Completely Smitten (29 page)

Throughout her triathlete career, she had raced for herself and herself only. When she had dated, she usually dated men who were also competitors and often were in the same races she was. She dated few non-athletes. The ones she had dated, like that lawyer in Boise, had been completely uninterested in triathlons. If she could drag them to a race, they would get bored because the triathlon (particularly the Ironman) was an all-day affair. It wasn’t like football or basketball, where the spectators constantly had something to watch.

As a consequence, no one had ever willingly stood on the sidelines and rooted for her. Until today.

Vari’s presence had touched her deeply. She was even more touched because he had tried to leave without being seen. He had been interested, and the interest had been pure.

So had the support.

Ariel smiled to herself and got into the car, feeling restless. She needed to do something to celebrate. Too bad Vari hadn’t been able to go to brunch with her. Maybe she would invite him to the next race, with the idea that they could go somewhere afterward.

Then she hesitated. Her relationship with him had been so strained because of her obsession with Darius. Would Vari be uncomfortable if she asked him?

There was, of course, only one way to find out.

And she had two weeks before the next race, so she had some time to think about it.

She pulled out of the parking lot and paused. She deserved a nice meal and something fun. Normally, she would have stayed downtown, but this time she wanted to do something different.

This time, she was going shopping.

She grinned, knowing there was good shopping in Portland’s downtown. But good shopping wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted kitsch and noise and the camaraderie of a bunch of people she didn’t know. She wanted an Orange Julius and a Cinnabon.

She wanted a mall.

Ariel knew of two (even though there were probably more)—the Clackamas Town Center, where Tonya Harding used to practice her skating in the built-in ice rink, and the Washington Square Mall, which had nothing whatsoever to do with athletics. The malls were on different sides of the city.

So she drove west, to Washington Square, where she wouldn’t have to think about anything. She could join the hordes of Saturday shoppers and pretend that her life was just like theirs, whatever that meant.

Besides, she thought she had seen an Orange Julius stand the one time she’d been in Washington Square.

The drive was congested—all of Portland shopped in the suburbs on Saturdays—but she didn’t care. She was enjoying her time out. Her mood was better than it had ever been.

Portland, she was beginning to realize, was a runner’s paradise. It was Nike’s hometown, and as such, had a great deal of respect for athletes of all stripes. The city and the outlying areas also had a lot of casual races, which was what she needed to get into her new mindset.

Boise was an athletic city as well, but it didn’t have the same traditions as Portland. Portland’s weather made running a year-round sport. Locals, if they were involved in athletics at all, were usually runners.

If she wanted to, she could talk to anyone passing on the street about running.

She liked that.

She pulled into Washington Square Mall’s parking lot and circled for a while, looking for an available space. Even though this mall was older and hadn’t really expanded enough on its latest remodel, it was still very popular on the weekends. She finally managed to find a parking space near the Barnes & Noble on the other side of the access road. She got out of the car, locked the precious trophy inside, and headed toward the mall.

Ariel didn’t find her Orange Julius, but she did find Cinnabon. She had a real lunch, followed by a tiny cinnamon roll covered with too much wonderful frosting, and she shopped for two hours without buying anything more expensive than a book.

On the way back to her car, she wandered past the shops in the strip mall that had sprung up across the road from the mall. Most were business-related stores, like Kinko’s, but some were older. There was a for-rent sign in one window, and she got the sense that the turnover among the non-business shops was higher than the strip mall’s owners anticipated.

As she passed a pet store she had never seen before, she spied a puppy in the window. The puppy was a basset hound with liquid eyes, and ears so long that he kept stepping on them. He looked sadder than the average basset hound, and her heart went out to him.

Usually, she didn’t go into pet stores. Her tri-geek lifestyle hadn’t allowed her to keep pets—she was on the road too much—and if she got a pet, she would have gone to the Humane Society and saved one’s life.

But she couldn’t pass up the puppy. He was darling. Almost before she knew what she was doing, she pushed open the pet store’s heavy glass door.

To her surprise, the store’s interior had an odd twilight quality. Fish tanks of all sizes lined the walls, and their lights provided most of the illumination. They were filled with fish of all sizes and shapes. Some of the fish had tanks to themselves. Others were in large groupings.

A desk in the center had a cash register and all sorts of fish paraphernalia, from pretty colored gravel to multicolored glass seashells. Empty tanks filled a center aisle, along with other tank supplies: hose, bubblers, and heaters. Fish food and chemicals lined another aisle.

The puppy was the only mammal in the store—besides Ariel and the man behind the counter. He looked up from his newspaper as she let the door close behind her.

“Help you?” he asked.

“The puppy caught my eye,” she said.

He smiled knowingly, apparently seeing her confusion.

“The puppy’s on loan from the Humane Society. We help them out when they have too many dogs to get rid of. Sometimes people are willing to buy from a store but never go to the pound.”

Ariel felt her cheeks flush. “He just caught my eye.”

“He’s a cute little bugger,” the man said. “It’s his first day here.”

She walked over to the large cage the puppy was in. He followed her every move, his tail wagging. His ears trailed alongside him.

“He looks purebred,” she said.

“Oh, he is.” The man sounded bitter. “One of the local puppy mills got shut down. A hundred dogs, all living in their own filth. I guess they had to put twenty to sleep.”

Ariel winced. “I hadn’t heard.”

“Happens a couple of times a year around here. That’s why I don’t carry pets. It encourages these idiots who are just into breeding for the money. With so many animals going homeless or being put to death because no one will adopt them, animal breeders are just perpetrating a crime.”

“All of them?” she asked.

He shrugged. “There are legit folks. But why get a purebred dog? They’re usually nervous and high-strung, with a ton of health problems. Mutts live longer and are much happier.”

She put out her finger and the puppy licked it. His big sad eyes reminded her of someone.

“Is this guy okay?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah. He was one of the lucky ones. They nursed him back to health. Now they have eighty dogs to get rid of. Some of the pet stores are helping, and they’ve put out big notices in the papers and stuff.”

The puppy wagged his stubby tail.

“How much is he?” she asked, unable to believe the question had come out of her mouth.

“He’s free. But there’s a $25 adoption fee that goes to the Humane Society for their costs, mostly for his shots. It’s all on the sign.”

She looked for a sign, and finally saw it above her eye level. It explained the situation and the fees. It also said she got a free leash and a bag of food with the dog.

“Is he housebroken?”

The man shrugged. “The Society says he is, and he does his business when I take him outside. But I’m not guaranteeing anything.”

She nodded. The puppy sat down and watched her. He seemed not only sad but wary; even his little overture in the beginning had been cautious, not effusive, the way most puppies were.

Ariel crouched in front of the cage. He came toward her, tail wagging again, but he didn’t get too close.

That sadness—it was so deep. And finally, she had it. The dog reminded her of Vari. Andrew Vari’s eyes were that wary and that sad, especially when he looked at her.

Just last week, she had overheard Blackstone tell Vari he needed some kind of pet. Vari had said he was looking for one but couldn’t find the right thing.

This basset hound was right; she knew it.

She also knew that a person should never buy an animal as a gift, in case the recipient didn’t want the pet. If she was going to buy the dog and offer him to Vari, she had to be prepared to keep the dog herself if Vari didn’t want it.

The dog whimpered. She reached through the bars of the cage and scratched the puppy’s chin. The tail wagging grew steadier.

Running wasn’t like Ironman training. She wouldn’t be training ten-plus hours every day, coming home only to do laundry, a few reps on the weight machines, and sleep. She would have time to care for a pet, even with her job.

Although bassets weren’t running dogs. They didn’t have the legs for it. Sometimes bassets had trouble walking fast.

Not that it mattered. If she kept the dog, it wouldn’t be as a running companion.

“I’ll take him,” she said.

“You will?” The guy sounded surprised. “You know, dogs aren’t something you buy on the spur of the moment. You’re making a ten-, maybe fifteen-year commitment here.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s time I make a commitment to something.”

The man frowned. He reached under the counter, pulled out the leash and collar, as well as a bag of Science Diet puppy food, and some baggies. It took her a moment to realize what the baggies were for.

“Full service place,” she said with a smile.

He didn’t smile back. She had a hunch he’d come after her if she didn’t give this dog a good home.

She wasn’t about to tell the man she planned to give the dog away.

He reached inside the cage and slid the puppy out. The little dog struggled against him, the tail between his legs.

“He doesn’t like to be touched,” the man said. “He was pretty badly abused. Can you handle that?”

If she had to, she could. She was pretty sure that Vari could handle it even better than she could.

“Does he have health problems because of it?”

“None that we know of.” The man set the puppy on the counter. The little dog’s tail started wagging the minute the man let go of him. Then the puppy bent his long snout and started sniffing, investigating every square inch of the tile as the man slid the collar around the dog’s neck.

“Now,” the man said to her, as if she were a child, “you get his name and address on this collar first thing. Too many dogs get lost and their owners never find them again. If you have any problems, you call me or the Humane Society. If for any reason you decide you don’t want him, bring him back here. Don’t just abandon him.”

Ariel gasped. “I would never do that.”

The man grimaced. “You’d be surprised at how many people do. Dogs and puppies are two different creatures, and once folks realize that dogs aren’t as cute, well …”

He put everything in a bag. Ariel scratched the pup’s ears. The dog’s tail wagged even harder.

“At least he likes you,” the man muttered.

“What?” she asked.

“Oh, you’d be surprised how many people came in here because they saw him in the window. He growled at most of them.”

“Really?”

The man nodded. “But he likes you. That’s a start.”

Ariel took out her checkbook. “Check to the Humane Society?”

“Yep.” The man shoved the bag toward her. “I’ll call them first thing. Time to get another of the dogs.”

“I’m amazed you don’t offer to do this more often,” she said. “Think how many animals you could save.”

The man raised his head and looked directly at her. “I used to, before I knew that I was supporting places like the one that damaged this little guy. Then I only took strays and animals that people brought in. I’d inoculate them, make sure everything was fine, and sell them for the vaccination fees.”

“But?” Ariel asked.

“I couldn’t part with them.” He ran a hand on the puppy’s back. The dog shivered but didn’t pull away. “I never knew if they were going to good homes. I always wanted to tell people that if they treated the animal badly, I’d hunt them down and shoot them.”

“Always good for business,” Ariel said.

He looked at her. “I’m serious.”

“I know,” she said, not at all offended. “And I promise. I’ll make sure he has a great life.”

The man studied her for a moment, then nodded. “I believe you.”

“Good.” Ariel smiled. She attached the leash to the puppy’s collar and picked him up. He didn’t struggle against her like he had struggled against the man.

The puppy let her set him on the ground; then he began sniffing the floor like he had sniffed the countertop, inch by inch.

Ariel picked up the bag and stuck it under her arm. Then she clucked at the puppy who, to her surprise, stopped sniffing and heeled as if he had been doing it all his life.

“Well, I’ll be,” the man said as she led the dog to the door. “Remember, come back if there are problems.”

“I will,” she said and stepped outside.

The brightness made her blink after the gentle light in the pet store. The puppy looked up at her as if her hesitation made him nervous.

Then a car drove past and the puppy shied. He hid behind her leg and whimpered again. She wouldn’t be able to walk him across the parking lot. He was too little and probably would be startled by the strangeness of it all.

So she bent down and picked him up with one arm, cradling him against her as she walked to her car. He leaned his head on her wrist, his little body trembling. But the expected struggle never came.

She used her keyless entry to unlock the car, then set the bag in the backseat. She didn’t have a dog carrier. She hoped the puppy would do all right beside her.

He went inside the car as if he knew it was the right thing to do. Then he sat in the passenger seat, unable to see over the dash. He had a calmness about him that was simply unnatural in any creature that young.