Down Home Carolina Christmas by Pamela Browning Page A

consider adopting another animal. I’d give Shasta a home myself, but Fred says I don’t need a pet, considering that I’m busy enough taking care of Mike and Jamie and him, too.” Fred had retired on disability and could barely get around anymore.
    â€œI know, Edna Earle. I always figured that I’d find the perfect person to adopt Shasta if I let her hang around long enough. She’s a sweet little old thing.”
    â€œWell, maybe she’ll turn up.” Edna Earle called into the house, “Mike! Jamie! Carrie is here. Y’all come on out.”
    The boys erupted from the house, and Carrie held the SUV door open for them as they swarmed in.
    â€œCan we drive down Begonia Street? Sometimes Shasta goes down there to drink from the creek,” Jamie said, sounding worried.
    â€œOf course we can,” Carrie assured him. “Then we’ll check Memorial Park and make sure she isn’t having a good old time chasing ducks around the pond.”
    They drove slowly down Begonia, waving to Mrs. McGrath, who was kneeling in the dirt, deadheading her marigolds. On the corner of Cedar Lane they stopped to talk to Jason Plummer, a high-school athlete who was jogging around the block. He hadn’t seen Shasta, but he promised to notify Carrie if he did.
    Finally, after driving up and down every street in Yewville calling the dog’s name, Carrie gave up.
    â€œMaybe Shasta found a real home,” Mike suggested.
    â€œYeah,” Jamie said mournfully. “With her own yard and everything. But how are we going to play catch with her if we don’t know where she lives?”
    Carrie had her own private concern, namely that the dog had wandered out to the bypass and met with a gruesome fate that she’d rather not discover while in the company of two small boys.
    â€œTell you what,” she said. “Let’s get some ice cream.” She hoped she didn’t sound as forlorn to the boys as she did to herself.
    â€œI’d rather find Shasta,” Mike said, showing a hint of stubbornness, but Carrie convinced him to accompany them inside the Eat Right, anyway. They all sat down in a booth, where the boys ordered rocky-road ice-cream cones and Carrie asked for a dish of chocolate and strawberry. The ice cream distracted them from thinking about their failure to turn up any evidence of the missing dog.
    Kathy Lou Watts, the waitress behind the counter, was in a cheerful mood. “I hear Luke Mason stopped by your gas station a couple of Sundays ago,” she said chattily.
    â€œHe did,” Carrie answered. She watched helplessly as ice cream dripped onto Jamie’s spotless blue T-shirt.
    â€œIs he as handsome as he is on the screen?” Kathy Lou asked.
    â€œHandsomer,” Carrie answered without really thinking about it. “Imagine! Luke Mason himself was right here in the Eat Right this morning. The girls on the early shift said he ate eggs and bacon for breakfast, just like any ordinary person. And link sausage. He must really like sausage ’cause he asked for three orders to take out.” Kathy Lou scrubbed energetically at a stain on the counter with one corner of a damp dish towel.
    â€œI suppose just about everybody around here will get a gander at Luke Mason before they’re through filming that blamed movie,” Carrie said.
    â€œI heard that the casting director is going to interview local people for minor speaking parts,” Kathy Lou told her.
    â€œIs that so?” Carrie asked with little interest. Kathy Lou talked nonstop; how she could run on.
    Kathy Lou stopped scrubbing and leaned toward Carrie confidentially. “My niece is going to try to get herself a part. Wouldn’t that be something? Mikaila Parker from Yewville, South Carolina, in an honest-to-goodness Hollywood movie?”
    â€œMmm,” Carrie said absently, wondering if she should close the station and haul Hub with her out to the bypass