Earnest
Page 1
Praise for
Kristin von Kreisler
Earnest
“Earnest lives up to his name. He is a dog who earnestly desires only one thing, to keep his family intact. Kristin von Kreisler deftly spins a tale of human failings and canine devotion that will have the reader reaching for the tissues.”
—Susan Wilson, New York Times Bestselling Author of One Good Dog and The Dog Who Saved Me
“Kristin von Kreisler captures the emotional intelligence of Earnest, a dog who provides much needed guidance to a human couple spiraling into catastrophe. When Anna and Jeff both feel the depth of betrayal, only the steady loyalty and unwavering love of Earnest can save them.”
—Jacqueline Sheehan, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Center of the World, Lost & Found, and Now & Then
“Be prepared to fall in love with Earnest, a yellow Labrador retriever adopted from a shelter who teaches his humans a thing or two about resilience, loyalty, and forgiveness. Von Kreisler goes beyond depicting Earnest as a catalyst and instead deftly portrays him as an actual character with a point of view and feelings. A truly charming story sure to please dog lovers everywhere.”
—Amy Hill Hearth, New York Times Bestselling Author of Miss Dreamsville and the Lost Heiress of Collier County and Having Our Say
“If you’ve ever wondered whether animals were smarter than humans, Kristin von Kreisler’s Earnest is the book for you. This charming tale (pun intended!) leads us through the kind of conflict real families face and shows us, through the wisdom of a dog, what matters most in life.”
—Nancy Thayer, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Guest Cottage
“Kristin von Kreisler’s deep understanding of both people and dogs shines through in her compelling new novel, Earnest. Animal lovers will fall for the yellow Lab who saves his favorite humans from heartbreak. I had tears in my eyes less than half an hour into it! But the good kind of tears!”
—Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, New York Times Bestselling Author of Beasts: What Animals Can Teach Us About the Origins of Good and Evil
An Unexpected Grace
“Kristin von Kreisler is an acute observer of dogs and a fine novelist. Her novel about the healing powers of dogs is enchanting. I was captivated from page one and I learned a great deal from this heartwarming, thrilling book.”
—Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
“Kristin von Kreisler weaves a modern tale that seems at first to be a relentless search to understand a workplace shooting. But wait; von Kreisler takes us deeper into the powerful connections between humans and animals who are wounded by the incomprehensible and bound together by love.”
—Jacqueline Sheehan
“In An Unexpected Grace, Kristin von Kreisler deftly tackles the age-old question of how to make sense of tragedy. When Lila’s world falls apart, she learns that hope can come from unexpected places. With vivid descriptions and true-to-life characters, von Kreisler proves it’s possible to heal, trust again and love deeper than before. A heartwarming story on the healing power of dogs.”
—Susy Flory, New York Times best-selling author of Thunder Dog
“Kristin Von Kreisler understands the unique bond between survivors of trauma in this captivating novel of a woman and a dog learning to trust each other in a threatening world. You have to root for them as the damaged heroines of An Unexpected Grace, woman and dog, find the healing power of trust and love in each other.”
—Susan Wilson
“A sweet and charming story of the tender, patient, and forgiving nature of our canine friends, Kristin von Kreisler’s An Unexpected Grace will warm the heart of anyone who has ever loved a dog.”
—Amy Hill Hearth
“A heartwarming and beautifully written tale about trust and compassion. Grace provides the story with a wonderful balance of humor as her heroine, Lila, poignantly brings the reader into her frame of mind. Dog lovers will be particularly enthralled with the novel.”
—RT Book Reviews, 4 Stars
“A terrific, uplifting novel . . . Von Kreisler deftly shows how the love between a dog and a person can prove transformative.”
—Modern Dog Magazine
“Lively narrative, detailed descriptions and engaging scenarios . . . A soulful dog serves as a sobering inspiration and comfort pillow—and a poignant relief valve for the reader.”
—Seattle Kennel Club
“An Unexpected Grace is a poignant contemporary novel... Readers will appreciate Lila and Grace helping each other heal.”
—Midwest Book Reviews
“Devoted dog parents will read An Unexpected Grace and relate to the deep bond and heartfelt connection that can develop between the human and canine species. Von Kreisler’s passion for dogs is the underlying theme throughout the book and easily relatable by dog lovers wanting a happy ending. For that reason you will enjoy the book.”
—Seattle P. I.
“A heartstrings-tugging novel with many a heart-stopping incident, the story of a beautiful dog in search of a loving home. Basically, it’s a love story. Read it, if you can, in the sunshine.”
—Hudson Valley News
“In Kristin von Kreisler’s heartfelt novel An Unexpected Grace, a woman and a dog rescue each other from violent pasts. This is a story that underlines the irrevocable bond between dog and man—or, in this case, between dog and woman.”
—WV Gazette
Also by Kristin von Kreisler
FICTION
An Unexpected Grace
NONFICTION
The Compassion of Animals
Beauty in the Beasts
For Bea
EARNEST
KRISTIN VON KREISLER
KENSINGTON BOOKS
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Praise
Also by
Title Page
Dedication
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
About the Author
Copyright Page
In memory of Hosea and Nellie Warren.
And for their daughter Sue Warren Todd.
They have all been very dear to me.
PROLOGUE
Seattle’s Second Chance Shelter smelled of damp fur and dog breath. Frantic barks and whine
s pierced the air and assaulted Anna’s ears. She shrank back from the desperation that hung in the air like mist. All the sad eyes begging for a home. The furry foreheads rumpled with anxiety. Anna’s tender heart slid to her feet.
“We shouldn’t have come here,” she shouted to her boyfriend, Jeff.
“You wanted to check out the dogs,” he said.
Anna was clutching the Second Chance flyer she’d found that morning on Jeff’s windshield. Coming here had seemed the best way to goad themselves into action after weeks of talk about adopting a dog. But now, engulfed by the dogs’ distress, Anna wasn’t so sure.
“We could have looked for a dog on Petfinder,” she said. In their rented condo, they could have studied photos on the computer screen.
“You can tell a lot more if you see a dog in person,” Jeff said.
“Yes, but I want to take all these dogs home.”
“We can only afford to care for one.”
“Why do you have to be so practical?” Anna smiled, revealing lovely teeth.
She was the pretty flower child, the impulsive one. If she had her way, by evening their condo would be an orphanage for these homeless dogs—somehow she and Jeff would manage their upkeep. But he was innately cautious and responsible. He’d adopt only if he could provide the best vet care and premium kibble.
Not that being reliable was bad. Actually, Anna liked that quality in Jeff. After living with him the last two years, she’d concluded it would make him a good father—and that was partly why she’d suggested getting a dog. Jeff wanted a buddy, but Anna secretly wanted a trial run at parenting. Maybe a dog would nudge Jeff closer to marriage, which they’d discussed but always as something in their vague and rosy future. Now they were both almost thirty-five, and it was time.
In enclosures lined up along the aisle, most of the dogs were making their case for adoption. Some ran to their gate and pleaded their cause with eager yips. Others stood back, polite, and demonstrated good behavior. Or they looked adorable, as did two matching Chihuahuas, whose whimpers urged, clear as crystal, Take us home with you! See how lovable we are!
“I’d be afraid of stepping on them.” Jeff steered Anna to the next run, which housed a Great Dane mutt the size of an adolescent moose. On massive hind legs, he leapt up and pressed his huge paws on the gate. Jeff shook his head. “Not a condo dog.”
He and Anna looked at a dog of unknown lineage with a bald tail and fur the color of a napkin that had wiped one too many mouths. When she curled her lip, she informed them of her resentment at being confined.
“What if no one adopts her?” Anna asked.
“Don’t worry. It’s a no-kill shelter.” Jeff reached for Anna’s hand and pulled her to the last gate. “Look at him!”
A Labrador retriever bounded toward them, wagging his tail so hard that he wagged his whole back end. He weighed about eighty pounds, and his personal infinitive might have been “to galumph,” but he didn’t seem to be the type of dog who’d stomp through flower beds or knock over lamps with his tail. He looked up at Anna and Jeff with big brown eyes, which politely asked, Please, will you take me home and love me? He pressed his side against the gate to get as close as he could to them, and his body begged, Pet me! Oh, please!
“Whatcha doing, boy?” When Jeff reached through the gate’s bars, the dog nuzzled his hand. He’d cornered the market on wholesome. He could have been a Cub Scout mascot or costarred in movies with a freckle-faced kid.
Anna’s eyes brightened. “He’s a love bug.”
“He’s a purebred Lab. The real deal. Why would someone give him up?”
A laminated sign on the dog’s gate explained that he’d been tied to the shelter’s doorknob with a note under his collar. He was a healthy three-year-old, and his name was Moonbeam, of all the preposterous things. His slightly wavy fur looked like it intended to curl but never got around to it, and it was the color of wheat in candlelight, though his ears had a touch of biscuit beige. His nose looked like a licorice gumdrop, his muzzle was softly rounded, and his ears were upside-down isosceles triangles. When Moonbeam blinked, any woman in her right mind would have envied his thick, dark lashes.
His confident eyes were what grabbed Anna. Anyone could see that behind them lived a wise old soul. At the same time, though, his eyes were tinged with sadness, probably because he’d just lost his home and family. Anna wanted to bake him gourmet peanut butter cookies, buy him squeaky toys, and mother him. “Let’s adopt him!” she said.
“He wouldn’t be too big for our condo?” It was only nine hundred square feet, and their barbecue grill and potted tomato plants crowded the small deck. A large dog could cross the backyard in ten steps.
“It’s not like he’d be locked up at home all the time. He could come to work with me every day.” Anna imagined him napping under her flower shop’s counter, surrounded by buckets of mums.
“What if he scares your customers?” Jeff asked.
“How could they not love him?”
Through the bars, Jeff held out his hand to Moonbeam. “Can you shake?”
A wheat-colored paw plopped onto Jeff’s palm.
“Sit?”
With impeccable cooperation, Moonbeam sank down on his haunches and gazed up at Jeff with adoring eyes that said as plainly as anyone ever said anything, I will be exemplary. I want to be your dog.
“He’s trying to do the right thing. He’s so earnest,” Jeff said.
“‘Earnest’ would be a good name. Far better than ‘Moonbeam. ’”
Jeff squatted down, eye to eye with Earnest. “Maybe we should think about him for a day or two before we decide.”
“Someone else would adopt him,” Anna said.
Jeff stroked Earnest’s soft ears. “You’re too good to pass up, aren’t you?”
Absolutely! agreed Earnest’s tail wags.
Anna walked Earnest outside while Jeff filled out the adoption form. Owner: Jeff Egan. Occupation: Architect. Address: 1735-B Wood Avenue, Gamble Island, Washington. If you rent, name of landlord: David Gray. Who will be responsible for vet bills? I will. Jeff checked “yes” that Earnest would have a fenced yard and sleep inside at night. Finally, Jeff paid the fee with his credit card and hurried to find Anna and Earnest.
In the backseat of Jeff’s Honda, Earnest stared out the window at Seattle’s skyline. He gazed at the Space Needle and seemed to note with interest Safeco and CenturyLink Fields. Looking angelic, he did not smudge the window with his nose, and he did not paw or drool on the upholstery. On the half-hour ferry to his new home, he curled into a trusting ball and slept as if the Honda had been his bed forever.
Anna and Jeff joked that his glomming onto them might be a sign he was part barnacle, and they discussed people’s tendency to adopt dogs that looked like themselves. Jeff pointed out that Earnest’s fur wasn’t so different from Anna’s ash-blonde hair, which was cut between a shag and a pixie. She said that behind Jeff ’s horn-rimmed glasses, his expressive brown eyes were like Earnest’s, and Jeff ’s short hair, though dark and slightly thin on top, had Earnest’s hint of waves.
Anna pictured Earnest sprawled on their deck among the tomato plants, a paw over his eyes to shade them from the sun. Or leaping into gold maple leaves piled along the sidewalk in the fall and crunching them with his paws. She and Jeff would take him on hikes in the Hoh Rain Forest and teach him to fetch a Frisbee. They’d bathe him in their tub and invite him to sleep on their bed.
“We’ll be a pack of three,” Anna said. A family.
CHAPTER 1
Anna Sullivan pulled up in front of her beloved Victorian house. Well, it wasn’t really hers. She rented it with two other business owners, and they were saving up to buy it, but in her heart she owned it. As on every Monday morning, her ancient van was loaded with wholesale flowers and plants from Seattle, and Anna would have to lug them into Plant Parenthood, her shop on the first floor. Earnest leapt to the street, happy that he’d had a ferry ride, as Anna lifted two buckets of ro
ses.
“Good morning, dear house,” she whispered as she and Earnest started down the sidewalk.
Good morning, dear Anna, she imagined the house whisper back. In Anna’s mind the house winked for good measure and added, Enjoy this beautiful autumn day! A crow flew across the house’s half-acre front lawn and landed on the white porch railing.
In a historic town of old clapboard buildings, the house stood on the main street like a dignified dowager. Built by Gamble’s first attorney, she had two stories and lots of gingerbread. Her fourth owner had been Anna’s grandmother, with whom Anna had lived as a child until Grammy died and the house was sold. When Anna talked with the house, she always responded as Anna imagined Grammy might have. In Anna’s mind, Grammy and the house were one and the same.
Grammy’s spirit lingered in the turret, redbrick chimney, old wavy-glass bay windows, and flower boxes of lobelia and geraniums. She was in the sky-blue paint and the white curlicue brackets adjoining posts along the front porch. Her humor showed in the lion’s puzzled face embossed on the front doorknob, and in the doorbell, which was the round black tongue of a small brass bear. Grammy’s love of football remained in the porch’s beadboard ceiling hook, from which she’d hung a giant Huskies banner on University of Washington game days.
Though willowy, Anna was strong, but even so, carrying buckets of sloshing water into the house took effort. She set them down to give her hands a break before hoisting the roses up the porch steps. As her loyal protector, Earnest plopped down by her red ballet flats while she flexed her fingers and smoothed down the little tufts that sometimes appeared in her hair whether she liked them or not. As she picked up the buckets again, she heard from across Rainier Avenue, “Hey, Anna! Wait up!”