Page 85 of Summer Holiday Lifeline

“Uncle My-my?” Shelly tugged on his hand. “Are we going to the Y now?”

“We should find Jet,” Myles told her.

“Maybe he’s at the bookshop,” she suggested.

“Maybe.” It was a logical place for Jet to go, proving Shelly’s understanding of her brother when Myles couldn’t fathom him. And since they hadn’t explored much of the town, despite it being weeks since they’d arrived, it was as good a place to start as any.

“Come on.” Her tone veered perilously close to a whine as she tugged at him again.

“Let’s get MJ and take a walk over there,” Myles suggested.

“Your dog is asleep in Scratch’s bed in the kitchen,” Lucky told him. “He’s fine here. Go do what you have to do. We can let him out or whatever he needs.”

“I appreciate that.” The line between relying on their old friendship and feeling like he was taking advantage of generosity he hadn’t earned blurred a little bit more, and Myles hesitated.

And like always, Lucky plucked the thought out of his head. “Don’t for a second think you don’t deserve my help,” Lucky said. “I used to be the hot mess, remember? And you kept me as safe as you could when I was doing some truly stupid stuff. Now it’s my turn to help you get your feet under you. Please. I owe you.”

“You don’t.”

“I made our lives out there harder than they had to be and never really had the chance to say how sorry I was for that. This is me, making amends. We became a family, as dysfunctional as we were, and looking after your dog for an afternoon is the least I can do.”

“You’re doing way more than that, and you know it.”

“Yes. It’s true. But I’m happy to do it, so please. Go find Jet. Take Shelly to the Y. Do what you’ve got to do. The dog is fine.”

“Thank you.”

Lucky grinned, the now-familiar wide and deeply happy expression Myles had never seen on him in their old lives, but that he was getting accustomed to seeing on him these days.

He did find Jet at the bookshop, but had only a view of his back as Jet stood at the bin of LPs while he leafed through them. It couldn’t have been more obvious he was ignoring Myles if he’d plastered as sign to his back stating as much.

“Hey there.” Stephanie approached Myles and Shelly where they paused in the front room. “Tension?” she asked, but it was clear she didn’t need his affirmative response.

“You could say that.”

“You want me to watch her for a minute?” She reached for Shelly’s hand, but the little girl drew back, half hiding behind Myles’s leg.

“I want to go to the Y!” she insisted, louder than necessary.

Myles heard Jet’s sigh from across the room. “Take her to the damn Y,” he muttered.

“Jet, we need to talk.”

“No, we don’t. Go take her to the Y.”

“You don’t want come?”

He said nothing. Meaning he probably did but was not about to admit it.

“Fine.” Fed up with navigating an emotional six-year-old and a pissed-off teenager, Myles scooped Shelly into his arms. “But you stay close to the B and B.”

“Whatever.”

“Jet—”

“I got it,” he snapped.

“We will talk when I get back.”