I scoop up the ball, bounce it a few times. Gizmo watches intently, waiting and prancing on his paws until I fire it across the small space again, letting it bounce off the wall while Gizmo goes charging for it. “No.” I shake my head. “Dog-sitting. It’s a long story.”
And not one I particularly want to get into because big brother will have endless questions about why in the world I would offer to watch the dog of a woman I don’t know at all.
Nudging the door the rest of the way open, Killian walks in and Willow follows, with Niall sleeping in her arms.
Her warm gray gaze lights up even more the moment she sees Gizmo. “Ooh, a puppy!”
I watch him chew on the ball, trying desperately to pull the bright yellow felt off the outside. “I actually don’t know how old he is.”
She rolls her eyes. “All dogs are puppies to me. Age is completely irrelevant.”
Killian offers a snort of laughter at that, and Willow hands the baby off to him, then bends down to say hi to Gizmo.
The dog immediately rolls onto his back for her, offering his stomach for a belly rub.
Willow doesn’t waste a second complying. “Well, aren’t you just the cutest thing ever?” She glances up at me. “Where did he come from?”
I sigh and scrub my hands over my face.
There goes any chance of getting away with simply saying it’s a long story and leaving it at that…
“I almost hit him with my truck last night.”
Willow gapes at me. “You what?”
Killian moves over to his desk, uses his foot to pull the chair back, then sits, cradling Niall against his chest. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”
I shrug, leaning back in my chair until the old thing creaks. “Not really. He darted out in front of the truck as I made the turn around the mountain. It’s a miracle I didn’t hit him.”
My brother’s blue gaze travels to the pup who is enjoying endless attention from his wife. “What was he doing out there?”
I offer another shrug because that’s precisely what I still want to know, but if I express that interest to either of them, they will latch onto Lucky and probe at me even harder than they already do. “Who the hell knows?”
Willow rubs Gizmo’s head as he leans into her touch. “What about his owner?”
Lucky flashes through my mind, that blue hair and matching eyes that assessed me so cooly at the diner when her brief touch somehow offered such a strange warmth. “A woman named Lucky.”
Killian shakes his head. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
Anywhere else, it might seem odd for someone to automatically assume they’re acquainted with every single person in the community, but it’s not for Killian, Connor, or me. Mom was the rock of McBride Mountain, and that meant we all stepped into roles as her little helpers, even when we were very young.
Anything anyone needed, we helped provide it or found someone else who could.
We facilitated, and that meant getting to know literally every face and name in and around McBride Mountain.
“She isn’t from around here.”
And she certainly wasn’t in town for the festival like she claimed.
The way she tensed up every time I asked her a question felt all too familiar, and it wasn’t hard to tell she was lying. Elaine saw what was happening from her perch behind the counter, stepping in with her offer to help the woman, even if she was reluctant to take it.
Elaine certainly could use help at the diner for a few days after the festival for any stranglers leftover in town, but she’s been running that place mostly alone for the past two years anyway with only a few part-time waitresses who came in for a shift or two to give her a little breather.
That woman saw Lucky needed money and maybe a place to stay and made sure she couldn’t say no by offering it in the only way she knew Lucky would accept—as a favor to her.
And ultimately, it doesn’t matter why Lucky is staying, just that she is.
Because something tells me she does need somewhere soft and safe to land, and McBride Mountain is exactly that place.
