Present Day

Mara set her newspaper down and took a sip of her iced coffee. The sun had barely crested the top of the pine trees, and already the day promised more heat and humidity than the day before. She’d grown to enjoy the weather in her time here. She smiled as her friend, Kelly Jamison, stepped onto her porch. Mara could always count on Kelly to share the early morning hours with her. “You’re famous,” Kelly announced.

Her heart skipped a beat, and her hand paused on the head of her German shepherd, Major. “Famous?”

Kelly handed Mara her phone. “Look. You’re all over Friendspace.” Mara looked at the screen and saw a series of photos from the day before, of her treating and tending to Jeremy. Most of the pictures just showed the back of her head, but on one of them, she could clearly see her face. Below the photos, she saw hundreds of social media shares. Panic skirted up her back. Major’s ears perked, and he looked at her face as if trying to decide whether he should go on alert.

“I have to go,” she said, lunging to her feet. “I just made that pot of coffee in there. Help yourself.” She opened the door and let Major into the cottage, then ran down the steps and on down the street. Three blocks away, she rushed through the gate into the yard of a large home. As she bounded up the stairs to the long porch, the door opened, and Jeremy’s mother, Brenda, stepped out, purse over her arm.

“Well,” she said, clearly startled, “I was on my way to the hospital but was going to stop by and see you.”

“How’s Jeremy?” Mara asked, straining with the need to say what she really came to say.

“The doctor said if you hadn’t acted so quickly with the tourniquets, he wouldn’t be here today. I owe you my son’s life. Thank you.”

“I’m just glad I was there. I feel bad since he was helping me.” As casually as possible, she said, “Listen, Brenda, I wanted to ask you a favor.”

“Anything,” the older woman said passionately.

“Those pictures you posted….” She cleared her throat. “Could you possibly delete the one where you can see my face?”

Brenda raised an eyebrow. “Mara?”

“I just—” she stopped as her voice cracked, and uninvited tears burned her eyes. “I came here to get away from a guy. I don’t have a phone, and I don’t have Friendspace. I’m trying to lay low until he quits, you know, trying to find me.” She only skirted the truth. She looked over her shoulder as if expecting someone to sneak up behind her, then back at Brenda. “I’ve never said anything, and I appreciate you keeping it to yourself. It’s important.”

Brenda pulled out her phone, and seconds later said, “Done.” Mara felt a tightening in her heart loosen. As she slipped her phone back into her purse, she said, “One of the Cantrell boys took the pictures, but I’m the one who posted them. You might want to get with him.” She reached out and put her hand on Mara’s arm. “If you ever need anything, anything at all, you come here. You hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Before she could think about it, she let Brenda pull her into a hug. The tears slid down her cheeks. “Please, don’t tell anyone. I’d hate to be the subject of gossip.”

“Tell anyone what?” Brenda said with a smile that promised all was already forgotten. She put her hands on Mara’s shoulders. “Thank you again.”

Two Years Ago

Ruth rushed through her apartment. As she entered her room, she kicked off her shoes and whipped her shirt over her head. She wouldn’t even bother changing, except that three hours ago, on her way out of the hospital, already dressed for her evening with Victor and his parents, a stream of ambulances arrived carrying multiple victims from a massive car accident in the Lincoln Tunnel.

By the time she’d managed to leave the emergency room, she discovered bloodstains on her shoes and shirt. A quick text to Victor begging for an extra thirty minutes bought her enough time to rush home, but just. A terrible rainstorm pummeled the city and made the commute home take twice as long as it should have. Only through the grace of the Lord above would she be able to get showered and changed in time before Victor arrived to pick her up.

Shutting the bathroom door behind her, she heard her apartment door open. “It’s just me!” Esther singsonged. “I have a surprise for you!”

“I’ll be out in a minute,” Ruth yelled through the door. “Victor will be here any sec. Can you listen for him?”

For almost a year, Victor had spent most of Ruth’s available time in her apartment. He preferred to stay in rather than go out. What outings they did take usually involved church or their young adult church group.

Early in their relationship, he invited her to one of his cousin’s nightclubs, but she’d turned him down. He’d seemed relieved about her declining the invitation, and because of her grueling work schedule, his desire to stay in completely appealed to her. In fact, when he asked her to come to dinner at his parents’ house tonight, it had taken her completely by surprise. She had never met his parents. Since her own parents died when she and Esther were nineteen, the whole meeting parents thing never even occurred to her.

Deciding against washing her hair then drying it just to have to step outside in the rain, she threw it into a braid and quickly put on a skirt and blouse. Rain boots, a cute scarf, and a smudge of lipstick, and she was ready just as she heard a knock on the door. When she opened her bedroom door, the pitiful little bark made her stop.

Esther bent down and scooped up the puppy. “Meet Major,” she grinned. “I found him under a mailbox on Fifth.”

The little German shepherd whined and nuzzled his nose into Esther’s neck. He couldn’t have been more than two or three months old. “Oh,” she exclaimed, her heart breaking into a million pieces then coming back together entirely in love. She ran a finger over his damp head. “What a sweetie.”

She rushed to the door when she heard another knock, throwing it open and grinning at Victor. “Hi!”

With his strong Slavic features and wearing black jeans and a black turtleneck with a black leather jacket, he looked decidedly eastern European. A warm kiss from him weakened her knees. He smelled of rain, leather, and aftershave. She stepped back away from him and ran a hand down the lapel of his jacket, then gestured so that he would come in. “Thanks for the extra time. There was an emergency.”

“Yeah. I saw on the news.” He slipped his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “I have a cab waiting. I thought it would be better than trying to navigate the train and walking in the rain.”

“Great idea.” She grabbed her purse from the back of the couch and walked over to Esther. “This is our new family member, Major,” she said, scooping the puppy from her sister’s arms. “Isn’t he the sweetest thing?”

If she hadn’t already been hopelessly in love with the Russian boxer in front of her, the way his face softened when he scrubbed a finger under the chin of the puppy certainly would have been the catalyst. “Hello there, Major,” he murmured. “You look so scared.”

“He was cowering under a mailbox in this storm. My heart just broke for him.” Esther took the puppy from Ruth and waved at the door. “Don’t leave your cab waiting. They’re probably hard to get tonight, with this weather. I’m going to see what I can do to get this little one settled in.”

She heard Esther lock the door behind them and slipped her hand into Victor’s as they walked to the elevator. He pulled her close as the doors slid shut. With her head resting on his shoulder, she just breathed him in.

“Nervous?” he asked.

“I was.” She straightened as the ground floor approached and slipped on her jacket. “Then I had to talk to the mother of a sixteen-year-old and explain the radical amputation they’re doing to her son’s leg. Suddenly, meeting your parents became something to look forward to rather than fear.”

As they stepped out of the elevator, he pulled her over to the side and cupped her face with his hands. His eyes burned with intensity, and a serious expression crossed his face. “I love you,” he said, his voice hoarse.

He’d said it to her a dozen times in the past week, and she still felt her heart soar a little higher every time he said the words. “I love you, too.”

His kiss spoke of love, of promises to come, and, dare she hope, a long future together. She felt tears burn her eyes as the love she felt for this man overwhelmed her and spilled out of her. When he lifted his head, he smiled down at her. “Can I tell you something?”

“Anything.”

“Major is the worst name for a dog I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”

She giggled and slipped her hand in his again as they walked through the lobby of her apartment building. “You never know with Esther what made her choose that name. If I had time tonight, I would have gotten the story out of her.” The doorman opened the door, and she smiled at him as they rushed to the waiting cab. Brushing the water out of her braid, she laughed, “I’m glad I didn’t spend any time on my hair.”

He gave his parents’ address to the cab driver, then settled back in the seat, Ruth snuggling up to his side. “You look beautiful.” She could hear his heartbeat under her ears, smell him, feel his warmth. She thought that if she could stay in this position for the rest of her life, she would be absolutely content. “Listen, my father—”

When he paused, she lifted her head to look at him. “What?”

“He’s, uh, very hard. A hard man. He comes from old school Russia. He might not treat you very nice. But you must understand this is just the man he is.”

Wanting to put him at ease, she put her hand on his cheek and laughed. “I’m a second-year surgical resident. I’m used to people not being nice to me.” She gave him a quick peck of a kiss, then settled back against the seat. “Don’t worry. You’ve managed to make me fall in love with you over the last year. Your father could be a mass murderer, and it wouldn’t affect my feelings for you.” She looked over at him, at the lack of humor on his face, and winked. “Well played, Kovalev, waiting until now to introduce me to him. You have me well and captured.”

He cleared his throat and pulled her closer. “Just don’t let him—”

“Quit worrying!” She now understood the reason he hadn’t introduced her to his parents before now. Clearly, he feared his father would somehow negatively affect her feelings for him. As well as she knew him, as much time as they had spent together in the last several months, she knew nothing could ever take away her love for him.