“Just down the road a ways,” Libby said, dancing from foot to foot. “You know, where all those bushes are?”
“Yep, sure do.” He hoisted himself to his feet, clunking his hammer back into his toolbox. “Go on back to where he is. I’ll met you there.” Then he stopped, looking directly into first one set of frightened eyes, then the other. “Hey,” he said softly, then reached out and tugged on Libby’s ponytail. “It’s gonna be all right, you hear?”
Libby nodded, then grabbed Blair’s hand—Blair was standing gawking at Hank as if he’d just admitted his Martian citizenship—and yanked her after her.
“You…rescue puppies?” Jenna said, afraid she was gawking nearly as badly as Blair had been.
“From time to time.” Hank grabbed his toolbox and lumbered down the steps. As he passed her, his mouth twitched. “They’re real tasty this time of year.”
By the time Hank got there, Jenna wasn’t sure who was more frantic, the girls or the puppy. Her knees screamed from all the little stones and things embedded in them from kneeling in front of the bushes, as she yammered in baby talk in the vain hope of keeping the poor little thing from wriggling and getting himself even more tangled up. She’d also tried prying apart the branches with a pair of sticks, but they were hopelessly entwined.
“Move over,” grunted a low voice from behind her.
Between the girl’s moans and the pup’s squeals, she hadn’t heard the truck pull up. “Be my guest.”
“Hey, little guy,” Hank said gently, pulling on a pair of thick leather workgloves, then picking up a pair of rose clippers. “How on earth did you manage to get yourself stuck in there?”
All the while he clipped, he prattled to the little dog, who finally quieted down, transfixed by the sound of Hank’s voice. At one point, Jenna glanced over at the girls, on whom that voice seemed to be having a similar effect. Blair, especially, her arms wound over her middle, shot a look at Jenna that was equal parts wonder and confusion. The last branch snipped, Hank reached in for the puppy, cradling the shaking thing in his large, gloved hand, carefully inspecting the tiny black body for injuries. And just as his harsh features softened, as his perpetual frown gave way to a genuine smile when the pup eagerly licked his scruffy chin, so did something inside Jenna.
The girls, naturally, were right there, both cooing and oohing over the little thing. “Is…he okay?” Blair asked, her voice tense with caution, her gaze flicking to Hank’s for only an instant.
“Far as I can tell. A few scratches, maybe, but nothing major. My guess is he’s been abandoned, though. There’s no collar, and he’s pretty skinny.” Cupping the dog’s butt, Hank twisted him around in his hands and looked him in the eye. “You out on your own, Bubba?”
The dog started wagging his tail so hard, he nearly wriggled right out of Hank’s hands. He laughed, then glanced over at Libby, scratching the pup’s ears. “Your daddy’s got some antiseptic we could put on him, doesn’t he?”
“Uh-huh,” Libby said. “But then what?”
Hank looked at the pup, then at the girls, before lifting up the dog and looking him straight in his big, brown eyes. A tiny pink tongue darted out, desperate to make contact with Hank’s nose. This time, Hank’s laughter sent a tingle straight through Jenna, one that settled right at the base of her heart.
“I can’t take him,” Blair said, a little wistfully. “Meringue would have a fit.”
“Not to mention I would,” Jenna thought it prudent to add.
Libby giggled as the pup tried to nibble on her finger. “I can’t take him, either. Daddy says we already have too many pets.”
After a long moment, Hank said, “Well, then. I guess that makes him mine.” He pretended to glower at the girls. “But y’all have to name him. I’m terrible at naming things.”
The girls thought that was a good idea. Then Libby remembered their lunch—apparently that’s what was in the Wal-Mart bag by the side of the road—and thought the pup might like part of her ham sandwich, which he did. Then, of course, they had to take the pup back to Libby’s to show him off and get the antiseptic put on him, even though he was going to be Hank’s dog. After they’d left, Hank offered to drive Jenna back to her cottage, since he said it seemed stupid for her to walk back when he had the truck right here.
The ride took all of two minutes, which wasn’t nearly enough time for Jenna to process even half of her thoughts about what had just happened, let alone all of them. But she did think to ask him why he’d taken the dog.
“Why not?” He scrubbed a hand across his hair, which didn’t do a thing for his coiffure. “Maybe it’s time I had something else to talk to at night besides myself, y’know?”
His words echoed painfully in her own sparsely furnished heart as they pulled up in front of the cottage. Jenna got out of the truck, then turned, her arms tightly tucked over her stomach as she peered back inside through the passenger-side window.
“Thanks,” she said.
Slouched in his seat, his right hand still loosely gripping the steering wheel, Hank looked at her, his brows knotted for a second or two. Then, with a sigh, they relaxed. “I might prefer keeping to myself most of the time, Ms. Stanton, but I’m not an ogre.” He hesitated, then added, “I’m sorry if I gave you that impression.”
After a moment, unable to think of a single, even minimally intelligent thing to say, she nodded, then ran up the porch steps to the relative safety of the cottage, away from the yearning in those dark eyes she doubted he even knew was there. But once back inside, as she stood at the front window, watching him one-handedly steer the truck back down the drive and replaying the past half hour in her head, she knew there was no reason not to tell Hank Logan he had a daughter.
Now all she had to do was figure out how.
The girls had brought the as-yet-unnamed puppy back about an hour later, then stayed to play with him out in front of the office. Which is where they still were, giggling their heads off and generally driving Hank nuts, when Cal showed up, somewhere around four. The door was open, so Hank saw his brother squat down to play with the dog—Cal had always had a way with animals, which is what made him such a damn good horse breeder, Hank supposed—exchange a few words with the girls, then stand and head for the office. Hank also saw a bunch of albums and envelopes and what-all tucked under his brother’s arm.
Oh, Lord.
“Hey.” Wearing that cocky grin of his, Cal walked into the office, plunked his load onto the counter. “You got a dog?”
“Yeah, I got a dog. So?”
“Kinda small, don’t you think?”
“It’ll grow. What’s all this?”
“Ten minutes, Hank. That’s all I’m asking. Just go through it, keep whatever you want, I’ll take back the rest.”
“I don’t want any of it.”
Cal crossed his arms, his gaze almost fierce underneath his hat brim. “This is your family history, dammit,” he said, keeping his voice low. “It’s not gonna kill you to keep a couple mementos of it. And you wouldn’t believe some of the stuff I found up in the attic. Stuff I sure don’t remember ever seeing. Take this, for instance…” He riffled through the pile and extracted a tattered brown envelope, out of which he pulled an old tinted photograph in a cardboard photographer’s frames. Cal looked at it for a moment, then turned it around so Hank could see. “You ever see this before? It’s a picture of Mama when she was fourteen. I only ever knew her with gray hair, so this was a shock….”
It was a shock, all right. But for very different reasons. While Hank stood there, paralyzed, staring at the photograph, Blair came in, hugging the pup to her chest.