Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 93425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
The corner of Sebastian’s lips twitched upward. “Fine. I’ll get his leash.”
Seriously? What the hell was I doing? I had needed a visit to Dr. Emery to discuss my actions surrounding a little girl who had written to Santa. What did pretending to be a dog trainer who taught commands in German warrant, then? Being institutionalized? Lord, how the hell did I get myself here?
Sebastian came back with the leash and handed it to me. I was surprised when he softened his tone and extended his hand. “I apologize. I didn’t introduce myself. That dog just gets the best of me sometimes. I’m Sebastian Maxwell, and I assume you must be Gretchen.”
Gretchen. Of course! Because the woman not from Germany who trains in German would logically be named Gretchen. I put my hand into his large one and shook. The minute my skin made contact with his, my pulse took off like a runaway train. When his grip tightened around my hand, it sent a shock of electricity up my arm. Great, more unsettling behavior to discuss with Dr. Emery—though it did make sense that I lit up like a Christmas tree, since I was damn Santa Claus. I’d need a loan to pay for my therapy sessions after today.
Pulling my hand back, I focused on getting the hell out of there. Apparently, I’d be taking my new student with me. I managed to clasp the end of the leash onto Marmaduke’s collar and did my best impersonation of a professional animal handler. “Okay. So I’ll be back in an hour.” I tugged at the giant dog’s collar, and amazingly, he followed. Just to solidify that I was totally losing it, I turned back at the top of the steps and smiled at Sebastian Maxwell. “Danke.”
After I said it, I started to question whether that was even German for “thank you” or not. Oh well, too late if it wasn’t. Marmaduke bolted down the stairs, and I had to run to keep up. At the bottom, I stood my ground and yanked hard on his leash.
“Whoa . . . ,” I said.
Shit. Whoa? That was for a horse and in English, wasn’t it? I looked over my shoulder and back up the stairs, hoping Sebastian had gone back inside and hadn’t heard me. Of course, I had no such luck.
Sebastian stood at the top of the stairs watching me. He looked really damn skeptical.
Yeah, you and me both, dude. You and me both.
Marmaduke and I went to a nearby park that had a doggy run, which meant I could let him off the leash in the fenced-in area while I googled dog training.
I spent a good half hour reading up on the basics of schooling a dog on obedience and then asked Google for reasons to train a dog in German. Surprisingly, it was more common than I would’ve guessed. Many people trained dogs in the native language of the breed. And who knew . . . a Great Dane wasn’t actually Danish—it was of German descent. So that made sense, I guess. Plus, training in a foreign language made it easier for the animal not to get confused when others used common words near them. I also looked up a couple of words for basic training in German. Sitz, pronounced zitz, meant “sit.” Platz, pronounced plah-tz, meant “down,” and nein, pronounced nine, meant “no.” I figured Marmaduke desperately needed those three words in his life.
The one good thing about a big puppy with a lot of energy was that he wore himself out pretty fast. Once he seemed more subdued, I took him out of the doggy area and went and found a quiet tree to sit under and work on training him.
He laid his enormous body across my legs. I petted him as I spoke. “So, Marmaduke, tell me about the people you live with. Is Sebastian as much of a jerk as he seemed like back at the house? He’s definitely not anything like I’d expected him to be after hearing about him from Birdie.” When I said “Birdie,” Marmaduke started to wag his tail. I wanted to see if it was a coincidence or not. So I waited until his tail stopped wagging and then talked to him a little more. “Yeah. So I expected a really nice guy, maybe soft-spoken, even though he’s clearly a big dude like you. But Sebastian’s kind of a meanie, isn’t he?”
Nothing. Marmaduke just kept looking at me, but his tail didn’t budge.
“I really hope he doesn’t talk to Birdie like the way he spoke to us.”
The minute I said “Birdie,” the dog’s tail took off wagging. I smiled and scratched his ears. “Yeah, I get it, buddy. I could tell she was really special just from her letters. I’m glad you’re there to protect her.”