Currant Creek Valley - By RaeAnne Thayne Page 0,58
that. “Good to know. I’ll try to keep her from breaking my heart.”
“Well, if you change your mind, I can still give you Charlotte’s number.”
He just barely refrained from rolling his eyes. “Good night, Alexandra.”
“Good night, Samuel. See you, Ethan.”
His son waved cheerfully at her, then slid his hand in Sam’s and the two of them walked down the sidewalk toward home.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FOR THE FIRST TIME she could remember, her snug little house didn’t surround her with a calming peace when she arrived home Thursday night.
Usually any tension of her day started to seep away just from pulling into the driveway and seeing the warm welcome of those burnished logs.
If she had known how much she would love owning her own place, she would have purchased one years ago. Somehow it had always seemed so much trouble, with the yard work and home repairs and property taxes. She had managed to convince herself she enjoyed the freedom and flexibility of apartment living and didn’t need anything else.
Since buying this house, she had come to appreciate so many little things. The smell of fresh-mowed grass, the thwack against the door of the newspaper she rarely had time to read but still faithfully subscribed to, the satisfaction she found in fixing something inside the house herself instead of calling someone else to do it for her.
This time, as she turned off her engine and opened the door, that sense of welcoming peace remained hauntingly out of reach. The logs still glowed honey-gold in the porch light, and the night air smelled of the sweet lilac hedge just beginning to bloom and the tart pines rising into the night, but her mind was too tangled up to properly appreciate it.
In less than twenty-four hours, Brazen would open its doors for business. She was alternately consumed with excitement that this moment had finally arrived—everything she had dreamed of for so long within reach—and paralyzed by fear that she would fall on her face in front of her family and friends and everyone she held most dear.
Every single muscle in her body ached with exhaustion and she was physically as tired as she could ever remember. She had been working every waking moment all week long to make sure every detail was perfect. As tired as she was, she wasn’t sure how she would ever be able to settle down enough to sleep.
When she opened the door to her house, Leonidas raced to greet her and ran around her as if she had been gone for months. Guilt pinched at her. Poor neglected stray.
She hadn’t left him here alone all day. That morning, he had set out with her and spent part of the day in the little yard beside the restaurant. When she returned home at dinnertime to pick up some paperwork, she had brought him back to the house and left him here, but that had been five hours earlier and the poor thing had been alone ever since.
“This is why I can’t have a dog,” she informed him as she dropped her armload—bags, keys, phone—onto a console table in her entryway so she could love him up. “It’s a time thing. I’m sure you understand. It’s not you, it’s me.”
Leo cocked his head to one side and gazed at her out of those wise hazel eyes.
She sighed, still feeling guilty at neglecting a creature who depended on her. What was she going to do with him? She had decided by default to put off making a decision until after the restaurant opened but with another turn of the earth, that day would be here. She was going to have to give him away. One of her new servers had mentioned his kids wanted a dog. Or maybe she could find someone old and alone who could dote on him.
She wasn’t going to figure this out tonight. Right now she needed something to work these kinks out of her body. The sweetly scented spring air called to her. Combine that with a dog who needed attention and exercise and she knew instantly what she should do.
“Let’s go for a walk,” she said. “What do you say, hmm? Want to burn off some of that energy?”
Leo gave one of his low, happy barks and padded to the front door to wait for her. Smart thing.
“We won’t go far, only a little way up the Currant Creek trail, how does that sound? It’s eleven o’clock and I really do need to try to sleep if