With Mia suddenly gone from Graceland School, Emily stepped up to take charge of running the camp. To all outward appearances, she managed the remaining two weeks of the session with her usual energy and enthusiasm. It was clear she was working hard to return her life, and her livelihood, back to normal.
Even as I admired Emily’s resilience—and accepted her heartfelt apology—I knew it would take our relationship a long time to heal, if indeed it ever did. She and I remained cordial, but the easy camaraderie we’d once shared was a thing of the past.
In early August, Aunt Peg and Emily held the A Day in the Country Breed Showcase and Benefit. Boosted by Aunt Peg’s television appearance, the united efforts of dozens of purebred dog breeders, and the country fair atmosphere supported by delicious food and live music, the event was an even bigger success than they’d anticipated.
Enough money was raised for Emily to be able to approach negotiations with Peyton Hancock with a degree of cautious optimism. There she learned that he’d recently been cornered by one of his siblings whose two-year-old twins would soon be in need of a topnotch nursery school. Peyton had been asked to pull strings to ensure the duo’s enrollment at Graceland. After that, it didn’t take long for the Hancock family to formally renew Emily’s lease.
A few weeks after Miles was arrested, Aunt Peg called to tell me she’d be picking me up early the next morning. She and I had already held a lengthy postmortem of the events surrounding Will Grace’s murder. So I had no idea what she could be up to now.
“You’re not going to tell me where we’re going?” I asked.
“Certainly not. It’s a surprise.”
“A surprise I’ll be happy about?” It was a fair question. Giving Aunt Peg control of any outing was a risky venture.
Now she sounded smug, however. “Oh, I think you’ll be quite pleased.”
Well, that piqued my interest. When her minivan pulled up to the house, I ran out and started to hop in the front seat. Then I realized that spot was already taken. Rory Scott gave me a friendly wave as I slipped in the back instead.
As I fastened my seat belt, I took a look around the interior of the van. There was an enclosed dog crate in the back. It appeared to have an occupant.
“Is there a dog back there?” I asked as Aunt Peg backed out of the driveway and sped away.
“Not a whole dog,” Rory told me with a grin. “Just a puppy.”
I swiveled around in my seat for a closer look. Through the small, wire mesh panel, I saw a white head dotted with black spots. A pair of dark brown eyes stared back at me.
“Posey, is that you?”
The sound of a tail thumping happily against the side of the crate answered my question. “Good girl,” I told her. “You’ll be out of there soon.”
I turned around to face forward again. “Is Emily expecting us? Or are we surprising her too?”
“She knows we’re coming,” Aunt Peg replied. “But I didn’t tell her why. I merely said we needed to stop by to tie up some loose ends.”
“So what happened?” I asked Rory. “You were desperate to get your three Dalmatian puppies back. And now you’re going to give one away?”
“I was desperate,” he agreed. “Honestly, I’d given them all up for lost. So regaining even one would have been wonderful. Two seemed like a multitude of riches. But now that I have Poppy and Pansy safe at home in my kennel, their dam’s bloodline is secure.”
I nodded, noting happily that Rory hadn’t changed the puppies’ names. Emily would be pleased about that.
“If the puppies had never disappeared in the first place, I wouldn’t have kept all three,” he continued. “I’d have retained the two best ones for my breeding program—and let the third pick go to someone else. So that’s what I’m doing.”
“There’s no need to tell Emily that Posey was only third choice out of three,” Aunt Peg said firmly. “No one wants to hear that about her own puppy.”
“Emily won’t care,” I said. “She’ll just be thrilled to have one of her girls back.”
Emily was waiting for us in front of the school when we arrived. Sitting in the shade on one of the Adirondack chairs, she rose and came over when Aunt Peg stopped the minivan nearby.
She greeted Aunt Peg with a big smile. The look she gave me was more tenuous. But when Rory came around from the other side of the van, Emily’s smile died entirely.
“What’s wrong now?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “In fact, something is very right. You’ll see.”
When Aunt Peg opened the minivan’s back door, I could hear Posey scrambling in her crate. Her nose was pressed against the crate’s front gate. By the time Aunt Peg had unfastened the latch, the puppy’s low whines had turned into happy yips.
Emily was walking around the back of the van to see what was going on when Posey came flying out of her crate. The puppy leapt up into Emily’s arms. Surprised, Emily staggered back slightly. Rory braced a hand on her shoulder for support. Tears gathered in Emily’s eyes. Posey’s pink tongue came out to lick them away.
Their giddy reunion went on for several minutes. Finally Emily lowered the wriggling puppy to the ground at her feet and caught her breath. She swiped a hand across her face. She couldn’t stop smiling.
“You’d better be planning to leave Posey here.” Emily stared at Rory with her hands propped on her hips. “Because I’m not letting you take her away from me a second time.”
He nodded. “As I understand it, you didn’t end up with my puppies by choice. But you stepped in and took good care of them anyway. If not for that, I might never have seen any of them again. Under the circumstances, this seemed like the least I could do.”
He had that right, I thought.
“One puppy is much easier to train than three of them,” Aunt Peg said to Emily. The two women had become close as they’d worked together on the school benefit. “But you’ll still have to put in the time.”
“I know,” Emily agreed. “Will you help me?”
“Of course,” Aunt Peg replied. “We’ll start tomorrow.”
Shortly after that, it was my family’s turn to welcome new puppies. Aunt Peg had brought Willow over to our house two weeks before she was due to whelp so she could settle in and become accustomed to her new surroundings. Willow was already well acquainted with our Poodles, so it only took a day or two before she was part of the pack.
Aunt Peg departed for her judging assignment, leaving us with strict instructions to call her the minute something happened. Even if it was in the middle of the night. Perhaps mindful of Aunt Peg’s orders, Willow chose a reasonable hour to deliver her puppies.
We had set up a whelping box in our bedroom and Willow had been nesting for days, so we knew her time was near. The sun had barely gone down when she began to pant and pace restlessly. I offered her some cool water, but Willow had other things on her mind.
This wasn’t her first litter, and she knew what to do. Within half an hour, Willow was lying down in her box. Sam and I were right beside her. Davey and Kevin were watching from the bed nearby. Contractions rippled down the length of Willow’s body. She was ready, and so were we.
When the first puppy arrived, Sam broke the sac and made sure he was breathing. Then Sam moved out of the way so Willow could reach around to examine the puppy for herself. He rolled on the floor of the whelping box as she began to lick him vigorously.
Each time I watched a new life enter the world, it felt like a miracle. Fresh beginnings like these filled me with wonder. They renewed my hope for the future. I reached over and gave Sam’s hand a squeeze.
“Here we go again,” I said.
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Pup Fiction Page 26