Sit, Stay, Love

by Debbie Burns

  “When I ran out of them, I headed downstairs and outside as fast as I could. I think he knew I was coming. He was already at the end of the block, but he was looking my way like he was waiting for me but needed the distance to feel safe. He watched me for a while, but then he turned and left like he did just now.”

  He shrugged, thinking of all the interactions he and the dog had had since that first night. “I leave him food on the street under my balcony. Sometimes he leaves me things too. Odd things. A dead crow once, but trash too. I know it’s him, because I spotted him carrying a hat once. By the time I got downstairs, he was gone. The hat was waiting for me by the door.”

  Fresh tears appeared on her lower lids. She blinked them away without shedding them. “But why John Ronald?”

  “Because calling him Tolkien didn’t feel right.”

  She dropped his gaze so quickly, Mason knew she’d gotten the confirmation she’d been looking for. “Not all those who wander are lost.” It was such a quiet whisper on her lips that Mason almost wasn’t sure he’d heard it. It was so quiet, he suspected it wasn’t even meant for his ears.

  She shook her head as if she’d just figured out something she didn’t quite believe. He was about to ask for clarification when she turned away from him and stalked abruptly over to the Dumpster to check for her stuff. When it proved to be a wash, she returned to the truck without a glance his direction.

  Mason climbed into the truck after her, wondering if perhaps the universe had just shifted for him a third time, only this time, much less painfully so.

  * * *

  Tess knew it was on her to talk, to explain her odd line of questioning, only she couldn’t. She’d been completely waylaid. It had started with his kindness to her and to the homeless guy he’d encountered in the park.

  Those were remarkable but ordinary things. Things you remembered about a stranger long after you parted ways. Things that changed the course of your day and sent you to bed mulling over a small but profound connection.

  But the Tolkien quote, the one from the poem she’d carried in her backpack across Europe, the backpack she’d lost meeting him—it was too much to process. That single line of poetry meant more to her than any verse she’d heard.

  Those words meant something giant to him too. They had to. Maybe she hadn’t clarified that he’d named a stray dog with wanderlust John Ronald because of the same line that had given her meaning in the darkest moments of her life.

  But after the story he’d shared, she didn’t have to. She wanted to know what it meant. Wanted answers from a universe that either she didn’t know how to listen to or wasn’t in the habit of talking to her.

  The final thirty minutes of Dumpster searching was quiet, wet, smelly, and unproductive. The only thing that came from it was that she’d never look at trash the same way again. Wherever her things were, they hadn’t been thrown out anywhere surrounding Citygarden.

  Somehow, Tess knew after running across the remarkable-looking John Ronald that, for some reason, her stuff was gone for good. She just didn’t know how to explain that to Mason.

  Finally, when Mason admitted they’d combed as much of the area as he knew, he asked if she wanted to go to the police station.

  Tess thanked him but asked him to take her home instead. She gave him directions toward Nonna’s small, redbrick shotgun home on the Hill. Fifteen minutes later, when they entered the Hill’s single square-mile border and she directed him to Nonna’s, she saw the neighborhood from a stranger’s eyes.

  Italian-colored flags flanked the main street entrances just as they did popular street corners within it. Tess couldn’t remember how old she was when she realized that while the fire hydrants in her neighborhood were painted red, white, and green and topped with bright-yellow caps, elsewhere in the world, they were starkly yellow.

  Yards here tended to be infinitesimally small as compared to other St. Louis neighborhoods, and Tess wondered if there were more flags on street corners or more Virgin Mary concrete statues in the carefully pruned yards of the row houses they were passing. And being just a few days past Halloween, pumpkins, gourds, scarecrows, straw bales, ghosts, and skeletons still lined many of the porches of the modest frame, brick, and shotgun-style homes.

  Mason drove past an old man with stooped shoulders sweeping cobwebs from the corners of his covered porch. Tess remembered trick-or-treating at his home nearly two decades ago. He and his wife had passed out cannoli instead of candy, and it had been better than her grandmother’s.

  When they reached Nonna’s, Mason parked in a rare open spot alongside the sidewalk out front, and Tess was struck how his truck was nearly as long as her grandmother’s yard was wide.

  He slipped the truck into Park and slowed the wipers to a rhythmic pulse. The soft rain fell around it, wrapping it in droplets like a snug blanket. She watched his gaze comb the house—the chipping paint of the double swing on the covered porch, the concrete statue of the Virgin Mary, hands spread open in welcome, nearly lost in a crowd of browning-out mums alongside the walkway. The Red Birds flag still hung on the wrought-iron garden flag post.

  Looking at it now, it struck Tess for the first time how little decorating Nonna had done for Halloween this year. She wondered if Thanksgiving and Christmas would be different. Not that Tess would blame her if they weren’t. Nonna had been married to Tess’s grandfather for nearly sixty years. The thousand-square-foot house her grandparents had lived in their entire marriage wasn’t much to look at, but it was also one of Tess’s favorite places in the world.

  She started to unzip the cozy Vineyard Vine hoodie he’d lent her, but he held up his hand. “Keep it. It could never look that good on me.”

  Tess’s cheeks grew warm, but she didn’t argue away the offer. The hoodie was warm and cozy, and she never wanted to take it off.

  She caught a glimpse of movement in the dark dining room window. Nonna was always looking out to inspect tourists who parked in front of her house on their way to one of several thriving Italian restaurants in the Hill. Would her grandmother notice she was inside the cab? Whether or not she did, Tess needed to get moving.

  Only needing to go and wanting to leave weren’t the same thing.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. Sorry for what? For taking up his time? Using up his gas? For not sharing what his story about John Ronald means to me? “Thanks for helping me look for my stuff.” It was easier than offering an explanation.

  “You never told me what you were doing out there today. Where you were going.”

  Tess considered her answer in the quiet that hung between them. The radio, tuned to a popular country station, was turned low, somehow drawing her attention to the music more than if it had been turned up. “I’m trying to start a business. I was lugging a bunch of stuff around. That’s why I needed the suitcase.”

  “What sort of business?”

  Even in the dark afternoon, his eyes were such a beautiful mixture of blue and green. And his hair was just wet enough that it called to her to brush her fingertips through it. She balled her hands into fists and rested them on her lap. The warm cab and renewed blanket of rain invited her to linger.

  All those months in Europe and she’d had a hundred opportunities for a one-night stand that she’d never pursued. Maybe her heart wouldn’t be beating as hard right now if she had.

  She shook her head at his question, not able to reveal her business dreams to him or the driving passion of her desire to make a difference in animals’ lives. Not now. If there was one less barrier between them, she was pretty certain they’d both be leaning in until their lips met in the middle over the wide console.

  So, instead, she said the first thing that popped into her head. “So, uh, you probably feel as gross from those Dumpsters as I do. You can come in and wash up, if you’d like. But if you do, you should know my grandma will force food on you. Lots of it. You won’t
be able to say no. No one ever can. She’s a good cook though, so it’s not so bad.”

  He looked from her to the house and back to her. He seemed about to say yes when his expression darkened. “I would if I could. Another day.”

  He mentioned the future with easy, assured conviction, and Tess felt with a rare certainty that there would be another day in store for them, and maybe not just one. “Will you tell me what all you lost at least,” he added, “in addition to your cell?”

  She took a breath in hopes it would turn important objects into mere words. “A laptop. Pictures. Testimonials. That sort of thing.”

  He nodded and leaned over the console, flipping open the glove box. There was a baseball glove inside, a truck manual, napkins, and a few pens.

  He grabbed a pen, flipped the glove box closed, and lifted her empty cup into the air. He transferred it to his left hand and held it as he wrote a phone number that started with an area code she didn’t know. But no name. The familiarity of the gesture made Tess’s heart thump harder. Then he pressed the paper cup into her hand. Their fingers brushed. His touch was even more inviting than it was when she’d first felt it in the park. A strong buzzing began behind her ears.

  “Since I can’t call you” was all he said.

  Tess locked her fingers around the empty cup. The sugar from the hot chocolate still coated her lips. “I hope…I hope one day he lets you catch him.” She hopped out without saying anything else. She knew if she did, she’d end up leaning in and letting their lips brush in a kiss she’d swear he was asking for with his eyes with the same urgency she was feeling inside.

  After climbing the slanted-from-settling steps two at time to reach the cover of the porch, she turned and looked his way. It didn’t surprise her to find he was still watching her as intently as when she’d been inside the cab.

  A part of her was full of silent admonitions for getting out of the truck, for leaving that cozy space filled by their warm bodies. Another part, the part that needed to be alone to process an impossibly momentous afternoon, thanked her.

  Then Nonna pulled open the sticky wooden door, determining Tess’s next move for her. With a small wave in his direction, Tess turned away and headed inside.

  My Forever Home

  On sale December 2018

  Acknowledgments

  Story publication is a process beyond any single person’s effort. I’d like to thank the entire, talented team at Sourcebooks Casablanca for bringing Sit, Stay, Love into the world. I’m especially thankful for the remarkable insight of my editor, Deb Werksman. Also in my gratitude are Susie Benton for her support and accessibility, Stefani Sloma for being the most enthusiastic and fun publicist possible, and Dawn Adams and the design team for creating covers I want to frame. Thanks to my insightful friend and beta reader Sandy Thal. And then there’s Jess Watterson, agent extraordinaire. Jess, all I can say is that I’m grateful to be a member of #TeamWatterson.

  I’d also like to thank the many readers who’ve reached out to me with their real-life shelter pet journeys. The decision to bring some of the more emotionally and physically scarred shelter animals into one’s life can require limitless dedication, as well as bring profound joy. I hope this story helps remind readers of the remarkable differences real-life rescuers are making in animals’ lives every day.

  Lastly, I’d like to acknowledge my family for their patience and support as Sit, Stay, Love developed from an idea into a finished manuscript. Like many writers, I squeeze writing time in between a full-time job, my own attention-demanding canines, and the packed schedules of my busy teens. Without the support of my parents and extended family to help catch balls that always seem to be in the air, finishing this manuscript might well have been an impossible task. You have my love and gratitude. Always.

  About the Author

  Debbie Burns lives in St. Louis with her family, two phenomenal rescue dogs, and a somewhat tetchy Maine coon who everyone loves anyway. Her hobbies include hiking, gardening, and daydreaming, which, of course, always leads to new story ideas.

  Debbie’s writing commendations include a Starred Review from Publishers Weekly and a Top Pick from RT Book Reviews for A New Leash on Love, as well as first-place awards for short stories, flash fiction, and longer selections.

  You can find her on Twitter @_debbieburns, on Facebook at facebook.com/authordebbieburns, and at authordebbieburns.com.

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