“Oh, I had a full-blown expedition in mind. Seattle, I was thinking. And lunch, of course, my treat,” her mother said persuasively. “I can’t persuade you to ditch him for your mom?” The last was said humorously, as if it wasn’t to be taken seriously. But Allie had no doubt that it was.
“Refurbishing your winter wardrobe isn’t exactly an emergency,” she pointed out. “It’ll be mid-October before you so much as need a sweater.”
“Well...that’s true. Shall we plan for the next Sunday, then?”
“That sounds like fun,” Allie said, relieved. She hadn’t liked hurting her mother’s feelings. “And I’ll let you know if our plans for this Sunday end up getting canceled.”
“Oh, good,” her mother said. “I’ll look forward to it. Good night, sweetheart.”
“You, too.”
She could use some new clothes, too, Allie reflected, as she went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She hadn’t paid all that much attention to her own wardrobe lately, until she met Nolan. Shopping would be fun.
So would helping pick out a dog or puppy, if Sean didn’t resent her addition to the expedition.
The thought gave Allie pause again. Nolan probably shouldn’t have asked her. Maybe she should Just Say No, per the antidrug campaign. Let the two do something meaningful together, without her trailing along.
But oh, temptation...
* * *
SEAN MADE IT apparent pretty damn quickly that despite his mumbled agreement to Allie’s inclusion today, he hadn’t actually wanted her along at all. Nolan ground his teeth as he pulled into the parking lot for the Everett Animal Shelter. He was mightily tempted to say, Trip’s canceled, and take them all home again. Except, then what? Did he drop Sean off alone at home and spend the day with Allie, the way he wanted to? Drop her off alone at home, and no matter how pissed he was spend the day with a kid who didn’t deserve to win this standoff, if that’s what it was?
To hell with it, he decided. We’re here. Maybe he’ll get over his snit. Or remember he likes her.
He set the emergency brake and turned off the engine. In the sudden silence, nobody moved. He watched a family hurrying in, looking eager. Close behind them came a woman and boy, maybe seven or eight, who had a dog with them on a leash. The dog’s tail wagged expectantly. The boy was crying, and Nolan realized in dismay that they weren’t here to adopt—they were here to get rid of their dog, who had not a clue what his fate was to be. God.
“Well,” he said. “I guess we should go in.”
He got out, waited until Sean opened his door, then locked up. Allie slid across the bench seat after his foster son. They walked across the parking lot themselves, Sean behind Nolan and Allie, letting the distance increase.
“I’m sorry,” Nolan said in a low voice. “I don’t know what got into him.”
“Maybe I should, I don’t know, wander off and look at cats or something while you two check out the dogs.”
“No,” he growled. “We invited you. He’s old enough to not act like a two-year-old ready to throw a temper tantrum.”
“No, but...” Allie let whatever she’d been going to say trail off. She sounded undeniably unhappy, and he didn’t blame her.
Opening the door and standing back for her to go ahead, Nolan then waited for his foster son. Sean slouched, dragging his feet, head hanging. Nolan was unhappily reminded of the first two times he’d encountered the boy. Maybe, it occurred to him, he’d been too hard on that first foster father. Nolan hadn’t liked the way the man had talked to Sean—but teenagers were darn good at goading their parents, biological and otherwise.
By the time Sean reached Nolan, Allie had crossed the lobby and was studying a bulletin board.
“Is this something you don’t want to do?” Nolan asked bluntly.
The boy flashed a look of alarm. “No! I mean, yeah. I do want a dog.”
“What’s the problem, then?”
“Why’d you have to bring her?”
“I did ask your permission.”
“Yeah, like, what could I say?” he sneered.
“‘No’? ‘Can we go by ourselves?’”
“Like that’s what you wanted to hear,” Sean said in a hushed, angry voice. “You weren’t really asking.”
Was I? Nolan asked himself, and in all honesty had to admit, Maybe I wasn’t. Damn it.
They pretty much had to go forward now.
The woman and boy with the poor, ignorant dog were talking to someone at the front desk. By the time Nolan reached it, another employee had come out to take the leash and lead the dog away. It belatedly tried to resist. The boy clutched his mother’s leg and cried silently. She had begun to fill out some required form and paid no attention to the suddenly scared animal. Nolan had developed an acute dislike for her, even though he realized there were legitimate reasons to have to give up a pet. He knew he shouldn’t judge so harshly without knowing her story.
Sean’s distress was obvious as he watched the dog disappear in back, but when he saw that Nolan was looking, he quickly resumed the sullen mask.
Nolan explained that they were here to look at dogs and they were allowed to go in back.
Rows of sparkling clean kennels were filled with dogs of every size and shape, half of them barking. The racket was astonishing. He hoped the cats were adequately insulated from it, or they’d be even more scared.
Sean seemed to shrink, and Nolan had the thought—yeah, a little late, huh—that possibly he would identify too closely with the abandoned animals that had become sucked into the maw of an authority they didn’t understand. He hadn’t gone to an institution, thank God, but how had he felt at having strangers look him over as they tried to decide if they wanted to take him into their home? The call to Nolan had undoubtedly been his attempt to grab back some element of control. He’d have told himself he had chosen Nolan.
And I wanted to think we’d recognized something in each other, Nolan thought ruefully. Self-delusion.
“Maybe this wasn’t the best place to start,” he said. “There’s a small, no-kill place in Arlington.”
“No,” Sean said with unexpected force. “These dogs, um, they need someone to take them home.”
Oh, yeah, he was identifying, all right. Good or bad? Nolan worried, as they wandered.
Allie tried to rejoin them, but Sean snubbed her so obviously she dropped back again. Once she exclaimed in delight, as she had at the zoo, and called, “Sean! Look at this guy. No, girl.”
Nolan turned. She had squatted, and was getting her hand thoroughly bathed by a scraggly creature of extremely mixed breeding. There had to be some terrier in there somewhere to explain the wiry hair. The tail was waving wildly.
“I saw it,” Sean said disagreeably, and turned his back.
Nolan was this close to announcing there’d be no dog. But, damn it, there were so many dogs that did need homes. There’ll be as many next week, he told himself, staring down at a heap of plump, brown-and-black bodies that writhed as the puppies wrestled.
Puppies were bound to get homes. Weren’t they? But he saw a number of litters when he looked around. And they were all going to be big dogs, mostly Lab or shepherd mixes. Really too big for the average city dweller. Down the row he saw the family he’d spotted in the parking lot now trying out a dog on a leash. Medium-sized, maybe a corgi mix, not one of the hapless black Labs.
Nolan’s mood deteriorated further. Allie became more and more closed in, her face showing little. When he tried to drop back by her side, she flapped her hand at him and said, “He needs your attention.”
“He doesn’t deserve my attention,” he said grimly.
“No, but...this won’t help matters.”
Sean glanced back, his expression hateful. Nolan ground his teeth some more and positioned himself halfway between woman and boy. They completed the circuit.
“See any that interest you?” Nolan asked.
The boy shrugged with clear insolence.
Nolan’s anger might be slow
to catch fire, but enough was enough. “That’s it,” he declared. “Time to go home.”
Sean faced him, expression shocked. “What? But I haven’t...”
“You’ve had all the chance you’re getting. We’re leaving. Now.”
“That’s bullshit!” His voice rose. “Why’d you suggest this at all, when all you wanted was to be with her?”
Nolan gripped his arm. “We’re going now.”
Sean stumbled beside him. “I didn’t do anything!”
Feeling as if his face had become as stonelike as a carved monolith—an Easter Island moai, or a grim-faced pre-Columbian warrior figurine—Nolan stalked past Allie, half dragging Sean.
“Stop,” she snapped to their backs.
Nolan did, letting his hand drop from his boy’s arm. He turned reluctantly.
“You shouldn’t have set us all up for this,” she said quietly to him. Her eyes glittered gold with something that might have been rage, or incipient tears. Or both. Then she looked at Sean. “And you. Think! Any dog you saw today might be euthanized by next week, instead of going home with you. All because you’re mad at Nolan, or me.” Her head was so high, she had to be stretching her neck painfully. “I’m going outside to wait. You two do what you want.”
She brushed by them and pushed through the swinging door.
Nolan breathed an expletive under his breath. He’d deserved that. Sean wasn’t the only one behaving very badly. And to think he’d congratulated himself not that long ago on how even-tempered he was.
“Um...some of these dogs really are going to be killed this week?” Sean’s voice cracked.
Nolan hesitated. “Maybe. I don’t know, but...probably. There are never enough homes.”
“I guess I knew that.” He hesitated. “Which ones have the worst chance?”
“Big dogs.” Nolan had read enough about the problem of pet overpopulation to answer without hesitation. “Older ones.”
“There aren’t that many small dogs here.”
“No.”
The boy swallowed. “Do we have to go?”
“Sean.” When their eyes met, Nolan said, “You have to choose a dog that’s right for you, not only because you have some noble goal of saving it. You’re a kid. You’re entitled to...” He hesitated. “Take one home who will be fun. Even a puppy, if that’s what you want.”
Sean looked at him defiantly, his cheeks flushed. “Pedro was... He was a good dog, and he was old. I loved him.”
“Your grandmother’s dog.”
He nodded.
“What happened to him?”
“When she died, he was put down.” He shrugged jerkily. “I mean, I think it was the right thing to do. He was pretty sick. The vet said his kidneys were toast. Grandma kept saying she was going to do it, but she didn’t want to. You know?”
“I know.” Nolan took a chance and laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. He gave a gentle squeeze and let go. “You’ve been a shit today.”
Sean ducked his head. “I just wanted...”
“I get it. I was insensitive.” You think? “I’ll say I’m sorry if you do the same.”
“Yeah. Okay,” he mumbled. “I shouldn’t have... I mean, I’m sorry.”
“All right. Were there any dogs that especially caught your eye?”
Of course there had been. Nolan kept thinking about Allie, waiting out in the hot sunlight in the parking lot. He should have given her the keys so she could at least sit in the truck. Maybe he should excuse himself... No. She knew this might take a while. She was probably hoping it would, that they didn’t emerge still angry at each other, sans dog.
They didn’t. Nolan inspected the three or four that had attracted Sean, and they finally came to a stop in front of the kennel that held a black Lab mix female that was supposedly five years old and, yes, cat- and kid-friendly. Her family had moved and had, for whatever unimaginable reason, been unable to take her.
Nolan thought again of the dog they’d seen being released earlier, but it was smaller and therefore probably less at risk.
The black Lab wasn’t barking at the front of the kennel, like many of the other dogs. She lay curled in the back, depression in the chocolate-brown eyes that watched them. Nolan noted her release date and wondered if she’d given up.
Sean coaxed her to her feet, and talked to her until she bumped her head against his hand and her tail gradually began to swing hopefully. They were allowed to put her on a leash and walk her outside, where she sniffed noses noncombatively with several other dogs and generally proved her good manners. She sat on command, and wrapped a long pink tongue around Sean’s wrist when he patted her.
“I want her,” Sean said, his glance anxious.
“I like her, too,” Nolan agreed, glad to feel no hesitation. He was well aware that the responsibility was ultimately his. When—if—Sean headed off to college, the dog would be staying behind with Nolan.
They were subjected to an interview and approved. Nolan filled out the papers and paid the fee, after which they walked out.
Allie waited, sitting on a curb, her arms wrapped around her knees, her expression pensive. She turned her head, saw them and didn’t move for a long moment. Her face was completely unreadable.
Nolan felt a chill of apprehension.
CHAPTER FIVE
ALLIE HAD BEEN angry and hurt enough to consider calling a cab. Or her mother. No, not that—of course she’d never give Mom ammunition against Nolan.
She’d guessed as time passed that Nolan and Sean might eventually emerge with a dog, and was relieved when they did. At least she hadn’t totally ruined today’s expedition.
She rose to her feet and swiped at the grit on her butt, then held out a hand to the black Lab that reached her first, straining at his—or was it her?—leash.
“Well, hello,” she said softly. The dog sniffed then licked her outstretched hand. “Do you have a name?”
“According to the paperwork,” Nolan said, “her name is Cassie. Sean will have to think about whether he wants to change it or not.”
Allie’s head jerked up, everything in her revolting not only at the concept, as if the name the dog went by was meaningless, but also at the casual way Nolan had said it. The instinct to protest was huge—please, please, let her keep this small part of who she’d been—but after a raging battle inside Allie averted her face and nodded. This was no time or place for her to argue. Anyway, if she did, she’d probably bring about exactly what she didn’t want.
Poor Cassie.
She was a dog.
But she knows her name.
The bewilderment she’d feel, never to hear it again, Allie understood. To wonder who or what Tweet was, or whatever a boy would name a dog these days.
The silence was awkward as they crossed the parking lot to the pickup, unlocked and arranged themselves inside, Cassie sitting on the floor at Sean’s feet, her head resting on his knees. He clutched the leash in one hand to keep her from lying down and potentially sprawling onto Nolan’s foot, and petted her with the other. She gazed up at him with eyes so hopeful, it broke Allie’s heart. She had to look away.
She was churning inside anyway, from a dozen causes, so many they tangled together.
I shouldn’t have come.
But I did, and I’m adult enough not to hate a sullen teenage boy because he behaved badly. Aren’t I?
I am not Allie, and I resent living my life as someone I’m not.
Yes, but she’d been Allie almost as long now as she’d been...her first name, the one she couldn’t let herself so much as think, because clinging to the past led to mistakes. Mistakes that could be fatal. She knew better. It wouldn’t matter that much to Cassie the dog.
Who says? Has anyone asked her?
Nolan took his hand off the steering wheel and touched her thigh. The touch was light, reassuring—or asking for reassurance. Rigid with so many suppressed emotions, Allie couldn’t give it. When he stopped at a red light, she felt his gaze, but preten
ded to be fascinated by...well, nothing, as the surroundings consisted of empty land with the grass now turning brown, and some industrial structures. A muddy stretch of saltwater slough curved ahead, but wasn’t made more interesting by a blue heron or tugboat.
“She’s being really good,” Nolan said after a time.
Sean’s fingers lingered on her long, silky ear. “I think she’s scared.”
“Nervous, probably.”
Allie would have liked to pet the dog, too, who rolled her eyes Allie’s way, but she didn’t dare. She could hardly wait to be released from this purgatory. She should have gone shopping with Mom, she thought with longing. Only if she had...she’d have spent the whole day wishing she was with Nolan and Sean.
Stupid.
Nolan tried a couple more times to make conversation. Allie said as little as possible. At last, at last, he pulled into her driveway.
“You’ll have to let me out,” she said politely to Sean.
“Yeah, sure.” He opened the door and said with more animation, “Come on, girl.” He and Cassie bounded out, the dog immediately beginning to sniff the rhododendrons that edged the sidewalk. Allie followed them, dismayed to see that Nolan, of course, had gotten out, as well. He walked her to the foot of her stairs.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “This has been a lousy day for you, and it’s my fault.”
She took a deep breath. “After we had fun at the zoo, I understand why you thought this might work.”
“That was different.”
“Yes, it was.”
“I’ll call, okay?” Worry furrowed his forehead and deepened the blue of his eyes.
She made some noncommittal sound, unable to tell him why she was so upset. She’d get over it. Feeling so rejected was nonsensical, and her extreme upset at the idea of changing the dog’s name even more so.
Cassie was investigating the yard with enthusiasm, Sean seeming happy to accompany her.
“He made a good choice,” Allie said, nodding their way.
Nolan’s eyes tracked them. “I think so, too.”
If they did change Cassie’s name...I’ll call her Cassie anyway, Allie decided defiantly. I’ll whisper it to her.
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