Page 6 of Will Bark for Pizza
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “He’s going to sell it, then?”
“Yeah, he decided last night. He’s giving you first right of refusal. If you want the bookstore, it’s yours.”
THREE
KIRA
I spedpast the bakery and took a sharp right down a street filled with real estate offices, a museum, and a haunted tour guide business that wasn’t there on my last visit. Husker whined in confusion, but I didn’t slow until we left the city limits.
I couldn’t go back to Omaha. Not yet. But I sure as hell wasn’t ready to face anyone. Not even Aspen.
Why did no one fuckingtellme?
I wove through backroads until I found the familiar rutted dirt road I’d been running to since I got my learner’s permit. The weatheredprivate road:no trespassingsigngreeted me like an old friend.
I turned onto the rough road, grateful that I splurged on my Jeep after my most popular book series went viral on TikTok. This road wasn’t maintained or intended for regular vehicles; I learned that lesson the hard way.
“Connor still gives me shit about towing me out that summer,” I threw over my shoulder to Husker. But he wasback to bouncing from one window to the other, sniffing at the crack of fresh air as he tried to decipher my plan. It felt so . . . normal. My erratically beating heart calmed. “But I guess you were there, weren’t you?”
We’d been together since Husker was nine weeks old, when he was small enough to fit inside a cat carrier and ride under the seat on the plane. He was a hellion of a puppy that summer, when I broke my axle on this so-called road.
A particularly rough bump elicited a grumble from the back seat. My seven-year-old pup was slowly aging into a grumpy old man dog.
“Sorry, Bubbies.”
The road was in worse shape than I remembered. Uncle Karl liked it that way. Left it rough on purpose. He claimed it kept the tourists away from thegood sideof the lake. Never mind that they rarely sought out the smaller, less exciting lake at all. And when they did, the locals chased them off.
As a kid, I remembered bumpy rides in the backs of pickups. It was a game to hold on and not get thrown from the bed of the truck. Momhatedthat game.
A mile and a half later, the smaller, lesser-known Ghost Lake came into view through a clearing of trees. The road dead-ended at the water. Houses dotted the lake on the opposite side, each one separated by thick forest. Unlike the popular Glimmerstone Lake that was packed with lake houses so close you could reach out your window and touch your neighbor, Ghost Lake was for those locals who preferred a quiet, separate existence.
The backdrop of mountains, lit up by the earlyevening sun, delivered the serenity I so desperately needed.
Husker, on the other hand, lost his ever-loving mind.
“We’re overdue, don’t you think?” He couldn’t hear me over his excited Husky chatter, demanding I let him out of the Jeep immediately.
I parked near the boat dock I was happy to see still standing. Even better, it appeared as though someone replaced the rotted planks with fresh ones. Was Uncle Karl finally staying out at his cabin again after all these years avoiding it? I chose to believe he was, and it soothed the worst of my frustration.
I clipped a long leash onto Husker’s collar, hooked the handle to the trail hitch so he couldn’t chase any wildlife, and set to work digging out an inflatable paddleboard I nearly didn’t pack.
Because of the dream I had.
I looked up at the sky. “Thanks, Mom.”
Husker watched as I used the hand pump to fill the purple and gold paddleboard we hadn’t put on the water in nearly three years. A gut punch of sadness struck me, but I took a deep breath and willed it away. I’d deal with that emotion another day. I had enough emotions in line ahead of it.
Starting with the frustration I currently felt with my family.
I took out my irritation on the hand pump. I wasn’t able to find my electric one while loading up this morning, and right now I was glad for the manual labor. Husker tilted his head in confusion with each mumbled curse. My anger made the grueling task go faster.
How did no onetellme?
The board was taking shape. It was faded in places, and I was mildly concerned the inflatable board might leak from being neglected all this time. I listened for a hiss of air once it was filled. Nothing. At least, Ithoughtit was nothing. Hard to tell with how hard I was panting.
“It’s good!”
Husker popped to all fours, tail wagging. His excitement was enough to convince me we wouldn’t sink in the middle of the shallow lake. Considering the water was probably sixty-five degrees—sixty-eight if I was lucky—that was a good thing.
