The Moment of Truth

“Oh, sorry.” The woman glanced up and Dana liked what she read in her compassionate green eyes. “I’m Amy and this is my husband, Ian. We do have manners, I swear.”

Smiling, Dana focused on the woman. “I’m thrilled that you’re more interested in the dog than you are in manners,” she said.

“You want to come in?” Ian asked, grinning at her with a familiarity that could only mean Josh had talked about her.

What would he have said?

“I think we’re good here,” she said. She’d been planning to ask if she could bring Lindy Lu in and stay with Skyline for a little while, to watch the family interact with the dog, but she’d already seen enough. The dog was comfortable.

And Dana was not. No matter where she’d been that morning, or how busy she stayed, she couldn’t find an ounce of peace within her own skin. “If you want to keep her for a day, I can stop by tomorrow and—”

“I think we’re going to be keeping her, period,” Ian said, a resigned smile on his face, but a happy glint in his eye as he reached out to pet the dog nestled against his wife. “Is there paperwork we have to do?”

She had it with her. She filled out her part and left the rest. Taking a couple of minutes to go over the Love To Go Around brochure she was leaving with them, as well as the contract agreement, she said, “I’ll be back tomorrow to see how you’re all doing and if you still want her, we can finalize things then.”

It wasn’t like her to be so short and to the point.

But it wasn’t like her to be newly pregnant, either.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

JOSH NEEDED AN ADVENTURE. Something different. Something he’d never done before.

Surfing the internet for an Arizona day adventure, he shook his head again and again. He’d already been skydiving. Enough times to be instructor material. He’d flown his own plane. He’d climbed mountains bigger than any they had in Arizona.

He’d never dug for gold, but it didn’t sound all that appealing. Not dangerous enough. Fishing was out for the same reason.

Drag car racing...been there done that. Maybe he should try tent camping in the raw desert, just him and the cacti and bobcat to contend with.

And L.G. He could take the pup out in the desert.

L.G. would probably get stung by a scorpion or stick his nose in a rattlesnake hole.

And then he saw it...hot-air ballooning over the desert. There was something he’d never done. Might not be risky enough. Or fast enough, though.

Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Apologizing to L.G., he gave the pup an extra treat, locked him in his kennel and headed out to lose himself in the excitement of trying something new.

* * *

SUNDAYS WERE DANA’S least busy days. It was still way too early to start cooking for Thanksgiving—the holiday was eleven days away. And she’d already done all of the shopping.

Lori and Marissa hung around for most of the afternoon, watching a movie with her and eating popcorn. And then they were gone and she was left with her pets for company, a list of completed chores, no homework and an empty laundry hamper.

She cleaned Billy’s cage. And remembered something she’d read once about cat litter boxes and pregnancy, which sent her to her laptop. Toxoplasma gondii. The parasite commonly found in cat litter boxes could cause stillbirth or brain damage in an unborn infant if a pregnant woman became infected by it.

She read on. About gloves and masks and hand washing and blood tests.

“We’ll handle this,” she told Lindy Lu, who was sitting on her lap. Kari, thankfully, was blissfully unaware as she snoozed on the textbook Dana had finished reading early that morning. Putting the puppy in her kennel, she drove to the twenty-four-hour clinic in town and asked to have a blood test. Because it was Sunday the procedure was quick. Getting the results was going to take a few days.

Then she went to the store, bought gloves and masks and an extra container of antibacterial hand soap to set on the sink in the laundry room and went home.

She didn’t call her mother. Didn’t call anyone.

Life was what she made of it and she was going to make it.

* * *

JOSH DIDN’T ACTUALLY fly the balloon. Or even go up in it alone. But he learned how to fly it. And paid a guy extra to take him up without any other riders, to take him higher, farther, than the tour company would have taken him.

And then paid him again, to keep him up longer.

As long as he didn’t have to return to the ground, he’d be just fine.

* * *

THE KNOCK ON HER DOOR at just after seven that evening came as a relief. Hoping Jerome had laundry to do, or Lori was at loose ends again, or someone else needed her help with something, she practically tripped over Kari and Lindy Lu on her way to let her visitor in.