Nearlyweds (23 page)

H
ere, Cash!” My breath came out in bursts of white condensation against the darkening twilight sky. “Come on!”

Cash skidded to a stop by the far corner of the fenced dog park, then turned and raced toward me.

“Oof!” I braced for impact as the huge black dog slammed into my knees.

Together with our trusty tennis ball, Cash and I had spent most of the afternoon churning the snow-covered dog park into muddy slush. The weather had been so bad for the last few days that we’d been forced to skip our usual long walks, so today, Christmas Eve, I’d loaded him into the back of the Jeep I’d traded in my convertible for and driven down to the park.

Considering that I’d been planning to spend the holiday in Belize with Mark, I thought I was handling the night before
Christmas very well. Mark had given me the car and enough of what his lawyer deemed my share of the house to pay for most of my nursing school tuition, but I hadn’t heard from him directly since he’d left me at the courthouse. My mother had lowered herself to speak to me again, but all she had to say was, “Why, Stella?
Why?
You were so close! If only you had learned to compromise!”

Casey had generously invited both me and the dog to her apartment for Christmas dinner tomorrow, and we’d accepted, even though I’d knew I’d feel awkward watching her and Nick grope each other eyes like a couple of high schoolers, which was basically all they did these days.

Alden was a very small town, and rumor had it that Mark had already started dating again. Since I’d moved out, he’d been seen brunching with Linda Lund, head of the hospital’s charity fund-raising committee. She was older than me, with grown children already in college, and I could picture her sliding right into the space I’d vacated. Replacing the rugs Cash had ruined. Buying a new mattress to share with Mark. Winning over Taylor and Marissa with spa days and shopping trips to New York. Mark didn’t like to be alone.

“Let’s go.” I clipped the red leather leash onto Cash’s collar. He trotted over to the gate, sniffed the wind, and whined.

“I’m going, I’m going.” I fumbled with the latch, clumsy in my mittens.

He pawed the ground and barked.

“Settle down,” I commanded. “You just ran around for two hours. Aren’t you tired yet?”

The second the gate swung open, Cash took off at top speed, ripping the leash out of my hand as he raced across the park toward the ice rink.

“Hey!” I lumbered after him, hampered by the knee-high snowdrifts that sucked in my boots like quicksand. “No! Bad dog!”

He streaked across the soccer field, a black blur against a background of pure white, on a collision course with the novice skaters wobbling on the public rink.

“No!” I yelled, falling farther behind. “Look out! Dog coming through!”

I knew I would never catch him. Cash would come back when he was good and ready, and not one minute sooner.

The dog yipped in surprise as he reached the slippery surface of ice. All four legs fell out from under him, and he spun toward the center of the rink, miraculously missing a pair of snowsuited toddlers clutching their mother’s hands.

“It’s okay!” I hollered. “He’s gentle! Don’t be scared! He’s just…insane!”

The mother herded her children toward the bench at the far side of the rink and threw me a filthy look.

“Sorry!” I panted as I stumbled up to the edge of the ice. “I’ll get him, okay? You don’t have to—Augh! Cash,
no
!”

Cash had regained his footing and was galumphing toward
a little girl in a fleece-trimmed pink jacket and matching pink skates. His tail wagged frantically as she toppled to the ground.

Since I didn’t hear any terrified shrieks of protest, I assumed the poor kid had either gone catatonic from fear or been knocked unconscious.

“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod!” I seized the dog’s collar and yanked with all my might. When he lifted his head to give me a huge doggy grin, I heard it: delighted, high-pitched giggling.

“I’ve got you.” I knelt down and wrapped my arms around the little girl, hauling her out of licking range. “I’ve got you.”

“Daddy!” the little girl shrieked, directly into my ear.
“Daddeee!”

I scanned the ice for her father, hoping he wasn’t the litigious type.

“Is this your dog?” demanded a tall, square-jawed man, jabbing his finger at Cash.

“Yes, he is, and I am so, so sorry. I know this looks bad, but I promise you, he loves kids. He just gets a little—”

“Where did you get him?” the man interrupted.

I shifted my hold on the little girl. “The pound. But he’s had all his shots, and I swear to God—”

“When did you get him?”

I paused. “A few weeks ago, I guess.”

“Which pound? Do you remember what day it was?”

I held out his daughter. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Look, Daddy!” The little girl bounced in her father’s arms. “It’s Humphrey!”

“Actually, his name is Cash, sweetie. He’s a very friendly dog;
too
friendly, in fact.”

“Nope!” she crowed. “It’s Humphrey. We founded him, Daddy. We founded him!”

“Hey, boy, come here.” The man flashed a quick hand signal and Cash struggled to his feet and marched right over.

“Traitor,” I hissed at him.

As the child threw her arms around Cash’s neck, her father straightened up to address me. “This is incredible. Do you have any idea how long we’ve been looking for this dog?”

“There must be some mistake.” I laughed weakly. “This is
my
dog. I adopted him from the county shelter; they said he was dumped there by some lowlife who didn’t even bother to pay the twenty-dollar surrender fee.”

“Humphrey!” Pigtails kissed Cash right on the mouth.

The man glanced at her, then motioned me aside. “Yeah. The lowlife? That would be my ex-wife. I had to go to London on business for a few weeks and my daughter couldn’t bear to put Humphrey in a kennel, so my ex agreed to take care of him. When I came back, the dog was gone. She claimed he had run away.” The little muscle in his jaw twitched. “She never was much of an animal lover, but I had no idea she was capable of—”

“Whoa. Let’s just slow down a second.” I grabbed Cash’s leash and gripped it with both hands. “We’re not even sure
if this is really the dog you lost. Maybe he just looks like your dog. Shelters are chock-full of big, black, shaggy dogs; how do you know—”

He dropped to one knee and held up his palm. “Give me five, Humphrey.”

Cash immediately jerked up his paw and made contact.

I crossed my arms. “Lots of dogs know how to shake. That doesn’t prove anything.”

The man spun around, turning his back to the dog and holding his hand low against his hip. “On the flip side.”

Cash smacked paw into palm again.

I muttered an obscenity under my breath. The dog’s tail was going a mile a minute, and both he and the little girl were making happy yelping sounds.

“After all I’ve done for you,” I said to Cash. “This is how you repay me?”

The man pulled out his wallet and handed me his business card. “Thank you so much for saving him. This is a miracle.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Not so fast. Legally, this dog belongs to me. I’ve got his license, his vaccination record, and a shredded leather couch to prove it. How do I know your ex-wife sob story holds water? How do I know you didn’t dump him there yourself?”

He tapped his business card. “You can call my assistant. She’ll verify that I was out of town on the dates the alleged dumping occurred.”

I scanned the business card, which announced that he was a corporate consultant named Will Montrose.

“I can also provide vet records, his original rabies license registration, obedience school certificates, and multiple photos of the dog with members of my family.”

“But…I got him microchipped,” I floundered. “He’s registered under my name. And besides, I love him.”

“I can imagine.” Will’s voice softened. “We love him, too. Especially Isabel.”

“I do love you, Humphrey!” Isabel squealed. “I missed you!”

Cash, aka Humphrey, aka Ungrateful Turncoat, had obviously missed Isabel, too. And the noble thing to do would be to relinquish him to his original preschool-age owner and her doting father. But…

“But I hung a stocking for him and everything,” I said. “With his name embroidered on it. Cheesy, yes, but still. We were going to do Christmas morning together. Just the two of us.”

That’s when Will Montrose glanced at my left hand. He was subtle—I almost missed it—but suddenly I realized that he was kind of cute, in a dark, rugged, dog-napping kind of way.

“You got him a stocking?” His smile had a dimple on the right side.

“Yeah.” I burrowed the bottom half of my face into my scarf. “I was going to put a bone and some organic T-R-E-A-T-S in there.”

“So you two have bonded, huh?”

“Look, I know I sound incredibly selfish, not wanting to give a four-year-old her dog back.” I kept an eye on the little girl, who was attempting to throw one leg over Cash’s back while demanding a “pony ride,” but Cash didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he was loving the attention. “But I’ve never had a dog before. I kind of got attached.”

“And he got attached to you.” Will thought for a moment, then asked, “Are you new in town? I haven’t seen you around.”

“I moved out here from New York to get married and, well, that didn’t really work out.”

“Kids?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Just the four-legged kind.”

“It’s tough to be single again in a small town like this. I have primary custody of Izzy, so between that and work I don’t get out much, but if you ever want to—”

“Daddy!” Izzy tugged her father’s coat sleeve. “Humphrey wants to go home now.”

I looked at Will. Will looked at me.

“Go ahead,” I said slowly. “She’s a little kid. Kids need their dogs.”

“No, you bailed him out of the shelter.” He shoved his hands into his coat pockets. “And you obviously love him.”

“But so do you,” I protested. “You taught him to shake on the flip side, for God’s sake.”

“There’s only one solution. Joint custody.”

“That’s not gonna work,” I scoffed.

“Sure it will. We can alternate weeks or—”

“Actually, I’m going to be starting night classes soon, so it’d be nice for him to have someplace to go while I’m at school.” I was warming up to this idea.

“Absolutely. We can work something out. In the meantime, just give me your number…”

My flirting reflexes, dormant for the last year, snapped back into action. “I like how you just slid that in. Very smooth.”

“What?” He tried to look innocent. “I need your number so we can negotiate terms.”

“Tell you what. I’ll give you my number if you let me keep the dog tonight.” This guy was cute. And he liked kids. If I could just casually work the vasectomy question into the conversation, I’d be all set.

“How can I refuse? You bought him a stocking and everything. Izzy, honey, we’re going to let this nice lady—”

“Stella,” I supplied.

“Stella’s going to take care of the dog tonight while you’re at your mom’s. And then tomorrow morning, when I come to drive you back to our house, we’ll pick him up and he can open presents with you.”

“And after presents, we watch the Grinch, right?” Izzy prompted.

“Right.” Will turned to me. “Annual father-daughter tradition.”

“And after the Grinch, we go to Thelma’s, right?”

“Right,” he told her. To me he said, “It’s a greasy spoon diner by Pittsfield. The only place open on Christmas Day. Another annual tradition. I tried to do the whole turkey dinner one year, and the only one of us who could eat the result was the dog.”

I laughed and recounted the tale of Cash’s Thanksgiving dinner at my house.

“Classic Humphrey. Someday I’ll have to tell you about what he did to our sofa.”

“So what do you suggest we do about his name?” I asked Will as he sat down to unlace Izzy’s skates.

“His name is Humphrey,” Isabel informed me loftily.

“I don’t know.” I wrinkled my forehead. “The tag on his collar says Cash.”

“Humphrey!” She giggled.

“Cash!” I pretended to pinch her toe.

“Ladies!” Will waded into the fray. “We’ll settle this another day. Christmas is no time for a fistfight.”

“We’ll fight later,” I whispered to Izzy. She kicked her feet while her father tried to cram them into pink boots.

“All right,
Cash
and I are heading home.” I found a pen in my purse and scribbled my phone number on the back of a post office receipt. “Call me and I’ll give you directions. See you tomorrow morning.”

“Are you coming to Thelma’s with us?” Izzy asked.

“Oh, sweetie, no, that’s your special time with your dad.”