Ruth Scofield - Whispers Of The Heart

She lifted the little thing higher, staring at her. The puppy gave her a lick on the underside of her chin and wiggled all over.

Her heart was hooked. “But I suppose I can learn. Please come in and tell me how. What do puppies eat?”

Brent let out a long, slow breath as he and Timmy stepped through. He hadn’t been at all sure if Autumn would accept the gift. But since their dinner date, he’d kept a close eye on the comings and goings from her building. He caught a delivery truck parked in front a time or two, but he couldn’t tell if the deliveries were for her or other tenants in the building.

But something Curtis had said led him to think she had few friends, and, without her twin around, she rarely went anywhere. In fact, he thought she seldom left her apartment at all.

Like Tim, she was at the right time, the right stage in her life to handle the care for another living being and a puppy seemed like a good choice.

He hoped it would bring her outside, at the very least. Force her out of her apartment. She’d have to walk the dog, wouldn’t she? Take it for exercise?

“Hang on to her for a bit,” he cautioned. “She’s just learning how to behave.”

“Oh, isn’t she, um, housebroken?” Autumn held the animal gingerly away from her, looking her over with both skepticism and wonder. “What’s its name?”

“It’s a she,” Timmy said. “Not an it. And we didn’t name her yet.”

“Oh, I, um, I’m sorry,” she replied, a corner of her mouth curving.

“I think she’s paper trained,” Brent said. “Though I wouldn’t trust to that totally. It’s a safe bet you’ll need to take her out a couple of times a day.”

“Oh? Well maybe I shouldn’t—”

Brent interrupted her doubtful murmur with a hasty aside. “The breeder was going to let this one go to the animal shelter if we didn’t take it. She breeds purebred Maltese show dogs and she was extremely upset that this mixed breed litter happened.” He shook his head in a sad comment. “And to add insult, this one is the runt of the litter.”

“The pound?” Autumn’s eyes grew rounder as he told the story.

“Yep. The pound.” Brent didn’t mind building on his success. If Autumn had a heart as tender as his son’s, she couldn’t bring herself to refuse the dog no matter what the practicalities were. “Timmy was terrified for the little thing when the woman mentioned the pound.”

He reached out to lay a gentle hand on the puppy’s head, rubbing a small ear, while the back of his fingers brushed against Autumn’s inner arm; she lifted her gaze to his, her mouth softening in compassion as he continued to speak. “I couldn’t let Timmy down by not taking both.”

“Yes, I—I can understand that.”

“But this is my problem. My mom is allergic to dogs and cats. She visits us quite a lot. It’s enough to ask for her to deal with one little dog in our house. So to take two…”

He shook his head again and withdrew his hand, shoving it into his pocket as though to imply he’d done all he could.

“Oh.”

He let her think about it, turning to see what Timmy was doing. The boy stood with his chin against her worktable, looking at a sheet of paper half covered with flashes of color.

“Tim, don’t touch,” he reminded the boy.

“Okay.”

The puppy wiggled and yelped at the sound of Timmy’s voice. Autumn gazed at the tiny body, wonder still lurking in her eyes. “I think she wants you, Timmy.”

“She does?”

“Perhaps you could give her a saucer of milk,” Brent suggested, by way of sidetracking Autumn’s thought. He didn’t want her to think the dog couldn’t live without Timmy or adjust to her.

“Oh, dear. I’m out of milk.”

“How about a bowl of water, then?”

“I can manage that.” She went to her cupboard and one-handedly lifted out a cereal bowl, turning on her sink tap to fill it. The puppy almost jumped out of her arm in excitement, making her laugh.

Brent had never heard her uninhibited laugh until now. It sounded all through him like a bell that reverberated against his bones. Or his heart.

“Do you have any newspapers?” Brent asked, strolling toward her at her kitchen counter.

“No, but I don’t care about this old rug.” She set the bowl down on the rag rug she kept in front of her kitchen sink, then folded herself down alongside it and gently placed the puppy nearby. The dog eagerly lapped a few swallows, then began sniffing and investigating her new terrain.

“Tim, don’t get into anything over there,” Brent reminded again, strolling over to the studio area. He glanced at some of the work she had stacked around.

More still lifes in watercolor, but some were cityscapes, scenes taken from her windows. Shadows played differently against some of the same views, reflecting they were painted at different times of day. But among the smaller sheets against the bookcase, an image of a small boy holding a doughnut, his face smeared with chocolate icing, captured Brent’s attention.

He recalled that morning clearly. Autumn had, too. She’d caught the very essence of a boy’s pleasure in a simple treat.

“This is really nice,” he said, nodding toward the painting. Autumn glanced up, then rose to join him as Timmy lay down on the rug to play with the puppy. He picked up the sheet and studied the composition. “You have an excellent eye for faces. You must sell it to me, please. I wonder…”

“Oh, I couldn’t sell that one,” she said casually, although the pink staining her cheeks told Brent she didn’t exactly feel casual about the work. Or the compliment? “You may have it, though. In exchange for the puppy.”

She didn’t look at him as she shuffled some of her dry, unfinished sheets into a portfolio. She swished a brush in a can of water, and replaced tubes of paint into a compartmentalized case. Behind her, a stepladder, painted with trailing vines, leaned against the bookshelves, additional evidence of what she’d been doing.

“Thank you, I accept,” he said quietly. “My mother will be delighted with it.”

“A fair exchange.” She remained quiet a moment, then asked, “What do you wonder?”

“Hmm…?” He’d been looking at the portrait of his son, his gaze tracing the way she’d captured the very shape of his eyes. He glanced up.

“Oh. I have a new project I’m very excited about. A church building. It’s a hundred-plus-year-old inner-city location that a young minister hopes to revitalize and bring back to life. I don’t know where his financing came from, but he seems to have a free hand and he has big plans for it.”

“That sounds nice. What has it to do with me?”

“I think…I think you should come see it.”

“Oh? Why?”

“I’d rather show you. Why don’t we take a run over there and I’ll tell you about it.”

“Tell me about it now.”

“All right,” he said, letting out a sigh. He wished she’d just trust him a little more. “David—Reverend Collier—and I have had several long talks about the restoration of the building and grounds. Though there isn’t much left to the grounds. And the building was put up in three stages, so what we really have are three buildings connected. There’s a long connecting hall, a corridor, really, one side almost all glass windows. The blank wall is crying out for a mural—”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head, a firm set to her chin. “I don’t think I want to tackle anything of that size.”

“You can’t say no out of hand. You haven’t heard my suggestion.”

“Why can’t I? And I can guess at what you wondered, and the answer is no. I don’t want to take on that much outside work. I don’t like crowds.”

“But Autumn, this is a very special project. I think you’ll be interested once you see it. It’s not your usual request, you have to admit. And what have crowds to do with it?”