Love Shadows

“Annie, you hold Timmy’s hand. Don’t go anywhere else. I’ll only be a sec.”

“Dad,” Annie said, “we just want to see the puppies. We don’t want to run away.”

Luke opened the truck door and hauled Timmy out of his car seat, which Timmy despised because it made him feel like a little kid. At least twice a week, Luke caught Timmy weighing himself, hoping he would finally pass the legal forty-pound mark so he could use an “adult” seat belt and not be treated like the little kid he was.

Annie took Timmy’s hand, and together they walked up to the bay window of Puppies and Paws, where three two-month-old golden retriever puppies played with each other. They tumbled over stuffed animals and scooted dangerously close to their water bowls, but never splashed a single drop out of the metal containers.

“I like the white one,” Annie said. “I think I’ll call her Snowball.”

“That’s a stupid name for a dog,” Timmy replied, placing his nose so close to the glass he mushed the end. “These are the best pups Grandy ever made.”

“Grandy doesn’t make the puppies, she just breeds them. There’s a difference,” Annie said, though she wasn’t quite sure why she was right. Annie just remembered that several years ago, when her mother was alive, they had come to Puppies and Paws and her mother had told her Grandy was a dog breeder.

Puppies and Paws was the best place in all of Indian Lake as far as Annie and Timmy were concerned. Grandy Ipson always had the cutest and cuddliest puppies in the window, and no matter if it was raining or snowing, there was always a new little fellow for them to watch while their dad went next door for his coffee.

“I like the red one,” Timmy said. “I’d call him Copper. That’s the right kind of name for a great dog like he’s going to grow up to be.”

Annie smiled at her little brother and slid her arm over his shoulder. She knew Timmy wanted a dog really bad.

Annie looked at the longing in Timmy’s eyes. The little red puppy was now licking the glass that Timmy had pressed his face against. The past two years had been very sad for all of them after her mother had died. Annie had often cried herself to sleep, but Timmy had started spending a lot of time by himself. Often, she saw him sitting alone on the back steps of their house, just staring off into the distance. Annie wasn’t sure if he was missing their mother or if it was because their father didn’t spend time with them like he used to. She knew she couldn’t say or do much to make up for their mother being gone, but if she could get a dog for Timmy, maybe then the heavy sadness they all felt might go away.

Right then and there, Annie promised herself that she would find a way to convince their father that dogs could be cheap.

* * *

“A DOLLAR TWENTY-FIVE? Since when?” Luke asked Maddie Strong as she handed him the paper cup of robust black coffee. “It’s always been a dollar.”

Maddie swept a palm over her short, streaked, blond hair, put her hand on her hip and leveled her sparkling green eyes at Luke. “My profit margin decreased when the property taxes went up. Heating bill is through the roof. Water jumped, too. Not to mention there was some drought in Colombia and the coffee beans are sky high. That about cover it for ya, Luke?”

Luke sucked in his cheeks to keep his laughter at bay. “Your face is red, Maddie.”

“Gets that way when I’m riled up.”

“Sorry I said anything,” he apologized, taking a sip. He smiled. “Man, that’s good.”

Maddie’s grin broke free across her face. “I aim to please.”

“You want to take a cupcake to your kids?” She leaned a bit closer and whispered so the other customers wouldn’t hear her. “Half price.”

Luke was tempted as he glanced along the back bar where Maddie kept the instruments of her creative culinary genius. Maddie had invented “Iced-to-Order” cupcakes, an Indian Lake sensation that made Cupcakes and Coffee Café a hot tourist spot all through the summer and fall.

There were six kinds of cakes today, including French vanilla, double Dutch fudge, strawberry, lemon, carrot and red velvet. Once a patron chose the cupcake base she wanted, Maddie added one of nearly a dozen different kinds of icing piped out of thick pastry tubes that hung from a gleaming stainless-steel rack along the back counter. There was chocolate ganache, vanilla butter cream, boiled white non-fat icing, cooked white flour icing, whipped cream icing, Italian wedding cake icing, lemon butter icing and strawberry almond. Luke’s mouth watered just looking at the chalkboard list of options. If he had the money, he would buy a dozen cupcakes for him and the kids. “Thanks for offering, Maddie, but the kids are on their way to school and my wife told me it’s bad for them to have sugar in the morning.”

“Good advice.”

“Maybe for a special occasion I could take you up on that offer.”

“Sure,” Maddie said.

Luke handed Maddie a single dollar bill and counted out two dimes and a nickel. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“You take care, Luke.”

“You, too, Maddie,” he said.

As Luke was coming out of Cupcakes and Coffee Café, a late-model, fire-engine red GMC Envoy screamed up to the curb and parked abruptly. Sitting shotgun was the biggest, dirtiest, happiest golden retriever Luke had ever seen.

The driver’s door flew open, and as a young blonde woman stepped out, the dog leaped over the driver’s seat and sprang onto the sidewalk.

“Look at that!” Timmy shouted with glee and pointed at the dog. Just as he raised his hand, the dog whirled his head around to see Timmy. Smiling ear to ear, if that was possible for a dog, the retriever shot over to Timmy and stood on his hind legs, placing two filthy, muddy paws on Timmy’s freshly laundered and pressed white uniform shirt.

“My God, get your dog away from my son!” Luke shouted as he rushed toward Timmy.

“Beauregard!” the woman yelled, but the dog paid no attention to her. Instead, he licked Timmy’s cheek with a long and very slobbery dog kiss.

Timmy giggled and turned his face away, only to be licked on the other cheek. “Hey, he likes me!” Timmy said, putting his arms around the dog’s chest and nearly hugging him.

Annie, not to be left out of the fun, sidled up to Timmy and stuck her face close to Beauregard’s. She, too, got a wet kiss.

Beauregard lifted a muddy paw and put it around Annie’s shoulder as if they were long-lost friends sharing a hug.

“What a great dog!” Annie exclaimed.

“Get your filthy dog off my kids, lady!” Luke bellowed as he rushed toward the scene. “I was up till midnight washing and ironing their clothes!”

* * *

SARAH FOUGHT TO grab Beau’s leash, but the man’s anger was so intense that her hands were shaking. He stomped toward her as she continued to fumble and jerk at Beau’s leash, but the dog simply would not take his paws off the two little kids.

“Lady, do something! Doesn’t your stupid dog understand commands?”

“Yes, he does,” she bit back finally, clutching at Beauregard’s collar.

The kids had their hands on Beau’s paws and were holding him in place as if they weren’t about to let them go.

The little red-haired girl looked up at Sarah with such longing in her eyes that Sarah squinted at her, wondering what kind of game these kids were playing.

“I’m so sorry,” Sarah said to the very angry father. His face was red and he looked as if he could bite her head off in one quick motion.

“Just get him off,” Luke roared.

“Beau, down. Now!” she ordered her very happy golden retriever.

“That dog should be locked up,” the tall, dark-haired man snarled at her as he tried to wipe mud off the little boy’s shirt.

“I’m so very sorry. Beauregard never does anything like this. I don’t understand what got into him.”

“I don’t need your life story. Your apology is not going to clean up my children. Now, if you want to miraculously launder their clothes so they can go to school, then I accept your apology.”