AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Queen’s “We Are the Champions” rocked out.
“I’ll allow it,” Sonya decided.
And singing along, she went down to get a celebratory Coke. Then got back to work.
The day passed productively and so well she had to talk herself into taking a break and fitting in that daily walk.
While she stood at the seawall hoping to see another whale, she got a text from Trey.
Excellent work on Anna’s web page. Do you have any time this week to talk about doing the same for Doyle Law?
“Boy, do I!”
But she answered more professionally.
Absolutely. I can easily work around your schedule.
Wednesday? Four-thirty? Okay if I come to you?
That’ll work. As long as you bring Mookie.
He’s counting on it. See you then.
“All right. I will get this job.” She turned, looked at the house. She saw the shadow in the window. Not a trick of the light.
Someone—something—stood there, watching as she watched.
Maybe it made her heartbeat shake its way up to her throat. Maybe it made her skin go cold. But Cleo was right.
She needed this house. Nothing and no one would push her out.
She went back in, but instead of going to work, she finally allowed herself to open the file Trey had sent her on dog rescues.
Twenty minutes later, she had an appointment and was on her way out the door again.
“This doesn’t mean I’m bringing a dog home,” she told herself as she drove to town. “It just means I’m starting the process of bringing a dog home. At some point.”
In town, she made the turn away from the bay and followed the directions into a neighborhood of Cape Cods and Tudors with roomy lawns. As instructed, she pulled into the driveway of the third house on the right of Mulberry Lane.
The house had a covered front porch with a pair of benches and a welcome mat that read:
WIPE YOUR PAWS.
A calico cat sat in the front window; barking sounded before Sonya lifted her hand to knock.
The woman who answered wore a tie-dyed sweatshirt over blackleggings. She had a dish towel over one shoulder, and her sunny blond hair was scooped back in a tail.
She shoved a pair of blue-framed glasses back up her nose as a trio of dogs danced around her feet.
“Sonya?”
“Yes.”
“Lucy Cabot.” She stuck out her hand. “Nobody bites.”
“Good to know.”
“Come on in. Settle down,” she ordered, and the dogs more or less obeyed. The biggest, with fluffy white fur, thumped his fan of a tail as he sat. Another, sleek and brown with a pointed face, whined softly and sniffed at her boots.
