Currant Creek Valley(56)

Every single muscle in her body ached with exhaustion and she was physically as tired as she could ever remember. She had been working every waking moment all week long to make sure every detail was perfect. As tired as she was, she wasn’t sure how she would ever be able to settle down enough to sleep.

When she opened the door to her house, Leonidas raced to greet her and ran around her as if she had been gone for months. Guilt pinched at her. Poor neglected stray.

She hadn’t left him here alone all day. That morning, he had set out with her and spent part of the day in the little yard beside the restaurant. When she returned home at dinnertime to pick up some paperwork, she had brought him back to the house and left him here, but that had been five hours earlier and the poor thing had been alone ever since.

“This is why I can’t have a dog,” she informed him as she dropped her armload—bags, keys, phone—onto a console table in her entryway so she could love him up. “It’s a time thing. I’m sure you understand. It’s not you, it’s me.”

Leo cocked his head to one side and gazed at her out of those wise hazel eyes.

She sighed, still feeling guilty at neglecting a creature who depended on her. What was she going to do with him? She had decided by default to put off making a decision until after the restaurant opened but with another turn of the earth, that day would be here. She was going to have to give him away. One of her new servers had mentioned his kids wanted a dog. Or maybe she could find someone old and alone who could dote on him.

She wasn’t going to figure this out tonight. Right now she needed something to work these kinks out of her body. The sweetly scented spring air called to her. Combine that with a dog who needed attention and exercise and she knew instantly what she should do.

“Let’s go for a walk,” she said. “What do you say, hmm? Want to burn off some of that energy?”

Leo gave one of his low, happy barks and padded to the front door to wait for her. Smart thing.

“We won’t go far, only a little way up the Currant Creek trail, how does that sound? It’s eleven o’clock and I really do need to try to sleep if I can. People are counting on me to be awesome tomorrow.”

Leo tried to nudge open the door she had left ajar. She closed it firmly with a laugh. “Hold on. Give me a second. It’s not going to help my stress level if you take off without me tonight, trust me on that.”

She quickly grabbed a warm jacket out of the closet and her flashlight, as well as the can of bear spray she had taken to carrying since a few black bears had been seen recently on trails around town.

A few moments later, she hooked the leash on Leo and the two of them walked toward the bridge that would take her over Currant Creek to the trail that ran on the opposite side from the houses.

The night was beautiful, warmer than usual for May. If the weather held, the Brazen outdoor seating that had just arrived would be the perfect place to spend a pleasant May evening, especially with that lovely view down Main Street. She did have kerosene warmers ready but she would really prefer not to use them if she didn’t have to.

As they made their way up the trail accompanied by the burbling creek, just a silver ribbon in the moonlight, the tension in her shoulders began to ease, along with the steady throb of a headache.

Leo loved the excursion, sniffing at every rock and clump of growth.

No other creatures disturbed their walk except an owl hooting in the trees, and some kind of water inhabitant—a muskrat or beaver, maybe?—that splashed upstream.

They didn’t go far, only about a mile to the fence that marked the edge of the Forest Service land. Sometimes a walk amid the steady mountain beauty that surrounded her soothed her even more than yoga. By the time she turned around and headed back toward her house, her muscles were loose and relaxed.

She was so relaxed, she wasn’t paying much attention to her surroundings. If she had been, she might have noticed she wasn’t the only one awake in her neighborhood.

“You’re out late.”

The low words came completely out of nowhere and she shrieked and jumped about a half foot in the air.

What was the point in having a big dog if he didn’t warn her of that kind of stuff? She jerked her head around in the direction of the voice and saw a dark shape on Sam’s front porch.

“Not cool! You scared the life out of me!”

He gave a rueful-sounding laugh. “Sorry,” he said. “I forgot you couldn’t see me up here in the dark.”

The smart thing would be to just say good-night and keep on walking but she couldn’t seem to make herself do that. She was only being neighborly, she told herself. It seemed rude to just walk on by and she certainly couldn’t stand out here on the sidewalk and yell back and forth with him, not at this late hour. She would wake up Mr. Phillips, especially, on Sam’s other side, who liked to sleep with his bedroom window cracked even in the coldest weather.