Sit. Stay. Love.

by Karis Walsh

  “In here?” Alana looked at the carrier as if she’d forgotten she had it in her hand. “No. This is a cat I’m taking to its new foster home. I thought I’d come by and see you on the way. Maybe get a cup of tea, if it’s no trouble?”

  Alana felt horribly awkward inviting herself in, but she had other stops today and really needed to get inside the house.

  “Of course. I’ll put the kettle on. Come in.”

  Alana went inside and set the carrier on the floor next to the couch. “Do you mind terribly if I let him out to stretch his legs?” she asked once Gladys had returned to the living room. “He’s been cooped up in here for ages.”

  Less than ten minutes, really, but oh, well.

  “I don’t see why not,” Gladys said.

  Alana opened the crate, but the gray cat remained huddled as far back as he could get. “He’s frightened, but I’m sure he’ll come out if we just leave him be,” she said, sitting up again and taking the cup Gladys offered. “He’s skin and bones. He’s been living out of the trash bins at an apartment building in Union Gap, right on a really busy road.” Maybe she was laying it on a bit thick. “He was abandoned by his owners.”

  She moved the conversation to other topics, pretending not to notice the way Gladys was leaning over, watching the wary cat.

  “Here he comes,” Gladys whispered. Alana looked down and saw a gray face with moss-green eyes, a thin white mustache, and white whiskers peering out of the crate. He took a few more steps, moving cautiously, and then raced behind a chair. “He’s beautiful.”

  Welcome home, cat, Alana thought, happily drinking her tea.

  “What’s his name?”

  “He doesn’t have one,” Alana said. “Do you have any suggestions?”

  “How about Charlie? He looks like Charlie Chaplin.”

  “Oh, that’s a good name for him. Charlie it is.”

  When Alana left a while later, the cat stayed behind, along with the food and bowls Alana had bought and a stack of coupons for vet care that Dez had created on the clinic’s computer this morning. She was surprised by how much less lonely the house had felt merely with the addition of one tiny beating heart. Her phone rang as she was backing out of the driveway, and she pulled over to answer, hoping it was Tegan telepathically knowing she had good news about the cat.

  “Alana? It’s Jim Krantz.”

  Alana’s heart jumped when she heard the voice of her ex-boss’s boss. She forced herself to calm down. He couldn’t fire her again, for God’s sake, so why should she feel intimidated? He hadn’t been directly involved in her firing and subsequent humiliation, though. Maybe he felt he had missed out and was calling to make up for it.

  “Hello, Jim,” she said.

  “I’ll get right to the point,” he said, sounding brusque, as if she was the one interrupting his day. “I fired Tabby. One mistake after another since you left. Cost us a fortune.”

  Alana’s heart did something funny again, but this time it was gleeful. Vindication was sweet.

  “I’ve been going over her books, and it seems you’d been catching her mistakes for months. I don’t know who was the main one to blame for treating the Chief of Police like a stripper…” He paused midsentence and gave a snort of laughter. “It’s not funny,” he said, raising his voice.

  “I wasn’t the one who laughed,” she said. She was half listening, and half thinking about how much fun it was going to be to tell Tegan about this phone call. Maybe he’d write her a letter of recommendation, explaining everything. That, along with Chip’s reference, would give her plenty of options when she decided to leave. She decided she’d omit the part about leaving when she told Tegan about this. It was a touchy subject between them, even though they both acknowledged it openly.

  “Anyway, we know you weren’t completely responsible, if at all. You were carrying the weight of the job while you were here, so I figured you should have it. We’ve hired an outside company to handle events until we replace her, so we need you here as soon as possible.”

  Whoa. “I have a new job. I can’t just leave.” Or could she? Chip would be better off with just about anyone else but her leading his trail rides. She’d helped him with some management projects, but he really needed to start doing them on his own. Tegan could take the puppies for a couple weeks until they were ready for their new homes…

  Tegan. Alana had a wild thought of her coming along, but she dismissed it quickly. Even if Tegan might have been willing to leave her practice, she wouldn’t go now, with her grandmother barely out of the hospital.

  “Nonsense. Aren’t you at some dude ranch or something? Somewhere in Alaska? Get a flight and come back to the city where you belong.”

  Alana shook her head, trying to clear it. The increase in pay was ridiculous. The satisfaction of coming back in triumph after leaving in shame was worth even more to her.

  But…Tegan.

  She had been planning to leave, anyway. They both knew it. Why not do it now, rather than later when she would be so deeply in love, she might not be able to break away?

  She leaned forward, resting her forehead on the steering wheel. When she thought about being in love with Tegan, it didn’t seem like some future emotion. It was how she felt right now. All the more reason to run while she still could.

  “I need to think,” she said, talking more about Tegan than the job offer. “It’s too sudden. I don’t know…”

  “Call me tonight. We need you here.”

  She tossed her phone on the passenger seat and tried to pull herself together. This was a dream come true. And Tegan was a dream, too—one she’d never known she had. She had until tonight, though. She had to focus on her next task, get through the next hour. Step by step she’d make it through until she had to call him back.

  She managed to drive the short distance to Jennifer’s house without hitting any mailboxes or trees along the way, even though she was distracted. Her mind wasn’t sure what to focus on, opting instead to frantically chase its tail like a dog. She couldn’t be in love with Tegan. How could she be in love with her?

  How could she not be?

  She knocked on the door, and Jennifer opened it, looking as frazzled as she felt, which managed to calm Alana. “The socks are so tiny,” Jennifer said without preamble. “How can I keep track of them in the wash when they’re so small?”

  Alana wondered if she should turn around and leave. At the moment, Jennifer didn’t sound like someone who should be handling all the accounts for a business if she couldn’t even manage socks. “Um, put them in a lingerie bag?”

  “Brilliant. Come in.” She pulled Alana inside and into the kitchen, gesturing for her to sit at the counter and giving her a juice box.

  Alana shrugged and unwrapped the little straw.

  “Sorry,” said Jennifer, standing on the opposite side of the counter in front of a large pile of children’s clothes. “It’s laundry day. It always makes me crazy, with all these weensy little clothes.”

  Alana took a sip of her juice and set the box to one side, reaching over and taking a red and blue striped shirt off the pile. She smoothed it out on the counter and folded over the sleeves. “What do you know about business accounting?”

  “Hmm. I took classes in college, and it was part of the CPA exam, but my specialty is public accounting. If you have a specific question, I can research it if I don’t know the answer offhand.”

  “Nothing specific. I was actually going to talk to you about a possible job. The ranch where I work needs a part-time accountant.” Alana set the unevenly folded shirt on top of Jennifer’s stack and selected a pair of corduroy pants that were about a foot long. They looked easier to fold than anything with pencil-sized sleeves. “The owner won’t be able to pay much, but you can do a lot of the work from home. When you need to be at the ranch, you can bring the kids with you.”

  She looked around, suddenly realizing how quiet it was in the house. “Where are they? You didn’t accidentally stick them in t
he dryer, did you?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jennifer said. “But come to think of it, I haven’t seen them for over an hour.”

  Alana stared at her, trying to figure out if Jennifer was kidding, or if she needed to call the authorities.

  Jennifer laughed. “I never get tired of the way people look when I tell that joke. The kids are with my mother this morning, so you don’t need to worry. I saw you reaching for your phone.”

  “Was not,” Alana said, moving her hands back to the counter.

  “Seriously, the job sounds wonderful. I have some good books I can read, and friends who are in corporate accounting and could give me advice.”

  “You’ll fit right in,” said Alana. “We’re all learning as we go.”

  She lowered her head, concentrating on the pants she was folding. When she had first arrived in Yakima, she had been determined to remain detached at the ranch. Go there, do her job, go home. Get out as soon as possible. Now, when she had the great opportunity she had been hoping for, she was talking about we and imagining how much fun it would be to work at the ranch with Jennifer and Chip.

  “I’ll have to rewrite my résumé and get an outfit dry-cleaned for the interview. Do you know how many other applicants there are?”

  Alana laughed. “There’s you, and let’s see…you. You can come out sometime when I’m there, and I’ll introduce you. It’s a casual place, and I honestly think the owner will be happier if you show up in jeans. He wants to create a family atmosphere.”

  “It sounds too good to be true,” Jennifer said, holding a half-folded onesie to her chest. “A chance to keep current without having to pay for childcare. Adult conversations. Thank you.”

  Alana acknowledged Jennifer’s enthusiasm with a twinge of something like guilt. She was so appreciative of a chance to work at the ranch—something Alana had, if she was being honest with herself, thought was beneath her when she first arrived. After working with Tegan and the horses, she had nothing but respect and envious admiration for disciplined riders. Even the work she was doing in Chip’s place was something she had dismissed as boring and simple, after having watched her parents handle the tasks with ease throughout her childhood. Now she understood better how much adaptability and innovative thinking the managerial job required. She had called her family more often in the past month than she had over a full year when she had been in Philadelphia, asking their advice and sharing stories.

  Now Jennifer was treating this opportunity as something special, the same way Alana should have done from the start. She only hoped Chip stayed in business long enough for Jennifer to read even one of those books she had. “Thank me after you’ve seen his accounting system. This might be a mess you won’t be able to solve.”

  * * *

  Jennifer had been too excited to wait, so Alana took her to meet Chip right away. She sat in her office with the door open, listening to them talking from across the foyer. When Jennifer wasn’t being overwhelmed by laundry day, she was quite ferocious, and she had quickly gone from trying to impress Chip as a potential new boss to lecturing him about how he was running his business. He seemed more than happy to hand the accounting reins over to her.

  Her phone rang, and she felt almost giddy when she saw Tegan’s name pop up on the screen. Lord, she had it bad.

  “Hey.” She closed her door and settled into her desk chair.

  “Hey back,” Tegan said, and Alana grinned. “I’m going to be working late tonight, but I was hoping I could take you out to dinner after. There’s a new place downtown, on Front Street, that’s supposed to have great steaks and salmon. And wine.”

  For all the time they had spent together these past few weeks, they hadn’t gone on an actual date. Alana felt a mixed rush of anticipation and nervousness, more to do with her epiphany about how much she cared about Tegan than at the thought of going out to eat with her. Everything seemed to have changed from her perspective, even though nothing was different on the surface.

  “It sounds nice. Especially the wine.”

  “Good. I’ll make reservations and call back once I know what time.”

  “Is it dressy, or casual?”

  Tegan laughed. “Yakima dressy, not five-star hotel dressy. Somewhere in between sequins and pajama pants.”

  “You just described my entire wardrobe, so I’ll be able to come up with something.” Alana picked up a brochure from her desk. “Say, have you heard of the Fresh Hop Ale Festival? I was filling the case of brochures in the lobby and found out about it. It looks like something fun we could do.”

  “Oh…um…yes. I’ve heard of it.”

  “Your voice sounds funny,” Alana said, dropping the brochure again. “What is it? Did you meet your ex at the festival or something?”

  “No, nothing like that. It’s just…well, the festival is in the fall…”

  “And you’re not sure you’ll still want to go with me by then? I’m not asking for a committed response right now. I only—”

  “Alana, stop,” Tegan said, her voice gentle, but firm enough to cut through Alana’s growing feeling of anger. She wasn’t mad at Tegan, but at herself. Just because she had just recognized how deep her feelings for Tegan were didn’t mean she should assume Tegan felt the same about her.

  “Of course I’d want to go with you,” Tegan continued. “I want to go anywhere with you, whether it’s mundane like the grocery store or something more festive. It’s just, this is the first time I’ve heard you make any sort of plans for the future here, besides the grand opening at the ranch or when you’ll be able to leave. I want to do as much as I can with you while you’re here. You just caught me by surprise because I wasn’t sure you felt the same way.”

  “Well, I do.”

  “Well, okay,” Tegan said. “Are we good?”

  “We’re good. I’ll see you tonight.”

  Alana ended the call and brought up Jim’s number on her screen. She wasn’t sure what she was doing in Yakima, whether or not her sense of being part of this community—part of Tegan’s life and Chip’s ranch family—was something real. She would eventually leave, probably, and return to some version of her old life, but not right now.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tegan drove them into Yakima, only letting go of Alana’s hand when she needed to parallel park a few blocks away from Front Street. The entire downtown area looked nothing like it had when Tegan was a child, when the buildings had been in various states of disrepair and the neighborhood had been questionable at best, unsafe at worst. Then, many of the ground level shops had been vacant and most of the higher floors had been used for decrepit apartments and shady businesses.

  Now the central blocks of the city were thriving. During the summer, the sidewalks would be filled with tourists who were there to visit winery tasting rooms, upscale microbreweries and pubs, and boutique stores that offered a break from the cookie-cutter mall in Union Gap. Once-dangerous alleyways had become venues for street fairs and seasonal concerts, and the cost of renting one of the overhauled apartments was extravagant when compared to the rest of the region.

  Tegan understood that the city needed the tourist dollars, and she appreciated the pedestrian-friendly streets and unique restaurants, but she never felt like she was truly in Yakima when she was downtown. She could be in any one of the small towns in Washington that was making an effort to cater to artsy, wine-loving visitors. To her, Yakima was in the groves and hills and dust surrounding the town, not in the artificially enhanced downtown streets.

  She led them toward a three-story building, with brick walls that were painted a deep red and warm brown wood surrounding the windows and doors. The downstairs section was separated into a Vietnamese restaurant and the steakhouse, and upstairs was devoted to several art galleries and studio spaces.

  Alana paused and looked up at the building’s facade. “I wonder if they all shop from the same catalog,” she said, gesturing down the street behind them. She looked at Tegan and must have noticed
her questioning expression. “Tourist-hungry small towns,” she clarified. “Maybe they buy a kit that comes with a certain number of shutters, planter boxes, and iron lampposts, depending on how many blocks they need to redecorate.”

  Tegan laughed. “I was thinking the same thing. I could swear I’ve seen this exact same street in at least twenty other places in Eastern Washington.”

  Alana grinned and bumped Tegan with her elbow. “It’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong. And from the perspective of someone in the tourist industry, it’s a smart move. There’s just a sort of sameness to it.”

  “Downtown had much more character when I was younger,” Tegan agreed. “You wouldn’t have driven down this street without reaching over to lock your door, though, so I suppose some individuality is worth giving up in exchange for safety.”

  They went inside and were seated immediately. Far too many tables for Tegan’s taste were crammed into the space to maximize occupancy. During the high season, they would all be full, but tonight the few patrons were spread around the room, and she and Alana had some sense of privacy.

  After they ordered, Tegan reached for Alana’s hand again. She was wearing khakis and a shimmery green shirt that had nearly made Tegan call to cancel their dinner reservations. If this had been the day before, she might have done so in her desperation to take full advantage of any opportunity she had to touch Alana and slide her silky top over her shoulders and onto the floor. Something in Alana’s voice on the phone had changed today, though. Something that made Tegan believe she might stick around for a while. Not forever—Tegan wasn’t stupid enough to believe in forever—but maybe until fall. At least for a few weeks. For the first time, Tegan trusted that Alana would still be there after dinner.

  “How’s the riding going?” Tegan asked, rubbing Alana’s palm with her thumb and trying to focus on making conversation rather than crawling over the table and kissing her.

  Alana shrugged. “Okay, I think. I’m more comfortable with the horses every day, but I’m still surprised every time I find myself on top of one. I completely skipped the horse-crazy girl phase when I was young. I suppose you were toddling after horses right from the start. Did you always want to ride?”