13. Bo and Rowdy #2
Sam’s front porch is quiet when I pull up. Molly is stretched out in a patch of sun near the door. Rowdy is sitting at the top of the steps, ears up, watching my truck.
I get out. He doesn’t rush down. Just watches me come up the walk, tail starting a slow back-and-forth when I get close enough.
I crouch at the bottom of the steps. “Hey.”
He tilts his head, one ear lifted.
I hold out my hand. He leans forward and sniffs it once, then wags his tail a little faster. Then he walks down the steps and presses his side against my hand.
That is it. That is the whole thing.
I sit down on the bottom step because my heart is hammering in my chest and I am scared.
What if I can’t be helped? But Rowdy turns around and puts his head in my lap, quiet and solid.
Sitting there in the quiet of Sam’s front yard with both hands on a dog I hadn’t planned on getting.
The weight of his head is grounding, and for the first time in a while, I hope that maybe there is still a way forward for me after all.
Was hope something I could reach for, instead of something I’d already lost?
Sam appears in the doorway. “Paperwork’s on the table. Coffee’s on, too.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Okay.”
Getting Rowdy settled at the guest house took longer than it should have. An hour at the hardware store covered the basics. A bowl, a leash, a bed that was probably too big for the space, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
By the time I get back, Falon’s truck is in the drive.
She is on the porch with a glass of water, going through what looks like invoices, and she looks up when I pull in. Then she looks at the passenger seat. Then back at me.
The yard is quieter than usual. With Oliver, Aries, Atlas, and Cooper gone, the ranch seems a little empty.
I’d known that Falon was watching them for her parents, but they seemed so at home, it just felt strange for them not to be here.
Yesterday, Rick got his new walking boot on and ditched the crutches.
Melodie made him a chocolate, chocolate-chip five-layer cake with Oreo frosting to celebrate, much to Rick's excitement. But that also meant he wanted his dogs back. Cooper and Oliver were his right-hand dogs, and Atlas was still in training, but in Atlas’s defense, Melodie and Rick didn’t have chickens.
As for Aries, she was Melodie’s geriatric, and she missed her.
Falon was a little sad to see them leave.
I think she rather liked her little pack of dogs.
But she still had one working dog and a geriatric that thought napping was an Olympic sport.
When Falon dropped the two dogs off, Rick had made a small comment about Falon.
He’d said that when he fell, she’d already done the math and taken the dogs without being asked.
“That’s our Falon, she's such a big help.” Falon had flinched, but pushed it back and smiled.
I’d wondered about that. Were they ever appreciative of just her being her? I filed that away for later.
I turn the truck off when I see Falon’s expectant expression and get out. Rowdy steps down beside me, leash clipped, and sits like he’d been doing it his whole life.
Falon sets the papers down and crosses the yard. She crouches in front of Rowdy with both hands out, and he walks straight into them.
I was worried he’d be too quiet and still like he was with the others at the diner, but with Falon, he is friendly and loving.
She smiles and looks Rowdy in the eyes. “Are we good?” she asks Rowdy. He licks her nose, and she starts to laugh again, and this time it is a full belly laugh. She hugs his neck.
That moment hits me hard. She has no idea how much she’s already fit into my life, and I decide right then I’m not going to let her go. This is what I want. The quiet of an ordinary afternoon, a dog who already knows where he belongs, her laugh in the yard. A life where this is just Tuesday.
“What’s his name?” she asks, not looking up.
“Rowdy.”
She pulls back and looks at him seriously. “You don’t seem very rowdy.”
He licks her nose again.
“Okay,” she says. “Maybe a little.”
I sit on the porch step. She stands and brushes her hands on her jeans. “Hold on.”
She goes inside. Rowdy watches the door. I watch Rowdy.
She comes back out holding a large, square container with a flip top and a handwritten label that says "ROWDY" in thick black marker. She opens it, pulls out a treat, and offers it to Rowdy on a flat palm.
He takes it with enormous delicacy.
I stare at the container. “Falon.”
“What?”
“You already had that.”
“I have a barn full of animals. And, until last night, I had four dogs here. I keep treats.”
“That says Rowdy. Specifically. In your handwriting.”
She closes the lid with a decisive click. “It’s a general-purpose container.”
“It literally says?—”
“Bo.”
I press my mouth together. She is fighting a smile and losing a little.
“When did you write that?” I ask.
“I don’t remember.”
“Before or after I moved in?”
“I genuinely cannot recall.”
I look at her. She looks at me. Rowdy lays down in the sun like he is above the whole conversation.
“You’re something else,” I tell her.
The smile breaks through then, quick and bright. She sits down on the step beside me, close enough that our arms touch and our fingers brush. She sets the container down and watches Rowdy.
“He’s good,” she says.
“Yeah.” I watch him too. “Sam said he’ll learn to read me and the room.”
“He already does.” She tilts her head, studying him. “He knew to be gentle when he came to me.”
I think about that.
“You’re good with him,” I say.
“I’m good with most animals.” She glances at me. “Some take longer.”
I huff. “Am I an animal?”
She is smiling at Rowdy, but when she turns back toward the yard, something crosses her face.
There and gone, fast enough that I almost miss it.
Another thing to file away. Today isn't the day to pull at threads. Today is Rowdy’s Day, and the afternoon is good, and I am not going to borrow trouble from a look I might have imagined.
“You’re worth the patience.” She smiles, and she means it, but there is that look again. Humm.
Rowdy flops down in the last patch of sun and sighs.
Falon watches him.
“Sam called me after you called,” she says. “He needed some information for the paperwork.”
I nod. “I should have known when he had it all ready.”
“Three months,” she says.
My eyes narrow. “Three months for what?”
“Nothing.” She looks back at the yard. “Just thinking.”
The afternoon sits around us. Something moves in the barn, a bird calls from the oak tree, and the step creak when I shift.
“I’m not counting down,” I say in the end.
She is quiet for a moment. “No?”
“No.”
“Hmm. Okay.”
The way she doesn’t push and just accepts what I give her.
Being with her is natural, better than anything before.
But now, as I look back, after I’d lost my CO, I’d been tense and lost. A feeling I wasn’t accustomed to.
But now, being here with her, my heart has opened, and I’ve felt more than I thought possible.
I look at the yard. At the fence line we fixed last week. At the barn door I fixed because it wouldn’t close right. At her land, turning gold in the late afternoon.
I came here with a number and a timeline. I had a plan. Now it’s late May, there’s a dog on Falon’s porch, and I’m so far past pretending I came back for Tyler’s reasons that I can’t even remember where that started.
I’m not counting down anymore.
I'm counting everything I don't want to leave.
And the list is getting too long to ignore.
For the first time in a long while, I'm almost excited for whatever unfolds.