Chapter 7
SEVEN
DELILAH
Mom’s house is too quiet.
I’ve been here awhile now, and I still haven’t gotten used to it. The creak of the old floors. The hum of the refrigerator. The absence of another human being breathing, moving, existing in the same space.
Mom left for Florida three weeks ago. “Just for the winter,” she said, which in Eleanor Smart language means “until I decide otherwise.” She’s staying with her sister, sending me daily photos of sunsets and shuffleboard tournaments and plates of food I’m pretty sure she’s not supposed to eat.
I’m happy for her. Really. She deserves rest after running the flower shop for forty years.
But the house feels enormous without her.
I eat my breakfast standing at the kitchen counter because sitting at the table alone feels too sad. Toast and coffee. The breakfast of women who are definitely fine and not at all lonely.
I rinse my plate and grab my keys.
Time to go talk to flowers. At least they don’t judge me for eating toast over the sink.
The flyer catches my eye while I’m restocking the front counter.
Second Chance Rescue—Adoption Event This Saturday.
Someone must have pinned it to my community board while I wasn’t looking. There’s a photo of a scruffy terrier with one ear up and one ear down, looking at the camera like it’s personally offended by the concept of photography.
I should take it down. I’m not in the market for a dog. I work long hours. I live in my mother’s house. I’m not even sure I’m staying in Twin Waves permanently.
I leave the flyer where it is.
By noon, I’ve looked at it approximately fifty times.
By two o’clock, I’ve googled “German Shepherd mix temperament” and “how much exercise do dogs need” and “signs you’re ready for a pet.”
By closing time, I’m in my car, driving toward the rescue shelter on the edge of town, telling myself I’m just looking.
Just looking.
The shelter is a converted barn painted cheerful yellow, surrounded by fenced yards where dogs of various sizes are doing dog things—sniffing, running, barking at absolutely nothing. A hand-painted sign over the door reads Second Chance Rescue: Where Every Pet Gets a New Beginning.
The woman at the front desk has gray hair, kind eyes, and a name tag that says “Barb.”
“Just browsing?” she asks.
“Just looking,” I confirm.
Barb smiles like she’s heard that before. “Take your time. Let me know if anyone catches your eye.”
The kennels stretch down a long hallway, each one holding a dog with a story.
A three-legged beagle named Captain. An ancient chihuahua named Duchess who looks like she’s seen things.
A pair of bonded pit bulls named Peanut Butter and Jelly who are currently sharing a single dog bed despite having two.
They’re all wonderful. They’re all deserving of homes.
None of them are mine.
I’m about to give up—to admit this was a silly impulse and go home to my empty house and my toast-over-the-sink dinners—when I see him.
He’s at the end of the row, in the corner kennel, lying with his back to the door like he’s given up on being noticed.
Big. Fluffy. German Shepherd coloring with a thick mane around his neck that screams Chow Chow.
His tail is curled over his back, and even from behind, he radiates a kind of dignified resignation.
I stop walking.
He must hear me, because his ear twitches. But he doesn’t turn around.
“That’s Ruffy,” Barb says, appearing at my elbow. “He’s been with us awhile.”
“How long?”
“Eight months. He’s been returned twice.”
My heart clenches. “Returned? Why?”
“He’s...particular.” Barb chooses her words carefully.
“He bonds to one person. Deeply. Everyone else, he just ignores. Won’t engage, won’t play, won’t even look at them.
The first family had small kids who wanted a dog that would roughhouse and fetch.
Ruffy wanted nothing to do with them—just attached himself to the mom and acted like the rest of the family didn’t exist.”
“And the second time?”
“Single man. Wanted a companion. But Ruffy never warmed up to him. Wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t come when called.
Just sat by the door like he was waiting for someone else.
” Barb shakes her head. “He’s not a bad dog.
He’s just waiting for his person. And until he finds them, he’s not interested in pretending. ”
I look at Ruffy. He still hasn’t turned around.
“Can I meet him?”
Barb looks surprised. “Are you sure? He’s not exactly a first-date kind of dog.”
“I’m sure.”
She unlocks the kennel door and steps back. “I’ll give you two a minute.”
I lower myself to the concrete floor, sitting cross-legged just inside the doorway. Not approaching. Not forcing anything. Just...being here.
Ruffy’s ear twitches again.
“Hey,” I say softly. “I heard you’ve had a rough time.”
Nothing.
“Me too, if it helps. I keep leaving places. People. Running away before anyone can leave me first.” I don’t know why I’m telling a dog my life story, but it feels right. “I’m trying to stop. The running, I mean. I’m trying to stay somewhere. Build something. Be brave enough to let people in.”
Ruffy’s head turns slightly. Not looking at me yet. But listening.
“I’m not going to force you to like me. I know what it’s like when people expect things from you that you’re not ready to give. But I could use a friend. Someone to come home to. Someone who understands that trust takes time.”
I hold out my hand, palm up. An offering.
Ruffy looks at it. Looks at me. Those deep brown eyes, serious and assessing. A black muzzle fading into tan. That ridiculous fluffy mane that makes him look like a lion who got lost on his way to the savanna.
He studies me for a long moment.
Then he turns back to the wall.
My chest does something stupid and painful. I sit there for another five minutes, hand still out, waiting. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t look at me again.
Barb appears in the doorway. “Don’t take it personally,” she says gently. “He does that with everyone.”
“Right.” I stand up, brushing concrete dust off my jeans. “Of course.”
I drive home telling myself it’s fine. He’s a dog. A dog I don’t need and wasn’t looking for. There’s no reason for my eyes to be stinging.
I go back the next day.
This time I don’t try to talk to him. I just sit on the kennel floor with a book and read. Ruffy lies with his back to me, same as before. But after twenty minutes, his ear starts twitching every time I turn a page.
I read for an hour. He never turns around.
The third day, I bring a sandwich. I eat my half and leave the other half on the floor between us. When I come back from talking to Barb about adoption paperwork—just in case, just to have it ready—the sandwich is gone.
On the fourth visit, I don’t bring anything. No book, no food, no speech. I just sit.
Ruffy turns around.
Not all the way. He shifts so he’s facing sideways, one eye on me, one eye on the wall. Like he’s giving himself an escape route. Like he wants to look but isn’t ready to commit to it.
“Hey,” I whisper.
His tail uncurls. Just a fraction. Just enough that I notice.
I sit there until the shelter closes. Neither of us moves.
On the fifth day—a Tuesday, overcast, the kind of gray afternoon that makes everything feel suspended—I sit down in my usual spot and Ruffy stands up.
He crosses the kennel. Slowly. Deliberately. Like he’s been thinking about this and has finally reached a decision he’s comfortable with.
He sits directly in front of me. Close enough to touch. Not quite touching.
His eyes say: Well? Are you serious about this or not?
I hold out my hand, palm up.
Ruffy sniffs it, considers, and makes his choice.
He leans his entire body weight against my side, nearly knocking me over, and heaves a sigh that seems to come from his soul.
Finally, that sigh says. Someone who gets it.
“Oh,” I whisper, wrapping my arms around him. “Okay. Yeah. We’re doing this.”
Barb finds us like that ten minutes later. Her eyes are suspiciously shiny.
“Five days,” she says. “I’ve never seen him warm up to anyone. Not in eight months.”
“He just needed someone who’d keep showing up,” I say, my voice muffled by his magnificent fur.
Barb pulls out the paperwork. I don’t even look at the adoption fee.
Ruffy takes to the flower shop like he was born there.
I bring him in the next morning, not sure what to expect. He’s only been home one night—a night spent with him sleeping at the foot of my bed like a furry guardian, occasionally lifting his head to make sure I was still there.
But the moment we walk through the door of Petals & Promises, something in him settles. He sniffs the perimeter, inspects every corner, and finally claims a spot behind the counter where he can see the door and the entire shop floor.
“This is your kingdom now,” I tell him. “Guard it well.”
He huffs, which I’m learning is Ruffy-speak for obviously.
My first customer of the day is Mrs. Jennings, who takes one look at Ruffy and pauses mid-step.
“Delilah, dear. That’s...quite a dog.”
“This is Ruffy. He’s friendly once he gets to know you.”
Ruffy glances at Mrs. Jennings with the polite disinterest of a cat, then looks away. She doesn’t exist to him. She’s not his person.
“He’s...large.”
“He’s a teddy bear. He just needs a minute.”
Mrs. Jennings gives Ruffy a wide berth on her way to the counter, but he doesn’t so much as lift his head. She relaxes by the time I hand her the bouquet. “Well. He is rather majestic, isn’t he?”
“He knows it, too.”
By midmorning, the pattern is clear. Ruffy doesn’t care about customers.
He doesn’t greet them, doesn’t approach them, doesn’t acknowledge their existence unless they get between him and me.
Then he’ll lift his head and watch—not threaten, just watch—until they move along.
He’s a one-woman dog in a public-facing business, and he’s handling it by simply opting out of everyone who isn’t me.
I’m arranging tulips when the bell above the door chimes.
Ruffy’s head snaps up. His ears rotate forward.