Kids were precious, and they deserved better than the likes of him.
* * *
On Sunday afternoon, the breeze settled down enough that Hannah and her mother took the twins outside in the yard. The girls ran toward the outdoor playset, Addie ahead as always, Emmy following more slowly. Hannah had to admit, again, that living here at Mom’s house was the best move for all of them. Hannah loved her own cozy home, but Mom had equipment from a brief stint doing home childcare years ago, and the girls loved being pushed in the little swings and climbing the ladder to the slide. It made Hannah happy to hear them shriek and giggle, and even Mom smiled more than she had since losing Marnie.
When the girls tired of climbing, Hannah pulled out a giant bottle of bubbles she’d gotten at the discount store and swung the wand to create a cascade. Emmy’s eyes got round, and Addie immediately leaped to try to catch them.
Hannah wasn’t going to think about how much they looked like her beautiful, troubled sister.
“Do you think they’ve done this before?” Mom asked, kneeling to show Emmy how to wait for a bubble to land on her hand.
Hannah shoved aside her sad thoughts of Marnie and pulled her usual angry attitude back to the forefront. “Doubtful, considering the kind of mom Marnie was.”
“She tried,” Mom said.
“Did she, though?”
“Of course, she did! She loved them. And we don’t need to talk about this while they’re listening.”
“You’re right. Sorry.” Hannah waved the wand to produce more bubbles.
In her heart, she fumed. Mom always made excuses for Marnie, but the truth was, her sister had wanted nothing to do with either Mom or Hannah. Marnie had moved to Indianapolis two years ago—pregnant with the girls, unbeknownst to Hannah and her mother—and then she’d hidden the twins’ existence for months. No, she didn’t have time for a visit. She couldn’t talk long. She wanted to make a fresh start and was doing fine.
Eventually, though, it became obvious that Marnie had gotten back onto the roller coaster of drug use. During a phase when she’d been dedicated to a twelve-step program, she’d reconciled with Mom and Hannah, and they’d driven out to see her.
She, Mom and Marnie had gotten along fine at first. Hannah and her mother had marveled over the babies, helped with them, taken a lot of pictures. But then some perceived criticism of Marnie’s lifestyle meant that she had kicked them out.
Hannah blew more bubbles. The wind swept them toward the tree line and Addie sped after them. Emmy ran, too, stumbled, then picked herself up and followed her sister.
“I don’t know why Marnie always took offense at what I said.” Mom perched on the picnic table and rested her elbows on her knees, her chin on clasped hands. “I sure wish I’d tried harder to reconnect.”
“You did try.” They’d talked about it so many times, but it seemed to make Mom feel better to return to the subject, over and over. “You called, and emailed, and texted. Way more than I did.”
Every effort had ended in Marnie hanging up the phone in anger. Hannah had talked to their pastor about it and had learned about mental-health issues and how you sometimes just had to let someone hit bottom.
Unfortunately, Marnie had hit bottom so hard that she’d overdosed on a soup of street drugs and alcohol. Someone had dropped her off at an emergency room, and the hospital had notified Hannah and her mother as next of kin. They’d gotten on the road within an hour and driven like mad, arriving in time to talk with Marnie, individually and together, before she lost consciousness for the last time.
“I don’t know what these little ones went through, as she was going downhill.” Mom’s voice was shaky, and when Addie ran close by her, she reached out, picked her up and gave her a fierce hug, letting her free as soon as she started to struggle. “That friend who was keeping them at the end... I don’t know.” Mom squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.
“It wasn’t a great environment, but they were safe.” At least Marnie had done that much. And she’d regretted her failures; she’d sobbed to Hannah when they’d been alone together, confessing the way she’d neglected her daughters.
That hour alone together was when Marnie had extracted a promise from Hannah that she wouldn’t reveal that the twins’ father was a local convicted felon.
“More!” Addie hugged Hannah’s leg and then pointed at the bubbles, and Hannah snapped back to the here and now, her adorable nieces and the weak, late-fall sunshine.
There was the sound of a car engine revving, then revving again, and black smoke was visible over the tree line from the Hutchensons’ place. A dog barked loudly, over and over again. “Does Luke’s dad bother you?” Hannah asked her mother, squinting through the bare trees to where the man’s junk-filled driveway was barely visible.
“Not too much. He makes noise, and that dog of his got off its chain and ran through my flower beds last summer, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” Mom frowned. “He’s struggling with what happened with Bobby. It’s so hard when your child is in trouble and you can’t help.”
“Right.” Hannah didn’t dare say any more. Marnie hadn’t told their mother that Bobby Hutchenson was the twins’ father, and she’d made Hannah promise not to tell her, either.
Marnie hadn’t wanted them to carry the stigma of an incarcerated father, and Hannah couldn’t disagree with that. It wasn’t as if Bobby could pay child support or had even acknowledged being their father. Hannah wasn’t sure he even knew about the twins. Not for the first time, she wished there’d been time to talk to her sister about it more, to understand what had led to the connection and breakup, why Bobby had been uninvolved with his children and whether that really needed to go forward into the future.
The twins, oblivious to all the adult concerns, were still trying to catch the bubbles Hannah periodically blew.
“I hate to do this,” Mom said, “but do you mind if I go in now? I need to put together the schedule for next week.” As the sole proprietor of a busy bakery, Mom always had too much to do. The trip to Indianapolis and then getting the twins settled had meant that she’d left things in the hands of her manager, who’d only been able to do the bare minimum. Mom was still trying to catch up.
“That’s fine,” Hannah said. “I’ve got it covered.” She’d known when they’d brought the twins home that the responsibility of caring for them would fall most heavily on her, and she was good with that. Only occasionally did she think, longingly, about how relaxing it would feel to go home to her own cozy house and read a book throughout a long, lazy Sunday afternoon.
Those days are gone. She sent another set of bubbles floating over the twins’ heads and then put down the bottle and chased along with them, which made the twins shriek and laugh even more.
They were sweet, beautiful innocents, and Hannah was going to make up to them for what their mother had done.
From the Hutchensons’ house, there was the sound of more loud barking and some shouting. Then, a large gold-colored pit bull burst out of the bushes separating their houses. The dog was headed straight for the twins.
Chapter Three
Luke didn’t wait to see whether his father could control his dog. He just ran after the creature as fast as he’d ever run in his life. If something happened to one of those little girls because Luke hadn’t gotten the fence repaired fast enough...
The delighted shrieking he’d heard before had taken a bad turn. Now, he could hear children’s voices crying in fear.
He burst out of the bushes and ran across the big backyard, arms and legs pumping, heart pounding. Hannah was blocking the dog’s access to the twins, jumping in front of it as it tried to dodge around her.
The twins were screaming and hiding behind her. She waved them away.
“Addie,” she ordered, her voice loud enough that Luke could hear it, but still sounding calm, “hold Emmy’s hand and walk
inside to Grandma, nice and slow.”
“I ’cared!” One of the girls started to run, and the other stumbled after her. Both were crying.
Luke sprinted as hard as he could. Almost there.
“Stop. Stay.” Hannah’s commands, pitched low, were directed at the dog.
The dog ignored the order. She thought chasing the twins would be a good game, apparently, and she dove past Hannah in the direction of the smaller, slower girl.
Hannah grabbed for the dog, catching her collar.
First one, then the other child headed back toward Hannah, coming too close to the exuberant dog, and Hannah lost her grip.
Luke plunged into the fray and swept the slower girl up in one arm, the quicker twin in the other. His heart pounded, and Goldie jumped at him, but at least the little girls were high in his arms, out of reach.
Hannah gave stern orders to the dog, orders the untrained creature had no idea how to obey, but the authority in her voice seemed to calm Goldie a little. The jumping slowed down. Problem was, every time one of the twins let out an ear-splitting scream—which was about every five seconds, and Luke’s ears were right next to their mouths—the dog barked and jumped.
Luke’s dad appeared with a frayed rope. “She busted out again. You shouldn’t have had these kids over here making all that noise.” He caught the dog and leveled a hard hit against her head, and when she cowered, he looped the rope through her studded collar and tied it tight.
“Your mother’s gonna be yellin’ at me again,” he said to Hannah. “Get her out here, and I’ll explain.”
“Let’s leave Mom out of it.” Hannah was breathing hard, but amazingly, her voice was steady. “She’s having a tough time right now.”
Actually, Luke could see, Hannah’s mother was standing in the kitchen doorway, talking on her cell phone.
The twins settled a little in Luke’s arms. The outgoing one stared at the dog and Luke’s father, while the other gulped and wiped her eyes and reached for Hannah.
Dad jerked the dog’s rope, making her yelp. “She’s a noisy thing but she won’t hurt anyone. She’s just a year old, still a pup. Doesn’t know any better.”
She doesn’t know any better because you didn’t teach her better.
Sort of like Bobby. Sort of like Luke.
Hannah took the still-whimpering little girl from Luke. “Have you tried to work with her?”
“I got her one of those electric collars. She just won’t listen.” Dad tickled the chin of the little girl Luke still held in his arms, clicking his tongue, and the child actually laughed. Then Luke remembered his father loved babies and was good with them.
The sound of a police siren cut through the country stillness, and Luke got a bad feeling. Someone, maybe even Hannah’s mom, must have heard the commotion and called the cops.
Sure enough, thirty seconds later, a cop pulled up in front of Hannah’s house, lights flashing.
A moment later, John Pearson, the same officer who’d picked up Dad before, walked up the sidewalk and into the back yard, causing Goldie to bark frantically again. “This the dog that was loose?”
Dad was puffing up, defensive, so Luke spoke up. “She got away, but she’s under control now.”
Goldie lunged, this time at a passing squirrel, pulling the rope from Luke’s father’s hands. It was only Hannah’s quick movement, as she stepped on the rope and then grabbed it, that prevented another escape.
Pearson tilted his head to one side, looking skeptical. “I’ll have to issue a citation,” he said. “Dogs are required to be on a leash.”
Dad scowled. “Aw, come on—”
“And if she’s gone after children, even playfully, then we need to take it seriously.” He pulled out a form pad and a pen and started filling in the blanks.
“She’s costing me money I don’t have.” Dad crossed his arms. “If I put her down, will you hold off on the citation?”
“Dad!” Luke couldn’t believe his father would toss away an animal’s life so carelessly.
The officer stopped writing. “You’d do that?”
Hannah’s mouth had dropped open at Dad’s words. “Don’t put her down,” she said now. “I’ll work with her.”
“We’ll work with her,” Luke said. “Together.”
* * *
Even though Hannah felt for Goldie, who was wild but obviously sweet-natured, she put off training the dog as long as she could. Over the next couple of days, she sent information that Luke could share with his dad and suggested a few videos to watch.
He messaged her back that he was trying, but getting frustrated, and that his dad wasn’t making any effort at all. Officer Pearson had stopped by to check on their progress, which was nonexistent. His dad was still talking about putting the dog down.
What could she say but “bring her over”?
Mom had the girls inside, helping her to bake cookies, though they were obviously more of a hindrance than a help. Darkness came so early these days, but Hannah had turned on the big floodlight to give them a space to work with. If all went well, they’d be able to work with Goldie at Rescue Haven, too.
More time with Luke. Yay.
The trouble was, a part of her did feel glad. She admired the way Luke had rushed in to save the girls and the nonblaming way he was willing to help train his father’s dog. Watching him at Rescue Haven, she saw how hard he worked, how readily he smiled at the kids who attended programs there, how easily he lifted boxes and equipment.
She puffed out a breath, making a cloud in front of her, and rubbed her hands together. It wasn’t snowing—not yet—but the ground was frozen and the bright stars foretold a temperature drop tonight.
“Hey, it’s us.” Luke’s quiet voice was punctuated with a panting sound; Goldie was pulling hard at her leash, and only Luke’s strength kept her from tugging him across the yard.
“Hey.” She didn’t look at Luke, but focused on the dog instead. As always, that helped. Goldie had the lanky look of an adolescent dog, some white markings on her muzzle and a big panting smile. “She’s never been trained at all?”
“I don’t think so. Dad’s had her for a year or so, but he’s mostly tied her up outside.” He held up a hand. “I know, it’s not the best. But he doesn’t know any better. And I’ve been so busy with trying to find work and put Dad’s house in order, Goldie slid down the list.”
“Understandable.” She reached into her pocket pouch and pulled out a treat. “Is she food-motivated?”
Goldie lunged for the treat, but Hannah held out a forearm, stopping the dog. “That answers that. So we’ll work on taking treats nicely, and the ‘sit’ command.”
“Sorry she’s so rowdy. And that I have no clue about dog training.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’re just experimenting.” She kneeled in front of the slobbering, excited dog, feeling calmer and more collected as she entered her area of expertise. A dog was a puzzle, one she was good at solving.
She held out another treat. “Take it nice,” she scolded, and closed her hand as Goldie lunged. She opened her hand again, and this time, the lunge was slighter, so she allowed the dog to have the treat.
“What kind of treats are those?” Luke asked, his nose wrinkling.
“Just little training treats.” She held one up to him, smiling. “Want a taste?”
He took the treat, sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “Disgusting,” he said, and handed the treat to the dog, who snapped her big jaws together for it. “Ow!”
“Okay—” Hannah stood up “—so that’s your first lesson. Never give her a treat unless she takes it nice. Just close your hand over it.” She demonstrated, and again on the second try, Goldie took the treat with a decent amount of gentleness.
“She’s smart. That’s good.” She took another treat and held it above the dog’s nose, then moved it
up and back. As soon as the dog’s haunches touched the ground, she gave her the treat. “See? That’s how we’ll teach her to sit.”
After a couple of reps, which Luke watched closely, she held out a handful of treats to him. “Now you try it.”
He lured the dog into position with the treat just as Hannah had done. “Yes!” he said when she sat.
Goldie sat tall, looking proud.
“See, she senses your approval and she likes it. Now, just do that same thing about a hundred times. Literally, over the next few days.”
Luke repeated the steps, and as soon as his hand started to move, Goldie sank down onto her haunches. “Good girl!” he said, giving her the treat and then rubbing her head. “That’s amazing!”
“She’s smart, see?” Hannah loved this moment with new clients, when the owner figured out that their dog could learn, and the dog started enjoying positive attention.
“Thank you.” He smiled up at her and Hannah felt the impact of it all the way to the tips of her toes.
She cleared her throat. “Okay, we’ll just do a tiny bit of impulse control and then give her a break.”
She lured Goldie into a sit, but instead of giving the treat, she took a minuscule step back, holding out her hand like a stop sign. After ten seconds, she let the dog have the treat.
Goldie swallowed it and sat, looking from Hannah to Luke and back again. “She wants more treats,” Hannah said, laughing. “What a sweetie.” She rubbed the dog’s ears and sides, earning a sloppy kiss.
“Don’t you give commands?” Luke asked.
“Only after the dog starts to learn a behavior,” she said. “And speaking of learning, her brain’s tired. Let’s let her sniff around for a few minutes while we figure out some training goals.”
“And a cost,” he said. “We want to pay your going rate.”
She looked up at him. “No need for that. I offered, and Goldie’s our neighbor. You don’t have to pay me.”
“That’s your livelihood,” Luke said firmly. “We’re paying.”
Finding a Christmas Home Page 3
