The puppy finally backed off and sat on the pillow beside her. Elizabeth lifted the cover to see what it was doing, and it immediately darted underneath and started licking her face. She tried to push the thing away, envisioning the germs and dirt that it was spreading, but every time she put her hands near it she ended up getting nipped.
Just then she heard ringing from down the hallway. She’d seen the phone on a narrow table but assumed it was a relic, not something that Rowan and Trudy actually used. She leapt up, sending the puppy spinning tail over head across the bed. She ran to answer the call, hoping that someone was going to tell her what to do next.
“This is Elizabeth Barnes,” she answered, sounding like she was clocked in at work.
“Bess, hello, it’s Rowan.” He sounded exhausted. “Are you well?”
“I’m fine, please tell me what’s going on. How is Trudy?”
“She took quite a tumble and broke her arm, badly. They’ve set it, but she’s under observation for a head injury. She’s . . . forgetting things.” His voice cracked. “She’s going to have a full neurological workup and a scan later today. I’m so sorry to ask you this, but could you postpone leaving for a day? William has to take care of his grandson for the next few days and can’t help us. Would you mind terribly, Bess?”
She imagined Trudy returning home, weak and confused, and was immediately brought back to images of her mother in bed in her darkened room. She could still smell the tea rose lotion her father used to rub on her mother’s numb hands, asking “Does that help, Felicity?” She remembered her mother’s wan smiles as Elizabeth showed off the paintings she’d made in art class. She shook her head to banish the thoughts. As much as she hated the rituals of illness, she knew there was no way she could refuse Rowan’s request.
“Of course. Happy to help. It’s no problem,” she lied. The itinerary changes would be difficult to address, particularly without cell service, but she wasn’t about to give Rowan something else to worry about.
The puppy started barking and yipping from the edge of the bed down the hall.
“Is that Major? What’s wrong with him?”
“No, William has Major. That’s . . . I found a puppy in the field last night, right before Trudy fell. William made me keep it and I have no idea what to do.”
The barking continued, more insistently.
“So you’ve earned yourself a puppy. That’s lovely, Bess.” His words came slowly. “It probably wants breakfast. Major’s food is in the closet where we keep the wellies. Oh, and could you turn the ladies out as well? And soon?”
The idea of dealing with the sheep on her own terrified her. “How do I do that? I’m not sure I can, I mean—”
Rowan muffled the phone and Elizabeth could hear him speaking with someone else. “I’m sorry, I must run but I’ll ring back when I have more details about Trudy. Thank you so much for helping.” He hung up abruptly.
She held the phone, marveling at the conversation-stopping dial tone. She hadn’t touched a landline in ages.
The puppy’s yips turned into a full-blown meltdown, and it ran from one end of the bed to the other. Elizabeth worried that it was going to tumble off the edge. She speed-walked back to her room right as the puppy turned in two tight circles and dropped an enormous mound of poo on her duvet.
The puppy danced to the opposite side of the bed, clearly pleased with its accomplishment. The stench spread quickly, forcing Elizabeth to hold her nose to keep from gagging. She had no clue where to find cleaning supplies or what to do with the dog while she attempted to clean the mess. She placed it on the floor and began to gingerly approach the pile—how could something so small make a mound so huge?—only to look down and see the puppy midsquat with a stream of urine pooling behind it. The slope in the floor caused it to run directly to the expensive-looking wool throw rug. The dog, now empty and undoubtedly feeling better, sprinted around the room, barking and biting at anything that got in her way.
Elizabeth had spent her career charming morning news anchors, going toe-to-toe with the titans of her industry, and leading product launches in front of hundreds of customers. But she couldn’t control the tiny crapping, peeing, biting monster that was barking wildly and running in circles around her feet.
chapter fourteen
Elizabeth walked to the barn with the puppy bundled sling-style in an orange wide-knit scarf she’d found in the wellie closet. Its needle teeth were dangerously close to her boobs, but the belly full of Major’s food was lulling her into a morning nap. Even though Elizabeth was still freaked out by the creature, it didn’t feel right leaving the tiny thing alone in the house. She couldn’t find a leash and collar for it, so she defaulted to the baby-wearing technique she’d seen the new moms around Duchess using. She’d need both hands free for whatever the sheep-ladies doled out during her maiden voyage.
They stood in the corner of the barn eyeing Elizabeth and her colorful wellies warily. Their ears twitched, and one let out a deep smoker’s-voice baaa. Elizabeth could feel sweat beading in her hairline, partly from the warm puppy body pressed against her and partly because the sheep were only a few feet away with no fence to protect her. Though they had teddy bear faces and sheepy grins, their bulk could do damage if they opted to charge her. Plus, they had to have teeth in their happy-looking mouths.
She tiptoed past them and opened the gate leading to the field, then speed-walked back to a safe spot near the door.
“Go,” she said to them, waving one hand in front of her while the other supported the puppy in the sling. “Go out.”
They remained motionless.
“It’s a beautiful day, go to the field,” she said. “Don’t you want to go out and do sheepy things?”
One of the sheep turned her back to Elizabeth in an act of defiance.
“Away with thee!” she said, channeling the Fargrove accent, waving both her hands over her head.
The one that was closer to her looked toward the field, then back at Elizabeth.
She followed its gaze and realized that she’d failed to prop open the gate leading out of the barn and it had swung shut. The judgment she thought she’d been imagining was real—the ladies thought she was an idiot. She slipped by them, plastering her back against the wall, and secured the gate with an ancient hook-and-eye lock. They filed out quietly.
“Sorry,” Elizabeth said. “Your people will be back soon. You won’t have to deal with me again.”
The ladies stood a few feet away, regarding her with mean-girl glares. Were they waiting for food? Elizabeth trotted back to the barn and looked for a big bag of lamb chow, perhaps with a photo of a happy sheep on the side. She found nothing.
She thought back to the morning she’d watched Trudy turn them out and realized that she’d failed yet again; the final gate leading to the open pasture was still closed.
“Yes, yes, I’m a stupid city girl. Stop judging me!” She walked down to the metal gate and swung it open, propping it with a rock as she’d seen Trudy do. Still, the sheep remained motionless. She was failing at everything.
“What do you want?” she shouted at them. “Major isn’t here! Trudy isn’t here! Just go already!”
The puppy poked its head out of the sling and one of the sheep took a few steps toward Elizabeth. She looked down at the dog, then back at the sheep. “Is this what you want? You need a little canine inspiration?” She shrugged and took the puppy out of the sling, plopping it down on the ground several feet away from where the sheep stood. Maybe seeing a dog would trigger their usual routine?
The puppy stared at the sheep, then went into the same crouch she’d seen Major assume when near the ladies. Elizabeth realized that she was watching instinct at work. When the sheep glanced away the puppy crept toward them with tentative tiptoeing steps, and when they looked back at her she lowered her head and froze. Elizabeth crouched down too, getting as low a
s she could without touching the muddy ground. She took a quick photo of the trio, then slipped her phone in her pocket. A puppy plus sheep was bound to be social media gold—when she could get back to Fargrove to post again.
Rosie and Blossom both turned their full bulk to the encroaching pup, as if they’d had enough of her freshman attempt at herding. Instead of moving away, they ambled toward the little dog, reversing the power dynamic and slowly sending her back over the ground she’d covered.
Elizabeth’s heart thudded as the sheep moved closer to the puppy. One kick and the little thing would be injured, or worse. She thought about dashing over to it and scooping it up, but she was too afraid to approach the sheep. The sheep came at the puppy as if their roles were reversed. Closer, closer, until the larger sheep stopped, took three dramatic reverse-Rockette steps backward, then put her ears back and charged right at the pup.
The puppy turned and ran back to Elizabeth, yipping like someone had cut off its tail. It stood on its back legs and leapt at her, while Elizabeth backpedaled to maintain her distance from the charging sheep. She managed to scoop up the puppy right as the sheep stopped abruptly about a foot away from them. It—Rosie—Blossom—she still couldn’t tell them apart—glared at the two of them for a moment, then walked casually toward the open gate, meeting up with her partner in crime at the threshold and strolling into the pasture.
“What a bitch!” Elizabeth exclaimed, looking down at the trembling puppy in her arms. “She did it on purpose. I’m so sorry I put you through that.”
The puppy scaled her body and burrowed its head in Elizabeth’s hair, as if trying to hide in the now-familiar spot.
“You were brave,” Elizabeth said. “You really thought you could take that fat old lady, huh? I like that.”
She realized that she still didn’t know what to call the dog. She’d hoped to hand it off quickly, but she realized that it was probably hers until the end of the day at least. She walked back up the lane to a small landscaped sitting area surrounded by a low stone wall. The event planners had done a spectacular job cleaning up after the party. There were no remnants of the night before on the grounds that Elizabeth could see except for an indentation in the grass where the dance floor had been and a huge, wet turquoise feather resting on the rocks, molted from a woman dressed as a bluebird. She sat down on a bench and placed the puppy at the other end, but it toddled over to her, positioned itself so that its body rested against hers, and placed its tiny paws on her thigh.
“I suppose I should give you a name.”
Elizabeth studied the dog and tried to determine if her looks held the key to her name. All of the dirt that coated the dog the night before had flaked off, more than likely on her sheets. The dog’s fur was a mixture of wiry and gossamer smooth. It stood out from her body as if she had just taken off a static-charged sweater. She was mostly white, with a few black and brown dots on each leg, and what looked like a black cape draped over her back. Her tail was pure black from base to tip, as if someone had dipped the skinny appendage in ink and used it as a quill. The dark tail was bookended by a black-and-brown mask that wrapped from the back of her head and around each eye, leaving a trail of white down the middle of her nose. The wispy light brown fur on the edges of black nacho-chip-shaped ears looked like the fringe on the edge of a fancy pillow. Her belly was fat, her legs were short, and even though Elizabeth had never met a dog she couldn’t ignore, she knew the thing was adorable.
“You’re very scruffy, but that’s a horrible name.” Elizabeth shook her head.
The puppy gazed up at her intently, as if trying to decipher what she was saying. Elizabeth slowly reached out to touch the fur on the top of the puppy’s head, and the little dog met her fingers with another needle-toothed bite.
“Ouch! Okay, I get it, you don’t like me. It’s sort of a thing with me.” The nip left a pinprick of blood on the side of her pointer finger. “I’ll call you Sharkey. Or Barracuda.”
The puppy rolled onto her back next to Elizabeth and gnashed at the air maniacally, squirming and making little growly noises that sounded serious and a little scary. The puppy snatched her own front paw as if it weren’t attached to her body and chomped down on it.
“You are so weird.” Elizabeth looked around the property, hoping for name inspiration amid the flowers and trees. She thought of the tree where she’d discovered the dog. “Willow?”
It was good, but she kept thinking, the scene playing out in her head like a movie as the idea started to take shape.
She’d found the puppy when two elements converged: wind and a hat. Without one or the other, she never would’ve discovered her. And without them she’d never have met James Holworthy either. The more Elizabeth thought about exactly how she’d come to discover the puppy, the more obvious the name became.
It wasn’t a curse at all.
She clapped her hands in victory, startling the puppy from its paw-gnawing. “I hereby christen you Georgina Hargrave the Second.”
chapter fifteen
Elizabeth waited by the phone in the kitchen for two and a half hours, venturing outside occasionally to let Georgina take a potty break while keeping one ear trained for a ring. She was tethered to the house in a way that felt archaic, particularly because she had technology in her back pocket that could connect calls from the middle of the ocean if necessary. Without her phone, Fargrove was as remote as the moon.
The numerous trips outside didn’t prevent the puppy from peeing on the floor, twice. Georgina ranged from rabid attack mode, all teeth and growls going after Elizabeth’s fingers, to dead asleep, in thirty-minute cycles. Even though she could ward the puppy off with only minor damage sustained, the intensity of Georgina’s bites during her waking moments scared her. Were some dogs “born bad”? Could puppies get rabies? Was it possible the puppy was a wolf-dog hybrid, since she had been found alone outside? And was it true that dogs could get a taste for blood, and now that Georgina had sampled hers, a dormant bloodlust within her had been awakened?
Elizabeth couldn’t do what she would normally do when confronted with a problem; there was no Internet to search, no expert to summon. She’d seen an ancient desktop computer in a book-filled office down the hall from her room, but assuming she could use it felt as presumptuous as borrowing someone’s car without asking. Instead, she worried about worst-case scenarios and examined the tiny punctures on her hands and forearms.
The moon-faced grandfather clock in the corner of the kitchen ticked on, and it finally dawned on her that Rowan didn’t actually need her at the house waiting to hear from him. Updating her was merely a courtesy, not a requirement. His next move didn’t hinge on her sitting by the phone. He might have even forgotten she was there during the stress of the diagnostic process. Plus she still needed to cancel cars and rebook hotels, and the only way she could make it happen was to trek into Fargrove.
“Hey, Georgina, want to walk into town?” The puppy bounded to her and tried to latch onto her toes.
A shower and outfit change later, Elizabeth was wellie-clad and ready to reconnect with the world via Fargrove. She’d found one of Trudy’s narrow scarves to use as a makeshift leash and collar for Georgina, though the three-pound terrorist fought against any efforts to be led on it. She alternated between carrying Georgina and drag-walking her.
Elizabeth repeatedly checked her phone as they got closer to town, hoping she’d find service, but the Fargrove dead zone extended well beyond Rowan and Trudy’s house. She flipped the camera around to get a quick peek at her hair and realized that the sunlight behind her cast a beautiful glow around her head, like she was wearing a halo. It also put a flattering shadow on her face so that with a basic filter she’d look presentable. She hoisted Georgina a little higher on her shoulder and tilted her head from side to side, trying to find the best angle. She settled on her favorite three-quarter view of the left side of her face that hid her wonky eye a
nd pushed Georgina’s head closer against her cheek. She did an “I’m surprised we’re so cute” expression, the one that always seemed to get other influencers thousands of likes, and got ready to snap the photo. Right as she pushed the button, Georgina reared back and bit Elizabeth on the ear so hard that she dropped her phone.
“Ow! What was that about?” she shrieked. Elizabeth massaged her ear with her free hand, still holding the puppy with her other. Thankfully, her phone was scratch-free in the grass at the side of the road. “You are the worst. The absolute worst!” Georgina panted at Elizabeth with a happy expression on her face.
She retrieved the phone and scrolled to the photo. It was hideous and amazing. Georgina looked like a wild animal, all flashing teeth and out-for-blood expression, and Elizabeth had her head tilted away with a terrified expression on her face. Her perfect brows were blurry slashes on her forehead. It looked like an ad for a horror movie. Elizabeth debated what it would mean to post the hysterical but very off-brand photo and moved Georgina to her hip, far away from any dangling body parts.
The puppy finally started squirming again once they hit the bridge into Fargrove center. Elizabeth placed her on the ground and held on to the makeshift leash as Georgina pranced beside Elizabeth like a show pony, with her little head held high.
“Trying to make me look good, huh?” Elizabeth asked Georgina.
Elizabeth scanned the courtyard outside HiveMind, hoping to see James Holworthy again. She’d dreamed of him the night before, still in his costume and on horseback. She’d been trapped in a tree in the pouring rain wearing Georgina Hargrave’s elegant white gown split up to her thigh so James’s bloody scarf-bandage was visible, clutching puppy Georgina and screaming for help. James had dashed up on a white horse and pulled her onto his lap with a single strong arm. In his other hand, a pint of beer.
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