Written in My Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

fabric into the pad of her finger.
    “Ouch!” She stuck the injured finger into her mouth and turned an irritated glare on the dog. Oblivious, Puck had trotted to the center of the room and paused, head cocked to one side. “Puck,” she snapped. “Down!”
    He gave a sharp little bark, and ran to the door. He barked again, beginning to turn in a little circle, tail wagging fiercely.
    “He just went out,” said Tamsin. She’d taken him down last time, as glad of a break as Jane was.
    “It looks like he needs to go again.” Millie was good at stating the obvious.
    “And there’s someone below. I heard the bell a moment ago.” Still sucking her bleeding finger, Jane put down the dress and got up to fetch the dog’s lead. “You have to be quiet,” she told Puck as she tried to loop the lead around his neck. “Mrs. Lynch has a customer.”
    Puck was wriggling so hard she could hardly get a grip on him, and making a rather desperate-sounding whine. He had started circling around her feet as soon as she crossed the room, and as she fumbled with the lead, he jumped up, his paws on her knee. “I’m trying,” she told him in frustration. “Hold still!”
    “He must have eaten something nasty,” said Millie helpfully. “Take him far from the door.”
    Jane glared at her. Puck was frantically trying to lick her hand, and she pushed him back down onto all four paws. If Puck had eaten something bad and was about to be sick, she’d have to take him home. Mrs. Lynch wouldn’t tolerate her letting the dog in and out all day.
    Puck ducked out from under her hand and jumped up at the door. He pawed at it with the same desperation, but it gave Jane a chance to slip the lead over his head and pull it snug. “We’re going,” she told him. “Get down so I can open the door.”
    She already knew there was a client below; now at the door, she could hear the rumble of voices, although it was hard to hear anything over the scratching of Puck’s claws against the door and his increasingly louder whine. So she took a firm hold on the lead and opened the door cautiously. Perhaps she ought to carry the dog down….
    But the instant the door was open wide enough, Puck shot through the gap, pulling her into the edge of the door and yanking the lead from her grip. The door hit her cheekbone and Jane gasped in pain, then again in dismay as Puck clattered down the stairs, now whining louder than ever. The lead trailed behind him as he hurtled around the bend in the stairs.
    “Oh no,” cried Tamsin.
    “Grab him!” Millie squealed, dropping her broom.
    Jane was already scrambling after the bad dog, her heart in her throat. Mrs. Lynch would never let her bring Puck to work again. He’d have to be tied up all day behind Mr. Campbell’s house. She prayed the door to the salon was closed, so she could grab him before he disturbed the customers or Mrs. Lynch. She hoped he would run right through the hall to the garden door, which might even be open.
    But no. She all but fell down the last few steps, just in time to see Puck’s short tail vanish into the open salon door. She gasped in horror, then bolted after her pet. Please let it be a kind, forgiving sort of customer….
    “Puck! Puck, you rascal!”
    Jane reached the salon doorway before the voice registered in her brain. She froze, clutching at the door frame for support. Her knees threatened to give way. Down on one knee in the middle of Mrs. Lynch’s elegant salon, dirty and dusty, was Ethan Campbell, laughing and trying to get a grip on Puck, who was trying to climb up him, making a sound almost like a crying child as he licked every inch of Ethan’s filthy campaign coat.
    She couldn’t breathe. Her heart might have stopped. He was home.
    He looked up then, his eyes the same clear blue she remembered. “Jane,” he said, as though it was the final word of a benediction.
    She could only stare at him, mute with joyous shock. Mrs. Lynch stepped forward. “You have a