Lucas got a hold of his collar and tried to get him down, but he resisted with his full weight, his intense gaze locked on something.
“What is it?” Pru asked, twisting completely on the caboose bench to get a better look. She grabbed his arm. “Oh my God, Lucas! Look!”
From their vantage point, they could see under the seats, and there, right in the middle, curled into a corner between two big shopping bags, was a tiny brown and white puppy.
“There he is!” they both exclaimed together just as the train started up.
Tor barked wildly, but they were moving too fast to safely jump off and run up to that car.
“Hang on, Tor.” He wrapped his arm around Tor’s neck, trying to calm him. “Keep your eye on Buttercup, Pru.”
“I am.” She turned completely, kneeling on the bench. “Should I call out to those people sitting there?”
But she knew that would be a waste of time, because the whistle was blowing, bells were ringing on the train speaker, and the wheels and engine noise were too loud.
“They won’t hear you,” he said, stroking Tor’s neck. “But we have him now, and we can return him to the pet store. That’s all that matters.”
She locked her gaze on the tiny puppy, but put her hand on top of Lucas’s, resting on Tor’s head. “Thanks for trusting me,” she said softly. “I get the granny-nanny love. I really do.”
“Thanks for not judging me.”
“I figured it was an ex-girlfriend.”
He snorted. “As if.”
She risked taking her gaze off the dog for one second to send him a look. “Don’t try to make me think you haven’t had a ton of them.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Think what you want. I’m picky.” They held each other’s gazes for a few seconds, then she heard the fake screech of brakes as the train came to a stop.
Pru turned back to the puppy…who was gone.
“No!” she cried out, squeezing the metal of the caboose back.
“Where did he go?” Lucas turned. “Does she have him?”
The woman who’d been in that car was stepping off the train with two kids in tow and multiple bags in her hand.
“Is the puppy in one of the shopping bags?”
“Maybe.” Lucas stood and climbed off the little platform of the caboose, holding out his hand to Pru. “Let’s follow her.”
“Watch out!” she cried as three golf carts suddenly pulled up and unloaded about twenty people, all of them dressed in old-school winter garb, authentic right down to the fur muffs the women held.
“Merry Christmas!” they called out, blocking Pru and Lucas from moving as they formed a semicircle and started belting out, “God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay!”
But everything dismayed!
“Carolers,” Lucas muttered, trying to see past them to the woman with the bags. “Seriously?”
They tried to move left, then right, around the singers, but already a crowd of onlookers had gathered, essentially forming a human roadblock across the mall. Precious seconds ticked away as Tor pulled one way, then the other, and the puppy got farther and farther away.
“Get back on the train!” Pru said, scrambling toward the caboose as it started to move. “They have to let it through!”
They managed to climb back on just as the train picked up speed, and the crowd broke to let it through. It was the perfect solution, but the whole thing took so long, they couldn’t find the woman with the bags anywhere in the crowd.
“Keep looking,” Pru said, standing to scan every person. “She had light hair and a navy jacket.”
“Like fifty million other people,” Lucas replied, peering into the crowds.
“Hey. It’s Christmas. Anything’s possible.”
“Wait! Is that her?” He pointed toward the wide opening of another department store a good fifty yards away at a blonde with two kids, many bags, and a navy jacket.
“Maybe. Hard to tell.”
“Let’s give it a shot. You want to wait here?” he asked.
Pru hesitated for a nanosecond. “Not a chance.”
Lucas jumped off first, and Tor followed, then Pru leaped off, caught her balance, and laughed. “Get that puppy!”
“Did you hear that, Tor? Permission to run and get that puppy! Run!” He unclipped the leash, and Tor took off like a bolt of lightning, and all they could do was hold hands and run after him, left in the greyhound’s dust.
Chapter Twelve
Agnes’s heart thumped as she walked toward the FBI men deep in conversation with Finnie. She’d done the right thing, hadn’t she? She’d learned her lesson as a young girl about letting a handsome man lead