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We both shift uneasily at the thought and the phone rings, both of us leaping up to race and get it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rachel
Conor’s way taller than me, so he’s back in the office in three strides as he grabs the phone.
Neither of us really want to talk about having ‘the talk’ with my dad, but if he thinks I’m missing then I guess it has to happen sooner rather than later.
I watch Conor’s face light up as he answers the phone.
“You have? Where?” he asks excitedly, giving me a wide-eyed look as he smiles broadly.
“What!” he asks suddenly, his face dropping.
“See if you can call it off, I’m on my way over. I should get there before anyone else anyway,” he adds, quickly hanging up and ordering me to get my boots on as he rushes to search for his own.
“What is it?” I ask, wondering why he went from happy to worried so fast.
“It’s Valentine, he’s at your house,” he calls out over his shoulder. “Those movers called animal control. Said there’s a wolf in the backyard… We gotta get there before they do, before they do anything stupid.”
I’m right behind him, and in seconds flat we are peeling out of his driveway, racing back to my dad’s house.
Not my house anymore, I’ve already decided that much.
I ask Conor the obvious, stupid questions and he’s very patient with me.
“My favor from city hall,” he remarks, taking a corner way too fast and skidding on the icy road. “I told them to call me the minute they heard anything remotely like Valentine coming across the wire.”
A wolf in a suburban yard. That sounds like Valentine alright. The nearest actual wild wolf would be a hundred miles away.
“I just hope we get there before they do,” he groans, putting his hand over mine when I press it to his leg while he drives.
“We’ll make it,” I hear myself telling him. And I mean it.
More than just making it in time to get Valentine back too.
We’ll make it every other way too, things will work out. I know they will.
Just gotta break a few eggs to make that omelet, I tell myself.
I’ve never seen Conor so worried, except when he realized Valentine was missing. He never lets go of my hand though, not until we pull up out front of my dad’s house.
The removal couple is in their truck and once my dad hears a car he comes rushing out. Confused at first, but he cries out in relief once he sees me.
“You get Valentine, and I’ll deal with my dad,” I tell Conor, who waits until my dad’s hugging me before he slips from his car, around to the rear of the house.
“Where have you been?” My dad asks. “I’ve been so worried, I even called the police to report you missing. There’s some wild dog in the yard and these guys won’t move or pack a single thing until it’s gone, so I called the animal control people,” he explains, ushering me inside. “Get inside will ya, I think it’s a wolf. No telling what the hell it’ll do.”
I play along with dad, giving Conor some extra time to get a hold of Valentine, who I hear excited bark and whine once he sees his master.
He’s been here, waiting for me, I know he has. But where else had he got to? Peering out the kitchen window, watching Conor hugging and petting the wild wolf in the yard before he clips a leash on him and leads him back to his car, I wonder just what secret life Valentine might really be hiding from us all.
Dad’s fixing some coffee, relating his own version of events since he woke up from his much-needed sleep.
“I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again,” he says, over-exaggerating everything.
“Who drove you here?” he asks thoughtfully, moving to the front of the house to look. “Your new boyfriend?” he says, turning to mouth the word sorry as soon as he says it.
“Dad,” I interrupt him, leading him back to the kitchen. “We need to talk. About the move. About me,” I hear myself saying, surprising myself and my dad with some authority in my voice.
Dad sinks back into his seat, groaning a little before he forces a kind of knowing smile.
“You’re not coming with me, are you?” he asks, point-blank.
I feel shocked but relieved. Could he know everything already? Maybe Barbie realtor filled him in. Maybe Conor already said-
“I knew once you said you’d met someone, sweetie. I’m your dad. It’s my job to know these things.”
I force a grin of my own, realizing how much he knows without actually knowing any of the details.
Yet.
I take a breath and swallow hard, hoping once I tell him he’ll understand.
“Is it a boy from college?” Dad asks. “You’ve been seeing him a while, huh? Just couldn’t bear to tell the old man you were finally ready to try going out on your own, that it?” he probes me, a proud look in his eyes.
