding someone to replace her, especially if he gave a new girl that slow, deliberate look he used to give Elinor.

The look that wasn’t even a distant cousin of the one he was giving her at the moment.

Levi, who now met her eyes with absolutely no expression, was currently pissed.

“I know. I’m sorry,” Elinor said to cut off the lecture she could see in his eyes, kneeling to greet Dory as the little Aussie tried to wiggle in every direction simultaneously to express her joy at their reunion. “I don’t know how she keeps getting out.”

Those pale, almost-silver eyes she’d once thought were the most beautiful color in the world stayed hard. “I’m not going to spend another school year chasing your dog, Elinor. You have to find some way to contain her.”

“It’s not like I’m not trying.”

“Try harder. I have better ways to spend my time than wrangling your dog.”

“Oooh, did Mrs. Glenn double-park again? You’d better get on top of that, or we’ll have a crime wave.”

The sarcasm popped out, instantly chased by regret. She knew his job was important. She knew he cared about the town and did everything he could to make Pine Hollow a great place to live—but it was hard to focus on that when she was still so angry with him.

She could go weeks or even months without noticing it and then wham. It would all come rushing back. The anger was always waiting beneath the surface. Dormant but ready to erupt at a moment’s notice. He’d been her person, the love of her life—until he’d casually ripped out her heart and walked away without even an explanation. A little anger was warranted.

She reached for the leash, and Levi shifted, holding it away from her.

“I’m not kidding, Elinor. Don’t make me take her away from you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

He sighed. “No, I wouldn’t,” he admitted. “But I am going to have to fine you if we get any more complaints. She ran through Magda’s bakery today. If she’d caused any damage—”

“Then I’m sure Magda would take it up with me.” She was a little surprised she hadn’t heard about Dory’s exploits when she’d picked up the cupcakes—but the bakery had been packed, mostly with out-of-towners. Fall color was starting, after all. Magda had caught her eye and handed over the cupcakes Charlotte had preordered without missing a beat in the conversation she’d been having with the tourist at the front of the line.

“Just keep her inside,” Levi said in that deep, rusty growl of his.

“I will.”

It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried. She’d adopted the canine equivalent of Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible. Or freaking MacGyver.

Elinor reached for the leather leash, and Levi relinquished it after a beat, stepping back. His gaze flicked past her as he surveyed the scene, missing nothing—and landed on the oversized Magda’s box she’d set on the hood of her car. Far too many cupcakes for one person.

“They’re for Anne,” Elinor heard herself explaining, even though she didn’t owe him a damn explanation.

A new alertness lit in his eyes, a question sharpening his gaze, and Elinor realized her mistake. He loved her sisters. He worried about her sisters. Always so protective of Anne and Charlotte. It was part of what made it so hard to completely hate him. It would be so much easier if she could just hate him properly.

“Five years cancer-free,” Elinor said, and the sharp edge of worry in his eyes instantly eased into relief. “We’re having a little celebration. Just family,” she amended quickly, before she found herself inviting him. They’d been together through Anne’s entire illness, including the terrifying recurrence after nearly two years cancer-free, but that didn’t give him the right to come celebrate this milestone with them. He’d given that up when he’d dumped her in the middle of wedding planning.

He glanced back toward his Explorer. “I should go.”

“Yep.”

Now that Levi was no longer holding her leash, Dory seemed to have decided she desperately needed his attention. She gave a short, conversational bark, her mismatched eyes focused intently on Levi and her feet braced in a sort of half crouch, ready for any game. He rewarded her with a glower.

“Did you know she can open doors?” he grumbled—as if Elinor had taught her to do it to spite him.

“Yeah, I know. She was the resident escape artist at the shelter when I got her, always letting all the other dogs out to play with her.”

“Ally has a doggie day care now,” Levi reminded her.

“I know.” She also knew she couldn’t afford to pay to have someone watch Dory every day, not on a school librarian’s salary, when she was already strapped to pay the mortgage on the house she’d bought back when she thought she and Levi were going to live happily ever after there.

Charlotte had lived with her for a couple of years, which had helped out with bills even if they’d driven each other crazy, but Charlotte had moved to one of the NetZero Village condos out by the ski resort last year, and since then money had been tight. Elinor might need to look into another roommate.

“I’ll figure something out,” she insisted, reminding Levi with the hard look in her eyes that her problems were not his to solve anymore. No matter how much he liked to play Savior of the Universe.

He gave a short, jerking nod. “Right,” he muttered, finally moving back to his SUV.

Dory whined, and Elinor dropped a hand to the top of her head, stroking her silky ears. “He isn’t our friend,” she told Dory after the Explorer door creaked shut.

Levi started the engine, one wrist draped over the top of his steering wheel as he gave Elinor one last look, then put the SUV into gear and backed out of her driveway. She watched him go, staring after the back bumper of the man she’d been convinced was the love of her life when she was fifteen.

Of course, she’d also thought Titanic was the most romantic movie in the world back then. Obviously, she’d been an idiot.

She looked down at Dory, her sweet baby gazing up at her with abject adoration. “All right, Trouble. What are we going to do with you?”