Do Me a Favor

CHAPTER 1

It was, unironically, a dark and stormy night.

Willa wasn’t sure how long the clattering had been going on, but by now the sound was loud enough to be heard over the thunder. She catapulted up in bed out of a dreamless sleep. Her heart pounded like a taiko drum, fast and driving, and her breath was a captured gasp.

Her brain, on the other hand, snapped into crisis mode like a LEGO. She grabbed her cell phone off the nightstand and tossed off the covers in a well-practiced motion before she was consciously aware of it. Then she sprinted forward, rushing to address ... well, whatever needed addressing.

There were a few problems with this approach, she quickly realized.

First: this wasn’t her house.

Or rather, it was her house. Now. But she’d only lived there a grand total of three days, it had come furnished, and she wasn’t familiar with it at all.

So she promptly stubbed her pinkie toe on the bed frame, which had her barking out a curse as pain shot through her.

Second: that slight, pain-induced pause was just enough time to remind her why she didn’t need to rush.

It’s not him.

He’s not here.

It’s okay.

It had been two years. It wasn’t like she wasn’t aware of her husband’s absence. That she no longer had to be on high alert to anything he might need.

But sometimes, especially on nights when she could finally beat back the insomnia, a noise would trigger it all over again.

Muscle memory. The ghost of coping. The way everything crystallized as she held the phone in her hand to check the blood sugar monitoring app or to call 911 if need be. The cold clarity as she assessed: What do I need to do?

She heard the clattering again, although it was difficult to recognize over the raging storm. She turned on the hallway light and headed down the stairs in her bare feet.

She had no idea if storms like this were the rule and not the exception in the Pacific Northwest. Rain beat down on the roof in steady sheets, and the windows rattled from the wind. Each bolt of lightning preceding the thunder was like a blinding paparazzi flash, so seemingly close she was surprised she couldn’t see the strike on the lawn.

The noise was coming from the adjoining garage, she realized, straining to hear it. An ... animal noise, maybe?

She grimaced as a recent conversation with her parents crossed her mind.

Washington State? What if you get eaten by a bear?

Her mother had thrown out that plaintive question, just before Willa had moved up to claim her great-aunt’s inheritance on this small island in the middle of Puget Sound. Of course, her mother had lived in Southern California for most of her life, and in Vietnam before that. At this point, anything outside of Irvine might as well have “Here Be Dragons” written next to it on Google Maps as far as her mother was concerned.

Willa trudged to the mudroom, listening at the door. The sounds were louder. There was definitely something in the garage.

Well, shit.

Taking a deep breath, she looked around for a possible weapon. Whatever was in the garage, she could chase it off, couldn’t she? It was probably a raccoon or something. A coyote, maybe. They’d had a ton of those when she and Steven lived in San Mateo, before the restaurant had shut down.

Even if it was a cougar or a bear—or an intruder, or hell, even a zombie—she couldn’t quite bring herself to feel fear. Now that the panic had subsided, she could barely muster curiosity.

What was it going to do to her? Her bank account was minuscule and her future uncertain, and while she’d been diligently chipping away at the medical debt ... let’s face it, she was bailing a battleship with a teaspoon.

At this rate, a bear might be doing me a favor.

“Stay positive,” she said out loud to herself. She was pretty sure that self-hype wasn’t supposed to sound quite so reprimanding, but it was better than nothing.

A few little things like debt, or bears, or being in her forties, technically unemployed, and alone ... none of them were going to stop her.

Finally she grabbed an enormous umbrella and opened the garage. “Hey!” she shouted.

More metallic clanging. And a ... whimper?

Then a short, sharp bark.

She turned on the light.

There, trapped in a bunch of what looked like aluminum ducting and hoses, was a trembling, growling dog. It was muddy, and soaking wet, so it was hard to tell what color its fur was. She couldn’t tell one breed of dog from another. Whatever it was, it wasn’t that big, although it was stocky and muscled, with a squarish head.

All things considered, she probably should have been scared of it. It was growling ... at the hoses? ... and, if she had to guess, about the size of a twenty-gallon flour storage bin. Also, probably capable of gnawing a hole in her.

But it also had the most adorable underbite she’d ever seen, one that allowed a little pink tongue to loll out as it panted. Its eyes looked at her with misery and just the slightest glimmer of pleading.

She’d never fallen in love at first sight before. (Steven had been a near thing, but even then, it had taken a few months.) Then again, she’d never had a dog before either. Her heart melted like white chocolate, her adrenaline washing away in a syrupy wave.

“Ohhhh.” She slowly put down the umbrella and approached the animal. “Sweetie. How did you get in here?”

Another crack of thunder, another round of barking. The dog looked hopefully to her after each bark. Like somehow, she’d be able to shut off this terrible noise and make things better. She reached out her hand, slowly, carefully, like she’d always seen people do in the movies.

It finally sniffed her knuckles before giving her a teeny tentative lick.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” she reassured it. “C’mon. Let’s get out of this garage and get you dried off.”

She helped clear things out of the way. The dog was way too uneasy and a bit too big for her to pick up. It kept barking when the thunder rumbled, which was continuously. She tugged gently on its collar, easing it as best she could into the house.

The windows were double paned, at least, so the house had more of a buffer against the noise of the storm than the attached unfinished garage did. “Stay,” she said.

Of course, it did not listen, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She went to the downstairs half bath and grabbed a mishmash of hand towels she’d hung on the racks.

The dog was shivering. She wasn’t sure if it was because it was cold from being wet, or because it was scared due to the storm, or both. She instantly sat on the floor and cozied it up, drying it ... him , she realized. While wet dog and mud probably didn’t combine to make the most pleasant scent in the world, his snuggling up to her more than made up for it. She wrapped him up, even grabbing a lap blanket and cocooning him. He grinned a doggy grin at her.

She grinned back, feeling the constant knot in her chest ease, ever so slightly.

“You lost, puppy?” she murmured, giving him a quick dry-off. “How did you wind up in my garage?”

He wriggled happily, burrowing into her arms as the storm continued.

She took a deep breath. While it wasn’t a full-blown emergency, she had to admit that the situation—a problem that needed a solution, something that needed care—had been strangely calming. It certainly beat the hell out of all the tossing and turning she’d done prior to finally falling asleep.

What time was it, anyway?

She glanced at the grandfather clock before realizing she hadn’t wound it and it was permanently frozen at seven o’clock. After petting the dog, she pulled out her phone and checked.

Eleven thirty. Not that late, really. Somehow, she’d thought she’d gotten more sleep than that!

That’s what you get for trying to hurry tomorrow up. She should’ve known better than to try to get to sleep early, and wondered if she would be able to get any sleep now that she was awake again.

She ignored the upsetting thought as she snuggled the dog. Yes, she was getting mud all over her blanket. She didn’t care. His doggy kisses and her lowered tension were worth it.

“You got a name?” she mused, slowly twisting the collar. The dog was obviously a pet, and a well-socialized one at that. He’d trusted her almost immediately. She glanced at the name etched on the silver disk hanging from the collar. “Noodle, huh?”

He let out a pleased little chuff.

She really, really liked this dog. She’d always wanted one, but her parents had absolutely turned her down (too expensive), and while Steven had liked dogs in theory, he hated the idea of being tied down. He loved the ability to just pick up and go, anytime, anywhere ...

. . . until he couldn’t.

She bit her lip, then flipped the collar tag over. As she’d suspected, there was the owner’s phone number.

Noodle let out a little sigh, climbing into her crossed legs and leaning heavily against her chest, even though he was too big to really be a lapdog. She felt tears welling up, and she knuckled them away before they could fall.

It was exhaustion, she reasoned. Stress. Not because this vaguely stinky, soft, cuddly, not-so-little creature seemed happy to be taken care of by her.

I could just keep him until morning.

It was late, after all. Who would want to drive out in the middle of this mess? She could just ... clean him off some more. Maybe feed him a little, if he was hungry.

She could let him curl up with her in bed, even, and bundle him in her blankets, and keep him from getting scared.

But surely his owner was worried out of their mind. No matter how much she liked this dog, they had to love him, and the dog had to love them. She couldn’t be selfish. She needed to do what she did best: the right thing.

After a long second (and a brief daydream), she called the number on the tag.

Whoever they were, they didn’t pick up—not surprising, considering they wouldn’t recognize her number, and it was nearly midnight. Still, if she were missing her dog, she’d want to know that he was safe. They might be driving in this mess, frantically searching.

So when prompted, she took a deep breath, then said clearly, “My name’s Willa, and I believe I have your dog.”