Chapter 8 #2
The barn lights were on. Logan was inside; I could see him through the open doors, moving between the kennels. He’d taken over the evening routine so completely in two weeks that I didn’t even have to ask anymore.
I pulled the heels back on and got out of the truck. The rain hit me immediately, cold and insistent. I held my notebook over my head in an attempt not to get soaked.
I ducked through the barn doors, and Logan turned around with a bag of kibble in one hand. He looked at me. His eyes went from my face to the blouse to the heels and back up again.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Pawsitive Connections is closed for the evening for visitors. You’ll have to come back during business hours.”
“Hilarious.”
He grinned. “Oh, it’s you, Lark. I didn’t recognize you without the mud. And the flannel. And the—” He gestured vaguely at my hair, which I’d actually brushed and pinned this morning instead of twisting it into its usual barely cooperative knot.
“Believe it or not, I do own other clothes.”
“Well, you look nice.”
“Thank you. I feel like a stranger in my own skin, but I appreciate the validation.” I grabbed the clipboard from the hook by the feed room. “How are we looking? Everybody fed?”
“Dogs are done. Cats are done. Princess Whiskers got her Brita water and only judged me a little. I was about to start the rest.”
“I’ll take the outdoor rounds. You’ve been at it for a while.”
“I’ve been at it for twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes is a while when I’m standing here doing nothing.
” I was already reaching for the feed buckets, already moving, hands busy with the clipboard and then the buckets and then the latch on the supply bin.
If I kept going, there was no room for the weight to settle back in, and I intended to keep going until my body believed what my mouth was selling.
Logan didn’t ask where I’d been. Didn’t ask about the meeting. He handed me the outdoor feed chart and went back to what he’d been doing, and the quiet he left around my noise felt deliberate in a way I was grateful for and unsettled by in equal measure.
I stopped at Tova’s kennel. The yellow lab lifted her head and thumped her tail once against the kennel floor. Those soft brown eyes tracked me with their usual patience, unhurried and seeing more than a dog should.
The storm was picking up outside. Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance, low and long, and the rain against the barn roof shifted from steady to insistent.
Actually, this was exactly what I needed.
“Hey,” I said, turning back to Logan. “Can I ask you a favor?”
He set down the kibble bag. “Sure.”
“Tova gets anxious during storms. She paces, won’t settle, drives me crazy when I’m trying to work.
I’ve got a mountain of paperwork tonight, and I just can’t deal with a stressed-out dog on top of it.
” I kept my voice easy. A woman asking for a simple favor on a rainy night.
“Would you mind letting her stay in your cabin tonight? She just needs a warm spot and some company. She’ll sleep on the floor, and you won’t even know she’s there. ”
He looked at Tova. Tova looked at him. Her tail thumped again.
“I’m not really a dog person.”
“You don’t have to be a dog person. You just have to be a person with a floor.”
“She’s not going to chew anything, is she? She has a history.”
“That was one sock. And part of a tennis ball. She’s matured since last week, just ask her.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. The reluctance was written all over him, but it wasn’t a wall: just a man who hadn’t signed up for overnight pet duty trying to find a reasonable objection and coming up short.
“Fine,” he said. “One night.”
“One night. That’s all. Thank you.” I opened the kennel and clipped Tova’s lead to her collar. I handed it to Logan, and his fingers brushed mine during the transfer, warm and dry against my rain-damp skin.
“If she snores, that’s normal,” I said. “If she steals your pillow, you should just let her have it. She’s very committed once she’s chosen a spot.”
“Terrific.” He obviously didn’t know if I was joking or not.
I watched them walk out of the barn. Logan hunched his shoulders against the rain that had lightened a little, his stride long and unhurried. Tova trotted beside him with her tail hanging low and easy, completely unbothered by the thunder that was supposedly her problem.
They crossed the yard toward the cabin. The porch light caught them both as Logan reached for the door—the tall, tired man and the calm, steady dog I’d trained for exactly this.
I leaned against the barn door frame. The rain was cold on my arms and the blouse was done for and my feet ached in the heels.
I couldn’t save my property tonight. I couldn’t make the numbers add up or the grants come back or the strangers who owned my mortgage decide to be reasonable.
But I could put the right dog next to the right man and hope that what she’d been trained to do would reach him the way that first therapy animal had reached me in a shelter six years ago, when I’d been the one who was broken and someone had placed a warm, quiet presence beside me and let it do what people couldn’t.
The cabin door closed behind them.
At least one thing was going right.