Triplets Find a Mom

“He’s a stray,” she admitted, twisting her hands together. “I just saw him around earlier today. Then when I opened the door to check on him, he ran inside, then back outside and now I can’t … I just … I couldn’t …”

“Don’t tell me. You’ve fallen in love with him already.”

“Don’t you believe in love at first sight?” Okay, that was way too flirty to say to a man she’d just met. Still, Polly tipped her head to one side and waited for his answer.

“Believe in it?” He lowered the dog out of face-licking range and gave a resigned kind of smile, his brown eyes framed by the faint beginnings of laugh lines. “I think it’s unavoidable.”

Her pulse went from racing to practically ricocheting through her body.

“Especially when you’re talking about a little lost dog as cute as this.” He looked down and rubbed the dog behind the ears, then came around the front end of the car to bring the animal to her.

“Of course.” Polly let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding. “I still want to try to find who he belongs to, of course, but if nobody claims him …”

“He’s a lucky dog.” He bundled the dog into her waiting arms.

“I don’t believe in luck.” She ran her fingers along the dog’s smooth, silky ear. “I believe in God’s blessings.”

“I’ve had a few of those in my life.” He nodded but didn’t offer any further explanation, just turned and headed for his truck.

“So …” Polly looked up and down the street, not sure what to do next. Her gaze fell on the truck. “Oh! Do you know … I mean, it’s about food.”

“I have been known to eat food, yes.” He patted his flat stomach even as he slowed his pace slightly and spoke to her over his shoulder. “What do you want to know?”

I want to know that everything is going to work out fine. I want to know if I made the right choice moving here. I want to know when I’ll see you again. “I don’t have any dog food in the house, so I was going to take him with me to grab a fast-food burger. Do you think it would be okay if he ate one of those?”

“I think it would be okay if you ate one of them.” He shook his head and scratched his fingers through his thick, light brown hair. “But there’s a gas station with a little fresh market near the burger place. You can get a can of dog food there—for him. You should probably stick with the burger.”

She laughed. “Thanks, and thanks for your help.”

“Glad to do it.” He started toward his truck again, tossing off a friendly wave. “Nice to have met you. Both of you.”

“You, too, from both of us.” She took the dog’s paw and waved it.

He opened the driver’s side door to climb in, then paused and leaned inside the cab, as if looking for something.

“That right there—” she whispered with her cheek pressed against the animal’s head “—is the whole reason I came back to Baconburg.”

She didn’t mean the man. She meant the man’s willingness to take time out of his own schedule to help a stranger. Okay, Polly could not lie, even to herself—maybe the man … a little. Or a man like him. What Polly really wanted in Baconburg was the life she had always dreamed possible, and that included a good man and her own family that would stay together no matter what.

Before she could shuffle the little dog into the backseat of her car, the animal dashed around the back of the car. Polly glanced back and there was Sam walking across her front yard, heading back toward her. And he had his hand up in a wave. She raised her hand as the dog returned and ducked into the back of the car.

“Wow, maybe I do mean that guy is the reason I came here,” she whispered to her canine companion as she took in a sharp breath. “He sure seems like he isn’t ready for me to go yet.”

The dog paced back and forth over the seat. If she kept him, she knew she’d have to invest in a safety restraint but thought for now this was safer than leaving him in her house or outside.

“Maybe I should see if he wants to join us for burgers.” Polly gripped the door.

Sam came to a halt in her yard. His raised hand fell to his side.

She smiled and worked up the courage to say, “Hi, it looks like you’re thinking what I’m thinking …”

He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “That your dog has my hat?”

“Your … Oh, no! You set it on the driveway, didn’t you?” She glanced back in time to see the animal give the hat a shake. “No!”

Sam put his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. Probably unable to look at what the dog had done.

“I am so sorry.” She hurried to the back door, reached in and grabbed the hat by the brim. It took a firm tug to rescue it, but she held it out to him.

He looked down, his expression guarded.

Polly stared at the damp brim and the crown the dog had shaken into a shapeless wonder. “I’m so sorry,” she said again. Her voice was barely a whisper.

“What’s done is done.” Finally he put his own hand up and turned his head to one side as if to say, I don’t want it now. “It’s okay. Don’t feel bad. It was just an old Christmas gift from my wife.”

“Wife?” Now she felt careless and a bit silly. “I didn’t think you were—”

“My late wife,” he clarified. He frowned down at the mash up of brim and crown. “Hmm. Well, okay, then. I guess that’s the end of that.”

He flicked it with one finger as if to say, Goodbye, old friend, then raised his hand in a sort of salute to her, turned and headed for his truck.

“Your taking this so well only makes me feel worse,” she called after him. “Isn’t there something I can do with it?”

“Maybe we can cut ear holes in it and let the dog wear it.” He didn’t look back.

Polly climbed into the car and looked her only friend in all of Baconburg in the eye. Poor little thing. Of all of God’s creatures, he could understand her fear, sadness, embarrassment and loneliness when she said, “Maybe Essie was right. Maybe running away isn’t going to be the big solution to my problems that I thought it would be.”

Chapter Two

“So, let me get this straight.” Sam’s sister, Gina, slipped off her computer glasses and aimed her sharp-eyed gaze at him. “You just left your hat in her hands and drove off?”

“Hey, it wasn’t like I was going to wear it home.” Sam moved around the kitchen table gathering up the three empty bowls where a few minutes ago his daughters had been eating ice cream. He stacked Juliette’s “sprinkles, please, Daddy, and no nuts” dish inside Hayley’s “chocolate on chocolate with a side of chocolate” one. Finally he took up Caroline’s “whatever you give me is fine, Daddy” dish, held them up and said to his sister, “Anyone who thinks those girls are completely identical has never had to feed them.”

“Don’t try to change the subject on me.” Gina wriggled in the high-backed oak chair, then kicked it up on two legs, bracing her hiking shoe against the table leg to stabilize herself. “Marie gave you that hat.”

“I am well aware.” Sam plunked the bowls into the sink. He turned on the water to rinse them out and said, loudly enough to be heard over the splashing, “By the way, if Mom were here she’d tell you she didn’t care if you are the owner of this place now, you keep both your feet and all the chair legs on the floor, young lady.”

Gina rocked the chair slightly and crossed her arms defiantly, not even flinching when her long, dark blond braid got snagged under one arm. “Tell me again who this woman is.”

“Mom?” He faked surprise to cover his determination not to prolong any discussion of Polly Bennett. “I know she and Dad have been living in Florida for a few years now, but—”

“You know who I mean. The mysterious woman who got you to help rescue a dog. A dog, Sam. That’s huge for you.”

He finished washing up the dishes, then moved to drying them off with the towel that usually hung from the handle of the oven door. “I don’t dislike dogs and she’s not mysterious. Her name is Polly Bennett from Atlanta, Georgia.”

“New in town?”

“Didn’t say.” He put the bowls up and shut the cabinet, wishing he could finish up this conversation that easily. He wouldn’t normally have even mentioned any of this to Gin, but she had asked if he had left his hat at work when he’d come home. And when she didn’t get an answer had wondered aloud if he had left it in her truck and she’d have to get it out of there later. She wouldn’t let it go, even several hours later.