“Tex—”
“I’d clean up any messes,” Matt hastened to promise. He seemed to be holding his breath.
Steven sighed. Got out his cell phone. “You’re the one who wants to get the dog now instead of later,” he said. “So you can do the asking.”
Matt beamed, nodded. “Okay,” he said, practically crowing the word.
Steven keyed in one of the numbers Brad had written on the board, the one with a C beside it in parenthesis. When it started to ring, he handed the device to Matt.
“Hello?” he said, after a couple of moments. “It’s Matt Creed calling. Is this Mr. O’Ballivan?”
The timbre of the responding voice was male, though Steven couldn’t make out the words.
“My new dad says we can go to the animal shelter in town and adopt a dog if it’s all right with you,” Matt chimed in next. Inwardly, Steven groaned. My new dad says…
The boy listened for a few more seconds, nodding rapidly. “If my dog makes any messes,” he finished manfully, throwing his small shoulders back and raising his chin as he spoke, “I promise to clean them up.”
Brad said something in response, after which Matt said thank you and then goodbye and finally snapped the phone shut, held it out to Steven with an air of there-you-go.
Steven accepted the phone, dropped it into his shirt pocket, and ran a hand through his hair. “Well?” he asked, though it was pretty obvious what Brad’s answer must have been.
“It’s okay to get a dog,” Matt announced, all but jumping up and down with excitement by then. “Let’s go.” He grabbed for Steven’s hand, tried to pull him to his feet. “Right now!”
Laughing, Steven stood up. Mussed up Matt’s hair again.
Someone rapped at the door just then, and Steven answered. The ranch hands Brad had sent over were standing outside, thumbs hooked into the waistbands of their jeans, sun-browned faces upturned beneath the brims of their hats.
“Electricity ought to be working,” one of them said, without preamble. “Water, too.”
“Mind flipping a switch and turning on a faucet to make sure?” the other one asked.
“No problem,” Steven said. “Come on in.”
He’d spent a lot of time on a ranch, so he wasn’t surprised to glance back and see they hadn’t moved.
Matt was already switching the light on and off.
The faucet in the kitchen sink snorted a blast of air, chortled out some brown water, then ran clear.
“All set,” Steven said. “Thanks.”
The ranch hands grinned and nodded, and then they got into their beat-up work truck and drove away, dust pluming behind them.
Steven locked up the bus. Matt scrambled into their old pickup and expertly fastened himself into his safety seat, but Steven still checked to make sure every snap was engaged, just the same.
A minute or so later, they were on the road, making a dust plume of their own.
Stone Creek’s animal shelter was a sight to behold, a two-story brick structure with Dr. Olivia O’Ballivan Quinn’s veterinary clinic occupying part of the first floor. The entrance to the shelter itself was at the other end of the building, so Steven and Matt headed that way.
The walls of the reception area were decorated with original paintings of dogs, cats and birds, of the whimsical, brightly colored variety, and there were plenty of comfortable chairs. A display of pet supplies occupied a corner, fronted with a handwritten sign saying all proceeds went toward the care of the four-legged residents.
There was no one behind the long, counter-type desk, but a young man in jeans and a lightweight sweatshirt crouched on the floor, a scruffy duffel bag beside him, ruffling the lopsided ears of a black-and-white sheepdog.
The girl Steven had seen at Melissa’s office that morning stood by, watching, and for some reason she blushed when her gaze connected with his.
“You could adopt him,” the girl said, addressing her companion.
But the young man shook his head, straightened with a sigh. “Not without a job, Andrea,” he said quietly. His hair was brown, a little long, his eyes a pale shade of amber, and full of sadness. “How would I pay for his food? And what if he gets sick and needs to go to the vet?”
“I’ve got a job,” Andrea said. “I can help out with expenses for a while.”
“You work for Melissa,” Matt piped up happily, smiling at Andrea.
Her smile faltered slightly, but it was friendly. She nodded, then turned back to her friend. “Byron—” she began.
But Byron silenced her with a shake of his head.
Just then, a chubby woman with frizzy brown hair came out of the back, greeting Steven and Matt with a cheerful hello and an I’ll-be-right-with-you before turning her attention to Byron and Andrea and the sheepdog.
“Well?” she asked hopefully. “Have we made a decision?”
Steven thought he detected a note of compassion in her tone.
Once again, Byron shook his head. “It just won’t work,” he said. “Not right now.”
The woman sighed. Her nametag read Becky, and she wore print scrubs in bright shades of pink and green and blue. “Your mom must be happy to have you back home,” she said gently.
By then, Matt was down on one knee, petting the sheepdog, and Byron watched with a sad smile.
“She doesn’t know I’m here yet,” Byron answered, his gaze bouncing off Andrea once before landing on Becky. “I got off the bus to hitchhike the rest of the way, but then Andrea came along and picked me up just this side of Flagstaff. I needed to be around a dog to get myself centered, so we came here first.”
Andrea winced slightly, as though Byron had inadvertently revealed some vital secret.
Byron looked at Steven briefly, then at Matt. “He’s a nice dog, isn’t he?” he asked, indicating the hopeful critter.
Matt nodded. “We’re here to get ourselves a dog,” he told Byron. “We have a ranch. Right now, we live in a bus, but we’re going to have a house and a yard pretty soon.”
Byron smiled, but there was still something forlorn about him. “Sounds like you’d be a good match for this fella, then.”
“Don’t you want him?” Matt asked. He might have been only five years old, but he was perceptive. He’d picked up on the reluctance in Byron’s decision not to adopt this particular dog.
“He needs a home,” Byron said. “Just now, I can’t give him one—not the right kind, anyway. So if you think he’s the dog for you, and your dad says it’s okay, you probably ought to take him home with you.”
Andrea started to cry, silently. She turned away when she realized Steven was looking at her.
Becky, on the other hand, was still on the other subject. “You’d better let your mom know you’re home, Byron,” she said in motherly tones. “Velda’s been looking forward to having you back in Stone Creek. She probably met the bus. And when there was no sign of you—”
Byron’s shoulders drooped slightly, and he sighed. Nodded. Turned to Andrea, who had stopped crying, though her eyes were red-rimmed and her lashes were spiky with moisture. “Give me a ride home?” he asked her.
“Sure,” she said.
“We can always use volunteers around here, Byron,” Becky added. “Folks to feed the animals, and play