missed my mom and dad. They’d cruise by when they were in the area, still do occasionally. But Granddad gave me stability, which I didn’t have with them. And he taught me the value of silence.”
“Is that a hint?”
“Oh, heavens, no. Not at all. It’s just some people seem to need to fill a silence with noise, rather than simply letting the silence fill them for a change.”
Ilya nodded. “I think I know a few people like that. Come on, let me show you the rest of the place, then we can head out in the hills.”
* * *
She was fit and strong, Ilya thought appreciatively as they reached the crest of the hill that would afford them the best view across the valley. And she didn’t complain, either.
“That was quite a climb,” Yasmin said, as she stopped and put her hands on her hips.
Her breathing was only slightly labored and she’d barely broken a sweat even though the temperatures had begun to climb into the seventies very soon after they’d started hiking.
“It’s worth it for the view,” Ilya commented as he came to stand beside her.
And he wasn’t just talking about the stunning Ojai Valley vistas, either. The woman standing next to him was a picture of perfection. She glowed with natural good health and vitality, a far cry from the kinds of women who moved in his circles. At the back of his mind he couldn’t help but feel there was something familiar about her, too. But of course there had to be, he told himself as he turned his gaze from her to the valley that spread before them. They worked at the same airport. They’d both been fed stories of how their families had been friends then feuding rivals. They knew of each other, even if they didn’t actually know each other. Even so, the little niggle persisted that he knew her from somewhere else.
“You were so lucky last year’s fires missed your home,” Yasmin said, looking around at the flora fighting to regenerate on the hills around them.
“I was luckier than a lot of people.”
“Your property looks like an oasis from up here,” she commented.
“It certainly feels like it after a hard day in the office.”
He heard her breath hitch. “We agreed not to talk about work, remember?”
“Right. My mistake.”
He clenched his jaw. It had only felt natural to mention work. After all, it had taken up more than half of every day of his adult life. It was going to be harder than he thought to compartmentalize things, to exclude her from what was essentially the core of his world. But then again, he reminded himself, in time she would become the core of his world—wouldn’t she?
A tiny animal sound came from somewhere behind them.
“Did you hear that?” Yasmin asked, looking around.
“Yeah. There it is again.”
Ilya walked cautiously toward the source of the noise, wary in case the animal was unfriendly. Yasmin showed no such care. She pushed past him into the undergrowth.
“Oh look, it’s a puppy. The poor baby.”
She scooped the mess of dirt and multicolored fur up into her arms and cradled it to her. The puppy whimpered.
“Is he hurt?” Ilya asked, stepping forward.
It maddened him that people could be so cruel as to abandon their animals, and this one looked very definitely abandoned. The puppy bore a narrow blue collar, which hinted that at some stage it had had an owner who cared enough to buy it one. There was a road that passed not too far from this point. It had probably been dumped along there. Possibly even thrown from a passing car if the grazes on his paw pads were anything to go by.
“Not too badly, I think. But he’ll be thirsty, poor baby. I wonder how long he’s been up here.”
Ilya poured some of the water from his bottle into the palm of his hand and offered it to the puppy. The animal weakly lapped it up. The little guy was probably dehydrated. Ilya kept adding a little trickle of water until the puppy stopped drinking.
“What are we going to do with him?” Yasmin asked, stroking the puppy’s grubby head.
“I guess we’ll take him to the vet to be checked out and maybe see if he was stolen before he was dumped. There might be someone missing him. If he was stolen we’ll know more.”
“And if he wasn’t?”
She looked at him with such an expression of yearning in her eyes that it made him wish he could grant her every wish.
“Then we’ll keep him.”
“I’ve never had a dog,” she admitted, pressing a kiss to the top of the puppy’s head and earning a sloppy kiss in return. “But I’ve always wanted one.”
“First, let’s get him to the vet.”
Ilya put out his hands to take the puppy from her. The animal really was a sad little bag of bones and hair. Ilya only hoped that it didn’t have any underlying problems. He could see that Yasmin had already lost her heart to the little guy. He didn’t want to see it broken if the puppy had to be euthanized. It didn’t matter how much money it took, he decided. They’d be bringing this little one back home.
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