The storm was picking up outside. Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance, low and long, and the rain against the barn roof shifted from steady to insistent.
Actually, this was exactly what I needed.
“Hey,” I said, turning back to Logan. “Can I ask you a favor?”
He set down the kibble bag. “Sure.”
“Tova gets anxious during storms. She paces, won’t settle, drives me crazy when I’m trying to work. I’ve got a mountain of paperwork tonight, and I just can’t deal with a stressed-out dog on top of it.” I kept my voice easy. A woman asking for a simple favor on a rainy night. “Would you mind letting her stay in your cabin tonight? She just needs a warm spot and some company. She’ll sleep on the floor, and you won’t even know she’s there.”
He looked at Tova. Tova looked at him. Her tail thumped again.
“I’m not really a dog person.”
“You don’t have to be a dog person. You just have to be a person with a floor.”
“She’s not going to chew anything, is she? She has a history.”
“That was one sock. And part of a tennis ball. She’s matured since last week, just ask her.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. The reluctance was written all over him, but it wasn’t a wall: just a man who hadn’t signed up for overnight pet duty trying to find a reasonable objection and coming up short.
“Fine,” he said. “One night.”
“One night. That’s all. Thank you.” I opened the kennel and clipped Tova’s lead to her collar. I handed it to Logan, and his fingers brushed mine during the transfer, warm and dry against my rain-damp skin.
“If she snores, that’s normal,” I said. “If she steals your pillow, you should just let her have it. She’s very committed once she’s chosen a spot.”
“Terrific.” He obviously didn’t know if I was joking or not.
I watched them walk out of the barn. Logan hunched his shoulders against the rain that had lightened a little, his stride long and unhurried. Tova trotted beside him with her tail hanging low and easy, completely unbothered by the thunder that was supposedly her problem.
They crossed the yard toward the cabin. The porch light caught them both as Logan reached for the door—the tall, tired man and the calm, steady dog I’d trained for exactly this.
I leaned against the barn door frame. The rain was cold on my arms and the blouse was done for and my feet ached in the heels.
I couldn’t save my property tonight. I couldn’t make the numbers add up or the grants come back or the strangers who owned my mortgage decide to be reasonable.
But I could put the right dog next to the right man and hope that what she’d been trained to do would reach him the way that first therapy animal had reached me in a shelter six years ago, when I’d been the one who was broken and someone had placeda warm, quiet presence beside me and let it do what people couldn’t.
The cabin door closed behind them.
At least one thing was going right.
Chapter 9
Logan
The thunderstorm that Lark had used as her excuse to put Tova in my cabin had lasted forty-seven minutes. I knew because I’d been awake for every one of them, lying in the dark while rain hammered the roof and the yellow lab slept on the floor beside my bed without so much as lifting her head.
For a dog who was supposed to be scared, she sure as hell hadn’t seemed that way.
I’d planned to take her back to her kennel the next day. But here it was, four days later, and the weather had been clear and warm for days.
And Tova was still here.
She was currently lying in the opening to the kitchen watching me make coffee, her chin on her paws. I stepped over her to get to the cabinet. She didn’t move.
“Don’t get up on my account,” I said, stepping over her again on the way back.
