The Moment of Truth

With the note in hand, she released the dog, saw him out the back door and stood on the patio, paying absolutely no attention to him at all as she read the note again. And again. Trying to decipher the few brief sentences.

She was no closer to doing so when Little Guy was back at her feet, waiting for his good-boy treat.

“‘I would give just about anything to undo what I did,’” she read aloud as she juggled the growing puppy, the note and the door. “What does he mean by that?” she asked the dog, who was staring up at her with eager brown eyes.

Door shut and locked behind her, she grabbed two treats and, sitting with the puppy on her lap, fed them to him one at a time.

“Would he undo having...you know...with me? Or just the afterward part when he made me feel like a slut?” she asked. “He said it meant a lot to him....”

Little Guy stared up at her, his head cocked to one side.

That’s when the tears came. She’d made it out of there the night before and through the rest of the evening and night all without shedding a tear.

It wasn’t as though she’d been a virgin. She’d been engaged to be married. And she’d had a steady boyfriend before that, too.

A few tears dripped off her jawbone onto Little Guy’s fur. He sprinted up and licked her face.

Chuckling through her tears, stifling them as she’d learned to do so long ago, she said, “I know, you’re right. Tears don’t solve anything. They only make you wet and give you a stuffed-up nose.”

Logic she’d come up with the day she’d turned fourteen and there’d been no celebration.

How could you celebrate the anniversary of the biggest betrayal of your life? She’d heard Daniel ask her mother the question that night, when they thought all three of the girls were in bed asleep.

Dana’s tears had dried the instant she’d heard the pain in Daniel’s voice. Because she understood his side, too. She also felt betrayed by Susan. Horribly betrayed.

And there hadn’t been anything Susan could do to change things for any of them.

“So, what do you think?” she asked the puppy as she ran her hand down his back and, with her other hand, scratched his throat—feeling something inside of her settle at the contact. “What should I do now? Leave him a note? Text him? Or pretend like none of it ever happened?”

The puppy stared. Dana nodded.

“Right,” she said. “He’s probably just saying what he thinks he has to say to smooth things over.”

Little Guy’s head cocked again.

“I know, I know.” She grinned and hugged the puppy to her chest. “Smooth what over? Nothing happened. But something’s going to happen if I don’t get you back in your kennel and hightail it to class. I am absolutely not going to lose my perfect grade-point average over this.”

She cut herself off just as she was about to add, “He’s not worth it.”

Because one thing Dana could not do was lie to a dog.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

FRIDAY NIGHT, DETERMINED to leave Dana alone, Josh spent time on the internet, learning about a host of household things, including how to sort laundry and how to get hard-water stains out of toilets. He stopped short of home repairs. Ian, at work, had mentioned a handyman he’d hired to lay tile on his back patio, and if Ian could afford to hire home maintenance on his salary, then Josh could, too.

When Josh’s computer failed to be company enough to keep him occupied, Josh turned to L.G., who’d been hanging out on the floor by his feet.

“You want to go for a drive?”

The dog stared at him.

“You want to go?” he asked again.

Lying on the expensive leather shoe he’d adopted, L.G. didn’t seem to know if he wanted to go or not.

He wanted to go, Josh decided. The puppy had already spent too long in his kennel that day. It would be cruel to stick him back in there again so soon.

Decision made, Josh was in his SUV and backing down the driveway in record time—with no destination in mind.

It took him twenty minutes to make it around the town and back. And another ten to find the huge house outside of town that, to this point, he’d managed to avoid completely.

Stopping the vehicle far enough away to avoid concerns of suspicious activity, he put it in Park and sat back, looking over the landscape lighting that hinted at the overall elegance of the estate.

“What do you think, L.G.? Can you picture yourself living like that?”

Sitting in the passenger seat, his front paws braced against the leather, staring straight ahead as though he could see out a windshield that was well above his head, the puppy calmly lay down.