afraid so.”
Jamesy pushed his hat back as he pondered that awful truth. “Man,” he said, “that stinks.”
Winston’s eyebrows rose slightly at the phrasing. “You’re absolutely right.”
Jamesy patted the dog’s rump absently. “Maybe Miss Lynch just don’t want to get to like old Twig, you know, in case he goes off or the coyotes get him or something.”
Winston stared at his son’s small earnest face, a certain pride swelling in him. “You may be right about that, too, son.”
Jamesy sighed and, with the pragmatism of a child for whom things had pretty much worked out as he’d hoped, said, “If she don’t want him, though, I guess there’s nothing anybody can do, huh?”
“I guess not,” Winston murmured, reaching for the keys he’d left hanging in the ignition. He wouldn’t have bet, however, that the matter was resolved, and when he woke the next morning to see his son’s worried face hovering over him, he knew it for a fact.
“Well, at least you’re not a picky eater,” Danica said to the dog slurping down a can of beef and vegetable soup from a bowl on the kitchen floor. The mutt had shown up in the middle of the night, whining and scratching at her door, a stick of some sort in its mouth. She’d tried to send it home, but when she’d opened the screen to shoo it off her porch, it had dashed inside and made a beeline for the rug in front of the old gas stove tucked into the corner of the living room, where it promptly began chewing up the stick. She’d let it stay the night since it had been too late to try to take it back to the boy where it belonged, but she still intended to do that, even if she had found an odd comfort in the animal’s silent companionship.
With no television, Danica had begun to find the evenings rather long of late. The day before she had discovered a stack of country and western music tapes in a box behind the sofa. That had sent her on a search for something with which to play them and led her to a cache of paperback novels and magazines beneath the bed and an old boom box in the bedroom closet. Danica was delighted, and the evening that followed was the most pleasant she’d experienced in some time. Nevertheless, listening to music and reading had proven more satisfying somehow with that mutt lying there on the rug.
Still, no matter how determined the Champlains might be to argue, she wouldn’t be responsible for parting a child from his pet. Their behavior frankly puzzled her. She couldn’t imagine a father who wouldn’t be delighted with that determination on her part, but then she had never imagined a man like Winston Champlain.
The dog licked the plate clean and sat back on its haunches, as if to ask, “Now what?”
“Now we get you home,” Danica said aloud, rising to her feet and slinging the strap of her hand bag over one shoulder. “Come on.”
She wasn’t exactly certain in which direction the Champlain ranch lay, but given that the road only ran in two directions with no intersections for miles and miles, it couldn’t be too difficult to find. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have plenty of time to look. They didn’t make it off the porch before Winston Champlain’s old truck slewed into view, however. Danica leaned a shoulder against the support post of the porch roof and waited, arms folded, while he parked, got out and walked around to the bottom of the steps.
“I figured the dog had come here,” he said.
Danica looked down at the dog sitting beside her, determined to remain aloof and unaffected, despite the sudden leap of her pulse. “He showed up late last night.”
“When we found him gone this morning, I told everyone that Twig had just gone home, but Jamesy was worried, so I figured I’d better check it out.” He leaned down and patted the dog’s head, saying, “You know what you’re doing, don’t you, Twig?”
“Appropriate name,” Danica commented. “He had a stick in his mouth when he showed up last night.”
“Yeah, nothing he likes better than a piece of wood to chew on,” Winston told her, straightening. “I figure his insides are full of splinters by now. It’s sort of a mystery where he gets them, but he always seems to have one about four inches long around somewhere.”
Suddenly the dog went up onto all fours and bristled, growling low in its throat. “What is it, boy?” Winston asked.
Danica followed its line of sight to the horizon, shading her eyes with one hand. “Is that a coyote?”
“Looks like it. They’re pretty bold when there’s no known opposition.” The dog barked, and the coyote loped away over the rise. Winston pushed back his hat and braced one foot on the bottom step. “That’s one reason a dog like Twig is handy to have around.”
“So I see. All the more reason you should keep him. I was just bringing him back to you, by the way.”
Winston shook his head. “Let me tell you about this dog,” he said, parking his hands at his hips. “He’s probably the best working cow dog in the business, but that’s just part of it. He’s trained for any number of things, protection, guarding, barking an alarm. He’ll even go for help if you tell him to. Once, on a cold winter day Ned’s horse fell with him, broke its leg, and Ned couldn’t get free. Ned sent Twig for help. Saved his life, no doubt about it. Another time, Ned, who was getting on up in years, slipped getting out of the tub and knocked himself unconscious. Don’t guess we’ll ever know how Twig got out of the house. Ned was up and nursing a goose egg by the time we got here, but it could’ve gone the other way. When Ned passed—went real peaceful in his sleep—Twig came, then, too.”
“Wow,” Danica said, looking down at the dog with new respect. “You’re a regular Lassie, aren’t you, fella? And I guess the boy is your Timmy.”
“Actually,” Winston said, “that would be you. The dog belongs here.”
She looked him in the eye and said flatly, “It belongs with the boy.”
Cool gray eyes assessed then pulled back from hers. “Looks to me like Twig has something to say about that. Voted with his feet, apparently, and it seems you’re elected.”
She frowned. “But I saw how fond your son is of him.”
“His name’s Jamesy.”
“Jamesy,” she repeated impatiently, “fine. You tell Jamesy that Twig belongs with him now.”
Winston Champlain shook his head again, wagging it decisively from side to side. “I’d say Twig has other ideas.”
She looked down at the dog, sighed and bit her lip. “I couldn’t live with myself, knowing how the, er, Jamesy would miss him.”
“Is that why you threw us off the place yesterday?” he asked softly.
She couldn’t quite bring herself to meet his gaze. “You wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Now if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black.”
He had a way of being right, blast him. “I just didn’t want to fight about it, okay?”
“You didn’t have to be rude.”
“I wasn’t—” She broke off, knowing that he was right again and
