Man's Best Friend (The Dogmothers #5) - Roxanne St. Claire Page 0,11

Evie assured her, giving both doxies a little love before she walked with Gramma Finnie up the stairs, taking the climb slowly for the older woman’s benefit.

“So tell me about all the Kilcannons and Mahoneys,” Evie said, glancing over the railing to see Yiayia and her dogs hustling to the room where generations of Bushrod and Hewitt antiques and heirlooms were displayed.

“Oh, there’s a lot of babies,” Gramma Finnie said. “Are ye really here for the whole semester, then? Through the start of the new year?”

“Yes, I am.”

Finnie gave Evie a sideways look, her gray brows raised. “Any handsome man on your arm these days?”

She gave a light laugh, as used to the question as any single forty-year-old woman. “Now and again, but most of the time, I’m busy with work.”

“Oh, really? Well, then, you must come out to Waterford Farm, then, and see our whole family.”

Somehow, she doubted that would happen, but she was saved from answering when they reached her grandfather’s room.

“Granddaddy? I have a wonderful surprise for you.”

“I hope it’s a good Cuban cigar and a bottle of brandy.”

“That can be arranged,” Gramma Finnie called out, smiling conspiratorially at Evie. “Though I prefer a fine Irish whiskey.”

“Finnie Kilcannon!” he called out. “Come in here, you blue-eyed bombshell.”

Finnie giggled and headed in, but Evie held back, a sixth sense making her want to go check on the stranger in the house.

“Go chat,” Evie said. “I’ll talk to your friend.”

A look that could almost be panic crossed Gramma Finnie’s face. “Stay with us a wee bit, lass. She’s fine alone, I promise.”

“He gets enough of me,” she said, that sixth sense fluttering again. What were these two up to, exactly? “Go.” With a pat on the older woman’s back, she pivoted and headed down the hall, her footsteps soft on the hall runner as she listened to two old friends greet each other.

She slowed her step at an unexpected punch of memory.

Two old friends.

Hadn’t Declan once said he’d wait for her until he was ninety, close to the age her grandfather was right now? An ancient sadness, dulled by decades of nudging it away, pressed on her heart, probably brought on by seeing Gramma Finnie, a woman Declan adored.

Thoughts of him were always under the surface when Evie was in Bitter Bark, knowing he could be around any corner or in any store. And that encounter would simply leave her aching for more and wondering where her best friend had gone.

Once, about six years after the fire, Evie had decided to try one last time to reconnect with him. She’d accepted a rotation at Vestal Valley College and lived with her grandparents for a few months, with hopes to rekindle the friendship she desperately missed.

But the only friendship she rekindled was with his cousin Molly, then a vet student and a single mother. Molly had invited her to Waterford Farm but, as a true friend would, had warned her Declan was seeing someone, so Evie steered clear of him that semester. All that Molly could tell her was that Declan had grown “serious” since his father’s death, with family responsibility heavy on his broad shoulders.

After that, she’d seen him a few times, once outside the hardware store, another time passing in the square.

Then, a few years ago, she’d come to help Dr. Kilcannon with a brain-tumor surgery on his dog Rusty. The setter had healed in a week, but it had taken Evie a full month to get over the impact of seeing Declan in the vet office waiting room that day.

As she reached the bottom of the steps and headed toward the museum room, she heard the squeak of a hinge.

Was that…the cover for the piano keys? Did Yiayia play? Evie didn’t want to be rude, but every treasure in the former library was priceless, including the Krakauer, a Victorian upright her great-grandmother had commissioned exclusively for the house.

Without making a sound, Evie headed to the double doors, her eyes widening when she realized Agnes had closed them to an inch-wide crack.

Had she done that to keep the dogs from getting out? Walking closer, Evie peered through the slit at the very moment the woman slammed the keyboard lid so fast it clunked with a noisy thud that made the tan dog bark.

Evie used the distraction to enter.

“Can I share some of our family history?” Evie asked.

Yiayia whipped around, her dark eyes flickering with guilt. “Oh. Hello. Didn’t hear you.”

Obviously. Planting a smile that she doubted reached her