Page 37 of Saved By the Highland Beast
CHAPTER14
Dean yawnedand stretched as he made his way down the corridor that led to his chambers. Dinner had been long and arduous, with Duncan poking fun at Cillian’s grandmother every chance he had gotten. The old man had succeeded in making her storm off in the middle of dinner, causing John to snap at her heels as she yelled.
He could already see that it was going to be a long visit until she decided to go back home again. Dean respected his mother-in-law. She was, after all, the mother of his late wife. But he knew how possessive and overbearing she could be, especially when it came to matters of her grandson.
He stopped and frowned as he heard a scream and a splash coming from Sophia’s room. She had taken the dog and gone to her room at least an hour ago. He had thought she would have been done with bathing the dog by now.
“Sophia,” he said as he gently knocked on her bedroom door. “Is everythin’ all right?”
The door quickly opened to reveal a drenched Sophia. Water and bits of dirt that looked strangely like dog hair dripped from her face. “Everything is in hand,” she said quickly with a smile and attempted to shut the door.
Dean quickly held out his hand and gripped the handle, stopping her from closing the door. “It doesnae sound as if everythin’ is in hand,” he said with raised eyebrows.
“Oh, all right,” she conceded and then opened the door. “Come in quickly, but close the door. I do not want Cillian’s grandmother to see what is going on in here.”
Dean quickly stepped inside the room as she shut the door and locked it behind them.
Her room was in a mess just as he had expected it to be, with the addition of a very wet dog sitting in the corner. John was wagging his tail and panting as he happily looked at them. Dean’s eyes fell on the section of the room where the carpet had been rolled back to make room for the large tub and the smaller one beside it. Both tubs were steaming with water. The only difference was that half of the water from the smaller tub had been spilt over onto the floor.
“The bath is proving to be a little more challenging than what I had expected,” Sophia said sheepishly as she wrung her hands.
Dean shook his head as he looked at her. “How did ye make such a mess? He’s such a wee dog.”
“He’s strong and fast!” she protested. “You don’t understand just how slippery he can be!”
He shook his head again and laughed. “Go an’ grab the wee pest, an’ I’ll give ye a hand.”
“Would you really?” Her eyes brightened with hope. “That would make things so much easier!” She quickly turned and ran toward the dog before he had a chance to change his mind. “Here.” She returned and held the dog out to him.
Dean hesitated for a second but took the dog, holding it at arm’s length as if he could bite him at any minute.
John cocked his head to the side and stared at the laird as if to ask what he was about to do next.
“Right,” Dean said as he walked over to the smaller tub and began to lower the dog into the water. “This cannae be that hard.”
Sophia stood back and watched in anticipation with a towel covering half of her face.
The dog froze and stared into Dean’s eyes as soon as its back paws touched the water.
“There,” Dean said triumphantly with a grin. “This is easy—”
The words had just left his mouth when John began to wriggle and slip in his hands with an unstoppable force, creating a spray of water that soaked him and all of his surroundings.
“Grab his hind legs!” Dean suddenly yelled.
Sophia sprang into action and dropped the towel before rushing over and gripping the dog’s legs.
They both held him steady for a minute or two until he eventually calmed down.
“There, ye wee bastard,” Dean said. “Now, I will hold him, an’ ye can get the soap an’ start washin’ him.”
Doing as she was told, Sophia grabbed a bar of soap and quickly started washing the dog as he lay on his back in the little water that was left. “I should have asked for help in the first place. I just didn’t want to give Amalthea the satisfaction of thinking that she was right,” she explained.
Dean listened to her talk as he stared down at the dog’s stomach. There was something amiss with the dog as the water began to wash away the dirt and soften the clumps of hair. “Sophia?” he eventually said.
“Yes?” She looked up with a soapy paw in her hand.
“How did ye settle on the name John for the dog?”
