Susan Mallery - Second Chance Girl

“Poop bags?” Carol asked, trying not to laugh. “You know dogs poop, right? Usually on a walk. You’re going to need the bags so you can pick it up and carry it with you until you get home and throw it in the trash. Oh, and make sure you tie the bag really tight when you’re done because of, you know, the smell.”

Mathias stared at her. “Stop it.”

Nick shook his head. “Bro, she’s not lying about the poop. We all do it.”

“Thank you for sharing.” Mathias flagged a server. “I’d like a beer, please, and if you could hurry, that would be great.”

They all placed their drink orders, then Pallas smiled at Mathias. “It’s going to be fine. I’m sure Sophie’s a good little girl. You’ll like having her around.”

“You might learn something from her,” Carol added. “Dogs are loyal, committed companions. Of course that might make you too uncomfortable.”

“You think this is funny.”

“I know this is funny,” she told him. “Come on. She’s a dog. People have had dogs as pets for tens of thousands of years. You can suck it up for a month.”

Mathias didn’t look convinced.

Their drinks were delivered and the game began. On tournament night, everyone played until there was a winner at each table, then those winners would play until only one was left standing.

As they rolled dice and moved from room to room, discarding suspects and weapons, eliminated players stopped by to say hello and sneak Sophie bits of bacon and burger. Sophie took each treat gently, offering a thank-you lick when she’d swallowed the bite.

Mathias was overreacting. Sophie was obviously well trained and used to being around people. He and Nick were making her into something that she wasn’t, which was just like a man. A month with a lovely little dog was exactly what Mathias needed.

CHAPTER THREE

MATHIAS HAD GONE out of his way to make the rules clear to Sophie. She was a visiting pet—she was responsible for listening to him and doing as he said. As such, she would sleep in the living room and not in his bedroom. Only when it was time to go to bed, he realized that the living room was kind of a big, dark place and a long way from his room. As a way to show his willingness to compromise, he put her bed in the hallway, outside his bedroom door. Then he told her good-night and closed the door.

All went well for eight or ten seconds, then Sophie began to cry. At first the sounds were soft little yips of loneliness but they soon morphed into full-throated howls of pain and suffering, punctuated by whines of agony.

Mathias covered his head with a pillow, but that didn’t help. He told himself she would get over it and fall asleep. A full fifteen minutes later, he had to admit Sophie had some lungs on her. He crossed to the door and jerked it open. The sounds ceased as she wagged her tail at him, as if saying, “Hi. I knew you were in there. Can I come in?”

“No,” he said firmly. “Be quiet. Go to sleep.”

The tail wag slowed.

He closed the door again and didn’t make it back to the bed before the cries started up.

Ten minutes later he carried her bed into his room and dropped it in a corner. “Just for tonight,” he told her as sternly as he could. “I’m sure you miss your mom. I get that. But you have to learn to be independent, okay?”

Sophie sat in her bed, her tail wagging.

“Good night.”

He turned out the light.

One second turned into ten. Sophie was silent. He relaxed and closed his eyes, only to hear something scrambling onto the bench at the foot of his king-size mattress. That noise was immediately followed by Sophie scratching at the blanket before turning around and around and around, then flopping down halfway up and more on his side than her own. Before he could decide what he was supposed to do now, she sighed and began to snore.

Mathias stared at the ceiling and told himself it was only for a month. He could endure this. It wasn’t as if it was going to get worse.

* * *

IT GOT WORSE. He managed to sleep through the snoring, the snuffling and twitching as Sophie dreamed her doggie dreams. In the morning he let her out before feeding her. The smell of the canned food was bad enough, but then he had to mix it with dry, add exactly one quarter cup of warm (but not too hot water), then stir it up. His mother said to add a crumbled strip of crisp bacon to the mix, but Mathias decided that was going too far.

Sophie inhaled her breakfast before his Keurig had finished brewing a single cup of coffee, then she stared at him expectantly, as if wanting more.

“Look, you’ll need to talk to your mom,” he told her. “I measured everything. That’s your breakfast. There’s nothing else.”

The hope in her brown eyes died a doggie death and the tail wag slowed. Mathias did his best to ignore her and the guilt as he grabbed his coffee and made his way back to his bedroom.

Getting ready with Sophie around was different than getting ready alone. For one thing, she was always underfoot. For another, she sniffed everything and he would swear, as he stripped down for his shower, she was more than a little judgy.

“No one wants your opinion,” he said firmly as he stepped into the shower. “I mean it.”

Sophie tried to grab his towel when he got out, drank water from the toilet and when he let her out again, she pooped enough to make a moose proud, only Mathias was stuck cleaning it up. For the record, one poop bag was not enough.

Once that was done, he was able to finally sit down and enjoy the quiet of the morning. Millie stepped out of the tall trees. Sophie took one look at her and started barking.

He told her to stop. He told her louder to stop, then he locked her in his house even though he could still hear the frantic yips, growls and barks. He returned to his favorite patio chair, closed his eyes and imagined himself anywhere but here.

* * *

“I DOUBT THERE’S even going to be a scar,” Carol said happily Tuesday afternoon.

“Uh-huh. That’s great.”

Violet Lund did her best to pay attention to the conversation. Lunch with her sister was one of her favorite times of the week. Even though they lived in the same small town, they were both busy. They’d learned that if they didn’t make the effort to get something on the calendar, time tended to slip away from them.

She’d gotten up early to make chicken salad for sandwiches and had stopped by the bakery for the cookies Carol liked. But now that they were seated at the large table in Violet’s faux-loft apartment above her small store, she found her attention straying.

It wasn’t her fault, she told herself soothingly. She was being tempted beyond what a normal person could expect to withstand. Because there, on the counter, tantalizingly out of reach, was a package about the size of a shoe box.

The mix of various colorful postage stamps had told her it had been sent from England—from the Dowager Duchess of Somerbrooke, to be specific. She had an idea of what was inside, but couldn’t know the exact contents—not until she opened it. Oh, if only the mail lady had delivered it after her lunch with Carol, she wouldn’t be squirming like a four-year-old waiting on Santa.

“For her modeling career,” Carol added drily. “You know, with that large coffee manufacturer.”

Violet turned back to her sister and tried to put the pieces together. She was pretty sure they’d been talking about Bronwen and her injuries. Bronwen being a gazelle at the animal preserve her sister ran...or managed...or whatever you called the job of person in charge. Animal keeper?

And not important, she told herself. They’d been talking about Bronwen, so how on earth had they gotten to a modeling career and who was—