Page 38 of Sweet Devotion

“How many people do you think know she’s calling for vegetables?” Aiden sighed.

“Everyone local. It was no secret once Iris Hathaway told her.”

“Of course. It all makes perfect sense now. Town gossip outed her husband. Got it.” Aiden squeezed her hand and walked in the opposite direction shaking his head and muttering, “Glad Romeo is an easy to find large breed.”

“Which reminds me. Where do you suppose he wandered off to?”

That question shoved all the amusement behind and left Aiden biting down hard on his back teeth until his jaw muscles twitched with the effort. “He can take care of himself.”

Colleen wasn’t sure if those words were meant to convince her or reassure himself.

Combing every inch of the field, they found themselves back by Abigail’s booth once again. “Did you find my baby?”

“Not yet,” Colleen said gently. “But we’re not giving up.”

Abigail clutched at her chest. “She’s never done this before.”

One woman behind her coughed. Another offered, “She did wander off at the Christmas parade.”

“That was different,” Abigail snapped. “There were reindeer.”

Pressing her lips tightly together, Colleen silently told herself—do not ask. From the way Aiden was tugging at one ear, she suspected he was telling himself the same thing. This woman and her dog were quite the pair.

At least a dozen people besides Aiden and Colleen were searching for the missing pooch to no avail. Standing at the foot of the school parking lot, once again, Aiden took in his surroundings. The momentary intensity had her wondering was this what he was like in the army? Was he always so aware of his surroundings? Always thinking? Planning several moves ahead?

“I don’t understand.” Aiden heaved a deep sigh. “Maybe those kids are right and a hawk did swoop in and fly off with the dog.”

“Don’t even think such a…” not finished with her sentence yet, she stopped speaking when Aiden squinted, honing in on a particular sound.

“Do you hear that?”

She stopped scanning her surroundings and listened to the quiet around them—until it wasn’t. “Is that…snoring?”

“That’s what I thought.” His hand rubbing the back of his neck, Aiden seemed to be fighting off a tension headache.

Together, they listened carefully.

“Is someone snoring?” Colleen squinted as if that would help her hear. All it did was make her wonder why people did that?

“Don’t tell me someone is taking a nap in the porta potties?” Aiden began moving to the edge of the lot where the portable bathrooms sat. The closer they got, the louder the snoring. Still holding Colleen’s hand—something she was growing used to—he bent over and tilted his head, looking behind the blue phone booth sized portable potty. “Well, I’ll be.”

“What?” Colleen inched closer until she could see what he saw. “And here I thought it was a drunk sleeping off too much wine.”

“Don’t eliminate that scenario. You may be right. Although your suspects are most definitely not the drunk human kind.”

Colleen had to blink a few times before she believed her eyes. Curled up in the gap between the portable potties and the parking lot curb was one very large and soundly sleeping German Shepherd. “I guess saving toddlers is more exhausting than I thought.”

“What do you think Abigail will think?”

“That depends.”

“On what?” Aiden asked.

“On whether or not she finds out that her precious little vegetable is sleeping off a drunk in the arms of a big bad German Shepherd.”

Chapter Sixteen

When Aiden thought of school fundraisers, his mind went to wrapping paper and chocolate bar sales with an occasional car wash thrown in. At the words “gymnasium banquet,” he’d expected folding chairs with seat covers. A podium. Maybe a few strings of lights and one of those local DJs who played everything two decibels too loud. What he had not expected was for the high school gym to be transformed into something that looked halfway between a wedding reception and a gala in one of those old movies his mother loved. Round tables draped in white linen filled the floor, soft twinkle lights hung from the rafters, and every centerpiece involved blue and silver ribbons in some arrangement or another. Somewhere near the stage the low hum of a string bass and piano curling through the room like they belonged here. Texas was indeed a different world from New York.