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“No worries,” she said, trying to make it brisk. “We’re all good. Did you notice my Australian phrasing?”
“I did. All right, then. I’ll say good night.”
“Good night. And sorry again for kicking you in the balls.”
* * *
She didn’t makeit back to Beckett’s until four the next afternoon. When she rang the bell, there was no answer for fifteen seconds or so, just a whole lot of frantic, high-pitched barking. She rang again, and was just ringing a third time when the door opened.
Bacon rushed out and danced around her feet, his rat-tail whipping a mile a minute, his black monkey-face split by a grin, his pink tongue lolling.Hi hi hi!he seemed to be saying.I can’t believe you came! My very favorite person!
She crouched down to pet him, and his tail started wagging so fast, it was moving his entire hind end. He licked her hand, and then he licked it some more, panting in his ecstasy. Well, of course he was. He had that smashed-in face that was so cute, and also so bad for breathing.
Janey wasn’t quite as enthusiastic, standing in the doorway in her pajamas, her angelic blonde curls rumpled, her face flushed. “I was asleep,” she said.
Quinn straightened and hefted the grocery bag. “Sorry to wake you, but I promised your dad I’d check on you. Brought you some soup and ice cream.”
“I didn’t need you to check.” Janey’s face was all the way closed down. “I’m fine. I know how to stay home by myself. I even watch Troy sometimes, if Dad has to go to the grocery store or something. I only go to the babysitter after school because Troy has to, even though I told Dad I could be in charge. I could even make dinner if he’d let me come home in time. I don’t know how yet, but I could learn. Dad learned, and he didn’t know, either. I could look afterhim,except he won’t let me. So I don’t need anybody to check. Besides, he came at lunchtime.”
Quinn might have been thrown, but you didn’t get to be a judge by being wishy-washy and timid. “Can I come in anyway? Having somebody spoil you a little is never a bad thing, especially when you’re sick.”
“I got medicine,” Janey said. “After the doctor. I probably don’t even have a fever anymore.”
“Well, good,” Quinn said. “I won’t come in if you really don’t want me to, but I’d like to talk to you. You were pretty upset last night, and I may be able to help with that.”
“I don’t need any help,” Janey said.
“We all need help sometimes. I don’t want to take your dad away from you. That’s the last thing I’d ever want to do. Women need their dads. I have a dad myself, and he’s pretty much the most awesome man in the world.”
Janey’s face lost a little of the closed-off look, like she was intrigued despite herself. “How?”
“All sorts of ways. He was a bull rider for a while in the rodeo, for one thing. He still walks with a limp, but it doesn’t stop him. He’s the toughest person I know, but he’s so many other things, too. Can I come in and heat up some of this soup for you and tell you about him? We don’t have to have any big emotional talk.”
A second’s hesitation, and Janey said, “I’m a little hungry, I guess.”
“Well, of course you are, if the medicine’s starting to work. You probably missed some meals there.” She followed Janey into the house, closed the door behind her, and headed to the kitchen. Bacon dashed off, then came prancing back, dragging a stuffed animal behind him by its ear. It was a lamb, and it was almost as big as he was.
“He likes you,” Janey said. “That’s why he’s bringing you his lamb.” Sure enough, Bacon dropped the once-white thing at her feet and sat staring at it so intently, he could be burning a hole through it with his gaze.
Quinn picked it up—it was crusty and a little disgusting, but she wasn’t squeamish—and tossed it, and Bacon scampered off to retrieve it with such eagerness, his legs slid out from under him on the polished floor, everything from his wrinkled forehead and black muzzle to his skinny, wagging tail radiating joy. Quinn laughed, and Janey did, too, a little.
“Dogs are the best,” Quinn said. “I’d have one, but I work a lot.” She washed her hands at the kitchen sink, found a bowl, and dumped half the soup into it. You couldn’t go wrong with chicken noodle. She stuck the bowl in the microwave, pushed the button, and turned to face Janey, who’d sat on a stool at the breakfast bar, which was progress.
“That’s what Dad always said,” Janey said. “That he worked too much to have a dog, and somebody would have to let it out and all that.”
“Mm,” Quinn said, sticking bread in the toaster and finding the butter. “What changed?”
“Nothing exactlychanged.Except that we got Bacon by accident, and Troy really wanted him. He gets lonely sometimes. Because he doesn’t have a mum anymore.”
“Ah.” Quinn buttered the toast, put it and the soup in front of Janey with a spoon, and leaned back against the counter. “So does Bacon just hold it all day, or what? A dog with a very strong bladder?”
Janey laughed. Just a bit, but Quinn was taking it as a win. “Dad put in a dog door.”
“Oh. I thought he was renting this place.”
“We are.”
“Usually,” Quinn said, “you can’t make alterations like that. The landlord doesn’t like it.”
