about to burst. Peeps was greedy, but he wasn’t stupid. If he said he had something too big for Tucker, then he did.
“ Come in, Peeps.”
Chapter Five
“ Get your slobbering face off my shoulder.” Amy pushed Hunter’s face away and the Siberian husky sat back in the backseat with a woof. Amy turned, looked back at him. She could swear the dog was sulking. “I’m sorry, don’t feel that way. I didn’t mean it.”
In an instant Hunter was back on his paws, looking at her with his odd eyes; one blue, one brown. His fur was a solid dark grey, almost black, but not, save for his white face and the insides of his ears, which were also white. He looked ghostly. A friend, who danced at the Men’s Room with Alicia, got a job in New York and couldn’t take the dog. So Alicia, the Southern girl with a heart of gold, said she’d take him.
From what Amy had gathered it wasn’t working out. Alicia wasn’t really a dog person. She liked her freedom. Liked to be able to take off on the weekends or whenever on the spur of the moment. She couldn’t do that with a big dog. Not unless she took him along and she didn’t seem to be up for that.
“ Okay, boy,” Amy said. “You can come back.” And in an instant Hunter had his head back on Amy’s shoulder, staring, as Amy was, out the front window as she piloted her car into the park.
“ He likes you,” Alicia said as Amy made a left.
“ There’s a gazebo up ahead by a little lake; more like a pond, actually. Nana and I used to feed the geese there. That was my favorite place in all the world.
“ Really?” Alicia said. “A pond in the park? That’s your favorite place?”
“ Yeah, I was a kid, but I wasn’t stupid. I knew my parents didn’t want me, didn’t even love me. But Nana did. She was an important doctor, but she found time every day to take me out here, to be with me, to show me she loved me. No matter if she had to do a transplant or teach someone else how to do one that day, she always worked me in. That’s why it’s my favorite place.”
“ I can get that. My parents were way into their own power trips. My dad was a big time criminal lawyer in New Orleans and my mom owned a restaurant on Bourbon Street. They never had time for me.”
“ That’s too bad,” Amy said. “And it’s too bad I messed things up with Nana by going out with that sleazy Tucker Wayne.”
“ I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now. Bob Dylan said that.”
“ Yeah, well, he was right.” Amy saw the gazebo she used to love so much, still did, truth be told. She pulled off the road, parked next to it.
“ I don’t see anyone and it’s a minute after. You don’t think she left?”
“ No, Nana wouldn’t do that. She’ll be here.” And as she completed the sentence, her grandmother’s Jeep-like Dodge Raider turned the corner, coming toward them. She pulled up next to Amy’s VW, parked, got out of the car.
“ Holy shit!” Alicia said. “She looks just like you!”
“ Yeah, holy shit,” Amy said.
“ Woof.” Hunter sort of half barked, then went to the woman with her face and Nana’s car, sniffed her hand, turned and faced Alicia and Amy, as if to say he belonged to this stranger now.
“ I didn’t know you had a twin sister,” Alicia said.
“ I don’t,” Amy said. Then to the woman with her face, “Who are you?”
“ Who do you think I am?”
“ You’re the spitting image of Amy, except for the eyes.” Alicia said. “Is it possible for identical twins to have different colored eyes?”
“ No.” The woman said.
“ Why not? Hunter’s eyes are different colors, so if he had a twin, why couldn’t it have two blues or two browns?” Alicia didn’t seem the least bit startled by this woman.
“ It doesn’t work that way,” the stranger said.
“ Woof.” Another half bark from the dog, probably because he’d heard his name. The animal looked up at the stranger and it seemed like something passed between
Sharon Kendrick
Valerie Fitzgerald
Kelley Armstrong
Sujata Massey
Abby Grahame
John D. MacDonald
Kris Austen Radcliffe
Indrapramit Das
Cheryl Bolen
Heather Grothaus