Page 51 of Deputy Brand Gets Her Man
Did they trust him with their girl?
But it was Trevor who spoke, and said, “I didn’t even know you had a dog.”
“Puppy,” Willow said. She leaned forward on the sofa. “Some kids threw it in the creek. Jeremiah went in after him.”
“I’m really just fostering him for Frankie, his rightful owner,” he said. “Sooner or later circumstances will change, and he can have his buddy back.”
“He’s so cute, Trev,” Willow said. “He has giant feet and a giant head and a gangly body. He’s about so high.” She held out her hand.
Jeremiah reached out to take her wrist and raised her hand a couple inches higher, and he let his fingers brush her skin as he took them away.
She looked at him, then widened her eyes. “He’s grown that much?”
“Vet says it’s normal.”
“Now I really want you to come.”
“You didn’t really want me to before?”
“I was just tryin’ to set some boundaries with my family.” She broke eye contact with him, and sent an innocent blink-blink their way.
For his part, Jeremiah had forgotten they were there.
She said, “Go pack up a few things for you and the pup and then come back.” Then in a stage-whisper, “They aren’t fixin’ to leave me alone until you do.”
He lowered his head. “Okay. Okay, sure. I’ll go right now.”
He turned to head out the door only to find his half-brother, Ethan, holding it open for him. “I’ll come along. Help you pack,” he said.
Willow woke to find Jeremiah sleeping beside the impossibly bigger dog in front of the fireplace on the dog bed on the floor, because she had fallen asleep on the sofa while he’d taken Beans for a midnight stroll. Lily had hung around until Jeremiah and Ethan’s return, then she and Ethan had wished her well and headed home themselves around midnight.
She sat up slowly, one hand on her head like holding onto it would prevent it from spinning or throbbing. But neither of those things happened, so as she sat upright, she lowered the hand. Then she figured she’d try standing up.
Paws pounded and Beans jumped, hit her with his front paws, and set her right back down again.
“Hey, hey, down boy!” Jeremiah, probably roused by the floor vibrating beneath him when his pup galloped across it, grabbed the pup and set him down and told him no. The pup, she thought, had no idea what he was saying, but adored him all the same.
“How did he grow that much?”
“He’s an English mastiff. Vet says he could hit two hundred pounds in his first year. Then the second year, he’ll fill out.”
“Maybe he should live in the stable,” she said, “with his own kind.”
“I never would’ve known when I pulled him out of the creek.”
She smiled, reminded that he’d done that. “He’s doubled since then,” she said.
“So Lily’s coming over later to show me how to use the blood pressure thingie,” he said. “She left it. And the thermometer and a thing that clips on your fingertip to measure oxygen. Man, your family.”
“I know.” She tried standing upright again. The pup tensed, and Jeremiah said, “Wait,” and held his hand out flat palmed over the dog.
Beans settled, but in jittery, wiggly, I-can-hardly-stand-to-sit-still way.
Willow made her way to the kitchen. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
“That’s good, because I’m cooking,” he said.
“Even better, because I need a shower.” She changed direction mid-step. He had the dog by his side, petting him to keep him calm.
