This was one challenge too far.
CHAPTER SIX
ETHAN STARED AT the closed door in frustration and disbelief.
Walk? Walk where? It was snowing outside and the temperature was dropping. Not to mention the fact that they’d been in the middle of a conversation about how to handle the dog.
The dog.
It occurred to him that a stranger had just walked out of his apartment with his sister’s beloved pet.
“Dammit.” He ran his hand over his face. What was he supposed to do now?
She’d taken the dog. His sister’s dog, who was his responsibility. And by the look on her face, she wasn’t intending to return in a hurry. Maybe not at all.
Why had she run out like that?
Guilt flashed through him and he ran through the conversation in his mind.
He’d walked through the door, seen the mess and—
Yelled.
He winced, hit by a stab of regret and remorse. He’d definitely yelled.
And something about her had changed when he’d done that.
She’d been tense and defensive and then she’d stammered.
He thought back, remembering the look of dismay on her face.
At the time he hadn’t thought anything of it, mostly because he’d been too focused on his own emotions. He’d registered the disfluency in her speech, but ignored it.
Now he remembered the flash of panic and mortification in her eyes, as if something dire and desperate had happened.
Her appalled reaction told him this was something she fought against. He’d dated a speech-language pathologist for a while when he was an intern, and he remembered her telling him that stressful situations could sometimes trigger a relapse in people who generally had the condition under control.
What if he’d caused the stressful situation?
What if Harriet Knight didn’t normally stammer?
He probably shouldn’t have yelled at her, but he’d had a seriously bad day and returning to find his apartment looking like the inside of a garbage disposal unit hadn’t helped. Surely she could see that?
And he hadn’t been yelling at her exactly. He’d been yelling generally.
His attempt to justify his behavior had no impact on his guilt levels because the truth was none of it was her fault.
He was about to work out whether he should go after them or not, when his phone rang.
He saw from the caller display that it was his sister in California.
Great.
Perfect timing.
His concern for his niece eclipsing his worry about the dog, Ethan answered the phone.
He was relieved when Debra told him everything was going smoothly.