“Great suggestion. The big and medium guys didn’t seem to have any problems, thankfully.” After a moment, he added, “You know what? They need better names than the big one, the medium one, and the runt.”
The thought of naming them made Tasha a little queasy. Already, she wanted to keep them forever. She could too easily imagine the fun they would have together once the puppies were fattened up. Three furry companions who would make all the difference in her life. Who would make this place a true home. As it was, just having Daniel here make her shack feel like home.
“Larry, Curly, and Moe,” Daniel suggested as he rolled the tiny female in his arms. Her eyes remained pathetically closed.
“You watched The Three Stooges?”
He put a spoonful of mashed food to the puppy’s mouth, obviously hoping the scent would tempt her. “Saturday mornings when I was kid, on whatever stations we could get from our old antenna, we watched reruns of all the old shows. Wile E. Coyote, the Marx Brothers.”
This magnificent man had grown up poor, without even cable TV. Whereas she’d had every channel known to man. Courtesy of stolen money.
“How about Heckle, Jeckle, and Hyde?” he asked when she didn’t agree to his first recommendation. Just then, a little pink tongue finally flicked out and licked at the spoon. “There you go, Heckle.”
“That’s a terrible name for a puppy.” But Tasha still laughed, loving the name game. “How about Groucho, Harpo, and Chico?” she said, even though she knew her suggestions weren’t much better than his had been.
“They don’t look like the Marx Brothers,” he argued. “And she deserves a more feminine name.” He rocked the puppy, who was at last eating every bite he offered.
Tasha laid the big boy in the box, where he rolled over to sleep.
Daniel came up with another idea. “All right then, how about Froggy, Spanky, and Darla?”
She picked up the medium puppy and he too immediately fell asleep, starting to snore softly, his breathing raspy through his open mouth. “You know what?” She smiled, aware that she was happier than she had any right to be. “I think we’ve got a winner.”
* * *
Daniel’s stomach growled as the smallest bundle fell into a deep sleep in his arms, finally sated. “All right, this one is Darla. That guy”—he pointed at the one in Tasha’s arms—“is Froggy.” The relatively fat puppy suddenly yowled in the box. “And he’s Spanky, because he’s always hungry.”
“Honestly,” Tasha said, “that sounded more like your stomach than Spanky’s.”
“Come on down to my place. I’ve got some sandwich fixings.”
Anticipation flashed in her eyes, but just as quickly, it was gone. She set Froggy in the box, and once Daniel put Darla in there too, Spanky stopped in mid-yowl and flopped over, succumbing to the warmth of his brother and sister and once again falling asleep.
“Thanks for the offer.” She was already rising, and he heard the but before she said it. “But I’ve got a can of soup I was planning to heat up.”
She was such a strange—and beautiful—creature. Open and laughing one minute, closed in on herself the next. Almost as though she thought it was wrong to be happy, bad to feel joy, and needed to constantly shut it down, no matter how difficult it might be to hide away the naturally sunny part of herself.
Instinctively, he knew there was more to her story. But what was it?
And should he even try to find out?
He’d waited thirty-six years to find the perfect soul mate, someone without shadows or secrets, someone totally open, so that he could have the same amazing marriage as his parents. Only, he hadn’t known about any bumps then, had he?
His parents had been totally committed to each other since forever, so what kind of bumps could they possibly have encountered? It had to be way more than money problems…
Frustrated, he said, “Soup sounds great,” even though Tasha hadn’t actually offered him any.
“It’s tomato.” She said it in a flat voice, obviously trying to make the soup sound as unappetizing as possible.
“I love tomato soup.”
“Nobody loves tomato soup.” She retrieved a can from a box on the microwave. “I only bought it because it was on sale.”
He couldn’t think of the last time a woman had tried to kick him out. He’d always been the one trying to figure out how to leave. Now, all he wanted was to stay, even though his rule had always been: Don’t get involved in messes.
Yet here he was getting more and more involved with Tasha, and the mystery of her, with each passing day.
“Bet you’re regretting not letting me have the puppies at my place, aren’t you?” He moved closer, until he could smell the outdoors and the dirt and the puppies on her. Nothing had ever been more erotic. “Now you can’t get rid of me.”