Currant Creek Valley(49)
Despite making the first overture, he looked uncomfortable at speaking with a stranger and quickly turned back to Alex. “I’m sorry to interrupt but I was riding my new bike down the street and I thought I heard Leo bark. I was checking to see if you found his owners. I guess you didn’t.”
“Not yet. Still looking, though.” She had tried everything. After nearly a month, she didn’t hold out much hope that she would succeed.
She would soon have to figure something out with the dog. She still didn’t have time to take care of a dog but now she was very much afraid she had passed the point where she could give him to someone else, without her heart breaking apart.
“I could exercise him for you, if you want,” Ethan said eagerly. “Do you think he would like to take a walk with me? You could pay me if you wanted to.”
At the magic W word he recognized only too well, Leo sat up straighter and his tongue started to loll eagerly.
“I think that’s probably a good guess,” she answered drily. “Tell me, what’s the going rate for dog-walking these days?”
“I was thinking a dollar would be fair.”
“More than fair,” she assured him. “What a great deal for me! I’m sure Leo would enjoy taking a walk very much. How thoughtful of you to offer! Come on inside while I find his leash. Would you like a brownie while you wait?”
Ethan’s eyes lit up. “Oh, is that what I smell? I bet they’re delicious. They smell good, anyway.”
“Trust me, they’re good,” Claire answered.
He seemed to warm up a little to her. When Mary Ella walked in after finishing her phone call, Alex introduced her mother to the boy and left Ethan in the capable hands of both women while she placed a brownie on a napkin and then retrieved the leash off the hook by the back door.
“Here you go,” she said, giving him the brownie and then attaching the leash to Leo’s collar before she handed that over, as well. “The big question is, can you hold on to the leash and eat a brownie at the same time?”
His brow furrowed as he considered his answer. “I think so. I can hold the leash with one hand and the brownie with the other, see? If it’s too difficult to manage both, I’ll eat the brownie first and then go on the walk with Leo.”
“You, my friend, are indeed a man who thinks things through.”
He gave her that sweet, swift smile of his, obviously delighted at being called a man.
“You remember to stay away from the creek, right?”
“Yes,” he said. “My dad only reminds me of that every time I go outside. We’ll stay on the sidewalk and we’ll only go to the end of Currant Creek Valley Road and back, I promise. Is that okay with you?”
They should be fine for the four-block round trip, she figured. Leo was very well behaved on a leash—another indication that someone somewhere had once loved him.
“Sounds perfect. You boys have a wonderful time.”
He had a mouthful of brownie and just waved to her, leash and all, as he walked out the door and down the steps with the dog leading the way.
The three women watched him go down the sidewalk and she was happy to see that Leo didn’t tug or jerk.
“Oh, my word. Is he not the most adorable thing you’ve ever seen?” Claire exclaimed, smiling as she watched them go.
Well, personally Alex thought the kid’s father was pretty darn adorable, too, but she decided not to comment. Her mother and Claire would both make too much of her opinion.
“Did you know Sam is working on the new recreation center?” Mary Ella looked delighted to reveal that particular tidbit of information.
“No. I hadn’t heard,” she said, trying to inject just the right note of casual interest in her voice.
She should be happy for Sam. He wanted to settle in Hope’s Crossing, to build a business here. Working for Harry Lange’s pet project up Silver Strike Canyon was a great start and would probably lead to future jobs.
That’s what he wanted but she had still been clinging to the hope that maybe he would decide he and her town didn’t fit, after all, which was pretty small-minded of her when she stopped to think about it.
“Harry has really taken a liking to him and his work,” her mother went on. “He says Sam is an old-time craftsman who cares more about quality than quotas. His military record doesn’t hurt anything, of course. He’s a genuine hero, though I get the impression you won’t hear him say anything about that.”
He was closemouthed about his past and downplayed that aspect of his life. She could admire that about him. She supposed he kept plenty of secrets about his past.