Chapter Twelve
S awyer girded his loins as he sat back down in the booth across from Huck and prepared for whatever smart-ass remark his brother had about Anna. Even as he shoveled food into his face, Huck’s eyes were glued to her gorgeous butt as she walked to her truck. When he shifted his gaze back to the diner, Sawyer held up one hand. “Just no, okay?”
“Hey, you were the one who said there’s a woman ,” Huck replied around a bite of pancakes. “I have to assume it’s the lovely Annabelle because if it isn’t, you need more help than I can give you.”
Sawyer reached for the syrup and poured more over his already drenched pancakes. “Yeah, it’s Anna.” He took a bite before he continued. “I met her the first day I got here. I was lost, she was stranded with a flat tire on her bicycle, and she’d found an abandoned puppy.”
“A perfect storm of veterinary coincidence?”
Sawyer chuckled. Had Huck nailed it? Would he have been so attracted to Anna if he’d met her at a bar or in the produce aisle at the Kroger? Or was it more River’s Edge magic? Carly Hayes, Mac’s live-in partner, had warned him that anyone who moved into the apartment above the garage nearly always fell in love and moved out in less than a year. He was already in love with the town, with the folks he’d met who’d welcomed him and made him feel like he’d always lived here. “Maybe. This town, Huck… It’s different from any other place I’ve ever been.”
“Different how? Pretty, but…” Huck, ever the skeptic when it came to all things emotion-driven, gave him a hard stare.
Sawyer chewed thoughtfully for a minute or two. “I can’t explain it, but it’s not only Anna, although I admit I really like her. She’s smart and funny and she challenges me. I want to be better so she’ll notice. But it’s not just her. I already love it here. This town is… It’s home.”
Huck glanced around, peered out the window at Main Street, which was starting to wake up with Saturday shoppers. “Lots of great architecture and river history here, that’s for sure. Google says that the Hutchins House is the oldest continuously running tavern in the state. That’s cool. I can’t picture you out of the classroom, though. Away from school. You published how many papers and articles in the last ten years? Spoke at how many seminars and vet conferences? Taught classes, did surgeries, researched. You’re a maniac. How are you giving all that up?”
“I’m still doing surgeries. I still write. I don’t have to be at the university to publish a monograph or research an article.” Sawyer hated how defensive he sounded.
It wasn’t that his family expected him to do anything except be a happy and productive citizen. They hadn’t pushed him to produce when he’d been teaching—he’d done that to himself. To keep up. The crushing expectations of academic life were his own, and the only way he’d figured to get out from under it was to leave.
“Thing is, I needed a break. To find me , away from all the university noise.”
Huck polished off his pancakes, running his fork over the leftover syrup and licking it clean. He grinned. “I feel like I’m in an episode of All Creatures Great and Small here.”
Sawyer’s heart lifted. Huck wasn’t trying to talk him back to the university. He simply wanted to make sure his brother was happy. “And that’s a bad thing?”
Huck raised both hands, palms up. “Not if you’re good, Tommy.”
“I’m great, Huck.” Sawyer put all the conviction he could muster into the words.
Huck leaned back to allow Norma access to refill his coffee mug and take his empty plate. “Now, about this woman—Annabelle?”
Heat rose up Sawyer’s neck. “Um, yeah. She’s interesting…also really…athletic.”
“I did notice she’s in fine shape.” Huck smiled.
Sawyer ignored that. “I bought a bike so I could ride with her. I’ve been practicing riding the hills in town really early every morning for the last week. I can almost do thirty minutes without stopping.”
“Wow, you’re hard core about this chick.” Huck’s eyes widened. “You don’t exercise…ever.”
“I walked all over campus every day, plus I ran three mornings a week—that was plenty of exercise and more than you do.”
Huck pointed a finger. “Actually, Shelby and I have started running with Dylan mornings. He’s determined to join the Yankees one day, so our little ten-year-old is getting his happy butt out of bed every single morning and running to get strong. Little league has turned him into a health nut.”
“Good on Dylan and good on you and Shelby.” He eyed his brother critically. “I thought it looked like your belly had shrunk a little bit.”
“Yeah.” Huck patted his nearly flat stomach. “Shel would have a fit if she saw what I just ate. We’re doing low-carb, high-protein, high-fiber—all that good-for-you stuff. This was a welcome relief, I tell ya.”
“We’re going to walk it off. Shelby and Dylan will never have to know you ate your weight in pancakes and bacon.”
“Well, feed me well while I’m here because tomorrow night, I’m back to bean sprouts and tofu and salads.” Huck rolled his eyes heavenward. “Endless, endless salads.”
“Come on, you whiner.” Sawyer air-scribbled to Norma, who came by with her handheld point-of-sale machine. He handed her his card before Huck could get out his wallet. “You can get the next one,” he said, dismissing him with a short wave. “Let’s go explore.”
*
Anna had already rearranged Trixie’s corner in her office three times when her doorbell interrupted her fourth attempt at getting the space exactly right. She blew her bangs off her forehead with a frustrated breath as she opened the door to Maddie and Jack. She was cranky and tired and hungry. “Yeah?”
Jack and Maddie exchanged a glance, then Maddie said, “What are you doing?”
“Fixing up a place for the dog.” She opened the door wider and extended her arm in halfhearted welcome.
The couple looked like they were headed out for the evening—Jack had on nice khakis and a light blue oxford cloth shirt under a suede jacket, while Maddie wore snug jeans with a white T-shirt tucked into them, a breezy colorful scarf, and a denim jacket.
“You look like you’ve been housecleaning for a week,” Maddie said, raking a glance over Anna’s disheveled appearance.
“Nope.” Anna was regretting her decision to be a foster parent to a stray dog. Her condo simply wasn’t set up to share with an animal. She’d planned to set the crate under her drafting table, which took up most of the space in her spare room/office, but it wasn’t going to fit. Anywhere else in that room, it was only going to be in the way.
Maddie gave her long look. “Show me.”
Shoulders drooping, Anna led the way down the hall, stopping by the door to her office. Maddie stood in the opening, taking in the space with a critical eye. “Why are you putting her in here? Your bedroom is way bigger.”
“Do I want her in my bedroom? What if she pees on the rug or wants to get up on the bed? Or gets into my closet and eats my shoes?” Merely the thought of the puppy chewing on her pricey Miron Crosby cowboy boots sent a chill down her spine.
Jack, standing behind Maddie, guffawed. “You teach her not to get on the bed if you don’t want her there, put that tarp under the crate, and close your closet door.” He shrugged like that solved everything. “Come on. Maddie said you were coming with us to hear Karl Smythe’s band at the double H. You need to get a move on.”
“Wait, I never agreed to—” She bit back her words at her friend’s warning expression.
“I think you need a night out.” Maddie stepped into the office, pulled the gray tarp out from under the drafting table, and carried it into Anna’s spotless, elegant bedroom. She folded it into a square as she perused the room. She pointed to the cheval mirror in the corner opposite the bed. “Jack, move that mirror over by the closet, please.”
Jack obliged, and Maddie tucked the tarp into the empty corner, along with the wicker basket containing a soft knotted rope toy, a fabric duck that squeaked, and something called a Kong, that was shaped like a snowman. Supposedly you fill it with peanut butter. Go figure. The plaid dog bed came next with the harness and leash lying on top of it.
“There you go. Ready for her crate. You can put a pee pad on here, too. There’s enough room.” Maddie brushed her hands together. “Put her bowls in the corner of the breakfast nook with that cute placemat we got at Bea’s and make some space in the lower cabinet for the foodstuff.”
“Done.” Jack headed for the living room. “Get dressed, Anna. I’m hungry.”
Anna scowled at Maddie. She’d just been steamrolled, and she knew exactly what her friend was up to. “Why don’t I meet you there? I need a shower.”
Maddie looked aghast before cajoling, “No, we’ll wait for you. Wash up, throw on a face, and put on something fun.” She stepped to the door. “Come on, Anna. You know you want to.”
“Do I, though?” Anna raised one brow. “You go; I’ll be along if I decide to come.” She had to nip Maddie’s matchmaking in the bud.
“Okay.” Maddie’s smile fell. “But don’t poop out on us. Come. It’ll be fun.”
Ever since she’d fallen in love with Jack, her newest friend had been openly perusing the available men in town, looking for someone for Anna—she wanted Anna to have what she had. Anna hadn’t shared the whole Daniel debacle—as far as Maddie knew, he’d hurt her when he reappeared in Anna’s life, and she’d taken herself out of the dating scene for a while. Maddie believed it was time to jump back in.
Murmuring came from the living room as she waited for the front door to close. Anna slumped down on the end of the bed and stared at the tarp and the basket in the corner of her bedroom. Oh, crap. I’m getting a puppy. Her busy, orderly life was going to be completely disrupted. What was she thinking? How would she ever deal with a puppy?
She reached in her pocket for her phone and scrolled down her texts to the one that Sawyer had sent with the dog food recommendation. Easy enough to text him and tell him to find another foster situation for Trixie. She started to type, then stopped and set her phone aside. Maybe it would be better to tell him in person.
*
Country music blared as Anna shouldered open the door to Hutchins House tavern. It was a packed house. Every table was filled as were the barstools, and couples bumped and bounced on the small dance floor in front of the stage at the back of the vast, high-ceilinged room. She scanned the tables and finally found Maddie and Jack squeezed into one of the three banquette booths with her brothers Joe and Cam and their ladies, Kara and Harper. She caught Maddie’s eye and threaded her way to her family.
“Only ones missing are Eli and Jazz,” she said as the others moved in to make room for her.
Jack tipped his head toward the dance floor. “They’re dancing.”
Anna leaned out and saw Jack’s brother, her cousin Eli, dancing frenziedly with his wife, Jasmine. “Where’s the baby?”
“Guess.” Cam rolled his eyes and pulled a cold beer from the bucket on the table, popped open the cap, and handed it to her.
Anna accepted it with a grateful smile. “Aunt Sara and Uncle Corney?” Eli and Jazz’s baby Leo was the light of Anna’s aunt and uncle’s lives—they adored being grandparents and took every opportunity to babysit the little guy. Her own parents made no secret of the fact that they’d love to have some of that joy themselves, hinting broadly to Cam and Joe at any opportunity about marrying and producing some children. It occurred to Anna that they might have given up on her, accepting that she was their career-driven single daughter, who loved her job, the volunteer work she did at the Boys at least not ones he thought she’d want to hear.
Finally, she looked at him, her expression unreadable. “You’ll help me? You promise?”
Not at all what he was expecting her to say, but she’d opened a door, and he wasn’t about to slam it in her face. “I promise.”
For a fraction of a second, she merely gazed at him, then she smiled. “Good.” She turned to go back into the bar while he stood there, enchanted…and confused. At the door, she paused. “You coming?”