“I’m very gentle, you know. I don’t pull dogs’ ears or tails, like some kids do. I don’t tease them, either, because, well, teasing isn’t nice! Oh, and I’ll make sure she gets plenty of water, ’cause I know how ’portant it is—for a dog to drink plenty of water, I mean.”
Lily repressed a giggle; she couldn’t have Nate thinking she wasn’t taking him seriously. “I’m sure you’d make a wonderful master,” she said again, “but—”
“Who do you think you are,” a deep male voice interrupted, “making decisions regarding my son without discussing them with me first?”
Blinking, Lily sat in stunned silence for a second. “Max, I—”
“If and when Nate gets a dog, I’ll be the one who gives the go-ahead, not you!”
“I—I never intended to—”
“How do you expect me to deal with his disappointment, now that you’ve got his hopes up that he’ll get a dog?”
“Max, if you’ll just calm down for a minute, I can explai—”
“There’s nothing to explain. Your ‘find the mutt a home’ scheme may have worked in the past, but it isn’t going to work this time.”
It was pretty obvious by the tone of his voice, by the heat in his words, that Max had no intention of listening to reason. She didn’t understand the level of his anger. Especially with little Nate within earshot.
As Lily saw it, she had two choices: sit quietly as Max continued his tirade, or hang up.
If she hung up, Nate wouldn’t have a chance in a million of adopting Missy. But if she stayed on the line, maybe she could slip a word in edgewise…if she was patient until Max spent the last of his wrath. Lord, she prayed, give me the strength to know when to speak…and what to say when I do.
“I’ve had it up to here,” Max was saying, “with people who think they know better than I what’s good for my boy. Especially people like you, who don’t even have kids of their own!”
That hurt, Lily admitted silently. And it was unfair, to boot. Because she might have kids of her own, if loving Max hadn’t made every man look so sad by comparison.
“Stick to what you know, Lily—animals. And let me raise my son in peace.”
He seemed to have run out of steam. In the moment of silence that followed his last stinging remark, Lily debated whether or not to stand up for Nate. The boy clearly wanted—and as Georgia had pointed out, needed—something to occupy his lonely hours. Seemed to Lily he needed something to love, too—something that would love him in return, unconditionally.
“Are you finished?” she asked.
He cleared his throat. “Yes.”
“May I have a moment, then, to explain?”
“There’s nothing to explain,” he shot back. “I’m—”
“I’m sure you don’t mean to sound like an unreasonable bully, but…” She paused.
She listened to the silence and prayed he hadn’t hung up. Then he coughed, and she added, “If you’ll just be quiet for a minute, I’ll be happy to tell you what’s really going on here.”
“Go on,” Max said, his voice tight.
She sighed heavily. “Nate called just now to—”
“He called you?”
“Yes, he did, to thank me for rescuing Missy at—”
“I heard all about it on the news. ‘Lily, the hero of Texas wildlife.’”
Lily ignored his caustic tone and continued. “He called to tell me he’d overheard Georgia and me talking earlier, in the diner. I’d stopped by to ask her if she’d mind having a dog underfoot…if you gave Nate permission to have a dog, that is.” Not the whole truth, but not exactly a lie, either. But what was she to do, faced with his irrational ire? It didn’t seem fair for Nate to suffer because his father was a loud-mouthed know-it-all! “Mind you, I’m no expert when it comes to what’s good for kids, but it isn’t Nate’s fault that he jumped to conclusions based on the small portion of the conversation he overheard, because, after all—” she narrowed her eyes and accentuated each word “—he’s only…four…years…old!”
This time, Lily didn’t much care if he hung up or not. Then again, if he actually was the stodgy old grouch he’d sounded like, he might make Nate pay for the scolding she’d just given him.
“Max,” she began, tempering her voice, “I know it’s been a long time since you’ve spent any time in my company.” Long time, she laughed to herself. What a joke! Max never had spent any time in her company, because he’d always preferred short-skirted cheerleader and prom-queen types—a far cry from what Lily had been—and from what she’d become! “But you need to know, I would never do anything so underhanded as to get Nate’s hopes up about getting a dog—not without making sure it was okay with you first.” This time, thankfully, the whole truth and nothing but.
When he didn’t respond, she added, “So here’s the lowdown. The dog is a golden retriever, one of the gentlest breeds God created. She’s smart, well-trained and quiet. She’d make an excellent companion for Nate. Georgia says there’s room for her in the apartment. I’m sorry the little guy overheard the conversation, but now that the cat’s out of the bag, the ball’s in your court.” Lily groaned inwardly at the back-to-back clichés. “Think about it for a couple of days. I’ll hold off finding a home for Missy ’til I hear from you.”
And with that, she banged the receiver into its cradle.
“Take that, you bossy, swaggering—!”
“My, what was that all about!”
Lily turned toward the sound of the friendly voice. “Hey, Cammi.” She slumped onto the nearest hay bale. Immediately, Missy curled up at her feet. “That was Max.”
“Uh-oh,” her older sister said. “I’d heard he was back in town, but I was hoping you could avoid a collision.”
Lily only shrugged.
“So tell me, how’s he look?” She wiggled her eyebrows and winked. “Handsome as ever?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Cammi ruffled Missy’s thick golden fur. “Still stuck on the big galoot, eh?”
“Yeah, I guess,” she said again.
“Didn’t sound much like it when I walked in.”
Lily filled Cammi in on what had happened, from their sister Violet’s call to her hanging up on Max.
“Wow. Somebody put some starch into your spine, I think. Never thought I’d see the day you’d stand up to him, not knowing how you’ve always felt, anyway.”
Cammi was the only person on earth who knew that Lily loved Max—that she’d loved him when she was twelve and he eighteen, that nothing had changed, not a whit, in the years since. She sighed.
“You really ought to see other guys,” Cammi suggested. “Who knows? Maybe God has put your Mr. Right out there someplace, and He’s just waiting for you two to bump into one another.” She sat beside Lily, draped an arm over her shoulder. “How you gonna find your knight on a white steed if you never leave this barn?”
“I’m content, right here, doing what I do.”
“Baloney. You were born to be a wife and mother. This—” Cammi waved a hand, indicating the cages and the critters in them “—this stuff you do is proof you’re filled to overflowing with