Page 63 of Shake the Habit

“I don’t care for myself,” I assured him. “What is all this? More bills from the gas company?”

He took out the top few pages and spread them on the table, pressing out the wrinkles with his palms. “This is a United States patent,” he said after a moment. “She was granted a patent.”

Of course I knew what that was, but just to be sure…

“She made up something and got the government to protect it, so that no one else could copy it,” I stated, and he didn’t disagree. He was reading down the pages. “What is it for?”

“Prunus persica.” He pointed to the words. “That’s the scientific name for a peach tree.”

“You can claim a tree?” I asked incredulously.

“You can, if it’s an original variety that was previously unknown. It could be a lucky genetic mutation or you could develop it yourself.” He removed what remained in the box, but it was only more official-looking documents. “Apparently, she successfully bred a brand-new peach.”

“Why did she wad up her patent like this?” I asked, frowning. I tried to flatten the papers, too.

“My guess would be that she thought it was important enough to necessitate a safer place than the barn, but she also didn’t want to pay for a larger box at the bank. That sounds about right to me.” He tried to put the sheets back in order. “Ready to go? I’ll come back later and close her account for good. Sir’s probably wondering where we’ve gone off to.”

We walked out together, the crumpled papers in his right hand and my fingers held in his left. Since Sir’s party, he’d been doing this a lot, almost like he was still worried about me. It felt different from having the eyes of my family on me, though, because Caleb wasn’t watching to make sure I wouldn’t use. It was like he was concerned about my feelings rather than the consequences of them.

“I’m not disappointed,” I offered, in case he was also concerned about that. “Are you, though? Because even if you tell yourself not to expect something or to hope for it, sometimes you do, anyway. At least, I do.”

“I’m surprised, actually,” he answered. “I want to know more about this patent, because they’re not easy to get. What…” He stared across the asphalt. “Who is that?”

A man stood next to his truck, right at the open window where Sir’s head stuck out. He seemed to be talking to my dog. Of course I didn’t blame him for being attracted to Sir’s natural charm and beauty, but I didn’t much like the way he was putting his arm through the opening.

Caleb didn’t, either. “What the hell are you doing?” he called.

The man pulled out his arm, but he didn’t run like he would have if he were a thief. He stared back at us angrily and pointed at Sir. “That’s my dog! That’s Magnum.”

“No, that’s Sir McCourt,” I answered. “Get away from him!”

“Kayleigh, it’s all right.” Caleb stepped in front of me as the other man started ranting about us stealing. Sir was his, he kept saying, because he’d won him, fair and square.

“I got his papers! He’s mine.”

“What do you mean, you ‘won’ him?” Caleb asked.

The answer was, “Why the fuck do you care?” But with more calm questioning, the stranger said that he had gotten a dog in a poker game in Nashville. Afterwards, he’d brought his prize home to a place not too far from where I’d come upon Sir wandering in the road. “He got away from me and then today I find the goddamn criminals who stole him!” the man finished.

“I didn’t steal him!” I retorted. “He has a chip that says he’s mine.”

“You know what this animal is worth? You’re not taking him!”

“Taking him? You let him wander alone, cold and scared!” I shot back. “He could have been hit by a car. He almost was! You don’t deserve to have Sir.”

“We all need to calm down,” Caleb said, and he sent a look in my direction to let me know that he meant me. “Give me your number and I’ll give you mine,” he told the other man. “I think we’ll be able to work this out.”

But it was like I could feel my heart literally sinking into my stomach under the weight of what he’d told us. Sir—who he called “Magnum”—was a pureblood Bouvier brought all the way from the somewhere in the Midwest here to Tennessee. He’d been lost in a hand of poker by a gambler who’d apparently loved him, but didn’t have anything left to pay his debt. As much as I didn’t want to, I started to believe what the guy was saying. How else would a dog like Sir have ended up out in the woods? Why would someone make up a story like this?

“I have the paperwork proving how much he cost as a puppy and you can breed these dogs and make a mint. I’m out a lot of money now,” the man told us. “Somebody owes me for those litters.”

“He’s not—”

“Kayleigh,” Caleb said quietly, and I stopped.

The man kept blustering about lost income, breed registration paperwork, and a bill of sale which he had. He only quit when Caleb calmly mentioned calling the police to help us manage the situation. “I don’t want the cops involved in any of my shit,” he told us, and started to back away. But then he stopped and held up his phone in front of each of our faces. Caleb stared but I flinched away.

“Now I got your pictures,” he boasted. “I got your license plate, too. You won’t get away with this.”

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