Cathy Thacker - The Long, Hot Texas Summer

Justin blinked in shock at her quick acquiescence, which probably surprised him given the irate way she had walked out on him the evening before.

A little embarrassed that she had been so emotional last night—she could have just said no and left it at that—Amanda continued matter-of-factly, “I’ve got some heavy lifting that needs to be done, and I was headed over here anyway to see if I could borrow you both for an hour or so. Now I won’t have to feel bad about asking since I’ll be helping you fellas out first.”

“We would have helped you anyway,” Justin countered, in a way that let her know he was thinking about her curt refusal to his request for aid the night before.

Amanda refused to feel guilty about that. It had been a bad idea. It was still a bad idea.

She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Yes, but this way we’ll be even.”

Lamar squinted at them. “Am I missing something?”

“No,” Justin and Amanda said in unison, despite the chemistry sizzling between them.

Again, Lamar took note.

Wanting to move on, Amanda took a deep breath and asked Justin, “So which dog do you want me to bathe?”

Justin paused. “Probably better take Woof. Fetcher’s still pretty rowdy.”

No kidding, Amanda thought, watching her recommence rolling around on the deck as if wrestling an invisible opponent, her leash once again clamped in her teeth.

“I’ll finish Roamer and then start on Fetcher,” Justin continued, getting back down to work. “Whoever finishes first can handle Professor.”

“So how long have you had your dogs?” Amanda inquired, picking up a bottle of shampoo.

“I adopted Sleepy and Woof when I was still living in Fort Worth and working at a nonprofit there. They came from a shelter. Professor and Fetcher came from families here in Laramie who thought they could handle having a pet and then discovered they couldn’t.” His voice thickened with emotion. “I found Roamer on the side of the road. He was painfully thin and infested with fleas and ticks. It looked like he had been driven out to the middle of nowhere, abandoned and forced to survive on his own.”

Amanda’s eyes filled just thinking about it. “That’s awful.”

Lamar’s jaw clenched in youthful indignation. “How can people do that?” he asked fiercely. “When you adopt a dog—”

Or have a kid like Lamar, Amanda thought.

“—it’s supposed to be a lifelong commitment!”

Only sometimes it wasn’t, Amanda thought sadly. “I guess some people aren’t cut out for that kind of responsibility.” She waited for her turn with the hose, then wet Woof down and lathered shampoo into his fur.

Lamar became even more irate. “Well, you can count my parents in that tally,” he muttered.

Deciding the only thing that would comfort Lamar was total honesty, Amanda confided, “And mine.”

Lamar’s jaw dropped. “You got ditched by your folks, too?”

Beside Amanda, Justin went very still. She realized these were the kinds of intimate details that Justin had wanted her to share with his dinner guests—to help them understand the plight of an abandoned child, from the child’s perspective—and she had declined.

Having shared it once with a man she trusted, and suffered the fallout, she wanted to keep the miserable story to herself.

Yet, realizing it might make Lamar feel less alone to hear her story, Amanda forced herself to continue. “My parents divorced when I was two. I spent the next twelve years bouncing back and forth between their houses.” She sighed heavily. “Both remarried and divorced, more than once, so to say it was chaotic is an understatement. I wasn’t happy about it, and I showed my displeasure by acting out.”

Lamar finished bathing Sleepy before turning his attention to the patiently waiting Professor. “How?”

Amanda shook her head in regret. “I skipped school. Shoplifted. Raided the liquor cabinet of a friend’s parents’. Threw parties. Secretly sneaked out to movies I wasn’t old enough to see.” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Justin listening intently.

“Wow.” Lamar sounded impressed.

Amanda held up a cautioning hand. “It’s not as glamorous as it sounds, Lamar. I came really close to ending up in juvie. Luckily, before that happened, I tried to run away. The local police found me and took me to the station, where I officially entered the system, and a sympathetic social worker decided I needed more stability than either of my parents were able or willing to give. She talked my grandparents into taking me in.”

Amanda paused, remembering. “They had rules. Lots of them. I had to study for my GED and be respectful, help my grandmother around the house and work as Granddad’s apprentice when I had any spare time.”

Lamar reached for a bottle, paused, as if unable to decipher the labels. “And that was a good thing.”

Noticing he needed the conditioner, Amanda handed it over, and was rewarded with a grateful smile. “Yep. For the first time in my life, I really felt safe. And loved. And cared for.” She paused to towel off Woof, taking care to dry his face and ears before his body, just as she had seen Justin do.

That accomplished, she continued her story. “The point is, even though my parents couldn’t handle me or my problems, I eventually ended up in a better place. I was happy.” She paused to let her words sink in and saw Justin was a captive audience, too.

She turned away from Justin’s tender expression. Swallowing, she pushed on. “Even more important, for the first time I saw what a good marriage looked like. It made me realize how important it is to marry the right person from the get-go.”

Lamar turned to Justin, a question in his eyes. “Do you think that, too?”

Justin nodded as he toweled off Roamer. “Yes. My parents have a very strong and happy relationship.” He smiled at Lamar then turned and caught Amanda’s gaze. “Having that kind of love and commitment as a foundation makes for a very good marriage.”

“And happy marriages,” Amanda concluded softly, pleasantly surprised to find them all on the same page, “make happy families.”

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