The Dogs of Christmas Read online

  When awake they were in a constant scrum, blindly pushing against each other for no apparent reason, or feeding with gusto while Lucy gazed raptly down at them. Asleep, they sprawled motionless, always lying pressed against their siblings for reassurance.

  His Internet connection was back up the next morning. Reading backward from the moment his electricity went out, he found e-mails from Gordon Blascoe demanding to know where he was, followed by chatter from his team members who figured out what was going on and deduced that Josh wouldn’t be back online for a few days. Several people expressed hopes that Josh would be okay; Blascoe was not among them.

  Josh sighed when he saw the direction the project had taken. He hadn’t been able to upload his report, which meant that Blascoe didn’t have the benefit of Josh’s analysis of the problems that had surfaced during user testing of the new interface. They were now all focused on the wrong solution because they didn’t fully understand the issues. People wanted simple; Blascoe was one of those geeks who thought the way to make something better was to keep piling on functionality until it was so complicated no one wanted to use it.

  What to do now? If he sent his report, it would save his clients a lot of time and effort, but it would also make it clear that Blascoe’s tendency to rush to decision—“Blascoe’s Blunders”—had steered them wrong. Probably it was not a good idea to point out that the project manager had done something stupid. Though to be fair, nothing in the report directly said that: you’d have to be a careful reader to distill that message, and Blascoe wasn’t known for paying a lot of attention.

  In the end, he sent it, along with a meticulously worded e-mail apologizing for being off grid and stating that his analysis wasn’t intended to say that Blascoe had been wrong, even though that’s exactly what his analysis was intended to say.

  Barely had he pushed “send” when he heard the crunch of a vehicle coming up his driveway. He looked out to see a mud-spattered Subaru wagon swing around next to his truck and stop.

  A woman a few years younger than Josh stepped out, shaking her long brown hair. She wore jeans and a plaid shirt in a way that attracted Josh’s attention in a most favorable fashion. She stomped her feet as she came onto his front deck.

  Josh heard her knock from the bathroom, where he was frantically brushing his teeth. “Coming!” he shouted. He yanked on a clean shirt. Lucy was watching him alertly as he opened the door.

  “You Josh?” the woman asked, offering a generous smile that reached into her deep blue eyes.

  “Yeah. Yes, yes I am. Josh Michaels,” Josh responded.

  She held out a hand and he took it—her fingers were warm as they shook. “I’m Kerri, from the shelter? I know I said a couple of days, but I just couldn’t wait to see them.”

  He invited her in and she immediately crossed over to where Lucy lay on the floor. “Puppies!” she sang happily. Lucy wagged her tail and Kerri stroked her head. “Such a good dog, good dog. Is it okay if I touch your puppies, mommy dog?”

  “That’s Lucy,” Josh introduced. He blinked in surprise as she picked up a black and brown and white puppy. “Wow!” he exclaimed.

  “Oh, you are so cute, look how darling you are,” she crooned. She glanced at Josh. “Wow?”

  “I didn’t know I was allowed to pick them up. I thought maybe, I don’t know, if I got my scent on them, Lucy might…” Josh shrugged.

  “Kick them out of the nest? Refuse to give them worms?” Kerri teased. She grinned at him and Josh could feel himself grinning back so widely it stretched his cheek muscles.

  “Right, well, I told you, I never had a dog before,” he apologized.

  “Good mommy, Lucy,” Kerri praised, setting the puppy back down. “See how this one is smaller than the others?” Kerri asked, pointing to an all black and brown dog. “You need to make sure she suckles two separate teats every day. Like this.” Kerri held the tiny puppy to a vacant teat, and the newborn obligingly began to feed. “Look how the tiny little tongue is sliding forward, that means she’s got a good grip and is feeding real well.”

  “She?”

  “Yes. Let’s check the others.” Kerri pulled each puppy away and held them up. Lucy watched her carefully, but didn’t seem to object. “Three boys and two girls,” Kerri announced.

  Josh realized he was watching her bend over with considerable approval, and raised his eyes quickly when she turned to him—but not quickly enough to completely get away with it. Something flickered in her expression. Speculation? Josh felt his face grow warm.

  “I think you’ve got boxer/Lab/something going on here. The coloring is right for boxer, all white and brown and black, but the fur’s a little long and the faces are like Labrador faces. We’ll be able to tell more when they’re older.” She gave the one she was holding a kiss on the nose. “Won’t we? We’ll know more when you are a great big puppy,” she crooned in baby talk. “Okay, back you go to Mommy.”

  Kerri told him that having the dogs lying out on a pillow and a blanket by the fireplace was not ideal. “You’re going to need a box, something the mom can step out of. Are you handy?”

  “Handy? Meaning, here?”

  “No.” Kerri laughed. “I don’t mean are you handy like, are you around, I mean handy as in able to build things. Most guys who live in the mountains are either good at building things or shooting stuff.” Her eyes glanced over at the single shotgun on his gun rack.

  “That’s in case of bears. It’s got a salt load,” Josh explained hurriedly. He didn’t think a woman who worked at a rescue shelter would be keen on someone who hunted animals. Josh had never shot at anything living.

  “So, no shooting. How about building stuff?”

  “Yeah.” Josh straightened, pushing his chest out a little. “I can do that.”

  Kerri sketched out what the ideal box would look like, with a place to play and a chamber to sleep in. “These little rascals won’t do much for about three weeks, but then all of a sudden they’ll be on the move. Mom’s hair falling out yet?”

  “Her hair?”

  “It will. Sometimes it’s in clumps and sometimes so you won’t even notice it. Don’t be alarmed. I brought some vitamins to put in Lucy’s food, and an instruction booklet. What do you do for a living?”

  “Oh.” Josh looked at his computer. “I do contract graphic user interface design and implementation.”

  “Okay, no idea. Computers?”

  “Right.”

  “So then this will be a completely different experience for you, won’t it?”

  Josh nodded. “Yeah.”

  “You don’t sound excited.”

  “I’m just worried I’ll mess up.”

  “No, you’ll be great. Besides, I’ll help.” She gave Josh another sunny smile. He pictured Kerri coming out to his house a few times a week. They’d laugh, take Lucy for walks, play with the puppies. He saw the two of them sitting in front of the fireplace, drinking wine. She’d smile that smile at him, toss her hair like the first time he saw her, he’d reach for her.…

  “So,” Kerri said, walking right through his fantasy to the fireplace, where she grabbed a picture of Amanda off the mantel and showed it to him. “Who’s this?”

  SEVEN

  Josh took far, far too long to answer her question, his brain frozen in something akin to panic. Finally he cleared his throat.

  “Amanda,” he said faintly.

  “Amanda,” Kerri repeated. She looked at the picture, then back at Josh.

  “Wife?”

  “Oh, no. I’ve never been married.”

  “Girlfriend, then.”

  Josh nodded mutely.

  Kerri set the picture down and examined the others. Josh was uncomfortably aware of just how many of them were of Amanda. “This blond girl with the man and children must be your sister? And her family?”

  “Yeah. Janice.”

  “Josh and Janice.”

  “Janice is youngest.”

  “Nice-looking family.”

>   “Thanks. The boys aren’t hers,” Josh remarked, wincing inwardly at the way he’d put it. He’d wanted to explain how his little sister could have three boys over the age of ten, but he was off to a bad start. “I mean, it’s her husband’s second marriage. She’s a good mother, though,” he ended awkwardly.

  “That’s good,” Kerrie noted, smiling at him.

  Josh glanced back at Amanda’s picture, thinking maybe he needed to provide an explanation.

  “So, what’re you feeding Lucy?” Kerri asked.

  “Um, Nature’s Variety. Got a dog on the bag?”

  She laughed. “They all have a dog on the bag.”

  “I mean,” Josh started to explain, then stopped himself. I mean a healthy-looking dog, he’d been about to say. As distinguished from what, the bags that featured sick dogs?

  “In about three weeks, you’ll start with a little solid food for the babies. Stick with that brand, it’s great. Add a little water to the canned food to make it even softer. Most people say no cow’s milk, so I’d stay away from it. Let them sort of suck the food off your fingers a little, then set out small amounts. Try to make sure they each get some. Any questions, you can call me.”

  “Sure, let me get your number.” Josh crossed to his laptop and popped open his address book. When he looked at her, she had her arms crossed and was gazing at him appraisingly. “What?” he asked.

  “You already have the number for the shelter. You called, remember?”

  “Oh. Right.” Josh kept the disappointment from bleeding into in his voice. He glanced down and his inbox told him he had a message from Gordon Blascoe, subject line, “Your contract.”

  With a sinking feeling, he clicked it open. It was a typical Blascoe Blurt. “Please prepare a final invoice for the week ending Oct 7. We are terminating your contract.”

  “What’s wrong?” Kerri asked.

  Blinking, he looked up at her. “Oh. Nothing. Well, not nothing. I just got fired.”

  “Fired?” she repeated, shocked.

  “Yeah.”

  “In an e-mail? Not even with a phone call?” she demanded.

  “No, that’s pretty much how they do it.”

  “That’s terrible!” Kerri’s cheeks flushed and her eyes narrowed, as if it were happening to her. “What kind of people fire you with an e-mail?”

  “It’s because I’m an independent contractor.”

  “I don’t care what you are, people can’t just fire you like that. Did you do something?”

  “I sent in a report that made the boss look like he’d made a mistake.”

  “And they fired you. For that. It sounds like you were just doing your job, they can’t fire you for doing your job. Is there someone you can complain to?”

  Josh realized he was enjoying how angry she was on his behalf. He told her that this was the way it worked, in his world. “It started with the dog, in fact. Lucy went into labor while we were in the middle of a conference,” he informed her, maybe bragging a little.

  “Do they know that?”

  “They wouldn’t care.”

  “That’s terrible. So you’re out of work.”

  “Looks like.”

  “Will you be able to find a job? I mean, Christmas is like two months away, I can’t imagine people do much hiring during the holidays,” Kerri asked, going from furious to concerned.

  “Sure. Yes. Maybe not immediately, but I’ll be okay.”

  Her gaze lingered on him long enough for him to feel himself flush again. Maybe he should ask her to stay for dinner. He probably could thaw something appealing.

  Kerri abruptly turned away. “I need to get going.” She walked to the door and opened it herself before he could do so. “Did you tell the vet about the puppies?”

  “Yes, I called and he kind of said what you did, which is that everything sounded like it was working out.”

  “Right, then,” she replied. He followed her down the steps and up to her car.

  “Maybe we could…,” he started to say. Kerri slipped into her car, shutting the door, and then sliding her window down when her engine was running.

  “You know where the shelter is, right?”

  “Sure, I’ve seen it.”

  “Great! Bye.” Kerri backed around and then bounced down the rutted driveway. He watched her go, his hand up in a wave for if she looked back, but she didn’t.

  You know where the shelter is, right? That sounded like she wanted him to visit her. You already have the number for the shelter. You called, remember? That sounded like she wasn’t interested in having him call her personally, but only as part of a business transaction.

  Interested or not? Which was it?

  Kerri had put the photograph of Amanda in the wrong place and Josh slid it back to where it belonged. It was taken the day he realized he was in love with Amanda. She was sitting on a rock in the sun by Bear Creek, her blond hair turning almost white in the sunlight.

  “You’re such a man-child,” Amanda had teased him before she posed for the picture. Her laugh was gentle and warm. He had just explained to her how, when he threw away socks, he always tied them together in a knot.

  “They’ve been mated all that time, so I tie them so they’ll never be apart. I’d hate to think of them lying there at the dump, each one wondering where the other one was.”

  “Man-child” sounded so loving coming out of her mouth, then. Later, though, it somehow changed, became more of a complaint. How could something she initially thought adorable turn bad, like a piece of fruit gone sour?

  Josh sighed. Kerri stirred something long dormant within him, and it felt good, alive. So yeah, he should have explained about Amanda. He had just been caught off guard.

  Lucy was giving him an appraising look.

  “What? I had to let her leave,” he protested defensively.

  Lucy glanced out the window, then back at him, communicating what Josh felt was clear disappointment. “Of course, sure,” he agreed. If he’d thought about it, he would have had a lunch or something ready, would have asked her out to coffee, but to be fair he hadn’t expected her and, well, he hadn’t expected her, hadn’t expected that the voice on the other end of the telephone call would be attached to someone so pretty.

  He had Kerri in mind when he built the box, thinking he would impress her with how handy he was with his carpenter skills. He even considered a tongue and groove design, though in the end decided not to do that because he really didn’t know how. When he was through with the project, he had a large, flat box with eight-inch sides that was separated into two chambers by an eight-inch-high partition that could be partially removed. The smaller chamber he filled with a soft quilt from the attic, the larger one he lined with newspapers. He smiled, envisioning removing the central partition and letting the puppies run out and play in the larger area, though at this point they weren’t doing any running or playing or even moving.

  Lucy was completely unimpressed with the box, but seemed to comprehend what was intended when Josh carried the puppies back there and put them on the quilt. “This is where you feed them now, Lucy. They can’t get out until they’re a lot bigger.”

  Josh took a picture of the box to show Kerri.

  It felt strangely dislocating to be off Blascoe’s project. He found himself thinking about it often, of items on his task list left unchecked, pondering solutions to problems that were no longer his to solve.

  Will you be able to find a job? I mean, Christmas is like two months away, Kerri had asked. More like two and a half months, but she did have a point. He needed to get work before the high-tech world put on silly hats and started spending every day at holiday parties. Josh opened his address book and plugged himself into his social media contacts and began launching inquiries. Anyone hiring? Starting a new project? Need a new web- or PC-based interface?

  The answer seemed a dismal no, but he kept trying. He updated his résumé and it looked good. Something would come up soon.

  Two days later,
Josh was sitting in his pickup truck, gazing at the front entrance of the rescue shelter. In the mountains, towns tended to crowd into the narrow valleys cut by rivers fighting their way down to the flatlands, and Evergreen was no exception, its main street shouldered with buildings on either side that backed up into the rock face on the left and the creek on the right. Away from the downtown, though, the hills were more friendly and round. This gave the shelter room in the back for dog runs, and the storefront window had been decorated with hand-painted cartoon dogs and cats. Coming, a banner proclaimed, The Dogs of Christmas.

  He pictured himself entering the shelter and asking for Kerri. He’d tell her he wanted to get her approval on the construction of the box. He’d show her the photograph on his cell phone and she’d like how handily he’d built it. Then he’d somehow steer the conversation toward buying her lunch. Maybe as thanks for designing the box—that could be the excuse. Or maybe he’d look at his watch and be surprised that it was lunch time and ask her if she’d join him. He could tell her he had more questions about the puppies and ask her if they could discuss them over a meal, maybe. He’d better come up with some questions, in that case. Or he could say, “It’s such a nice day, want to grab lunch at the golf club?”

  A bell rang when Josh opened the front door. “Hey there!” Kerri greeted, coming from somewhere in the back. She wore a red fleece jacket unzipped over a light gray wool sweater and her thick hair was pulled back in what Josh thought was probably still called a ponytail. He normally didn’t like ponytails but was willing not to take offense to this one.

  Josh wore clean jeans and a pressed collared shirt that he’d picked after trying on everything he owned.

  “Hi, Kerri.”

  “You here to take me to lunch?” Her blue eyes sparkled at him playfully.