hair that had fallen across her face. “What should I do with it?”
“Get a piggy bank, first off. And then . . .” I paused.
She peeked up.
I wanted to list all the wonderful things that it would lead to, because here sat a girl who would go to college, have a real job and a decent boyfriend. Instead—since there still seemed a possibility to pull my chute at the end of this endless jump and land where I always wanted—I said, “You’re going to have to find a new place to live.”
A hush followed. Deep, digesting breaths. She already knew this, but still.
I said, “We don’t want to kick you out, but—”
“I know. I can’t live at a . . . nursing home.” She said that last bit as a joke and snuck a look at me to see if I’d caught it. Damn if I didn’t smile. She poked the nearest box of money, her shoulders hiked up past her ears. “If you need me to, I could even go today.”
“No. You should definitely stay tonight.” It wasn’t quite a thirty-day program, but it’d have to do.
She exhaled in relief. “Yeah. Definitely. One more day would be great.”
We nodded at each other, committing to it. Then I went to sit next to her, to put my arm around her, and she let me. “We can make it another twenty-four hours without getting caught, can’t we?” I said. “All we need to worry about at this point is getting your mama back from Bates without any injuries.”
“Is that all?” she said, sarcastic, and we both went silent, listening to the purr of street traffic droning in the distance, punctuated only once by an engine’s backfire.
* * *
* * *
They’d let loose nine puppies in the facility. They yipped behind the couches and underneath chairs. They peed and chewed and wagged. Shawn stood guard at the automatic front door so they couldn’t escape, while the owner of Happy Tails, Tovah, chased them down whenever a resident wanted to snuggle.
Barkley, an elderly Labrador who’d been coming for years, rested near my feet. He’d raise his head up from his paws only when he wanted to yawn. Beyond him were more animals, including a poodle, a lapdog that might as well be a rat on steroids, and one very patient cat. Anarchy ruled.
Alice and Valencia sat on the couch together with a pup between them, tittering. The dog, still not completely steady on his legs, would wobble and fall whenever it tried to climb up Valencia’s thigh. Carl sat in his walker’s seat next to me, pointing out the errant runaways to Tovah.
All these high jinks, and I couldn’t enjoy it. I spent my time checking the front door for Bates, and the hallway for Josie, who had planned on coming a few minutes behind me.
One of the pups—a shar-pei with a hippopotamus face and more rolls than you could count—sniffed around Barkley and, next, climbed on top of his back so he could reach my seat. Barkley let out a heavy sigh but didn’t move. I gave the little guy a boost and fought the urge to smile while he crawled up my chest and touched his wet, cold nose to my neck. We had so many more important things to do than this, but these puppies. These damn puppies.
Anderson emerged from the hallway with Josie by his side.
I grasped my companion, whose dog tag said Sherpa, and tried to calm him into sitting on my lap while I motioned Josie over.
She cocked her head and offered me a smirk, a cold-sober smirk, and I knew what she was thinking. Happy Tails looked like a silly waste of time—Lord knows, that’s what I thought at first—but the sentiment wouldn’t last long. I held Sherpa up so that his soft, barreled belly replaced my face.
“Can hardly tell the difference,” Anderson said as a puppy latched on to his shoelace and gave it a tug.
“Sic him,” I urged. “Get ’em.”
When the shoelace came undone, Alice yelled, “Good boy!”
And, in usual fashion, Anderson scooped the dog up and held