Paws for Love, A Novel for Dog Lovers

by Dana Mentink

  Bill perked up. This was an interesting turn of events.

  “Yes, your very own Vivian Buckley—” Tucker was interrupted by Jellybean, who let out a shrill bark. All heads swiveled toward Misty. Her face flushed a cherry-cream red.

  She let out a groan as Lawrence began to wax eloquent about his dog. The stares were fastened on Misty and Jellybean now.

  “Can I make it to the door?” she whispered.

  “I think you’re caught,” Bill whispered back.

  “Oh yes, let me take a moment to introduce you to my faithful companion, Jellybean. Ms. Agnelli, bring him over, won’t you? This is Misty Agnelli. She’s a violin virtuoso who is helping me brush up on my skills. She teaches lessons on Skype, in case any of you have a budding violinist at home.”

  Misty stood frozen as the group stared in fascination. Bill reached out a hand and put it on her rigid shoulder.

  “Come on,” he whispered, “I’ll walk with you.”

  He braced an arm around her and propelled her forward. They reached Lawrence, who took the now growling Jellybean.

  Misty immediately backed up, pressing into Bill. Slowly, he rested a hand on her shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze, guiding her back to the fringes of the room where she seemed most comfortable.

  “There’s an interesting story about how this dog came into my life,” Lawrence began.

  Bill noticed an elaborate eye roll from Vivian. What was going on with these two? As Lawrence droned on, Jellybean caught sight of Tinka, curled on Vivian’s lap.

  Jellybean stiffened, barked, and wriggled so violently that Tucker lowered him to the floor. The dog shot toward Tinka. The startled female took off. In a moment, both dogs were doing laps around the room, knocking over the ornate frames and upsetting a jar of shells that crashed to the floor and broke. Then when a late-arriving guest pushed open the door, Tinka streaked through the gap, followed by Jellybean.

  “Stop them!” Vivian shrieked.

  Misty did not waste a moment. She sprinted out of the hotel like a racehorse headed for the finish line.

  Albatross was turning out to be a pretty interesting town, Bill thought, as he followed on Misty’s heels.

  Three

  Bill emerged on the street in time to see Misty vanishing around the corner. He took off in pursuit and, by way of his long legs, caught up in half a block.

  “You’re fast for a violin player.”

  She shot him a glance. Amusement? Annoyance? Something in between?

  He’d gone for charming and landed somewhere short of the mark. It unsettled him. The Woodson charm was foolproof. He’d always had it, even when the rest of his attributes added up to a big, fat zero. But this was a new town, new people. Maybe his charm wouldn’t get him very far here. His gut tightened as he considered how folks would treat him if they knew.

  Don’t go there, Bill.

  “I see him.” She pointed to a path etched into the grassy bank beside the road.

  A black rump was just vanishing down the slope.

  “He’s headed to the beach,” Bill said. “Typical tourist.”

  Keeping a few paces ahead of him, Misty seemed immune to his humor as she ran across the street and started down the trail. It was steep and rocky in some places where a recent winter storm had eroded the path. They slipped and slid their way downward. When he reached for her hand at a difficult spot, her brown eyes widened.

  “I’m okay,” she said, a moment before she lost her footing and landed on her palms in the grit. She sighed as he helped her up. “I’m not making a very good impression, am I? This is the second time I’ve fallen down in your presence.”

  He laughed. “I wish I could say women fall for me all the time, but my mother used to wash my mouth out with a bar of green soap when I lied. I can still taste it. Wretched stuff.”

  After a long moment, a wry smile twisted her mouth and transformed her like the sun peeping through the clouds. “Well, thanks.” The shuttered look returned. “Really, though. I can look for Jellybean and…the other dog.”

  “Tinka. She belongs to Vivian, the hotel owner.”

  “I’ll find them. I don’t want to take you away from your work.”

  He glanced at his watch. “It’s only eleven. I don’t have to pick up Fiona at preschool until one. I have a couple of hours to spare for dog searching. Besides, all these tourists coming into town are a boon to my business, and I think folks are as interested in Jellybean as they are in the actors.” Truth was, he should be back at the shop, prepping for that tour bus full of movie buffs that would arrive the next day. But he’d never turned down someone who needed help, even if they didn’t know they needed it.

  Misty continued on without comment. She was only a chin shorter than him and looked strong, though not athletic. The wind grabbed at her hair, fanning it out in a golden-brown cloud, which she batted away from her face on a regular basis.

  The path led them down to a weatherworn set of wooden steps, which deposited them on a crescent of beach. The salt-scented air was cold and pure like he imagined all the air was when God first made the world. He heard her suck in a breath as she took in the view. He did the same. He’d never lived near the beach until he’d bought the shop, and he took every opportunity he could to come and stare, just stare at the glory of the turbulent Pacific as it crashed against the black rocks of California’s central coast.

  The surf was particularly splendid today, he thought, sending up spirals of foam as it rolled in and out. The remnants of the storm had not entirely dissipated, so the clouds filtered the afternoon sunlight into soft yellow and white gold. As they watched, a pelican flew low over the water, its massive brown wings barely moving.

  “Wow,” she said.

  “Yeah. Takes my breath away every time. You don’t live along the coast?”

  She continued to gaze at the ocean. Without her guardedness, she looked like an altogether different person. Fascinating. “No,” she said faintly. “I live in San Francisco.”

  “Alone?”

  She jerked toward him. Had he said that? Aloud? Yep, judging from her face, he really had. Now she thought he was a stalker. “I didn’t mean to…” Way to go. Supersmart comment. He thought of the words in Job he’d listened to on the skippy cassette tape that morning while he dipped strawberries. “If only you would be altogether silent! For you, that would be wisdom.” Yeah, Job would say the same of him, no doubt. He rarely got into trouble when he was silent. Trouble was, he was rarely silent. Easy talk kept him afloat, kept people engaged in safe topics he could control. He used conversational sleight of hand to distract from other things.

  While Bill considered what to say to undo the mess, he was saved from inserting his booted foot any further down his throat when he saw the blur of movement in the ice-plant-covered rocks along the cliff bottom.

  Misty saw it too. Together they ran to the spot.

  “Jellybean!” Misty called. “Where are you?”

  A furry head popped up from above the plants.

  “That was naughty to run away like that.”

  Jellybean wagged his tail.

  “Where’s Tinka?” she demanded. “What did you do with her?”

  At the sound of her name, Tinka trotted from her hiding place, body quivering. Bill scooped her up. “Aww. Are you cold, little girl?” He tucked her inside his shirt. She burrowed against the warm skin of his stomach and pressed a chilled nose into his ribs. “One down, one to go.”

  “Jellybean,” Misty said firmly. “Come.”

  Jellybean let out a bark but did not comply.

  Misty repeated the command again and again but received only a blank stare from Jellybean.

  “I think he’s just pretending I’m not talking to him,” she said, hands on hips.

  “Not sure there’s any pretending involved. Strong willed.”

  “Stubborn.”

  “Hardheaded?”

  “Exasperating.”

  They could have been talking a
bout Bill. “Do you want me to see if I can grab him?”

  “Let me try one more time.” She took two steps closer. “Jellybean, come here right now.”

  Jellybean’s nose quivered, and he slithered out of the bushes, a pink flower caught in his long beard whiskers. Misty cooed as she bent over. “You really did come. I’m sorry I called you exasperating.”

  Just as her fingers grazed his fur, Jellybean wagged his tail and sprinted between Misty and Bill, beetling up the stairs in a blur of black.

  Misty shot to her feet. “I take it back,” she yelled to the departing dog. “You are exasperating.”

  Misty and Bill finally decided to postpone the search and deliver Tinka back to Vivian. Back at the Lady Bird Hotel, Lawrence tried to offer the dog a welcome-home pat, but Vivian jerked the animal away from his reach.

  “Lawrence, you leave my dog alone.”

  “I was just being kind,” he said.

  “You don’t know how to be kind.” Her words dripped with acid.

  Lawrence sighed. “Maybe I’ve learned a thing or two.”

  “Old actor, tired old tricks,” she said. “At least your being here has filled my hotel for the first time in ten years. I guess that’s something.” She turned her back on him and marched away.

  Misty noted the expression in Lawrence’s eyes as he watched Vivian depart. Something infinitely sad. Misty had decided it was impossible to decipher what was genuine emotion in Lawrence, but as he gazed at Vivian, grief shadowed his face.

  Misty stood uncertainly. Should she offer comfort? Would it be construed as prying? Misty had never really understood, nor navigated well, the mysterious waters of social interaction. People were hard to read, unpredictable, and apt to turn away. Speech or silence? He saved her from the decision.

  “Did you find my Jellybean?”

  “No, I’m sorry, but I think he headed into town. I’ll keep looking.”

  Lawrence sighed. “I’ll return to the set to lie down and wait for word.”

  She noted that he did not offer to beat the sidewalks and help search.

  The guests had done a question and answer with Lawrence and gobbled most of the chocolates, and Bill was busy gathering up his serving trays. He offered her a leftover sweet.

  She blushed for no particular reason. “I’m okay.”

  He looked a bit crestfallen. “It’s a salted caramel in dark chocolate. It’s harder than you think to make a really good caramel. You’ve got to melt the sugar and brown it without letting any crystallization happen.”

  At some point during the description, her mouth had begun to water. “Well, maybe one wouldn’t hurt…since you worked so hard on it, I mean.”

  He brightened, green eyes sparkling. He didn’t look much like a chocolatier—more like a cowboy with his broad shoulders, legs long and lean in denim jeans, and a thick thatch of brown hair that matched the slight stubble on his chin. Picking up a napkin, he retrieved a caramel and offered it to her.

  She popped the treat into her mouth, and it melted into a puddle of bliss on her tongue. The symphony of flavors swamped her senses, the sweet of the chocolate and the salt from the caramel. “Amazing,” she managed. “Did you go to a chocolatier school?”

  He shrugged. “Nah. I learned from my mom, just informally, and taught myself the rest. It isn’t what I thought my profession was going to be, but when I bought the place here in Albatross three months ago, Fee and I didn’t need the whole building, so I set up a chocolate shop on the bottom floor. We opened unofficially a couple of weeks back.”

  “I’m surprised there isn’t a line out your door.”

  His big smile made her nearly forget that he’d been nosy earlier. “Nice of you to say. It’s been tough, actually. This is a small town, and the tourist trade is pretty slow in the winter. The only thing that’s saved me is this movie thing going on. I’m counting on those tour buses rolling on in, and the locals are talking about hosting a Silver Screen Festival if you can believe it.”

  She eyed the empty table, wishing there was another stray chocolate she could somehow snag.

  “How did you get hooked up with this movie deal?” Bill asked, holding the door open as they once again headed out in search of the elusive terrier.

  “One of my online clients, Ernest Finn. He heard the film was going to be shot here, and he knows a guy who arranges tutors for the actors and gave him my name. He said he knew someone on the set, so he was sure I could get the job.”

  “He didn’t realize it was a dog sitting gig too.”

  She sighed. “Ernest meant well. He’s a sweet man. I’ve been teaching him violin for six years now. He lives just up the coast, I think, though I’ve never met him face-to-face.”

  Bill looked puzzled. “You’ve known him for six years and never met in person?”

  Misty quickened her pace, feeling the blossoming urge to flee that kicked up whenever she got into intimate conversation, especially with a handsome man, or any man for that matter. “It’s better for me online.”

  “Why?” he said, catching up as they passed the Full of Beans coffee shop.

  “Why what?”

  “Why is it better to teach online?”

  She looked underneath the row of hydrangea bushes that lined the sidewalk. “I can teach students all over the country, the world even. I have a student in Africa.”

  “Huh. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. I’ve learned a ton of things from YouTube. Just never knew you could learn to play an instrument that way. Seems kind of lonely.”

  Lonely? She wasn’t lonely. She had a life filled with siblings, Nana Bett, and her students—the quiet life God meant for her to live. The thoughtful twist to his brows made her think he wanted to ask another question. “It’s perfect for me.”

  She quickened her pace and pressed through the doors to Hardware Emporium, a minuscule shop crowded with shelves of everything from nuts and bolts to sheep food. The owner had not seen an ill-behaved terrier slip by his doors.

  Bill looked at his cell phone. “Almost one. I’ve gotta go pick up Fiona. It’s just down at the end of this street. You know, there’s a little park near her school with sand and stuff. Maybe Jellybean headed there. Want to walk that way and check it out?”

  With him? She did not. People made her nervous, men made her nervous, men with genial smiles who wanted to ask personal questions especially. She’d loved one of those types before, and that wound hadn’t healed. But with Lawrence’s dog getting into who knew what, she could not figure out what to do except to follow Bill. The silence grew and became awkward, even for her. She should say something before he launched into any more conversation requiring her to share.

  “How does your daughter like Albatross?”

  “She’s not my daughter, actually. She’s my niece, my brother’s only child. He and his wife, Bella, were killed in a car accident. There were no other relatives up for the job since my mother had a stroke awhile back and Bella’s sister works overseas for an oil company. So she landed with me.” He sighed. “Imagine that. I was the best pick.” A shadow darkened his face. “Poor kid.”

  “Being raised in a chocolate shop doesn’t sound so bad to me,” she found herself saying. “It’s like having Willy Wonka for a father.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “From the story about Charlie and his chocolate factory. Didn’t you ever read that?”

  He passed a hand over his forehead, and suddenly he appeared tired. Well, the man had been trailing a naughty dog all over town. “Nah, I must have missed that one.”

  They passed the park, which had several small children, parents, and dogs in attendance, but none of them was the AWOL Jellybean.

  As they turned up the walkway to the preschool, Bill stopped so suddenly she plowed into him from behind.

  “What’s wrong?”

  The sounds of cheerful piano music floated out from the school. Misty recognized the nursery song as one she taught her youngest violin students. She co
uldn’t imagine why the tune had such a profound effect on Bill until she drew up next to him.

  There, sitting on the “Welcome Friends” doormat, was Jellybean, who looked for all the world like a terrier with a smile on his tiny face.

  Four

  Misty coaxed the annoying dog into her arms while Bill greeted Fiona. She looked up from her curled white paper festooned with splotches of blue, a tear in the middle where the paper had dissolved under the onslaught of too much paint. Her face lit up when she caught sight of him, and Bill felt all the cares of the day slide away as he hoisted her into the air. She waved goodbye to Miss Dina, who laid Fiona’s masterpiece on a table to dry.

  “Hey, big girl!” he said, whirling her around. “What did you do today?”

  She grabbed hold of each of Bill’s ears and pressed her forehead to his. He’d never understood the gesture, but it seemed to calm her. Having her slightly sticky fingers clasped around his ears, her cheek smudged with finger paint pressed close, calmed him as well.

  “I see you painted. Was it fun?”

  Fiona nodded.

  “What did you have for snack time? Goldfish? Toast triangles? Apple slices?”

  She remained silent, continuing to stroke his ears, looking sideways at Misty and Jellybean.

  He realized Misty was staring at them. “Can you say hello to Ms. Agnelli and Jellybean?”

  “She can call me Misty.”

  Misty looked at Fiona expectantly.

  The seconds ticked by. Well, what had he imagined? That Fiona would suddenly launch into conversation with a stranger? But that’s exactly what he did think, or hope anyway, that one day the door would open and all of Fiona’s thoughts and feelings would gush out in a flood. It would be an incredible blessing…and scary as all get-out. What would he do with her feelings of loss and fear? How would he comfort her?

  God would give him the words when He restored hers, he figured.

  Bill let Fiona slide to the ground and took her hand while she smiled at Misty. Bill held his breath. Maybe this was it, the moment that would break through her walls of silence. Seconds ticked by until she wriggled her hand free and began picking up pebbles.