THE WIND RUFFLED THE SURFACE of the river, placid enough where it nestled in the tree-sheltered bend, the stony beach curving easy around it, like a cowboy’s arm around his girl’s shoulders, but wilder out in the middle. There, the currents were swift and, a mile downriver, there were rapids, leading straight to the falls.
Every so often, some hapless soul would be swept away in a canoe or even an inner tube, and find himself rushing at top speed toward a seventy-five-foot drop over the waterfall and onto the jagged boulders below.
It was a miracle nobody had been killed, Tricia thought, pulling her jacket more tightly around her and surveying the rocky shore in front of her. The area was littered with crushed beer cans, cigarette butts and fast food wrappers—kids had been partying there again.
Sighing, Tricia pulled a pair of plastic gloves from her pocket and snapped them on, then unfolded the large trash bag she’d tucked into the waistband of her jeans. There were No Trespassing signs posted, of course, but they seemed to have no more effect that the ones that read For Sale.
She picked up all the aluminum cans first—those were destined for the recycling bin—then collected the rest of the trash, using a smaller bag.
Tricia liked being outside, chilly as it was, under that blue, blue sky, breathing in the singular scents of autumn, though cleaning up after thoughtless people wasn’t her favorite chore. It would be a nice day for a bonfire, she reflected, bending to retrieve a potato chip bag that looked as though it had been chewed up right along with its contents.
It was then that she made eye contact with the dog.
Nestled beneath the very same picnic table where she and Joe had found Rusty all those years ago was a painfully thin mutt with burrs and twigs caught in its coat and sorrow in its liquid brown eyes.
“Hey,” Tricia said, dropping to her knees.
The dog whimpered, tried to scoot out of her reach when she moved to touch him.
“It’s okay,” she murmured. She tried to harden her heart a little, but it remained tender. “I won’t hurt you, buddy.”
Resting on her haunches, her hands on her thighs, Tricia studied the animal carefully. He was probably yellow under all that dirt, she concluded, though there would be no way to know for sure until he’d been cleaned up a little. Since he wasn’t wearing a collar, let alone ID tags, Tricia never seriously entertained the idea that some anxious pet owner was out there somewhere, searching frantically for the family dog.
She extended one hand cautiously, still wearing the plastic gloves, though they wouldn’t protect her from a bite. The poor creature snarled feebly in warning.
Tricia drew back. “No worries,” she said gently. “Wait here, and I’ll bring you something to eat.”
She got to her feet and headed for the log building that housed the office and a couple of vending machines, tossing the trash bags into a Dumpster as she passed it, the gloves following quickly behind.
Inside the tiny space, measuring no more than twelve by twelve in its entirety, a fire burned in the Franklin stove, exuding pleasant warmth, and the varnish on the front of the big rustic reception counter bisecting the room reflected the dancing flames.
For just a moment, Tricia paused, feeling a pang of regret at the prospect of moving away. This place had seen a lot of happy times in days gone by—families eager to camp out in a tent, cook their meals under the sky, swim in the calm inlet of the river. As eager as she was to sell everything and return to Seattle for good, letting go would be hard.
Shaking off the spell, she rounded the counter, took her purse from one of the shelves underneath it and scrabbled around in the bottom of the bag for the change she continually tossed in. Maybe she’d get one of those little plastic coin holders, the kind that gaped open like a grin when you squeezed either end. For now, though, the slapdash method had to do.
When she had a palm full of quarters, dimes and nickels, Tricia approached the vending machine. Chester, the man who ran the route, dropping sandwiches and candy bars and snack-size bags of chips into the slots, hadn’t been around recently. It was the end of the season, and the pickings were slim.
She finally decided on a ham sandwich, sealed inside a carton with a see-through top—the edges of the bread were curling up—dropped the appropriate number of quarters into the slot and pushed the button. The sandwich clunked into the tray.
Tricia studied it with distaste, then sighed and marched herself toward the door. Outside, she peeled back the top of the container, and walked back to the picnic table.
A part of her had been hoping the dog would be gone when she got back, she realized as she knelt again, but of course he was right there where she’d left him. He raised his head off his outstretched forelegs and sniffed tentatively at the air.
Tricia smiled, broke half the sandwich in two and held out a portion to the dog.
He hesitated, as though expecting some cruel trick—the world clearly hadn’t been kind to him—then decided to chance it. He literally wolfed down the food, and Tricia gave him more, and then more, in small, carefully presented chunks, until there was nothing left.
“Come out of there,” Tricia coaxed, fallen leaves wetting the knees of her jeans through and through, “and I’ll buy you another sandwich.”
The dog appeared to consider his—or her—options.
Tricia stood up again, backed off a few feet and called for a second time.
A frigid wind blew in off the river and seeped into her bones like a death chill. She longed for hot coffee and the radiant coziness of the fire in the Franklin stove, but she wasn’t going to leave the dog out here alone.
It took a lot of patience and a lot of persuasion, but the poor little critter finally low-crawled out from under the picnic table and stood up.
Definitely a male, Tricia thought. Probably not neutered.
“This way,” she said, very softly, turning and leading the way toward the structure her dad had euphemistically referred to as “the lodge.” The dog limped along behind her, head down, hip bones and ribs poking out as he moved.
Tricia’s heart turned over. Was he a lost pet or had someone turned him out? Dropped him off along the highway, thinking he’d be able to fend for himself? That happened way too often.
The dog crossed the threshold cautiously, but the heat of the stove attracted him right away. He teetered over on his spindly legs and collapsed in front of it with a deep sigh, as though he’d come to the end of a long and very difficult journey.
Tears stung Tricia’s eyes. There was no animal shelter in Lonesome Bend, though Hugh Benchley, the veterinarian, kept stray dogs and cats whenever he had room in the kennels behind his clinic. His three daughters, who all worked for him, made every effort to find homes for the creatures, and often succeeded.
But not always.
Those who didn’t find homes ended up living on the Benchleys’ small farm or, when they ran out of room, in one of the shelters in nearby Denver.
This little guy might be one of the lucky ones, Tricia consoled herself, and wind up as part of a loving household. In the meantime, she’d give him another vending machine sandwich and some water. Most likely, he’d been drinking out of the river for a while.
While the dog ate the second course, Tricia called Dr. Benchley’s office to say she was bringing in a stray later, for shots and a checkup. It went without saying that a permanent home would be nice, too.
Becky, Doc’s eldest daughter, who kept the books for her father’s practice and did the billing at the end of the month, picked up. Fortyish, plump and happily married to the dairy farmer on the land adjoining the Benchleys’, Becky had a heart the size of Colorado itself, but she sighed after Tricia finished telling her what little she knew about the dog’s condition.
“It never stops,” Becky said sadly. “We’re bulging at the seams around here as it is, and at Dad’s place, too, and Frank says if I bring home one more stray, he’s going to leave me.”
Frank Garson adored his wife, and was unlikely to leave her for any reason, and everybody knew it, but Becky had made her point. Bottom line: there was no room at the inn.
“Maybe I could keep him for a little while,” Tricia said hesitantly. Then she blushed. “The dog, I mean. Not Frank.”
Becky laughed, sounding more like her old self, but still tired. Maybe even a little depressed. “That would be good.”
“But not forever,” Tricia added quickly.
“Still not over losing Rusty?” Becky asked, very gently. As a veterinarian’s daughter, she was used to the particular grief that comes with losing a cherished pet. “How long’s it been, Tricia?”
Tricia swallowed, watching as the stray got to his feet and stuck his muzzle into the coffee can full of water, lapping noisily. “Six months,” she said, in a small voice.
“Maybe it’s time—”
Tricia squeezed her eyes shut, but a tear spilled down her right cheek anyway. “Don’t, Becky. Please. I’m not ready to choose another dog.”
“We don’t choose animals,” Becky said kindly. “They choose us.”
She couldn’t possibly be expected to understand, of course. As soon as a real-estate miracle happened—and Tricia had to believe one would or she’d go crazy—she’d be moving away from Lonesome Bend, probably living in some condo in downtown Seattle, where only very small dogs were allowed.
She swallowed again. Dashed at her cheek with the back of her free hand. The canine visitor knocked over the coffee can, spilling what remained of his water all over the bare wooden floor. “Be that as it may—”
“How’s eleven-thirty?” Becky broke in, brightening. “For the appointment, I mean?”
Tricia guessed that would be fine, and said so.
She hung up and hurried into the storage room for a mop, and the dog cowered as she approached.
Tricia’s heart, already pulverized by Rusty’s passing, did a pinchy, skittery thing. “Nobody’s mad at you, buddy,” she said softly. “It’s all ok.”
She swabbed up the spilled water and made a mental note to stop off at the discount store for kibble and bowls and maybe a pet bed, preferably on sale, since the trip to the vet was bound to cost a lot of money. The dog—he needed a name, but since giving him one implied a commitment she wasn’t willing to make, the dog would have to do—could live right here at the office until other arrangements could be made.
Taking him home, like naming him, would only make things harder later on. Besides, Winston would probably take a dim view of such a move, and then there was the matter of seeing another dog in all the places where Rusty used to be.
She did wish she hadn’t been in such a hurry to give Rusty’s gear away, though. She could have used that stuff right about now.
The dog looked up at her with an expression so hopeful that the sight of him wrenched at something deep inside Tricia. Then he meandered, moving more steadily now that he’d eaten, over to the vending machine. Pressed his wet nose to the glass.
Tricia chuckled in spite of herself. “Sorry,” she said. “No more stale sandwiches for you.”
He really seemed to understand what she was saying, which was crazy. The similarities between finding Rusty and finding—well, the dog—were getting to her, that was all, and it was her own fault; she was letting it happen.
She brought him more water, and this time, he didn’t tip the coffee can over.
Gradually, they became friends, a three steps forward, two steps back kind of thing, and while Tricia doubted he’d tolerate being scrubbed down under one of the public showers, he did let her remove the twigs and thistles from his coat.
At 11:15, she hoisted him into the backseat of her secondhand blue Pathfinder without being bitten in the process. A good omen, she decided. Things were looking up.
Maybe.
Doc Benchley’s clinic was housed in a converted Quonset hut left over from the last big war, with an add-on built of cinder blocks. As buildings went, it was plug-ugly, maybe even a blight on the landscape, but nobody seemed to mind. Folks around Lonesome Bend appreciated Doc because he’d come right away if a cow fell sick, or a horse, whether it was high noon or the middle of the night. He’d saved dozens, if not hundreds, of dogs and cats, too, along with a few parrots and exotic lizards.
He drove his ancient green pickup truck through snowstorms that would daunt a lesser man and a much better vehicle, and once or twice, in a pinch, he’d treated a human being.
Distracted, Tricia didn’t notice the other rigs in the clinic’s unpaved parking lot; she wanted to borrow a leash and a collar before she brought the dog inside, in case something spooked him and he took off. And she was totally focused on that.
She fairly collided with Conner Creed in the big double doorway; his arms were full of small boxes and he was wearing a battered brown hat that cast shadows over his facial features.
“Sorry,” she said, after gulping her heart back down into its normal place. Nearly, anyway.
He said something in reply—maybe “Excuse me”—but Tricia had already started to go around him, unaccountably anxious to get away.
Becky stood behind the counter, wearing colorful scrubs with pink cartoon kittens frolicking all over the fabric, holding out the leash and collar without being asked. Her eyes sparkled as she looked at Tricia, then past her, to Conner.
“Thanks,” Tricia said.
She turned around, and Conner had disappeared. Her relief was exceeded only by her disappointment.
All for the best, she told herself firmly. It’s not as if you’re in the market for a man. You’ve got Hunter, remember? Never mind that she hadn’t seen or even spoken to Hunter lately.
Outside, Conner was just turning away from his truck, where he’d stowed the boxes he’d been carrying before. He adjusted his hat, giving her another of those frank assessments he seemed to be so good at.
“Need help?” he asked, at his leisure.
Tricia realized that she’d stopped in her tracks and made herself move again, but color thumped in her cheeks. “I can manage,” she said.
Conner approached, nonetheless, and when she opened one of the Pathfinder’s rear doors, he eased her aside. “Let me,” he said, taking the leash and collar from her hand. He lifted the panting dog out of the vehicle and set him down, offering the leash to Tricia. “What’s his name?”
“I call him the dog,” Tricia said.
“Imaginative,” Conner replied, with another of those tilted grins.
Tricia bristled. “He’s a stray. I found him hiding under one of the picnic tables at River’s Bend, just this morning.”
What all this had to do with naming or not naming the animal Tricia could not have said. The words just tumbled out of her mouth, as though they’d formed themselves with no input at all from her brain.
“So you’re leaving him here?” Conner asked. His grin lingered, but it wasn’t as dazzling as before, and his voice had a slight edge.
“No,” Tricia said. She’d just gotten her feathers smoothed down, and now they were ruffled again. “He’ll be staying at the office until I can find him somewhere to live.”
She’d hoped that would satisfy Conner and he’d go away, but he didn’t. He dropped to his haunches in front of the dog and stroked its floppy ears.
“A name doesn’t seem like too much to ask,” the rancher said mildly.
Tricia tugged at the leash, to no real avail. “We’ll be late,” she fretted. As if she had anything to do for the rest of the day except clean restrooms at the campground. “Come on—dog.”
Conner stood up again. He towered over Tricia, so her neck popped when she tilted her head back to look into his face.
She liked shorter men, she reflected, apropos of nothing. Hunter, at five-eight, was tall enough. Perfect, in fact. He was the perfect man.
If you didn’t mind being ignored most of the time.
Or if you set aside the fact that he didn’t want children. Or that he didn’t like animals much.
“He’ll be here at the clinic awhile,” Conner said, ostensibly referring to the dog. “Have lunch with me.”
Tricia blinked. She didn’t know what she’d expected, if indeed she’d expected anything at all, but it hadn’t been an invitation to lunch. Was this a date? The thought sent a small, shameful thrill through her.
“Natty’s a good friend of mine,” Conner went on, adjusting his hat again. “And since you and I seem to have started off on the wrong foot, I thought—”
“We haven’t,” Tricia argued, without knowing why. The strange tension between them must have made her snappish. “Started off on the wrong foot, I mean.”
Again, that slow grin that settled over her insides like warm honey. Agitated, she tugged at the leash again and this time, the dog was willing to follow her lead. Relieved, she made her way to the doors.
But Conner came right along with her. He was a persistent cuss—she’d say that for him.
“My, my,” Becky said, rounding the desk to take the leash from Tricia but looking all the while at the dog. “I see a bath in your future,” she told him. Then, meeting Tricia’s gaze, she added, “We’re looking at an hour and a half at the least. More likely, two. Dad’s schedule is packed.”
The dog whined imploringly, his limpid gaze moving between Tricia and Conner, as though making some silent appeal. Please don’t leave me.
She’d better toughen up, Tricia thought. And now was the time to start.
“Mr. Creed and I are going to lunch,” she heard herself say, in a perfectly ordinary tone of voice, and was amazed. “I’ll check back with you later on.”
“Good idea,” Becky agreed, with a little twinkle.
Just as Conner had done earlier, the woman crouched to look into the dog’s eyes. “Don’t you be scared, now,” she said. “We’re going to take good care of you, I promise.”
He licked her face, and she laughed.
“Hey, Valentino,” Becky said. “You’re quite the lover.”
Valentino, Tricia thought.
Oh, God, he had a name now.
But as Becky rose and started to lead the dog away, into the back, he made a sound so forlorn that Tricia’s eyes filled.
“We have your cell number on file, don’t we?” Becky turned to ask Tricia, who was still standing in the same place, feeling stricken. “You haven’t changed it or anything?”
“You have it,” Tricia managed to croak. She felt Conner take a light hold on her elbow. He sort of steered her toward the doors, through them and out into the parking lot.
“Lunch,” he reminded her quietly.
Her cell phone chirped in her purse, and she took it out, looked at the screen, and smiled, though barely. There was a text from Diana’s ten-year-old daughter, Sasha. “Hi,” it read. “Mom let me use her phone so I could tell you that we’re on a field trip at the Seattle Aquarium and it’s awesome!”
Tricia replied with a single word. “Great!”
“No sense in taking two rigs,” Conner commented.
The next thing Tricia knew, she was in the passenger seat of his big truck, the cell phone in her pocket.
It’s just lunch, she told herself, as they headed toward the diner in the middle of town. Except for the upscale steakhouse on the highway to Denver, Elmer’s Café was the only sit-down eating establishment in Lonesome Bend.
All the ranchers gathered there for lunch or for coffee and pie, and the people who lived in town liked the place, too. It was continually crowded, but the food was good and the prices were reasonable. Tricia occasionally stopped in for a soup-and-sandwich special, sitting at one of the stools at the counter, since she was always alone and the tables were generally full.
Today, there was a booth open, a rare phenomenon at lunchtime.
Tricia wondered dryly if the universe always accommodated Conner Creed and, after that, she wondered where in the heck that thought had come from.
Conner took off his hat and hung it on the rack next to the door, as at home as he might have been in his own kitchen. He nodded to Elmer’s wife, Mabel, who was the only waitress in sight.
Mabel, a benign gossip, sized up the situation with a good, hard look at Tricia and Conner. A radiant smile broke over her face, orangish in color because of her foundation, and she sang out, “Be right with you, folks.”
Conner waited until Tricia slid into the booth before sitting down across from her and reaching for a menu. She set her cell phone on the table, in case there was another communiqué from Sasha, or a call from Doc Benchley’s office about Valentino. Then she extracted a bottle of hand sanitizer from her bag and squirted some into her palm.
Conner raised an eyebrow, grinning that grin again.
“You can’t be too careful,” Tricia said, sounding defensive even to herself.
“Sure you can,” Conner replied easily, reaching for a menu.
Tricia pushed the bottle an inch or so in his direction.
He ignored it.
“There are germs on everything,” she said, lowering her voice lest Mabel or Elmer overhear and think she was criticizing their hygiene practices.
“Yes,” Conner agreed lightly, without looking up from the menu. “Too much of that stuff can compromise a person’s immune system.”
Tricia felt foolish. Conner was a grown man. If he wanted to risk contracting some terrible disease, that was certainly his prerogative. As long as he wasn’t cooking the food, what did she care?
She dropped the bottle back into her purse.
Mabel bustled over, with a stub of a pencil and a little pad, grinning broadly as she waited to take their orders.
Tricia asked what kind of soup they were serving that day, and Mabel replied that it was cream of broccoli with roasted garlic. Her own special recipe.
Women in and around Lonesome Bend were recipe-proud, Tricia knew. Natty guarded the secret formula for her chili, a concoction that drew people in droves every year when the rummage sale rolled around, claiming it had been in the family for a hundred years.
Tricia ordered the soup. Conner ordered a burger and fries, with coffee.
Then, as soon as Mabel hurried away to put in the order, he excused himself, his eyes merry with amusement, and went to wash his hands.
Tricia actually considered making a quick exit while he was gone, but in the end, she couldn’t get around the silliness of the idea. Besides, her SUV was still over at the veterinary clinic, a good mile from Elmer’s Café.
So she sat. And she waited, twiddling her thumbs.
DAMN, CONNER SAID SILENTLY, addressing his own reflection in the men’s-room mirror. It was no big deal having a friendly lunch with a woman—it was broad daylight, in his hometown, for God’s sake—so why did he feel as though he were riding a Clydesdale across a frozen river?
Sure, he’d been a little rattled when Malcolm told him Brody and Joleen were on their way back to Lonesome Bend, but once the adrenaline rush subsided, he’d been fine.
Now, he drew a deep breath, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and hit the soap dispenser a couple of times. He lathered up, rinsed, lathered up again. Smiled as he recalled the little bottle of disinfectant gel Tricia was carrying around.
Of course there was nothing wrong with cleanliness, but it seemed to Conner that more and more people were phobic about a few germs. He dried his hands and left the restroom, headed for the table.
Tricia sat looking down at the screen on her cell phone, and the light from the window next to the booth rimmed her, caught in the tiny hairs escaping that long, prim braid of hers, turning a reddish gold.
Conner, not generally a fanciful man, stopped in midstride, feeling as though something had slammed into him, hard. Like a gut punch, maybe, but not unpleasant.
Get a grip, he told himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mabel and everybody at the counter looking at him.
Pride broke the strange paralysis. He slid into the booth on his side, and was immediately struck again, this time by the translucent smile on her face. He’d never seen anybody light up that way—Tricia’s eyes shone, and her skin glowed, too.
“Good news?” he asked.
She didn’t look at him, but he had a sinking feeling the text was from a guy.
“Very good news,” she said. Her gaze lingered on the phone for a few more moments—long ones, for Conner—and then, with a soft sigh, she put the device down again.
Conner waited for her to tell him what the good news was, but she didn’t say anything about it.
“Do you have a dog?” she asked Conner.
Momentarily tripped up by the question, he had to think before he could answer. “Not at the moment,” he said.
“Maybe you’d like one?”
Mabel arrived with their food, and Conner flirted with the older woman for a few seconds. “Maybe,” he said, very carefully, when they were alone again. “Sometime.”
“Sometime?”
“We’re pretty busy out on the ranch these days,” he told her, picking up a French fry and dunking it into a cup of catsup on the side of his plate. “A dog’s like a child in some ways. They need a lot of attention, right along.”
Belatedly, Tricia took up her spoon, dipped it into her soup and sipped. He could almost see the gears turning in her head.
“Dogs are probably happier in the country than anywhere else,” she ventured, and her eyes were big and soulful when she looked at him. He felt an odd sensation, as if he were shooting down a steep slope on a runaway toboggan.
“Plenty of townspeople have dogs,” he said, once he’d caught his breath. He knew damn well what she was up to—she wanted him to take Valentino off her hands—but he played it cool. “Even in big cities, you see every size and breed walking their owners in the parks and on the sidewalks.”
Some of the color in her cheeks drained away, and he could pinpoint the change in her to the millisecond—it had happened when he said “big cities.”
“I wouldn’t want to keep a dog shut up in an apartment or a condo all day, while I was working,” she said. Even though she spoke casually, there was a slight tremor in her voice. “Not a big one, anyway.”
He thought of that morning, when he’d poured himself a cup of coffee in her kitchen above Miss Natty’s place. Her apartment had looked small, but he didn’t think she’d been referring to her present living quarters.
Suddenly Conner remembered all those For Sale signs. Of course—Tricia was planning to leave town when she finally sold the campground and the RV park and that albatross of a drive-in theater. These days, when folks wanted to see a movie, they downloaded one off the net, or rented a DVD out of a vending machine. Or drove to Denver to one of the multiscreen “cinaplexes.”
Conner cut his burger in half and picked up one side. He’d been hungry—breakfast time rolled around early on a ranch, and he hadn’t eaten for hours—but now his appetite was a little on the iffy side.
“You planning on leaving Lonesome Bend one of these days?” he asked, when he thought he could manage a normal tone of voice. As far as he knew, the properties she’d inherited from her dad weren’t exactly attracting interest from investors—in town or out of it.
She glanced at her phone again, lying there next to the salt and pepper shakers and the napkin holder, and a fond expression softened her all over. A little smile crooked one side of her mouth. “Yes,” she answered, and this time she looked straight into his eyes.
“When?” he asked, putting down his burger.
“As soon as something sells,” she said, her gaze still steady. “The campground, the RV park, the drive-in—whichever. Of course, I’d like to get rid of all three at once, but even one would make it possible.”
“I see,” Conner said. Why should it matter to him that this woman he barely knew was ready to get out of Dodge? He couldn’t answer that, yet it did matter.
Then she smiled in a way that turned his brain soft. “Now, about the dog…”