The Twelve Dogs of Christmas

by Lizzie Shane

  “What’s your hard?” The words were an impulse, and he immediately wanted them back. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  “No, it’s fine. The shelter, I guess. Though mostly I worry about my grandparents. They’re the last family I have, you know?”

  They’d reached the edge of the driveway that led up to Furry Friends and Ally’s house, but Ben slowed his steps, not ready for the walk to be over. He’d known, in some vague, distant way, that Hal and Rita had a granddaughter but no living children, but he’d never really put it all together that Ally was all they had left. And vice versa. “Your parents…”

  “Car accident. When I was eighteen. Freshman year of college. I was living in a dorm, and it felt like any roots I’d ever had were yanked up, and I didn’t belong anywhere anymore—but I always knew I had my grandparents. It meant a lot, just knowing I wasn’t alone. It means a lot to Astrid, too. Having you.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It does,” she insisted. “Are your parents around?”

  “Arizona. They’ll be here for Christmas. Astrid’s other grandparents are based in DC. They help when they can, but the everyday stuff, the decisions, that’s on me.”

  “That’s a lot of responsibility to hit all at once.”

  He shook his head, rejecting the idea that it was too much. “I wanted it. I wanted her. I still do. And in some ways it’s easier when it’s just us. My parents want to help when they’re here, but then you have to accept the help the way they want to give it—which is sometimes more work than just doing it yourself. And then if it is actually helpful, you start to rely on it, and then it’s gone and it’s that much harder to adapt again. It’s better—”

  “Not to rely on people?”

  “To do it myself.” He glanced down at her. “But I worry all the time. I’m always trying to make the right choices for her. And I know I’m probably overthinking…everything. I never used to analyze every little thing, but with Astrid I can’t seem to stop myself. It’s like—cell phones. How old is old enough for a phone? Some of her friends already have them. And social media—can I stop her from having Twitter and Instagram and TikTok and God knows what else before I think she’s ready for it? Our parents never had to think about screen time and organic, human-growth-hormone-free whatever. If you put something in a plastic container, are you trying to kill the environment? Everything has a ripple effect now, and there’s no conventional wisdom. There’s no right answer. I’m just going to keep doing things wrong in new ways.”

  “No, you aren’t. Even if you are making mistakes—and everyone does, it’s called being human—you’re also doing things right. You’re there for her. She knows that.”

  They’d reached the edge of the porch, and Ally stepped onto the first step, turning to face him as the first fat snowflakes began to drift down around them. The twinkle lights on the porch railings cast a gentle light in the snowy night, but inside the house was dark.

  “Your grandparents asleep?”

  “Yeah. They aren’t exactly night owls.”

  He studied her face as she looked toward the house. “You worry about them?”

  “Constantly,” she admitted. “I know they’re adults and they’ve taken care of themselves for decades, but that doesn’t stop me worrying. Gram is so reckless—she never thinks of the consequences of walking a dog that’s too strong for her until her shoulder has to be surgically repaired. Maximus tried to chase a bunny while she had his leash wrapped around her wrist—dislocated her shoulder, tore a bunch of ligaments, and now she thinks it was a fluke and it’ll never happen again. That she doesn’t need to wear her sling or worry about reinjury. Gramps tells me not to worry, but how do you not worry? They’re in their eighties. At least he seems good. He’s healthy and his mind is still sharp, but any day something could happen and…they’re all I have left.”

  Snow had begun to fall in earnest, making the entire world feel hushed. “That’s why you came up here.”

  “Part of it. They hadn’t even told me about Gram’s accident because they didn’t want me to worry. I was supposed to have a shoot in the Bahamas, and I’d already planned to bring Colby up here so they could watch him while I was away, but then my shoot got canceled and I found out about Gram’s accident, and I just…I needed to be here. Helping out at the shelter was a good excuse to watch over them.”

  “What are you going to do when the shelter closes?”

  She huffed out a humorless laugh. “I’m not even letting myself think about it. Just living in the present. Find homes for the dogs, look after my grandparents, worry about the future when it comes.” She took a step up onto the porch, but he stayed below, leaning against the railing. Ally turned back, eye-to-eye with him as she stood on the top step. “What did you mean you can’t keep a washing machine working?”

  He grimaced. “It’s been busted for weeks. I was supposed to have a technician come out and fix it a week ago, but he keeps rescheduling, and we are getting desperately low on clothes.”

  “Why don’t you just bring them here? We have a washer and a dryer. You’re welcome to them whenever you want.”

  He frowned. “I’m not bringing my laundry to your house.”

  “Why not? If you’re coming over to the shelter anyway, why not just throw in a load while you’re at it? Get those coffee stains out. It doesn’t cost us anything—”

  “Water, electricity.”

  “I think we can handle a few extra gallons this month. And I owe you at least one load for dousing you in coffee.” Ally folded her arms, frowning at him. “Are you too good for my laundry? Or just stubborn?”

  “Neither. I just—”

  “Have to do absolutely everything yourself and can’t ask for help?”

  It was a startlingly accurate analysis for someone who’d only known him a couple of weeks—and it made him wonder how obvious he was.

  “You’re making your life harder than it has to be,” she insisted.

  “I’m not making it anything.”

  “Tell you what. My grandmother desperately wants to put Christmas lights up on the eaves of the barn. I did the ones on the porch here, but I haven’t gotten around to those, and I’m afraid one of these days I’m going to come home to find my eighty-one-year-old grandmother on the top of a twenty-foot ladder stringing lights with one good arm. You come by and help me with those one evening this week, and you can do your laundry at the same time. Win-win.”

  He studied her face. “I feel like you just made that up.”

  “I would never make up one of my grandmother’s crazy schemes. Are you in?”

  “Sure. I guess. Friends don’t let friends decorate alone.”

  Something shifted in her smile, distance seeming to expand between them even before she took a step back. “I’ll see you this week then.”

  “Right.” He shoved off the base of the porch railing, taking a step out from under the eave. Snow instantly coated his shoulders. “Good night, Ally. Thank you for the help tonight.”

  “You, too.”

  She disappeared inside without another word.

  Snow continued to fall around him as he made his way back through the peaceful stillness of the town. People were starting to turn off their Christmas lights for the night, but the town still looked like a postcard. His steps slowed as he moved through the square. When was the last time he’d done this? Walked somewhere without worrying about when he would arrive, without thinking of the twelve other things he needed to be doing at that moment.

  Had Ally done that? Or was it something about the afternoon, about spending hours decorating brownies and hanging out with Astrid and Ally, that had shifted his perspective, reminding him that life didn’t have to be about doing the responsible thing one hundred percent of the time? Sometimes you could enjoy yourself.

  He needed to do poker night again. No more excuses.

  He climbed the steps to Katie and Paul’s house, wondering what Ally had seen when she walked in.
He’d left all their half-finished house projects half-finished and told himself it was because he didn’t have time. Which he didn’t. But if he was honest with himself, he’d also been afraid of wiping away the last traces of their presence.

  Not that he still saw them when he looked at the uneven flooring. Sometime over the last two years, he’d stopped seeing Katie and Paul in the house. It was hard not to be sad about that, even though Katie wouldn’t want them living in the past. She’d wanted the big house with the yard. The two-year plan.

  A crack of light still shone beneath Astrid’s door when he reached the top of the stairs, and Ben gently knocked on the door. When she called for him to come in, he opened it a crack, leaning against the frame.

  “I’m back.”

  “Okay.” She was sitting in bed in her pajamas with a library book on her lap.

  Ben’s gaze moved past her to the bookshelf—and the row of Harry Potter books neatly lined up on top. He nodded to the shelf. “Did you ever read those? The Harry Potter ones?”

  She followed his gaze. “Not yet,” she admitted. “I didn’t want to read them without my mom. Is that weird?”

  “No, sweetie. It’s not weird.”

  “I thought I might…my friends are all reading them now. They’re on the Battle of the Books list.”

  “It’s okay if you want to,” he murmured. “It’s okay if you don’t. Though I hear they’re pretty good.”

  She cocked her head. “You haven’t read them?”

  “Nah. I’ve just seen the movies.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That so doesn’t count.”

  He grinned. “Okay. Maybe I’ll check ’em out.”

  Astrid glanced to the shelf. “Maybe we could read them at the same time.”

  He didn’t know when the last time he’d made time for reading for pleasure was. “I’d like that.” She looked down at the book in her lap, tugged downward by the story, just like her mom used to be, impatient to get back to the world between those pages. “Don’t read too late,” he cautioned, starting to close the door before his eyes could get wet.

  “Uncle Ben?”

  He paused. “Yeah, kiddo?” He cleared his throat.

  “Thanks for today. It was a good day.”

  “It was,” he agreed. “I love you, you know that?”

  “Yeah. Love you, too.”

  Ben closed the door with a click, swallowing around the tightness in his throat.

  It felt wrong to be grateful for any moment since Katie and Paul died, but he was grateful for today. And every other day he got with that kid. Half the time he didn’t know what he was doing, and one hundred percent of the time he was scared to death, but sometimes his chest squeezed with a feeling he’d never had before he became Astrid’s guardian. A feeling of love so big it actually hurt—and maybe as long as they had that, he wasn’t doing such a terrible job. Maybe.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Fresh powder swirled around Ally’s ankles as she headed toward the barn, calling out morning greetings to the dogs who came to the outdoor portion of their runs to see her. Last night with Ben and Astrid had left her feeling more optimistic about the world—and the two new email applications that had come in this morning had only solidified that feeling.

  “We have some interest in you, Jelly!” she called to the peanut butter–colored Lab–pit bull mix who bounded to the end of his enclosure, trailed by his buddy Biscuit, who was carrying Jelly’s dog bed in his mouth.

  “How did you get that through the dog door?” she asked him. The bed was as big as he was and dragging through the snow as he trotted proudly toward her with his offering. Ally bent to pet the two of them through the fence as Biscuit dropped Jelly’s bed at her feet. “The least you could do was move your own bed if you were going to start redecorating.”

  Biscuit leaned into her hand, gazing up at her with adoring black eyes as Jelly wiggled in every direction simultaneously, too excited by the attention to contain himself. “What do you think? You guys want to live in Massachusetts? There’s a family down there with a huge fenced yard for you to run around. Does that sound good?”

  She decided to take their wriggles of excitement as a yes.

  Last night’s snow covered everything in sight. It was only a few inches deep, coming up just past her ankles, and easy enough to drive through—thank God, because after the last big snowfall and the way her arms had ached after wrestling the ancient snowblower up and down the driveway for hours, she wasn’t looking forward to tackling it again.

  Tire tracks cut down the driveway from her grandparents’ Subaru. They’d gone up to the Estates for brunch with friends—and to talk to the administrators about the dog fair. Ally was grateful for the quiet and the chance to think after her conversation with Ben last night.

  She entered the barn, going through the morning routine of taking care of the dogs, making sure everyone was fed and cuddled before retreating to the office to process the applications with Colby’s head resting on her feet. Captain America would go to his new home tomorrow, but there were now applications waiting for four of the others.

  She wanted all the dogs to find homes—but they had to be good homes. So she read essay answers about where the dogs would sleep and where they would be kept when the family wasn’t home, scheduling home visits and worrying that she wasn’t being thorough enough. She had a crick in her neck from hunching over the laptop, and her eyes were starting to blur from staring at the screen when the jingle bells above the door rang and her heart leapt in Pavlovian response.

  She should be hoping to see more prospective pet parents, but if she was honest with herself, she was hoping it was Ben.

  As friends. That was the only reason she was excited to see him.

  Ally pushed away from the desk, Colby lifting his lazy head to watch her. “Who do you think it is?” she asked him, as the Saint Bernard heaved himself to his feet with a sigh. She pushed open the door, but didn’t immediately see anyone. “Ben?”

  She stepped farther into the kennels with a chorus of barks—and found Deenie sitting on the floor of JoJo’s run, playing fetch with the tiny papillon. She looked up, beaming when Ally and Colby appeared. “Hey! I was looking for you.”

  “Inside JoJo’s run?”

  “Who’s a good girl?” she cooed to the dog as she brought back the toy. “She just looked so desperate for someone to throw Squeaky Mouse. How could I resist? Right, sweet baby?” Deenie stood, brushing off her leggings. “Did you want to go together?”

  “Go…?”

  “To the Christmas Fair. Did your grandparents leave already?” Deenie slipped out of the run.

  “They’re up at the Estates.”

  “Oh.” Deenie frowned. “Aren’t you going to the fair? After making like two million brownies for the thing, you should at least see what it’s all about.”

  “I thought it was just for the families of the kids. Won’t it be weird if I show up?”

  “Nah. It’s a town thing. Everyone goes. Come on. I’ll leave my car here, and we can walk together. You have no idea how bad parking can get—you wouldn’t think it, since there aren’t that many people in Pine Hollow, but when everyone is trying to cram into the school lot—nightmare. Where’s your coat?”

  Ally opened the door to the office to grab her coat, and Colby padded past her to throw himself down on his dog bed with a sigh. Dolce had gotten comfortable enough with him that she didn’t even lift her head, her feet twitching with puppy dreams. “Should we take any of the dogs?”

  “Not this time. Only service animals allowed.”

  On impulse, Ally grabbed her camera off the corner of the desk as she left. She hadn’t taken many pictures—except of the dogs—in the last week. She tucked the camera into her bag, slinging the whole thing over her shoulder and following Deenie out into the snow.

  “Have you heard of My Forever Home? That segment on that one show? The one with the guy?”

  Ally smothered a grin at Deenie’
s oh-so-clear description as they followed the path Deenie’s tires had left in the snow down the long driveway to the street, where the sidewalks had already been cleared. It was a winter wonderland. The kind that never lasted for more than a few hours in New York before everything started to turn dirty gray.

  Ally pulled out her camera to capture the Currier and Ives perfection of the town, covered in snow, the afternoon sunlight glistening off it like crystals. She aimed and shot as Deenie kept up a running commentary about her—currently failing—attempts to get them featured on another national morning show’s pet adoption segment.

  By the time they reached the school, she felt centered, in the zone as she snapped pictures of the town. But the second the door opened to the gymnasium a wall of sound hit them, assaulting that sense of calm with an aural sledgehammer.

  “Come on!” Deenie shouted over the din. “Let’s start with the hot apple cider booth!”

  Ally kept her camera in her hands, clinging to it like JoJo clung to Squeaky Mouse. The gym had been decked out in holiday regalia, chains of red and green construction paper draping from the high ceiling. Dozens of booths manned by kids of all ages crowded into the space. Ally automatically scanned the booths—only realizing she was looking for Ben when she spotted Elinor instead and flinched.

  It wasn’t like she’d done anything wrong, hanging out with Astrid and Ben yesterday. Elinor had even encouraged her to do it. But it still felt slimy somehow. Like if she was honest with herself, she had to admit that she had wanted something to happen. Which wasn’t her. She didn’t have crushes on men who were taken.

  Except apparently she did.

  “Ally! I was hoping I’d run into you.”

  Ally jumped, greeting Elinor with what had to be the world’s fakest smile. “Elinor! Hi. It’s so great to see you!”

  “You, too. I thought I might come out to your shelter later this week. I’ve been thinking about getting a dog.”

  “You have?” Ally blinked, momentarily thrown. Ben was so vehemently anti-dog. Did Elinor not know that? Should Ally tell her? She hadn’t even considered encouraging Elinor to adopt one of the shelter animals because of Ben.