“Luke is going to be doing some puppy-sitting for the next few days,” Finley told Ben. “It’s possible that he could use a hand from an old friend.” She sounded like a mom arranging a playdate between two preschool boys who didn’t like each other.
Luke wished, painfully, that Ed had never asked him to come here and protect Finley. He wished he’d never entered the doors of this place. He wished he’d never met Finley.
Most of all, he wished she didn’t stir up feelings in him that he’d never wanted to feel again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Foreboding jolted through Finley the moment she stepped into her house that night after work.
She froze just inside her front door, senses straining. Sally ran up to her, panting and wagging her tail. Usually Sally woke from sleep to greet Finley, so the panting was somewhat unusual.
Finley waited, testing the environment. The sun hadn’t yet set. Though the house was dim with coming dusk, there was still plenty of light, and she didn’t see anything suspicious.
So what had set off a clang of warning in her?
Oscar the Pomchi puppy shifted sleepily inside the sling Finley wore diagonally across her body. She registered the soft squeaking of Dudley the hedgehog’s wheel, but that was normal. She peeked into her office and, sure enough, saw him running on his wheel inside his cage.
She made her way deeper into the house. In the living room, her cat sat on a shelf, regarding her with irritation. That, too, was unusual. Not the irritation, which was his default expression, but the fact that Rufus had jumped onto that particular shelf.
“Everything okay here?” she asked him.
Rufus scowled.
The items surrounding her were exactly as she’d left them. Even so, she set down her purse, then peeked into one room after another, checking to see if anything was amiss.
Nothing was.
The front door had been locked and the sliding door was locked, too. A strong gust of wind sent the trees in the backyard shuddering. A storm front was sweeping across the mountains, which likely explained her pets’ odd behavior. From time to time, harmless things like shifts in the weather, the noise of the trash truck, or the sound of a car backfiring unsettled them.
She was being paranoid. Maybe her dad’s concerns about the dangers that might be wrapped up in the treasure hunt had burrowed into her subconscious.
She let Sally outside, then filled her tiny watering can. Caring for her miniature cactus collection always calmed her.
For years she’d been adding to her stash of cacti. In the winter, they lived on this sunny shelving unit. In the warmer months, they lived outside. Methodically, she watered each of the fifty varieties in turn.
By the time she finished, she felt more like herself. She opened the door for Sally and stashed the watering can. She’d have preferred to spend her precious after-work hours on reading, music, movies, or a bubble bath. However . . .
“I feel obligated to spend time looking at pictures of train depots,” she told her pug.
Sally peered at Finley the way tourists peer at theMona Lisa.
“Why do I need to look at pictures of train depots, you ask?” She dropped to her haunches and gave Sally a belly rub. “Because Dad’s clue is pointing me toward a train depot we once visited together. Ask me how much I remember about the depot.”
Sally snuffled happily.
“It was pushy of Luke to force me into researching the treasure hunt ahead of my wishes.”
Her conscience niggled. It had been pushy of her to force him into caring for Agatha.
She headed toward her office. She’d insisted Luke take a puppy for two reasons. One, they truly did divide the puppy care dutiesexactly the way she’d told Luke they did. Two, she couldn’t have scripted a better way to make progress toward points number four and five in the Restoration of Luke:Carefully condition him by exposing him to all the things he’d been avoiding including, but not limited to, the town of Misty River, close connections with others, and God. Train him how to behave constructively.
So far she’d been meeting his needs by bringing him plenty of food and water while he was at his desk. She’d been treating him with great patience. She had to admit that her attempt at point three in her plan,introduce him to daily quiet time, was not having the desired effect. But maybe she’d win him over to that soon.
Little Agatha would expose Luke to a close connection with a puppy who needed him. And caring for Agatha would train him to behave constructively. This, she knew.
Long ago, she’d rescued a beagle mother dog and her puppies. They’d been kept inside a plastic box with a lid. The conditions had been hot and suffocating. Two of the puppies had been dead when she’d arrived. They’d done their best to save the third, without success. Only the mother survived, but her spirit had been broken.
A few months later, the police department had brought in motherless terrier pups. Finley had placed the pups with the beagle and, in caring for those puppies, that mother had found purpose and joy. The change in her had been remarkable. Inspirational. She’d come back to herself.
