Gifted: A Holiday Anthology (9 page)

“It?” Dad’s brows shot up. “You can’t tell if it’s male or female?”

“I haven’t looked. I don’t want . . .” Logan busied himself shoving the meat back into the baggie. “It’s not important.”

Not important if they couldn’t keep it.

Dad scooped up the puppy in one hand. He flipped it onto its back. “Female.”

Logan nodded. Dad tried to put the puppy down, but it—she—climbed onto him, licking his face.

“Okay, okay,” he said, handing her back to Logan. “You haven’t named her, I’m guessing.”

“I didn’t want to form an attachment.”

Dad snorted, as if to say it was already too late. “Play with your puppy for a while. Tire her out.”

Logan wished he wouldn’t say
your
puppy. It meant nothing, but it felt like something, like that dream of something just out of reach that you know you’re not going to have, and the tease hurts so bad. But he pushed that aside, and he played with the puppy, and Dad did a little too, feinting and chasing, the way he used to when Logan and Kate were little, wearing
them
out for
their
nap.

When the puppy collapsed, too exhausted to even move, it was Dad who scooped her up and took her back to her bed. Then, as they headed for the house, he called Mom.

“We have a situation,” he said.

A pause, as Logan heard Mom’s muffled voice. Then Dad said, “Yeah, actually there
was
a mutt, but that’s taken care of. The problem is our son.”

Logan tensed. He tried to fall back, to not listen, but Dad caught him and kept him there, walking beside him.

“He found a puppy by the road a couple of days ago. Abandoned in a bag.” Dad went on and explained as they walked.

Mom met them out back. She said nothing as they approached. She didn’t stand with her arms crossed. She didn’t look disappointed. Not angry either. Just thoughtful. She looked maybe a little sad, and, when Logan saw that sadness, he faltered and felt like he was going to be sick.

“I’m sor—” he began, but she was already there, in front of him, arms going around him in a hug just as tight as his father’s, longer, though. Holding him against her, she bent to whisper, “I’m sorry you had to see that,” and he knew she meant the dead puppy, and he nodded, and then she backed up, her hands still on his shoulders.

“Uh . . .” Dad said, and motioned for her to take her hand off his left shoulder. “The mutt. He—”

“I got in the way,” Logan said.

Mom winced, but Logan said, “I’m fine. Just going to have a bruise. Lesson learned, right?” He tried for a smile, but she didn’t return it.

“We’ll discuss that tomorrow,” she said. “For now, the puppy. It’s late, and we’re not going to talk about it tonight. I’m just going to say that you don’t need to handle things alone, Logan. No one expects you to. No one but you.”

She looked down at his expression and sighed, “But that’s what counts, isn’t it? What you expect from yourself.” Another hug, lighter and quicker. “We’ll work on that. Go on inside. Your dad and I need to talk.”

Logan was almost asleep when his door creaked open. Footsteps crossed the room and even before he caught the scent, those footsteps said it was Dad. He kept his eyes shut until he felt him standing there, beside his bed, looking down at him. Not checking whether he was awake. Just watching him.

When Logan opened his eyes, Dad sat on the edge of the bed. There was a long minute of silence. Then Dad said, “That kid. The mutt. What he said . . . I caught a little of it. I heard you two talking. I ran that way and just caught the tail end.”

“He was just talking. He didn’t threaten me or anything.”

“I know. I heard enough to tell . . .” Dad eased back. “I’m not sure if I should say you handled yourself well, because that might encourage you to do it again.”

“I got lucky. He was just a kid. A scared kid trying to prove he was brave.”

Dad nodded. “But the rest. I caught enough to hear what he said about me.”

“Just the usual. I’ve heard it. Variations on it.”

Dad went still. “What have you heard?”

“That you’re crazy. The psycho-werewolf thing. That’s how you keep them away. By making them think you’re the big bad wolf.” A small smile. “Which doesn’t mean you
aren’t
, just that we don’t see it.”

Dad shifted on the bed. “He said I’d done something. At Stonehaven. To keep mutts off the property.”

“You got there before he told me the details.”

Silence. At least two minutes of it. “Do you want to know the details?”

“Not really.”

There was a soft exhale of relief. “Okay. Someday, yes, you’re going to need to hear them, and I’d rather you did from me but . . .”

“Whatever you did, it was to keep them away. To keep us safe—Jeremy and then Mom and then us.” He lifted his gaze to his father’s. “I get that, Dad. You did something—something bad—because it meant you didn’t have to keep doing smaller things until they got the message. One big message that lasted a long time. It makes sense.”

Dad watched him for a moment, and there was this look in his eyes, like maybe he’d rather Logan didn’t understand, like he’d rather his kids lived in a world where that
wouldn’t
make sense, because they’d never need to consider it.

Logan sat up and put his arms around his dad’s neck and squeezed and said, “Everything’s good.”

Dad gave him a quick hug back and tucked him in, kissed his forehead like he used to when they were little and then padded from the room.

There was no resolution to the puppy problem the next day. It was Christmas Eve, and it seemed Mom and Dad didn’t want to think about that. Mom said she and Dad would look after the puppy that day—they needed him and Kate to stay out of the woods, in case the mutt came back.

Logan was fine with that. As much as he told himself she was just postponing disappointing him, he couldn’t help but think that if she really didn’t want to disappoint him, she’d get it over with before he got his hopes up. So yes, he did get his hopes up. Way up, if he was being honest.

Then, lying in bed that night, stuffed with hot chocolate and Christmas cookies, he began to feel, well, a little sick, and it wasn’t from overeating. He kept thinking about the tree, with Kate’s gift under it, and how much he wished he could have given her the puppy, how happy that would have made her. He decided he needed an answer. Just an answer, so he could stop hoping if there wasn’t any point in it.

When he snuck downstairs, he heard his parents in the study.

“—don’t know how to tell him,” Mom was saying, and he stopped short.

“I know.”

“I keep going over it and over it,” she said.

She’s decided against the puppy.

Logan took a deep breath. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe he could still talk—

“There isn’t a solution,” she said.

“I know,” Dad replied.

“And you’re really not helping.”

“I know.”

A whack, as if she’d smacked him, and Dad let out a soft laugh, and then there was another sound, another smack—a kiss—and Dad said, “You don’t need to figure it out right now, darling.”

“I do.” A sharp intake of breath. “Distracting me isn’t going to help.”

“Mmm, yes, I think it will. I’ll distract you, and you’ll stop fretting, and then we can both come up with a solution later.”

“It has to be tonight.”

“Which has only begun. Now, come back here and . . .”

A laugh, cut short by a kiss. Logan’s shoulders slumped, and he trudged back to bed.

Logan tossed and turned all night. He drifted through nightmares of the puppy back in the bag, a new owner getting tired of it. Then, dreams of him handing the puppy to Kate, which were almost as bad, because he’d wake up and remember that wasn’t happening. Couldn’t happen.

When he first woke thinking he heard the puppy, it was obviously more self-torture. He snarled and pulled the covers up over his head. But, as soon as he started falling asleep, the puppy returned, howling, the sound muffled, as if she were calling to him from the fort, begging him to come out and play, not to send her away to strangers who might do the same as—

He bolted up with a growl, shaking his head sharply. His room was silent, the puppy only in his head. He looked at the window. It was still dark out.

He reached for the books on his nightstand. There was always a stack. He hunted down the titles for the one least likely to contain canines of any kind. Müller’s
A First German Reader.
That would do. He opened the book at random, and his gaze traveled down the page.

Leine: line, rope or leash.

He slapped the book shut, and he was reaching for another when he heard a yip and the scrabbling of nails. He lifted his head and blinked hard. Then he heard another yip.

No, that wasn’t possible.

More blinking. More yipping and scrabbling, like tiny nails against a door. Had she escaped the fort? Maybe Mom or Dad had been distracted and didn’t quite shut it up right, and the puppy had escaped and followed their trail to the house.

He had to get down there before Kate heard her. That would be the worst Christmas morning ever: his sister waking to a puppy she couldn’t have.

He raced into the hall, slowing only to tiptoe past Kate’s room, and then trying his best not to thump down the stairs. He could clearly hear the puppy now, and he followed the sound, expecting to hear it at the back door, but it seemed to come from the study.

Logan saw the door cracked open just enough to let in a very determined puppy, who, from the sounds of it, was in there growling at something.

How did she—?

Logan glimpsed a window as he raced for the study. Snow swirled and blasted against the glass. A storm. Mom or Dad had brought the puppy in. He looked over his shoulder to see the basement door also cracked open. They’d brought her in and put her in the basement to keep her warm.

And now she was in the study. Worse than that, as Logan saw when he pushed open the door, she was attacking Jeremy’s recliner, ripping at it with her tiny teeth.

Then she saw Logan and forgot all about the chair as she hurled herself at him, yipping and yelping.

“Shhh!” he said as he scooped her up. “Shhh! Please. We need to get you—”

Footsteps thundered down the stairs. Only one person in the house made that much noise.

“Kate,” he whispered. “Oh, no.”

He looked both ways, as if he could find someplace to stash the puppy where his sister wouldn’t smell it. He went to call a warning, to tell her to keep out, make up some story about wrapping one final present or—

The door flew open. Kate stood there, grinning.

“I see you found your gift,” she said. “Or did she find you?”

He froze and stared.

Kate thought their parents had given them the puppy.

This was worse, so much worse. His mouth opened and closed, and the puppy leaped out of his arms and scrambled over to Kate, who lifted her in a hug, laughing exactly like he’d imagined, her expression even happier than he’d imagined.

“It’s not . . . ,” he began. “She’s not from Mom and Dad.”

“Of course not, silly,” she said, making a face as the puppy licked her lips. “She’s from me. I found her in the fort.”

“Wh-what?”

Kate handed him the puppy, who seemed fine with the transfer, wriggling and whining and licking.

“She got inside the fort and couldn’t get out, poor thing. Luckily, we’d both left a couple of sweaters in there, so they kept her warm, and there was snow to drink. I was out walking with Mom and Dad while you and Jeremy went shopping, and they thought they smelled a mutt, so they were getting me back to the house when we smelled the puppy in the fort. I thought
that’s
what the scent was. I guess not, but, well, that’s why I was going into the woods the other night—I thought it was safe, and I had another one of your sweaters, because I wanted to make sure she got your scent most of all.” She motioned at the puppy. “Merry Christmas, Lo.”

He heard a sharp intake of breath and looked to see their parents in the doorway. Mom was in front, watching him, shock and dismay on her face.

“Hey, Mom, Dad,” Kate said, without glancing their way. “Looks like she escaped, and Logan found his gift early.”

“I . . . see . . . ,” Mom said, that look still on her face, as if frantically trying to figure out what to do, and he realized that’s what she’d been talking about last night. Not how to tell Logan he couldn’t keep the puppy. How to tell them they’d gotten each other the same gift. The same puppy.

“Kate,” Mom said. “Can I speak to you a moment?”

Kate looked over, and worry crept into her eyes, picking up on Mom’s. It was like dowsing a fire. She’d been happy giving him this gift. Even happier than he’d imagined she’d be
getting
it. Now they had to tell her it was a mistake—that he’d rescued the puppy for
her
. As her gift.

“It’s okay, Mom.” Logan looked at Kate. “So, you got me a puppy, huh?”

“
Found
you one. Exactly the kind you wanted, too.” Her face lit up again. “When I saw her, I couldn’t believe it. It was like . . . well, like it was meant to be.”

“She’s the kind you wanted, too. Maybe, since you found her . . .”

That light dimmed, just a little, as she nibbled her lip. This was what she wanted. The puppy for him.

“Maybe since you found her, we could share her,” he said. “I think Mom and Dad will agree one puppy in this house is quite enough. One
more
pup, that is.”

The light returned as Kate laughed. “Also, giving me half the puppy means giving me half the responsibilities, right?”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

She laughed again and threw her arms around his neck, and the puppy wriggled between them, and Logan decided that half a puppy was, indeed, the best Christmas gift ever.

Looking for more of the Danvers twins? You’ll find it in
Forsaken
, an Elena novella coming from Subterranean Press in January, 2015.
Forsaken
takes place a few months before
The Puppy Plan
—it’s the “trouble” Logan refers to from that summer, when his sister got herself into some trouble.

On the next page, you’ll find a sneak peek—the first two chapters of
Forsaken
.

For more details, check out my website at
KelleyArmstrong.com