The Perfect Match

by Kimberly Cates

  A question impossible to answer in a way her mother could understand.

  Because I feel right inside when I’m placing rescue pets, and in vet school I felt wrong…

  Rowena should have saved her breath. Article number one in the Brown Family Constitution was “logic above all,” mere instinct far too messy. “Rowena’s Voodoo,” her younger sister Ariel called it. Even now, pushing twenty-five, she still made “woo woo” sound effects to tease.

  Rowena tossed the drape over the parrot’s cage in an effort to throw Elvis into a make-believe night, hoping that the wily bird would settle down, fall asleep and be blessedly silent.

  Not that she had much hope that her ruse would work. Could you arrest a bird for profanity? Public indecency? Corrupting the innocence of a minor? Maybe she’d ask the good deputy, if she were ever unfortunate enough to run into him again.

  Her mind filled with eyes that flashed, dark and angry, when she’d told him missing the appointment was no big deal. Talk about overreacting! And yet, didn’t it stand to reason that anyone who worked in law enforcement was bound to be a control freak? At least on some level. And it seemed that the needle on Lawless’ irritation meter jumped right off the charts where Rowena was concerned.

  Guilt itched as she remembered the way he had chewed her out, describing Miss Marigold’s despair over her broken treasures. Rowena’s next-door neighbor had been heartbroken. Rowena had been hosing off some cage trays at the back of the shop the night of Clancy’s Great Scone Raid when she had seen the sixty-year-old woman carrying out a big box of something that clinked as she moved. Before Clancy’s escapade, Rowena might have plopped down the hose and hurried over to help, even if the lady did tend to look bug-eyed with alarm every time Rowena said hello.

  But this time, Rowena had just stood rooted to the spot as Miss Marigold hauled her burden to where the garbage would be picked up the next morning. The older woman had been weeping, her nose chafed Rudolph-red, her eyes all swollen behind cat’s-eye glasses she’d probably bought sometime during the 1960s.

  Rowena had tried to apologize, her stomach as knotted as her garden hose. But before she could get out more than a few words, Miss Marigold had dropped her box with a horrific crash and fled back into the rear entrance of the tea shop, as if Rowena had set an attack dog snapping at her heels.

  Rowena had crossed to where the box lay off-kilter on one side. A china tea spout decorated with a motif of peacock feathers lay in the gravel, a teapot lid with a finial shaped like a cat a few feet beyond. Rowena stooped to pick each up, amazed at the delicate work.

  She stared down into the box. Lawless had been right about one thing. Even if she did pay for the damages, it wouldn’t matter. She’d never be able to piece her neighbor’s treasures together again.

  She’d lifted Miss Marigold’s box into her arms, holding it for a long time, not knowing exactly what to do with it. But somehow in spite of the wreckage she couldn’t leave the broken china for the garbage man to take. Instead she’d stuck it in her back room.

  And what are you going to do, oh brilliant one? Wave your hands and say abracadabra? Cast some magical spell that would make the teapots whole again? Now, that would be a gift she’d be grateful to have at the moment.

  The school bell rang in the distance, bringing Rowena back to the moment at hand. A parade of delighted faces, kids jabbering and laughing and cajoling their parents to come into the shop just to take a look. She’d done her best to make Open Arms irresistible, and it seemed where Whitewater’s children were concerned she’d succeeded.

  At least with all of them except one.

  Rowena turned away from the parrot’s cage and glimpsed an all too familiar small figure scowling into the store’s front window. Yes. Her crabby ghost was back again, hovering under the rainbow-striped awning, a few feet away from the door the kid had never once entered. Mousy brown hair was swept into a ponytail, exposing sharp drawn features. Her brow crinkled in aggravation, the folds of a duckling-yellow slicker gleaming from the rain.

  The first time Rowena had seen the nine-or-so-year-old girl she’d assumed that the kid’s disgruntled expression was due to the glare reflecting off the window into the child’s eyes. But today there wasn’t a sunbeam for miles and those eyes behind round silver wire glasses still glared into the shop’s interior as if something about the place frustrated her beyond bearing.

  Rowena had tried to imagine what could possibly have displeased the child, but she’d been so busy working the kinks out of the shop’s layout that she’d pushed her questions to the back of her mind. But today, the ghost finally shoved Rowena’s curiosity right over the edge.

  In spite of the awning’s shelter, the child was trying to keep an adult-sized purple umbrella over her head while she wrestled with a book the size of a dictionary. That was one serious piece of literature, Rowena thought. Wasn’t that monstrosity of a volume a little much for a fourth grader to handle? Surely her ghost couldn’t be reading something that advanced, even if the kid was one of those pint-sized geniuses that made the newspapers now and then.

  All business under the wavering shelter of the umbrella, the girl balanced the volume between the pet shop’s window ledge and her tummy and opened the book to one of about a dozen pages marked with scraps of orange construction paper.

  Rowena watched the child study what must be pictures of some kind, then raise those too-solemn eyes to peer intently back into the pet shop interior. Frowning in obvious frustration, the disgruntled little girl plunged on to the next marked page, studying the book again. The poor little thing was going to put herself in traction wrestling with a volume that heavy.

  Rowena glanced around her store and, finding it empty for the moment, ducked outside. A gust of wind sprinkled her left side with rain, her orange linen tunic sticking in chill, damp patches to her arm. But the little scowler was so intent on whatever she was reading she didn’t even notice anyone approach. Rowena couldn’t help but be amused by the way the kid screwed her face up in fearsome concentration.

  “Hi, there,” Rowena said.

  The child jumped as if Rowena had just yelled “boo,” the book starting to tumble from her small hands. Rowena made a quick grab for the volume, nearly throwing her back out in her effort to keep the thing from landing in the rain puddle below.

  “Whew, that was close,” Rowena said, eyeing the murky pool that covered the bottom inch or so of the girl’s green sneakers. The poor kid’s feet must be soaked.

  Stubbornly silent, the child looked up at Rowena with eyes a woodsy color, somewhere between green and brown. Rowena might have been tempted to laugh out loud if she weren’t sure she’d wound the soggy little soul’s dignity. Instead, she tried to lighten the mood.

  “You know, you keep scrunching your face like that, it’s going to freeze that way.”

  “Grownups always say that. But I never saw a single person’s face freeze. Even the principal’s and he looks grumpy all the time.”

  Smiling to herself at the girl’s cranky response, Rowena glanced down at the volume in her hands. “This is some book you’ve got here. It’s almost as big as you are.”

  “That’s an exaggeration.” The five-syllable word came so naturally from the child’s mouth Rowena stared. “If the book was big as me I couldn’t carry it at all.”

  “Right,” Rowena said, nonplussed. She tapped the book’s spine. “Still, it looks pretty heavy. Wouldn’t it fit in your backpack?” Rowena nudged the olive drab bag slung over the child’s narrow shoulders. “Most of the kids I see around here have pictures of superheroes or Disney princesses on theirs. Yours looks as if you could climb Mount Everest and not have to worry about it splitting.”

  She’d hoped to coax a smile out of the little girl. Instead, the child leveled her with a serious stare.

  “I’m too young to climb Mount Everest. People freeze to death up there, you know.”

  “It was a joke…well, at least it was supposed to be.”

/>   The child peered at her, silent.

  “You want to come in out of the rain?”

  The child shook her head. A schoolbus passed by, splashing water in an arc that spattered the backs of Rowena’s jeans. She sighed but tried again.

  “My name is Rowena, what’s yours?”

  “Charlie.” The little girl waited, as if expecting some comment about that being a boy’s name.

  Rowena had been teased on the playground because of her unusual name often enough to catch on. “I like it. Your name, I mean.”

  “I wasn’t hurting anything,” Charlie said.

  “You’re going to hurt yourself, lugging a book this size around,” Rowena observed. She flipped to the cover and read the title aloud. “MacGonagle’s International Expert’s Encyclopedia of Dog Breeds.” She flipped it open to a page, her own eyes crossing at the complex descriptions. “Whoa! You can read this stuff?”

  The girl’s lips pursed. “I’m only in fourth grade you know.”

  Okay, so the kid did have that fourth grade look—permanent teeth still too big for her face, marker-stained hands from some art project during the day. But her eyes looked far older than they should. Not to mention the child had been studying the book as if she were a zoologist trying to unlock the mystery of some exotic species.

  “Do you like dogs?” Rowena asked.

  Charlie nodded. “All three of them.”

  “You’ve got three dogs?” Rowena asked in surprise. She wouldn’t have guessed it. The kid didn’t have the look of someone who had a pet waiting at home to lavish her with unconditional love. “What are their names?”

  “Tiffany and Sweet Pea and Sugar Cookie. But I don’t have them now,” Charlie said softly. “Mommy didn’t like it when they weren’t puppies anymore. She gave them away when they got big and then she’d get another puppy again. After last time, my daddy said absolutely no more dogs. Not ever.” For the first time, Rowena saw vulnerability in the little girl’s face. Charlie caught her bottom lip between her teeth and blinked hard. “Sugar Cookie liked me best.”

  Rowena’s blood boiled. Anyone could make one mistake—get a dog that didn’t work out for some unforeseen reason. But to bring home three different dogs and then dump them each in turn when Mom got tired of them…? It seemed Charlie’s parents were exactly the kind of pet owners who abandoned the pets she was trying to save. Charlie had paid the price, too. The heartbreak was still in her eyes.

  “So now that your puppies are gone you just look at pictures?”

  “Not usually. It makes me sad. But since you moved in here, well, I just have to. It’s driving me crazy.”

  Deputy Lawless’ disgust at the shop’s location flashed into Rowena’s mind. She hadn’t considered it from the perspective of a woebegone little waif like Charlie. Rowena laid the dog book gently into the girl’s arms. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?”

  “That my shop drives you crazy.”

  “It’s the kids at school that make me crazy. They say you’ve got a bear in here. Even my best friend Hope Stone says so. It’s all my little sister talks about. She says she wants to pet the grizzly bear.” Charlie face crumpled in exasperation. “You can’t pet a grizzly bear! They chew people’s arms off. I saw it on Animal Planet.”

  Rowena bit back a smile. “I think I caught that show, too.”

  “So that big black thing you’ve got in here just has to be a dog. But I never saw one that big. Maybe you could just tell me what kind he is, because this book is getting real heavy.”

  “How about if I show you, instead? Would you like to give Clancy a treat?”

  “I don’t know…” Longing filled Charlie’s eyes. She leaned her umbrella against the wall so she could check a watch a scuba diver would envy. She glanced nervously over her shoulder at the street. “Can you show me real fast?”

  “You bet. I’ll even mark his picture in your book. That way you can prove to the other kids you were right when you go to school tomorrow.”

  That offer clinched the deal. Charlie handed her the book, then took a deep breath. She slipped her hand into Rowena’s as she walked through the door.

  Rowena smiled as she led the little girl to the playroom where Clancy was tossing a regulation-size football into the air and trying to catch it. His white teeth flashed, and Rowena felt Charlie’s hand tighten its hold on hers.

  “That’s the biggest dog I’ve ever seen.” Charlie swallowed hard, her eyes wide as sunflowers.

  “He’s not even full grown yet. You should have seen the first Newfie I rescued. Huey was 200 pounds in his heyday.”

  Charlie slid the straps of her backpack down her arms and set the bag on the floor. She stared at the dog, fascinated. “Did Huey ever bite anybody? By mistake? I mean, my head kind of looks like a football.”

  “Your head isn’t nearly pointy enough on top,” Rowena said, ruffling the child’s hair. “Besides, you’re far too pretty to be mistaken for that chewed-up mess of a football.”

  Green eyes regarded her solemnly. “I’m not pretty. My best friend Hope says she wants the prettiest kitty in the whole wide world for her birthday. People only want the cute ones.”

  “People may think they want the cutest one at first. But sometimes I can change the way someone sees the kitty,” Rowena tried to explain. “Make them see the ‘pretty’ in an animal that no one else can see. That’s what I do. I take in animals that other people think are too broken—in their hearts, you know?—for anybody to take home. Then I find somebody to love them.”

  Charlie cocked her head to one side. “Doesn’t anybody love him?” She pointed to Clancy.

  As a matter of fact, Rowena thought, there were quite a few people who downright hated the poor dog. But Charlie didn’t need to know about how quickly Clancy’s official Whitewater lynch mob was growing.

  “Someday, someone besides me will love him,” Rowena said.

  “Only if he’s a real good, right? And he never, ever does anything bad again?”

  Rowena chuckled. “I certainly hope that’s not how it works or nobody would ever love me at all! I make mistakes all the time. I bet you do, too.”

  “Not anymore,” Charlie said soberly. “Except for coming in here when I’m not supposed to.”

  “Ah.” A lightbulb went off in Rowena’s head. “So that’s why you never came into the shop before.” For a moment she considered ushering the child out the door. She didn’t need some parent furious because she’d encouraged Charlie’s disobedience. But Charlie seemed so sad, and Clancy’s specialty was making people smile.

  Decision made, Rowena gave Charlie a conspiratorial wink. “If this is supposed to be a secret mission we’d better hurry.”

  Rowena opened the gate to the playroom. Clancy bounded toward them. “Sit!” Rowena commanded. Clancy dropped like a rock, looking so virtuous she almost laughed aloud. But in spite of the halo Clancy appeared to have fixed over his head, the dog was scooting toward them, ever so surreptitiously, on his butt.

  Rowena dug in her jeans pocket for the heartworm medicine she’d tucked in there earlier. Pulling out the packet, she pushed the cube through the foil on the back side of the plastic blister. She put the cube in the little girl’s hand. “Here you go, Charlie.”

  Charlie looked from the little block on her hand to a glass jar filled with bone-shaped cookies. She regarded the cube warily. “How come this treat was all wrapped up like that?”

  Rowena grinned at the child’s quick intelligence. “I’ll tell you a secret. That’s really Clancy’s heartworm medicine, so he won’t get sick. But it tastes just like a treat.”

  “Sure it does.” Charlie grimaced. She bit her bottom lip, her gaze skittering nervously to Rowena’s. “What if he gets mad that I tricked him?”

  “He won’t hurt you. I promise,” Rowena urged. “And just think about the story you’ll have to tell Hope tomorrow. I’ll even snap your picture with my camera.” Rowena picked up her old instamatic from th
e ledge. “It spits the picture out right away. You can take it with you. Would you like that?”

  Charlie nodded. “I could hide it in my secret place. That way Daddy would never know I was bad.”

  Rowena had had her own share of misadventures as a child, and while she’d dreaded being caught and the punishment that was sure to follow, she’d always been sure she’d be forgiven. There was something darker, deeper in Charlie’s eyes, as if the child was walking on thin ice and waiting to fall through. Thank heavens Charlie’s fascination with the dog ran greater than her fear.

  Charlie looked deep into the dog’s eyes then took a step toward him, the cube clutched in her hand. “I know she told you this is a treat, but it’s not,” Charlie said earnestly. “It’s probably going to taste real yucky, but it’ll be good for you.” She uncurled her fingers. “Just close your eyes and swallow it real quick.”