The Luck of the Paw (An Alpine Grove Romantic Comedy Book 9)

by Susan C. Daffron

He looked up into her eyes. “But they’ve been a really good few days. At least for me, anyway. The best days I can remember in a long, long time.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “Do you think that happens every day? Meeting someone who actually gets you?” He waved the crayon toward the window. “Okay, maybe that type of thing does happen to other people. But certainly not to me. Most people I meet write me off as a geeky introvert.”

  Mia took his hand again. “I know. It’s not like people tend to warm up to the bizarre mushroom girl either.”

  “I just don’t want to lose this. Spending all this time with you, even just talking to you, has been incredible. You can’t just disappear on me with a vague promise to visit.”

  “I won’t. We’ll keep in touch and we won’t lose track of each other. You’re still working on the house here, too.” Mia gave his hand a squeeze. “It will work out.”

  Chris nodded, but didn’t look convinced. “We’ll see. At least we still have one more night together. Do you want anything for dessert? It’s your last chance for free chocolate cake.”

  “I think I’ll skip dessert. Let’s go back to your room and you can show me your drawings.”

  “You do realize that’s the architect’s version of the classic line ‘Would you like to come up and see my etchings?’ right?”

  Mia grinned. “Yeah, I kinda figured that out the other day.”

  Given how often he complained about what he did for a living, Mia was shocked at how much work Chris had managed to do on the house designs while she was off walking and washing dogs. It looked like the place would be gorgeous.

  The last night with Chris was bittersweet, since neither of them had a good answer to the question of when they might see each other again. Although they discussed various options, nothing really worked.

  Mia knew nothing about San Francisco other than it was one of the most expensive places to live in the United States. That was not a big selling point. Without a job, it felt way too risky. And there was no way she was blowing all her lottery money to move there either, given how little time she’d known Chris.

  For Chris, the interlude in Alpine Grove had been a reprieve, but his architectural work was likely to return to normal upon his return to San Francisco. Or he’d get laid off. Neither option was particularly appealing, and job options in Alpine Grove were nonexistent.

  Mia didn’t sleep very well. She tossed and turned, wrestling with the idea of staying in Alpine Grove. Or even going to San Francisco. It wasn’t like she could keep traveling forever and living in motels like the H12. Before she left Alpine Grove, she needed to talk to her father.

  Early the next morning, she helped Chris pack up his things and load them into the car. He planned to meet the developer at the house site, then drive back to his sister’s house in LA from there. The last item left to put in the car was Lulu’s sky kennel. Mia walked Lulu on a leash, while Chris placed the kennel in the back seat.

  He turned to face Mia. “Well, I guess that’s it. I need to get going. Traffic is going to be horrible once I get near LA.”

  “It always is, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I suppose that’s true.” He put his arms around her and gave her a bear hug. “I’m going to miss you.”

  Mia returned the hug and added an extra squeeze for emphasis. “Call me when you get there and we’ll figure out a good time for me to visit. I promise we’ll work something out. Maybe you can find a swanky San Francisco groomer looking for a trainee or something. I haven’t promised Kat anything, so I don’t have a job here yet. And I’m basically homeless, except for my car. Let’s face it, I have an extremely flexible schedule right now.”

  He chuckled and gave her a kiss. “I’ll call you when I get there.”

  “I’ll let you know what happens when I talk to my father.”

  “You’d better. I’m still dying of curiosity. You might even have a sister!”

  Mia waved him off. “Yeah, I know, I know. My life is a gigantic soap opera. Drive safely.”

  “I will.” He gave her one last kiss before getting into the car.

  Mia waved as he drove away and then got into her car to return to town and her room at the H12. Now that the major distraction of being around Chris was gone, it was time to figure out what the heck she was going to do with her life. She’d delayed her exit from Alpine Grove, but now it was time to finally make some decisions and get on with whatever was next.

  After showering and getting some breakfast, Mia relaxed for a while, sprawled out on the bed reading a novel. She didn’t want to try calling her father too early, since he’d always been a night owl. By mid-morning she had finished the book and run out of excuses. Time to get this conversation over with.

  She picked up the phone and dialed the number Gwen had given her. Obnoxious tones blared in her ear and a mechanical voice told her that the number had been disconnected. Now what was she supposed to do?

  Mia rolled her legs off the bed, sat up, and stared at the ugly drapes. Part of her had known she wouldn’t be able to reach him, but it was still surprising how disappointed she was at not being able to talk to Dad after all this running around. What a huge let down.

  She spent some time piddling around cleaning up the room. The piles of dirty clothes were starting to become an issue, so she went to the front desk and got some change and the key to the laundry room. By the time she was finished doing laundry, she’d completed another novel, and it was time to go out to the kennel, walk Gizmo, and get her nice clean clothes muddy again.

  After a reprieve earlier in the morning, the rains had returned. The windshield wipers on the RAV whapped back and forth, splashing the rain off. Mist swirled up from the roadway as she squished her way down the driveway toward the kennel. It was going to be another soggy walk.

  Mia met Kat at the kennel and they walked to the back of the house with Gizmo. It was a cold rain and Kat was wearing an ugly winter coat that seemed to be several sizes too large. She pulled a glove out of her pocket and put it on. “Now that it’s November, I guess I need to accept that winter is really coming.”

  Because she’d lived in Windiberg her entire life, Mia had virtually no winter clothes. The raincoat she was wearing was keeping her dry, but it wasn’t keeping her warm. “I need to either head south or get some new clothes. I’m freezing.”

  “Did you think about the job at all?”

  “I’m not sure what I should do yet. I still want to find my father. Gwen had a number for him and I was hoping to talk to him today, but the number is disconnected.”

  “So she did know him! That’s great. Did you find out everything you wanted to know?”

  Mia shrugged. “I might have found out more than I expected. Did your aunt ever have a dog named Rusty?”

  “She did a long time ago. I saw him one of the last times I came up to visit Abigail when I was a little girl. She said he was a friend’s dog.” Kat stopped and turned to her. “Wait! Was that your Rusty?”

  Mia nodded. “My dad brought him here. The postcards were from your aunt. She called her pets her ‘babies,’ I guess. And Rusty was one of them.”

  Kat started walking again with a laugh. “She absolutely did call them that—all the time. The furries are probably upset that I haven’t carried on the tradition, but I’m not particularly maternal. I remember that Rusty was an awesome dog. Although Tessa is a golden retriever, she is a complete nutball. Rusty wasn’t like that at all. He was so mellow. One time, I fell asleep on the floor with him as a pillow.”

  “That sounds like him. If you met Rusty, did you meet Gwen’s daughter Heather? I think she’s about my age.”

  “Maybe. When I came up here, Abigail was always doing something. We walked the dogs, did crafts, and hung out with neighbors. I don’t remember meeting Gwen before I moved here, but who knows? I was just a little kid.”

  Mia debated revealing more, but a question was bothering her. “Gwen didn’t say it, but I think Heather mi
ght be my half-sister.”

  “What?” Kat pulled Chelsey’s leash to stop her again. “Really? What makes you think that?”

  “Gwen said she met my father during the New York City blackout of 1965. I looked up the date and it was November ninth. She said she was a single mom and her daughter was in fourth grade in 1975. Add nine months and Heather would have been born in August 1966, so the ages match up. It’s just a suspicion though.”

  “I can tell you from personal experience, this town is full of secrets. And I think Abigail knew most of them.”

  “I was hoping to talk to my Dad and see if he is willing to tell me more about meeting Gwen. If they didn’t…well…get together, then there’s no way Heather is my half-sister. I can’t decide if I should ask Gwen. Maybe she never told my father she was pregnant. Maybe she didn’t tell him for a good reason. I have so many questions and I’m afraid she may tell me to get lost and mind my own business.”

  “She might, I guess.” Kat gazed toward the trees for a moment, and then looked back at Mia. “Hey, I have an idea. There are boxes of Abigail’s old photos in my office closet. Most of them are of people I don’t know. Or didn’t know the last time I looked. Maybe we can find Gwen among them and see what her daughter looks like.”

  Mia smiled. “That might help me decide what to do. If she looks nothing like my father, I’ll just pretend the whole half-sister idea never happened.”

  “Looking at old photos is fun. And as a writer, I love any excuse to procrastinate.”

  Chapter 10

  Old Photos

  After settling Gizmo back into his kennel, Mia went back to the house. Kat let her in the downstairs door, which led to the daylight basement where her office was located. The hallway was filled with rain-drenched canines and the pungent odor of wet dog pervaded the area.

  Kat led Mia into her office and shooed the dogs away, blocking them out with a baby gate. The small bedroom had a bed along one wall. A desk with a computer and large monitor faced the window. The far wall had a bookshelf and a long table with multiple stacks of books and papers strewn across it.

  Kat smiled and gestured toward the table. “Sorry about the mess. I wish I could say this is unusual, but it’s always a disaster in here.”

  “You must be busy. Are you sure this is a good time?”

  “It’s fine. I’m stuck on my article and I can’t stand the idea of trying to write any more today anyway.” Kat opened the sliding door to the closet. “The photos are in here.”

  Kat dragged a large cardboard box from the floor of the closet and out into the room. “Like I said, these aren’t mine, so I have no idea who most of the people are. They’re Abigail’s photographs, and I don’t have the heart to throw them out. It’s possible other people in my family might want to look at them too. Or maybe not.”

  A canine commotion arose from the hallway and Joel appeared in the doorway. “What’s up?”

  “We’re looking at old pictures,” Kat said as she walked over to him. “Want to join us?”

  “I’ll pass. Becca called, and I need to go check on something at the Shack.”

  “Did something else fall apart?”

  “Not yet. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  Kat stood on tiptoes and gave him a kiss across the baby gate. “See ya.”

  Mia bent to examine the box of photographs. It was jammed full of hundreds of envelopes. “This could take a while.”

  “Most of them have dates on the outside. Since you’re looking for everything after 1965, that helps a little. Abigail was a pack rat. This place might be a mess now, but believe me, it was worse when I moved in.”

  Mia picked up an envelope and sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of the box. “This one has a note that says it’s from a vacation with Paula.”

  “I have no idea who Paula is.” Kat sat down next to her. “Notes are surprising, considering Abigail never labeled any of her canned goods. We can probably skip the ones she took while she was on vacations.”

  Mia riffled through a few more envelopes and began stacking them. “I guess we can organize them while we’re at it. I’m starting a pile for the pre-1965 photos over here.”

  “I’ll start the ‘vacations’ and ‘people we don’t know’ piles over here.” Kat held up an old photo of two girls in pink-polka-dot clown outfits and held it out to Mia. “I don’t know who these twins are, but I’m sure they’d be embarrassed to find out this photograph exists.”

  “Seventies fashion was not kind to anyone. Even tap-dancing clowns.”

  “No kidding.” Kat threw a few envelopes into a pile. “Hey, here’s one that just has pictures around the house. Do you think that’s Rusty?”

  Mia took the photograph. “Yes! He had the softest brown eyes. Aww, this makes me want to cry. I loved that dog so much.”

  Kat handed her another photo. “This could be Gwen. She looks really different with long hair. It looks like it’s her birthday, but I’m guessing by the expression on her face that a Kiss album wasn’t what she really wanted.”

  “Maybe she was more of a Barry Manilow fan.”

  “That’s a cute birthday hat though.”

  They continued riffling through photos, and occasionally commenting on them. Mia picked up an envelope that said it was from Easter 1976. In one photograph, Gwen was standing next to a little girl who was holding her hand. They were in front of a pretty bed of tulips and daffodils and wearing matching yellow flowered skirts. “Hey, I think I found one of Heather!”

  Kat looked up. “What does she look like?”

  “A little girl with long brown hair.” Mia handed the photograph over. “Do you think she looks like me at all?”

  Kat looked at the photo and looked at Mia. “I guess you could be related, but I don’t know what your dad looks like.”

  Mia held the photo up closer to her eyes. “This picture is taken from so far away, I can’t tell. Maybe there are some where you can see her face better.”

  Kat hurriedly stuffed a pile of photographs back into their envelope and flipped it onto a pile. “That was disturbing. I found a photo of me that needs to remain hidden from Joel forever.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”

  “I look like I’m the plaid purple people-eater demon. With bell-bottoms thrown in for an even more peculiar seventies flashback. It’s absolutely horrifying.”

  Mia giggled as she riffled through another stack. “Wait! Here’s one where Heather is a little older and she’s petting Rusty. Aww.”

  “What’s the verdict? Are you related?”

  “I think so. Her eyes look just like my father’s.” She looked up from the photograph at Kat. “I think I’m officially freaked out now.”

  “Don’t feel bad. You aren’t the only one with long-held family secrets. Abigail isn’t really my aunt.”

  “What? Then who is she?”

  “It’s a long story, but the little-known fact is she’s actually my grandmother. I usually don’t bother explaining because it’s too complicated.” Kat put her arm around Mia’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. I’m sure it will be fine. You’ll see.”

  “What am I going to do? I have no idea if my father knows about Heather. It’s driving me nuts that I can’t reach him. I have so many questions.”

  “How do you feel about the idea of having a sister? Do you want to meet her?”

  Mia set down the photo. “I’m not sure. I have lived my whole life believing I was an only child. I don’t have a lot of family. Okay, at this point, I pretty much have no family, since I can’t reach my dad. It would mean a lot to meet her someday, just to see what’s she’s like. I wonder if she knows about me.”

  “Well, you’ll find out when you talk to Gwen.” Kat paused for a moment. “When I found out about my family heritage, it was confusing, but one thing stood out to me. Nothing really changed. No matter what happened in the past, I’m still me. Even though I found out I was adopted, nothing was particularly differe
nt, except that I finally understood why my sisters don’t look much like me.”

  Mia leaned her head against Kat’s. “Thanks. You’ve been so nice to me.”

  “That could be because I have a sinister ulterior motive. Have I mentioned lately that I really need a dog walker?”

  With a laugh, Mia moved to get up. “Okay, okay, I know. I’m still thinking about it. First, I think I have to have another awkward conversation with Gwen.”

  “Yeah, I guess you do. Watch out for Potty Mouth.”

  “I’m hoping Gwen might be easier to talk to when there’s not a squirrel in her house.”

  Mia helped Kat put away the pile of photos and Kat offered to let her take the one of Heather to show Gwen. After thanking her again, Mia left the kennel, drove back to Alpine Grove, picked up some dinner at the cafe, and collapsed in her room. It had been an extremely long and emotionally draining day.

  The message light on the phone was flashing. She listened to the message and smiled at the sound of Chris’s voice. He said, “Hi Mia, sorry I missed you, but I made it to LA finally. Now my sister wants me to drive her to do about a hundred errands and then we’re going out to dinner. Hey Lulu, what are you doing? Oh okay, you want to sit in my lap, don’t you? Here you go. Watch it with those paws! Good girl. Um, sorry about that. So hey, I wanted to talk to you about the meeting with Ben. It was great, and he loved the drawings. It was probably the best meeting ever. Okay, well, my sister is giving me the stink eye, so I have to go. I miss you. I’ll call you when I get home. Bye.”

  Mia giggled, thinking about Lulu making a pest of herself while Chris was trying to leave the message. It was so easy to imagine. She was sorry to have missed the call too. Everything seemed a little less bright and cheerful as the reality of not having Chris around started to sink in.

  Mia had been on her own and alone for years, so it was ridiculous that she’d miss him like this already. They’d only been apart for half a day. Maybe it was just the gloomy rainy weather that was affecting her mood.

  Kat was sitting on the sofa reading in the living room when Joel returned. At the sound of the door opening, all five dogs leaped up and charged through the room toward the entryway. He shooed them away as he walked into the kitchen.