Chapter 12
When Mac headed out to the mailbox one afternoon, Avalon was there. She was holding what looked like mail in one hand; in the other arm she was holding what appeared to be a large, dusty cotton ball.
A bathroom rug? An exotic lampshade?
“Hey, neighbor...”
“Yikes!”
The fluffy thing had stirred in her arms. It turned what was apparently its head to look at him. It had the happiest eyes he’d ever seen. Little glittering brown beads of joy shining from a nest of fluff trimmed away from its eyes.
Good God above.
Whatever it was, it was almost upsettingly cute.
“What. The hell. Is that,” he said by way of greeting.
He was alarmed by the compulsion to lean over and snorgle his face into its blond fluff.
And he didn’t know what “snorgle” even meant but words adorable enough to discuss this creature hadn’t yet been invented. On some level his brain knew this and was making them up.
“She’sa dog. I got a dog!”
Two pairs of brown eyes were sparkling at him now.
He pressed his lips together and studied it a moment longer.
“Are you... are you sure?” His voice creaked a little.
“Quite sure,” she confirmed.
There was a little silence.
“That’s not a dog.” He said it firmly, as if he could make it true with adamancy. “A baby chicken, maybe. A baby chicken and... and... something took a startling turn in its DNA.”
“I gotherat the animal shelter,” Ava said. The dog tipped its head back and looked up at her adoringly, as if she was a movie star. “Her name is Chick Pea. Go on. Pet her.”
He sighed so gustily the fluff around the dog’s eyes shimmied. He pressed a tentative fingertip to the plush place between its eyes. His finger vanished into fluff. The dog’s little tongue darted out to taste him.Lap lap.
He retracted his hand before his heart caved in like an overripe apricot, permanently, dangerously softened.
“Chick Pea is like one bite for a coyote,” he assessed gruffly.
“I prefer not to think of her in terms of bites.”
“Bite,” he repeated. “Singular.”
Ava studied him for a wordless moment. “Are you worried about Chick Pea?”
“No. I’m frowning because I’ve never seen a bunny dog before and it’s upended my view of the world.”
This was a lie. He was actually worried about both of them. Because the day they’d buried her squirrel had been a bit like falling down a well in the dark. That sort of helplessness was a first for Mac Coltrane. He’d wanted something that he couldn’t have, which was for Avalon’s heart not to break. And to know what to say to take her pain away. He could only provide a velvet shroud, a heart-shaped rock, and his aching silence. It was all he’d known to do.
And here she was with an animal that was bound to break her heart sooner rather than later.
“So you went inside the animal shelter, and you said, ‘I’m looking for a hairy garbanzo bean,’ and they said, ‘Wait right here, we have just the thing in the back’?”
“She was wandering dirty and lonely and matted around town and they washed her up and she’s been there almost a year. No one else wanted her because she’s getting old. She’s nine years old, I’m told.”