Finding Home (13 page)

“Hey, Natty,” Andrea said from behind her.

Natalie turned to face her. “Hey, yourself. What are you doing here?”

“I called the shop this afternoon, but Mrs. Valenti said you were upstairs napping. I called, but you must have been screening

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or something, so I thought I’d better check on you, see if you needed anything.”

Just as she had with Sarah, Natalie knew immediately that Sarah had come up behind her simply by the irritated look that settled itself on Andrea’s face. Keeping her sigh of frustration as silent as she could, Natalie turned and pasted on a smile for Sarah.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Sarah said warily.

Natalie introduced the two women formally, though she was well aware that
they
were well aware of who the other was. Sarah held gazes with Andrea for what seemed like hours, then squatted to scratch Chino, obviously uncertain exactly what she’d just stepped into and not happy about that uncertainty.

Turning back to Andrea, Natalie said too loudly, “We’re going to the park. Want to come?” The overabundance of feigned cheer in her tone actually made her wince.

“Um, no thanks. I think I’ll pass.” The disdain in Andrea’s voice was crystal clear and her eyes drilled into Natalie’s, their unspoken message just as unmistakable:
What are you doing?

“Okay, well, we should get going, then.” She gestured down to the dog with her eyes. “He’s getting antsy. Thanks for checking on me.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Andrea seemed reluctant to let her go, and Natalie felt her aggravation over the situation growing.

“Yep. I’m sure. Promise.”

“I’ll call you later, then?” Andrea narrowed her eyes at Natalie, as if squinting might help her see things more clearly.

“Cool.” Looking down at Sarah, Natalie said, “Ready?”

Sarah nodded, meeting Andrea’s gaze one more time before following Natalie up the street. Natalie could feel Andrea’s eyes on her for more than a block. She and Sarah walked in silence for several long minutes before Sarah Þ nally spoke.

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“Well, that was fun.”

“I’m sorry about that.” Natalie made a face that portrayed her embarrassment over the situation. “I didn’t know she was coming.”

“You’re
sure
she’s not your girlfriend?”

Natalie laughed. “I’m sure.”

“Ex?”

“Nope.”

“Just loves you like a sister,” Sarah said, using Natalie’s previous phrase regarding Andrea.

“Exactly.”

“Why was she checking on you? Are you sick?”

Pushing the lock of pink hair out of her eye, Natalie shook her head. “No. I just had sort of a weird afternoon.” Laughing in self-deprecation, she added, “I dropped a lot of things.”

“Oh, one of
those
days.”

“Right. Mrs. Valenti thought I was sick and needed to go take a nap. Like I’m three.”

Sarah smiled. “An Italian grandmother. We should all have one.”

They walked along, the three of them, like they’d been doing it for years. Natalie handed the leash over to Sarah without comment and Sarah took it the same way. They continued up Monroe Avenue, stopping several times so passersby could pet Chino, oohing and ahhing over his gorgeous eyes and friendly demeanor. Once they arrived at the park, they searched for an area that was less crowded than most of the place and began taking turns throwing the ball for him.

“So, how was your day?” Natalie asked, feeling Sarah’s eyes on her as she threw the ball, surprised by how pleasant things had been so far.

“It was okay.”

Natalie nodded and tried to internally gauge how much work she wanted to put forth to get this woman to talk, and whether or not it was even worth it. Chino brought the ball back and Sarah

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took the slobbery thing from him, made a face, and wiped it on the grass with a
blech
, which made Natalie smile.
She’s really very
pretty
, Natalie suddenly thought about Sarah. It wasn’t that she hadn’t always thought of her as incredibly attractive, but she’d never really had a chance to look at her openly. Pretty wasn’t a word she had ever used to describe Sarah. It had always seemed too…soft, somehow. She was attractive, deÞ nitely. Sophisticated and focused. Imposingly sexy. But now Natalie realized that

“pretty” was actually very accurate. Sarah Buchanan was a very pretty woman. Watching her, Natalie tried to decide which way she looked better to her, all decked out in her business clothes, or like this: casual yet classy in nice khaki dress shorts and a ß atteringly clingy black T-shirt. Her dark hair was pulled back into a perfectly smooth ponytail, which made the blue of her eyes stand out even more than usual. Natalie absently wondered if she ever looked disheveled. When her thoughts began to veer toward how much fun it might be to actually do the disheveling, Natalie shook her head quickly, hoping to dislodge that sensual image.

She didn’t have a lot of luck.

“You don’t say much, do you?” she Þ nally asked Sarah, a question which seemed to surprise both of them momentarily.

Seeming to honestly contemplate the query, Sarah took several seconds before answering, Þ nally saying with a half-grin, “Well, I think the circumstances are a little…special. Don’t you?”

“Circumstances? What circumstances?” Natalie asked with a matching expression on her face. “Oh! You mean the ones about me having your dog because I’m not sure if you abused him, not to mention that I love him to pieces, and you wondering if you should show up on my doorstep with a bunch of lawyers and police and take him away from me? Those circumstances?”

There was a beat of uncomfortable silence during which Natalie waited to see if Sarah would catch on to her gentle teasing, to her desire to keep things light even though she knew full well that they were in a weird and tenuous situation. Sarah glanced

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at her and must have caught something in her eyes because she smiled back at her.

“Yeah, those are the ones.”

“Do you think we could set them aside for the time being?

Or is that a silly request?” Natalie asked the questions honestly, not quite knowing where she stood and not liking the feeling at all.

“It is a silly request.” Sarah winked at her and then threw the ball for Chino. “But I think we can do it for now.”

The relief that swept over her caught Natalie off guard.

“Cool.”

“One condition, though.”

“What’s that?”

“I get to ask a few questions.”

“Oh.” Natalie raised her eyebrows and then gave a single nod. “Okay. What do you want to know?”

Sarah made a contemplative face, but Natalie got the distinct impression she already had a list in her head and was just faking the pensiveness. The idea made her feel warm inside.

“How old are you?”

“Wow, right for the jugular, huh?” Natalie laughed outright, wiping her hand on her hip after throwing the ball for Chino.

“Thirty-one.” She felt rather than saw Sarah’s head whip around in surprise.

“Seriously?”

It wasn’t the Þ rst time somebody had been stunned to learn she was older than twenty-Þ ve. “Thirty-one, swear to God. And yes, I still get proofed at bars.”

“I can see why.”

She squinted at Sarah. “I’m trying to decide if I should be insulted by that.”

“Not at all. I’m just saying you look younger, that’s all.”

“All right. I’ll let you off the hook this time.”

Chino plopped down at their feet, directly between the two of

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them, his chest heaving in a rapid pant, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, and his nontail wagging continuously. “Pooped already?” Natalie teased him. “You’re out of shape, boy.”

“I hardly ever let him off the leash.” Sarah said it quietly, almost as if she was embarrassed by the fact.

“How come? He’s very good.”

“I think I’m just a worry wart.”

“Or a control freak.” Natalie said it lightly, jokingly, but could tell from the ß ash of pain that crossed Sarah’s face that she’d hit a nerve.

“That could be it.” She sat down next to Chino and Natalie followed suit. They soaked up the evening sun and lounged in the thick grass in silence for a long while.

“Can I ask you a question?” Natalie said after a while, almost hesitant to break the spell of the quiet that had woven around them.

Sarah nodded once, looking off into the distance.

“Where did the name Bentley come from?”

A gentle smile just touched the corners of Sarah’s mouth.

When she Þ nally turned to look at Natalie, her eyes were sparkling.

“I Þ gured that was closest I’d ever get to owning one.”

“The car?”

Sarah inclined her head. “Yep.”

“I have no idea what a Bentley looks like.”

Sarah scratched the dog’s head, just behind his ears. “Like this,” she said with affection. He settled his chin on her thigh and sighed in contentment.

The feeling that hit Natalie was a weird combination of unpleasantness and admiration as she watched Chino and Sarah simply enjoying one another. “Maybe I should be calling him that instead,” she said softly.

Sarah looked up, obviously trying to read her tone. “Where did you get Chino?”

“Mrs. Valenti.” Natalie fondly recalled the day they’d found

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him near the Dumpster. “She called him
turchino
, which means turquoise in Italian. I told her his eyes weren’t turquoise, but the name sort of stuck.”

“I like it,” Sarah said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s different.”

Natalie nodded, inexplicably pleased that she’d met with Sarah’s approval on something. “But Bentley’s good. It is.” She tried it out on the dog a couple times, laughing as his ears perked and he cocked his head as he listened.

“Okay, so here’s my next question,” Sarah said, and the quirk of her eyebrow told Natalie it would probably be something smart-assed. She didn’t mind at all. She liked Fun Sarah and was secretly trying to Þ gure out how to get her to come out and play more often. To Natalie’s surprise, Sarah leaned over Bentley and reached toward her, tucked her Þ nger under the lock of pink hair, and tugged gently at it. “What’s with this?”

“My pink? It’s for Andrea,” Natalie said with a tender smile.

Seeing Sarah’s confusion, she elaborated. “She’s a breast cancer survivor. When she was diagnosed, I wanted to do something to show my support, something everybody could see. I don’t have a lot of money, so my meager donation wouldn’t have meant much.

Wearing a pink ribbon is one thing, but this”—she rolled her eyes up in an attempt to see her own hair—“this was something that worked, that did what I wanted. Plus, I think it helped Andrea.

Every time she sees me, she knows she’s got me in her corner in whatever way she needs. You know?” When she met Sarah’s gaze, she couldn’t really read her expression and she felt suddenly self-conscious, wondering if she’d revealed too much.

“That’s really amazing. And something to be proud of. I can’t believe she was diagnosed so young. Wow. Andrea’s lucky to have somebody like you.”

“Now maybe you see why she’s so protective of me?”

Natalie raised her eyebrows in question.

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Sarah grimaced. “Yes. And I owe you an apology.”

“For what?”

“The hair.”

“Let me guess,” Natalie said with a chuckle. “You thought I was rebelling or having some punk ß ashback, right?”

Sarah grinned at her. “Something like that.”

“I’m afraid I’m just a boring, conservative kind of girl.”

With a snort, Sarah said, “Yeah, well, that makes two of us.”

A young man and his German shepherd walked across the Þ eld about thirty yards from them. Chino’s head lifted and his ears perked up, his whole body suddenly alert. He stood and Sarah ß inched, her body language matching his as she stretched a hand toward his collar.

“No,” Natalie warned in a low and gentle voice, halting Sarah in mid-reach. “You stay.”

Though his eyes followed the twosome until they were out of sight, the rest of his body relaxed at Natalie’s command. Then he lay back down. Sarah had observed it all. Natalie could feel her eyes and was suddenly self-conscious.

“He’s very good off the leash,” Natalie said quickly, suddenly feeling the need to explain. “But there are times when he’ll bolt.

Squirrels. Other dogs sometimes. He always comes back when I call him, but…it can be a little nerve-wracking. So we’ve been working on ‘stay.’” She dug her Þ ngers into the fur on his neck and massaged him. “Good boy,” she said softly. “That was very good.”

“I want to talk to you about something,” Sarah said, unexpectedly serious.

Uh-oh. Here it comes. She’s going to take him away or
threaten to sue me or…
Natalie had to make a great effort to shut off her mind, the possibilities sending her careening toward panic mode. The idea of losing Chino was a tangible pain in her gut, and she grimaced.

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Sarah must have recognized her injured expression because she placed a warm hand on Natalie’s thigh and said in a reassuring voice, “Hear me out.”

Swallowing hard, Natalie nodded, not looking at Sarah, her body tensed as if waiting for a physical blow.

“How would you feel about sharing him? With me?”

Natalie looked at her then, blinked, wondering if she’d heard right, having trouble understanding. “Sharing him?”

“Like a joint custody thing.”

Natalie blinked some more.

“Look, let’s be honest. He’s my dog. You know it and I know it, and if I wanted to Þ ght you and get him back, I could.” The gentle and nonthreatening tone of Sarah’s voice didn’t make her words any less scary to Natalie. “But…” She faltered for the Þ rst time, looked down at her hands, pulled some grass out by the roots. “But he seems really happy with you. You took him in when he needed somebody, and you take good care of him.