The Moment of Truth. Tara Taylor Quinn

And while Dana had an A in the class—straight As in all of her classes, actually—she wouldn’t be able to maintain her grades if she didn’t turn her work in on time.

      She was two sentences farther along when her phone rang.

      It was Jerome, from her English class. He’d lost part of his grant and was low on cash. He’d shown up for class one day in jeans that were wrinkled and had a stain at the knee and she’d made a joke about a rough night. He’d replied that he didn’t have enough money for laundry and was wearing things until they stank—at which time she’d offered him the use of her washer and dryer.

      He’d been over every Saturday for the past three weeks. And was calling to ask if he could use her facilities again.

      She told him that he was welcome, took a break from her laptop to clear her as yet unwashed clothes out of the washing machine and went back to work. Another paragraph, rewritten four times, and Jerome was at the door. She let him in and returned to her desk.

      She heard him in the kitchen, settling at her kitchen table with his own laptop and thought to call out, “You going home for Thanksgiving?”

      “No,” he answered back. “My folks and I decided to save the money so I could fly home for Christmas break instead of driving. It’ll give us four more days together.”

      Jerome was from Missouri.

      “I’m making dinner here for anyone who can’t get home,” she said. “You’re welcome to join us.”

      “Cool. I’m there,” the eighteen-year-old said. “I’m no cook, but I know how to load a dishwasher.”

      “Then dishwasher loader you are,” she said. Kari pounced on her keyboard, typing a series of As, just as Dana’s cell phone rang. “Hello?” she answered.

      “Dana Harris?”

      She recognized the voice. There was no reason to—she’d only heard it briefly—but she did.

      “Yes.”

      “This is Josh Redmond. I met you—”

      “I remember you, Josh. I was going to call you in a little while to see how you and Little Guy are doing. I didn’t want to call too early.” With it being Saturday and all.

      “The middle of the night wouldn’t have been too early,” the man said with a tired-sounding chuckle.

      Dana remembered her own sleepless state a few days before. “He whined all night?” she said. She should have warned him. But why borrow trouble? The puppy might not have whined at Josh’s place.

      And Little Guy needed a home.

      But they needed it to be a good home, so that he would have a permanent home. And that’s where she came in.

      “He whined. And then yelped. And pooped and peed. And whined some more.”

      “Did you bring him into bed with you?” Most pet lovers knew how to solve separation anxiety issues. Or resolved to put up with the whining for the little bit of time it would take to train the animal to sleep alone.

      “Hell, no, I didn’t bring it to bed with me!” Josh sounded affronted. “Why would I do that?”

      “To get some sleep,” she said calmly, not sure they’d made the right choice in a home for Little Guy. Some animal shelters gave animals away to pretty much anyone who stopped in. A home was better than no home. But...

      “I’m not sure how you think I’d sleep any better with him whining next to my ear than I did with him howling from the kennel in the bathroom,” he said. “I started him out with a pet bed in the kennel, but he chewed on that and left foam everywhere. So I tried a blanket. He peed on it. He ripped up the puppy pad and...”

      The man was clearly beside himself. If she hadn’t been worried about Little Guy’s future, Dana would have smiled.

      “Have you ever had a dog before, Josh?”

      She’d assumed, since he’d been at the veterinary clinic, and seemed eager to take the dog, that he was an experienced pet owner.

      “No.”

      “You’re a cat person, then?”

      “No.”

      “Horses?”

      “I’ve never had so much as a goldfish.”

      Dana’s heart sank. She could hear Jerome in the tiny laundry room off the kitchen, moving clothes from the washer to the dryer.

      “You’ve never had a pet?” She’d grown up with a kennel of them. Literally. And had made more than one road trip with her mother to deliver one of Susan’s purebred poodles.

      “No.”

      “And you’re there alone?”

      With a growing and teething puppy who was going to get huge?

      “I live alone, yes.”

      He sounded tired. Frustrated. But he hadn’t asked her to take Little Guy back. Or called the clinic and dropped him off there.

      He’d called her. His pet counselor.

      Anyone who owned pets had to start somewhere....

      “How about if I drive out there,” she heard herself suggesting before she’d fully thought about what she was saying. Her paper was three-quarters of the way finished. She had another day and a half before it was due. She could still make the movie she’d been hoping to see that afternoon. And the hair appointment she’d scheduled, if she was quick about it. “Puppies are a lot like two-year-olds....”

      “I have no more experience with those than I do dogs,” he inserted.

      Her curiosity flared. Josh was easily a year or two older than she was. At least. He wore expensive shoes. Was new to town and single. Where had he been before he’d relocated to the middle of nowhere in the Arizona desert?

      And why did he choose Shelter Valley?

      It was absolutely none of her business. She’d spent too much time with her nose in books. Wanted to know everything about everyone.

      “He’s testing his boundaries,” she told the slightly desperate-sounding man. “And probably suffering some anxiety, too. As soon as he feels secure, and knows what’s expected of him, he’ll settle down.”

      “How long does that normally take?”

      “Could be a week, could be months.” She had to be honest with him. For Little Guy’s sake. As much as she wanted the puppy to have found a home, she didn’t want him to stay if it wasn’t the right place for him. “But there are some things you can do to make the process a lot easier on both of you,” she added. “How about if I do your first house check this morning and see what we can do?”

      “Would you?”

      “Of course.”

      “We aren’t taking you away from something important, are we?”

      “Just homework,” she told him. “And I’m almost done.” Or she would be. Soon. “I’ll be there within the hour.”

      Right after she showered and told Jerome to lock up after himself when he was through.

      * * *

      JOSH WASN’T READY for company. He’d hauled a rented trailer behind the SUV for the trip out to Arizona with his brown leather sofa and recliner, his sleep mattress and bed frame and the solid wood dresser he’d had made in Spain during a weekend jaunt with Michelle and another couple. He’d brought the butcher-block kitchen table because it was the one he’d grown up with and had snatched from his mother when she’d been redecorating after he left for college.

      He had linens—more than he needed. And the kitchen things his mother had hired her housekeeper to outfit