~~~
"Look," she said, as they headed back to the house at a leisurely pace. She pointed to the back end of the barn. "Don't you think kennel runs would fit perfectly there? Not straight off the back, but meeting corners at the northeast of the barn?"
"Are you building kennels?"
"And a grooming room. But maybe I'll just run the kennels and hire out a groomer for a while. Take a break from it while I take some classes. And oh, did I mention I quit my job?"
That, she saw, truly stunned him. Took him by surprise, as she'd never managed to do before. He stopped walking, put all his attention into looking at her. She smiled beatifically at him as he said, "I thought you were on vacation, or sick days. You didn't quit your job for—"
"I quit my job," she said firmly, "because when I told Roger I'd had a family emergency and needed to take a week of my extensively accrued vacation time, he said no."
"No notice?"
"I gave him plenty of notice," she said, and snorted. "I told them any number of times in any number of ways that they'd lose me if they didn't change how they managed the grooming department. How they managed me."
He smiled, and held out his hand to her; they started walking again, and she started up with the plans. "And I definitely want horse or two in here, maybe even one of my own. The barn's just about ready for it. And you know, don't you think the loft is big enough to hold obedience classes in? If we kept all the hay on one side, and used electric heaters in the winter?"
"It might be," he said, still sounding bemused as they reached the barn.
"Lydney Hill," she said. "Good name for a kennel and training facility, don't you think?"
"Are you making this up as you go along?"
"I am," she said, stopping him in front of the gate from the innermost run-in section to the plank-floored middle part of the barn, just before the gate she'd fixed on the day Russell sprang what he had thought was a successfully manipulated deal on her. "But I like it." She put a hand on the gate, not about to let him go through just yet. "Listen to me. I need to be with someone who likes the way I think, who I am. Someone who brings me alive, not someone who tries to change me into who they think I should be. That's you, Iban." This, she thought, was as bold as she'd ever been in her entire life. A little too bold; she couldn't just let it hang there, as he looked back at her, unreadable. "Besides, didn't you tell me once that you wanted this place?"
"That's not what I really wanted," he said, and gave her one of those intent looks. And who knows where it might have gone, had not Emily's voice echoed across the yard.
"Brenna!" she called, slightly breathless.
Brenna sighed. "Hold that thought," she said, and turned her head away to holler, "In here!"
"Busy around here today," Masera said, not looking away from her.
"Too busy." Another sigh, but she smiled, too. "I can guarantee Emily will be much more pleasant than our last visitor. You've probably seen her at the store."
Emily appeared at the open double sliding doors, definitely breathless—her face flushed, her eyes wide with worry—but already talking. "Brenna! Where have you been? I haven't heard from you for days and Pets! says you quit and I've been so worried—"
Brenna opened the gate, let Masera precede her through. "I'm sorry," she said. "We had some trouble, but things are okay now."
Emily hesitated a moment, looking at the two of them, and relaxed a little, tucking a strand of blonde hair back into her ponytail as she came into the barn. "So I see," she said, eyeing Masera—if not with approval, with an understanding of how things stood—although as her gaze traveled his well-packaged arm, the look turned quickly to sympathy. "I hope that's not too bad."
"Better than it could have been," Masera told her with a dryness she couldn't and didn't understand. "Gil Masera."
"Emily Brecken," Emily said. "Brenna, did you see that big storm a few nights past? That's when I first tried to check on you. The whole sky lit up—it was the strangest thing—" she cut herself off, looking around the barn. "Where's Druid?"
Amazing how two little words could change the world, kicking her mood out from under her, closing her throat up painfully tight. Brenna tried to answer, but could only manage, "He's—" before finding herself without words or the wherewithal to say them.
"The storm caused some damage over here," Masera said, taking her hand. After another moment, when it became clear she couldn't say it herself, he added, "We were out in it, and Druid was killed. One of those freak things."
Emily gasped, and covered it with a hand over her mouth. "Oh, Brenna! I'm so sorry! What happened? No, never mind—forget I asked. You can tell me when you feel like talking about it." She stuck a hand in her pocket, pulling out a folded paper and giving it a doubtful look. "I don't know if you want this, now..."
Brenna ran a finger under each eye, sighed deeply, and pulled herself together. "What is it?"
"The girls were playing on the web, as usual. They found a new site under their Nuadha search—they still run one for you every time they go on. Look, there's a brand new kennel not twenty minutes from here." Emily handed held out the paper.
A new kennel. Brenna took the paper, unfolded it and held it so both she and Masera could see; it was the printout of the web site's home page, complete with photos of a striking merle Cardigan and contact information.
"Look at the phone number," Masera said.
"I see it," Brenna said, and the paper trembled in her hands.
He took it from her and said, "I'll be back in a moment," as he left the barn.
Emily looked after him, looked back at Brenna, and raised an eyebrow. "Niiice," she said, which was exactly what she'd said the very first time she'd spotted Masera, the day he'd been making arrangements to work with Pets!. Then she sobered, and added, "Are you really okay, Brenna? And did you hear about the raid at Parker's—" She stopped short, narrowing her eyes at Brenna, her thoughts moving so fast Brenna could practically hear them churning away. "You were involved, weren't you? You and Mister Busted-Up? I take it he turned out to be one of the Good Guys?"
Brenna laughed, as tremulous as it was. "Later, Emily. I need to get things sorted out for myself." And she did, because she only now realized that there would be talk, and similar questions from other people. She and Masera would have to come up with a simple all-purpose response, although Emily...Emily alone might get the whole story. "And yeah, he's one of the good guys, and yeah, I'll be okay."
"Okay," Emily said, accepting the short version. She spent a few moments with deliberately changed subjects—the girls, her recent needlepoint pattern sale to a craft catalog, Sam's latest gossip. "We were going to get together for dinner last weekend...maybe this next one? And...maybe the two of you?"
"Me, for sure," Brenna said. "Him, I'll ask."
And him walked back into the barn. "Sure," he said to Emily. "Just make it something a man can eat with one hand," and held out his car keys to Brenna. "Wanna go for a drive? Just twenty minutes or so."
"You called them," Brenna said, and put her hands over her eyes, not knowing what else to do with herself, and not quite understanding why she felt like she was about to step off the edge of a cliff and walk on thin air. "You called them."
"And they said come. Eztebe knows we'll be late for dinner. Your choice."
She took the car keys.
"Call me," Emily said, standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and a knowing smile on her face as they headed for Masera's SUV.
Brenna had become accustomed to driving it these past days—it purred along like a luxury car, and didn't jolt Masera around like her truck would have. Now she drove it in a daze, and when she found the right address, pulling in the driveway to sit next to the spanking new Nuadha Kennel sign, she just sat there with her hands on the wheel. The house stood before them on a large rural lot with lots of grass and carefully landscaped trees; the realtor sign still leaned against the garage. A newer home than Brenna's, but old enough to hav
e charm instead of a cookie-cutter look. The back was entirely fenced, and several adult Cardigans appeared at a side gate to announce their arrival in tones of great importance.
Masera reached over and removed the keys from the ignition. "It's all right, Brenna. You don't have explain anything to them. I told them I was in the market for a Cardigan—and I am. I wasn't just spinning words way back when."
"Okay," Brenna said, her voice low. She nodded to herself, and repeated it. "Okay." Then she slid out of the car, tucked her braid into her back pocket, and went around to the passenger side to help him ease the long step to the ground. He was getting tired; she could tell from just how hard he leaned on her, and she only then realized how long she'd kept him out on this first day of full mobility.
"I'll last," he said, which was the first she knew how much of her thoughts had made it to her face; she wrinkled her nose at him and he grinned. "Let's go."
So she took his hand and walked up to the front door, where she would have hesitated if he hadn't been there, but because he was she punched the doorbell with her finger even as they stepped onto the landing.
The middle-aged woman who answered the door greeted them with a smile and a thick Irish brogue. ""Twas you who called us, then? I'm Kathleen O'Meara. Please come in." And she opened the door wide, leading the way through to the back of the house without preamble, taking them past moving boxes both empty and full and to a set of wide sliding glass doors and an enclosed porch. "I was telling the young man, we've just got a litter ready to go, but they're mostly show prospects, and I really do want to place them in show homes. We need to establish a presence here in the States—" through the porch they went, a brightly lit place full of crates and water bowls and a folded exercise pen.
"Showing's not a problem," Masera said. "I'll be showing obedience in any event."
She gave them a second glance, one with interest and more intent appraisal. "Is that so, then?" she said as she led them through another sliding door and into the back yard, where they were immediately accosted by five Cardigans, tails wagging. But Brenna had eyes only for the second exercise pen, a portable enclosure of wire panels set up in the far corner of the yard where the grass was thick and the sun was bright. She only vaguely heard Kathleen O'Meara usher the dogs into the house, or the comments she made to Masera as they headed for the ex-pen, where Kathleen unhooked one of the panels and let the puppies spill out. Six of them, a couple of months old and still floppy-eared, aside from one or two oddball exceptions and a single brindle pup with both enormous ears already pricked upright.
"The brindle is already placed," Kathleen said, and that was the last Brenna heard, for her gaze fell on a stout-legged little tri-color, his jagged white collar gleaming white and his struggling ears charmingly speckled, running straight to her feet as if he knew he belonged there. She clutched Masera's arm, unable to say a word. And then she fell to her knees and gathered him up to find familiar love-me eyes framing a white muzzle and a perfectly symmetrical white blaze.
"We just lost one," Masera was saying, as Kathleen murmured an understanding, "Yes, I know the look." And they went on to talk about the things a good breeder asks any prospective owner—their facilities, their background, the family members, their schedules—while Brenna buried her face in the puppy's ruff and cried in disbelieving joy. Until at last the woman said, with some apology, that while their normal policy was to let the new owners choose a registered name, for this first litter in the states they'd decided to name the pups ahead of time. "This particular puppy hasn't ever taken to anyone like this before. We call him Nuadha's Silver—"
"Druid," Brenna whispered, resting her cheek against the top of his puppy-soft head. "Druid," she said again, while the rest of the puppies clamored for her attention, climbing her legs and licking the exposed skin of her arms as Masera's hand grazed the top of her head in a comforting caress. Druid brushed his whiskers against her face, inspecting her.
Not the same. It couldn't be the same.
She looked up at Masera, found him grinning as broadly and foolishly as she'd ever seen.
It could be better.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Other Works by Doranna Durgin
FANTASY
Changespell Saga:
Dun Lady's Jess (Winner, Compton Crook Award)
Changespell
Changespell Legacy
Barrenlands (prequel)
King's Wolf Saga
Touched by Magic
Wolf Justice
Stand-Alone Fantasies
Wolverine's Daughter
Seer's Blood
A Feral Darkness
ROMANCE
Action Romance
Shaken and Stirred (Femme Fatale Novella)
Chameleon (Smokescreen Novella)
Exception to the Rules
Beyond the Rules
Heavy Metal Honey
Survival Instinct
Hidden Steel
Checkmate: Athena Force
Comeback Athena Force 2
Paranormal
Sentinels: Jaguar Night
Sentinels: Lion Heart
Sentinels: Wolf Hunt
Demon Blade
The Reckoners Series:
The Reckoners
Storm of Reckoning
MYSTERY
Nose for Trouble
Scent of Danger
FRANCHISE BOOKS
Star Trek: Next Generation
Tooth and Claw, #60
Earth: Final Conflict
Heritage
Angel
Impressions
Fearless
Mage Knight
Dark Debts
Ghost Whisperer
Revenge
Ghost Trap
SHORT STORIES
Harvest of Souls
Fool's Gold
A Bitch in Time
The Right Bitch
Bitch Bewitched
Mornglom Dreaming
Bummed out
The Yoke of the Soul
Feef's House
Hair of the Dog
Call from the Wild
Just Hanah
Emerging Legacy
The Scoria
Bitch Bewitched
A Feral Darkness Page 31