“Sit, Baker,” Emma said.
Baker sat down on the wooden floor and looked around. There were more of those clear boxes on the countertop.
Cookies!
Emma bent down to be eye-level with Baker. “We need your help. Maeve’s made a bunch of cookies, but she can’t decide which one’s the best one. You can’t eat them, but if you sniff them and tell us the best one, I can give you a treat.”
She dropped the end of the leash, and Maeve took another step back, raising a protective hand.
Emma went to the desk and came back with a big jar. She opened it and showed Baker the bone-shaped treats inside. They didn’t smell quite as good as the cookies, but her mouth still watered.
“You don’t really think that dog can actually understand you?” Maeve shook her head. “This is really dumb. I can’t believe I agreed to this.”
“You’re just afraid it will work.”
“That’s not what I’m afraid of at all.”
“Are you ready, Baker?” Emma picked up one of the containers. “This is batch number one.” She brought a box forward and opened it. “No eating. Just sniffing.”
Baker licked her lips and teeth and sat very still. This was important. Maeve was scared, and if she could help Maeve feel less frightened, that was good. She’d felt scared so often, and it was a terrible thing to feel.
“Here.” Emma placed the box under her nose.
Baker sniffed, and the scent exploded in her nostrils. Soft, warm and delicious. Gooey and peanut buttery. She wagged her tail to let Emma know this was a very good one. It smelled exactly like the cookies she’d eaten yesterday.
“She’s wagging her tail. She likes it!” Emma grinned over her shoulder at Maeve.
Maeve peered down at Baker, lowered her hand and took a step forward. “The ones based on my grammy’s old recipe. But it’s probably a fluke. She’ll probably wag her tail for all of them.”
Her lips peeled back over her teeth and her forehead went wrinkly.
Emma came back with a second box. “What about this one, girl?”
Baker looked up at Maeve. She wasn’t as scared anymore, but having the humans this close made her skin tingle. What if she barked and they got angry? What if they shouted or hit her?
“You can do it, Baker. Maeve, say something encouraging.”
Maeve’s cheeks went pink like the underside of a puppy’s paws. “Yes, Baker, go ahead. You’re a good girl.”
Good girl. She hadn’t heard those words in a very long time. Not since before Michael.
She sniffed the box and choked on the smell. She turned her head away.
“Would you look at that? I told you this would work.” Emma fetched a doggy bone treat out of the jar on the desk and set it on the floor.
Baker gobbled it up, crunching it between her teeth. It was delicious, and helped get the smell of the bad cookies out of her nose.
“Let’s try the others.” Emma winked at Maeve.
Box after box came, and Baker sniffed each one, turning her head when it smelled gross or wagging her tail if it was okay. Emma gave her a treat every three boxes. It was a fun game, and Maeve seemed to like it, too — at least, she crept a little forward with each box until she was almost close enough to stroke Baker’s head.
“I think she likes number one the best,” Emma said. “That or number thirteen. Here girl. Which one is your favorite?”
Baker considered both boxes. They were both yummy, but the first one was the best of the lot. She hopped up to her feet and wagged her tail at the first box.
“See? She likes number one! This is your cookie for the competition.”
Maeve took the box back from Emma.
Baker blinked up at her, and she stared back. Then she said, “Thanks.”
Baker dared to bark. Just a little, not to be frightening, but to be happy.
And Maeve didn’t yell, or back away, or even leave. She sat on the sofa with a sigh. “That’s something, at least.”
“See? All’s well that ends well. But you forgot to do one last thing.” Emma walked to Maeve and gave her the big container of doggy treats. It had marks on its sides that looked like the prints dogs left behind in the mud after it rained.
“What?” Maeve asked.
“You have to give Baker a treat.”
Chapter Eight
“Whoa there,” Maeve said, staring at the ceramic container of Milk-Bones. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“She won’t bite you.” Emma smiled, like that would help. “Has she seemed aggressive at all since she came in here? No. Did she tell you which batch of cookies was the best? Yes. You have nothing to worry about.”
Maeve licked her lips, her heart throbbing in her ears. What if Baker decided her fingers looked tastier than the treats? Or what if she…?
“Maeve. She’s a sweetheart. Look at her.”
Baker sat still in the reception area, right next to the coffee table. She didn’t wag her tail or make a noise; she simply watched, her head tilted to one side and one ear flopping up. She was actually kind of pretty.
In short, any person who hadn’t been viciously mauled by a dog as a child would have found her adorable. Not Maeve, though. That melty feeling around her heart was a symptom of exhaustion, not affection.
“Go ahead.” Emma rattled the Milk-Bones. “She deserves a reward. You’ll like petting her again.”
Maeve sighed, resigned, took a biscuit from the container, and walked over to Baker.
The dog wagged her tail once.
“Here,” she said, holding the biscuit out toward Baker. Somehow, being so close to the dog was even scarier than the day before. Maybe because she had a choice this time, and she was doing it even though she knew better.
Baker took the treat gingerly from between her fingers and crunched it up, wagging her tail a second time. Maeve stretched out her hand, hesitantly. She sniffed it. No licking, thank goodness — she was not ready for mouth-to-hand contact.
Maeve patted her on the head, real slow. She was solid, but soft at the same time.
“Good girl.” The words felt kind of weird.
Baker wagged her tail again.
Maeve backed away and sat back on the sofa, relieved to be out of biting range again. “There. I did it.”
“Good girl.” Emma grinned, and closed the treats. She set it back behind the counter, then took hold of Baker’s leash and held it loosely at her side. “Because I’ve been thinking about something.”
“Uh oh.” Maeve swiped the hair back from her forehead. She was toast. She needed a shower, some time to relax, and maybe an entire day of sleep. But she couldn’t avoid Leroy for much longer, and she had a class to teach today. “What is it?”
“Baker’s clearly got a gift for sniffing out delicious food. I’m not saying you should take her home or anything, but you should definitely come back and see her.”
“See her?” Maeve frowned. “Em, I told you I’m not interested in getting a dog.”
“For sure, but she’s obviously good at picking out great food. You should come back to the shelter every time you’ve made something for the contest and let her test it. Give it the old snifferoo.”
“Snifferoo?”
“It’s a word.” Emma laughed. “Come on, it’ll be good for both of you. And who knows? Baker might be your secret to success in the upcoming competition. A way to beat Jassie.”
“We both know that’s ludicrous.”
“You know what’s even more ludicrous? The fact that I’m not letting you leave the shelter until you agree to come back and see Baker. She’s never opened up to anyone like—”
“Em, I can’t—”
“I’ll make you feed her another treat. Don’t think I won’t do it.”
Maeve didn’t have the energy left to fight. “Fine. But I still think it’s crazy. And I’m not taking her home.”
“Deal.” Emma’s grin was far too excited.
Maeve didn’t have th
e heart to let her down. Truth was, she didn’t plan on opening her home to anyone, ever again, human or animal. She’d learned her lesson.
All she cared about was winning the money to start her bakery.
Chapter Nine
Maeve took a breath and unlocked her front door, the morning sun on her back. She’d done it. She’d woken up early this morning to bake another batch of her grandmother’s cookies. Now, they waited at the college for a HealthNut representative to pick them up.
What if they weren’t good enough? She’d bet her dream on stray dog’s sniffer.
“Baker, you’d better be right,” she muttered as she set her tote on the foyer table and walked through to the living room. The TV was off, the curtains were drawn, and her laptop was waiting.
It had been almost forty-eight hours since Leroy first messaged her about changing the shade of green in his image. Sometime during the night, he’d gone ominously silent.
Maeve was half-afraid to log in and see whether he’d lodged the complaint and left the one-star review that he’d threatened.
But she half-hoped that he had, and that she’d never have to deal with him again.
Instead, she found that her BestGig account had been suspended, pending investigation of a client complaint of fraudulent activity. No further explanation.
Leroy.
Okay, so she’d been ghosting him for two days, not interested in his “graphic design emergency” while she was trying to figure out her entry for the HeathNut competition. But accusing her of fraud? That was an absurd overreaction.
As long as her account was suspended, she not only couldn’t finish the job for Leroy, she also couldn’t take on any other jobs, from existing clients or new ones. He was trying to cut her off entirely from her main source of income, and that was far worse than anything she’d ever done to him.
Deep breath. Maeve followed her own advice and sucked in air through her teeth. She hadn’t committed fraud. BestGig would recognize that.
She sent an email to their help desk, requesting information about the complaint, and immediately received an autoresponder message saying they replied to queries in the order received, and that she should wait forty-eight hours before contacting them again. In the meantime, all her existing clients would see her suspended profile and that unfair fraud accusation.
She groaned. Past experience suggested she would be contacting them again — they were quick to respond to client issues, but slower to deal with freelancer complaints.
But her only option was to wait. Or maybe she could email or text any customers who’d contacted her outside of BestGig.
Starting with an apology to Leroy. He might withdraw the complaint if she made nice.
An hour later, she’d contacted everyone she could, letting them know that there’d been a glitch at BestGig and that it would be fixed soon. If they had any work for her in the meantime, she’d be happy to help them.
Mom used to say that thing about a watched pot never boiling, which Maeve always thought was ridiculous, because of course water boiled at the same rate whether someone watched or not. It just felt like it'd never get there.
It was perfect description of her life: standing around, waiting for things to finally heat up.
She strode to the curtains and dragged them open, letting the sun’s rays into the living room. Then she opened the windows as well.
A meow broke the silence.
She peered out the window, into the flowerbed below.
Macavity, the neighbor’s cat, sat in the garden, peering up at her. Mrs. Johnston had adopted him about three weeks ago, but he spent more time at Maeve’s house than at hers.
“What now? You know I can’t feed you.”
Macavity leapt onto the windowsill and purred his way into the living room. Maeve didn’t mind cats, and as they went, he was about the cutest. Mrs. Johnston had named him after her favorite character in the Cats musical, because he was both mysterious and criminally-inclined.
Later, she’d discovered he was also mean to the neighborhood dogs, but he liked Maeve, so she stroked him and let him take a seat on the sofa. He licked the fiddly front bit of his chest, sticking his tongue out in that obscene way cats liked to do, then curled into a ball in the sunshine.
Ah, the life of a cat. A part of her wished she could be like Macavity. Live the simple life and let somebody else worry about all the stressful stuff.
She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.
Her cell trilled from her bag in the hall. What if it was the HealthNut people, calling to tell me that she’d made it into the competition? She ran to grab it.
“Hello?” No one answered. “Hello?”
“Just a sec!” Emma’s voice crackled through the phone. “I—oops!”
“What?”
“Hi,” she said, clearing up again. “Sorry about that. How are you today?”
There was a strange tone to Emma’s voice. Something Maeve couldn’t quite place. “Okay, how are you? And why are you calling?”
“What, a friend can’t call another friend anymore? That’s harsh.”
“Not like that, I just … I thought you were volunteering at the shelter today.”
“Oh, I am. I mean, I was.” Emma chuckled. “I’ve just got a surprise for you.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Just one sec.” A door slammed in the background, and she whispered something Maeve couldn’t make out. “Okay, back.”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing, nothing, all part of the surprise.”
Maeve frowned. “All right. So, what is this surprise?”
“Well, you know how you’ve been really down lately? Super-sarcastic and weird, and how you spent all night baking twenty batches of cookies for a baking contest audition?”
“Don’t spare my feelings or anything.”
“You know what I mean. You’ve been really down and out lately. I just want you to cheer up. And I think I’ve found the way to do that.”
“You’d better not be setting me up on a date, because that is the last thing I want or need.”
“Not quite.” Emma’s voice trembled with barely-contained excitement. “Come to the front door.”
“Huh?”
“Come outside!”
Maeve walked over and opened the front door.
* * *
Emma stood on the porch, grinning and tucking her phone into the pocket of her jeans. She held a leash in her other hand. On the end of the leash was Baker, the boxer with a nose for Maeve’s cookies.
Baker looked up with soft brown eyes, and that weird melty sensation around Maeve’s heart came back.
Strange, because she’d gotten plenty of sleep last night.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Surprise!” Emma held out the end of the leash. “I brought you a present.”
“Did you hide it somewhere in the dog?”
“That’s … I don’t want to know what you mean by that.”
“To be honest, I’m not even sure. But why have you brought her here?”
“Because you’re going to keep her for a while.”
“I think I’m not.” Emma opened her mouth again, but before she could argue, Maeve added, “No, I am definitely sure that’s not happening.”
Baker planted her furry butt on the porch. Maeve kept a wary eye on her, in case she decided to growl, or bare her teeth, or mistake her for a peanut butter cookie.
She didn’t move.
“Hear me out.” Emma lifted her palm. “So, you know how Pretty Paws is a no-kill shelter?”
“Yeah.”
“What you probably don’t know is that we’ve really been struggling lately. As in, there’s not really enough money to go around and the more doggy mouths to feed, the worse it gets.” Emma dragged her teeth over her bottom lip. “Leslie needs the space, and if Baker doesn’t leave, then she might have to go to another shelter.”
“Oh?”
“So. The only other shelter in the area is … well, the opposite of a no-kill.”
“Oh.” The melty feeling got meltier. And sadder. She pushed it down. “What’s that got to do with me?”
“Well, I figured if she gets a few weeks of fostering, then maybe she might make some progress. Because there’s someone paying more attention to her, yeah? Then she could come back to Pretty Paws with a better chance of getting adopted. Basically, she just needs a place to stay. And since my apartment complex has a no-pets rule, I figured…”
“Absolutely not. You know how I feel about dogs.”
“Baker’s sweet. She’d never bite you, or even growl—”
“The very first time she saw me, she practically knocked me over.”
“With enthusiasm. She wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
“But she still could have.”
“Look at how awesome she was at identifying which cookies you should make for the competition. You can use her natural talents for figuring out what product you want to present to HealthNut.”
She had to be kidding. “There’s got to be somebody else who can take her.”
“There isn’t,” Emma said, firmly. “If you don’t take her, just for a week or two, Baker’s going to wind up at a shelter that’s not nearly as willing to put in the effort as Pretty Paws. She could be put down. Could you really let that happen to her?”
“But I don’t even — I don’t know how to look after a dog.”
“You feed them, give them water, and let them sleep on a blanket or something. It’s not that hard.”
“Speak for yourself,” Maeve grumbled.
“So, that’s a yes? You’ll watch her for a few weeks? She can help you with your baking competition and everything.”
It was a lame excuse — did Emma really believe Baker had picked the right cookies?
Did Maeve?
She looked down at Baker again, and wondered if she could live with herself if the dog got sent to a shelter that would put her down.
“Fine,” she said, at last.
Emma squealed with joy and practically bowled her over as she led Baker into the house. Maeve hesitated, pulse pounding in her throat. It was one thing to run into the dog at the shelter, but having her in the house?
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