LITMIR.BIZ

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two yards from the carriage, the dog, impatient for her to deliver the food he smelled, reared up on his hind legs and placed his massive paws on her shoulders. Not expecting such a thing, Blythe staggered backward beneath his weight. Before she knew it, she was on the soggy ground, flat on her back.

      It happened so fast that she didn’t see it coming. Even if she had, there was nothing she could have done about it. The dog outweighed her by several pounds. She was lying there with her eyes closed, trying to catch her breath, when she felt hot, doggy panting on her cheek and a rough tongue make a long swipe from her chin to her ear. She opened her eyes and saw brown eyes gazing down at her. A wet nose was pressed against her ear.

      The hound licked her face again.

      “Aarrgh!” she said, suppressing a shudder. Without a thought as to how he might react, she shoved his head aside with one hand while using the other to push herself into a sitting position. Undeterred, the hound gave her another swipe across the cheek.

      At least he wasn’t attacking her! Determined to do what decency and compassion dictated she should for Will’s mutt, she pushed to her feet and scrubbed at her slobbery cheek with her skirt tail, shuddering at the memory.

      Anxious to be done and be gone, she unwrapped the leftovers, picked up a juicy hunk of fat with her fingertips and tossed it to him. It vanished in a single gulp. She shook her head in amazement. The rest followed in short order. Last, she threw the ham bone in his direction.

      She was wiping her fingers on the clean edges of the messy towel when an image of how she must have looked lying on the ground flashed into her mind. She started to laugh. What would her snobbish friends in Boston think if they knew that the woman who had such high hopes of owning her own boutique and could have had any number of wealthy young men for a husband was instead teaching children in a one-room country schoolhouse, driving around in the country alone...dressed like a cleaning woman and carrying on a conversation—of sorts—with a dog?

      Without warning the laughter turned to a sob. She dropped the dish towel to the ground, leaned against the hitching post and covered her face with her cold hands. She cried for the trouble she’d caused her family and for her ridiculous longing for a husband and her silly naïveté. For loneliness and lost dreams and the loss of her identity. For love and those crazy, pulse-pounding moments she’d experienced with Devon...something she was certain she would never again experience.

      After a moment a whining sound drew her attention from her misery. She lifted her head, wiped at her wet eyes and opened them. Through the haze of her tears, she saw that Will’s dog stood in front of her, his head cocked to one side, looking at her with those sad brown eyes that seemed to say, “What’s the matter?”

      Good grief! Was she so desperate for compassion she thought she could see it in the eyes of a massive dog? Knowing that her tears were in vain and would solve nothing, she drew herself up straight, sniffed and wiped her eyes and nose on the hem of her skirt. Take that, Bostonians! she thought, glancing back at the hound, who was demolishing the waxed paper she’d wrapped the scraps in.

      “Stop that!” she cried.

      He looked up at her, a piece of paper hanging from the corner of his mouth. Blythe watched in amazement as, with an unconcerned flick of his tongue, he slurped it into that massive cavern. He chewed a couple of times and swallowed. Licking his chops one final time, he gazed at her, obviously wanting more.

      “That’s all,” she told him, grateful that he no longer looked as if he’d like to have her for dinner. There was plenty of water in the creek, so she’d done all she could for the moment. With a sigh, she gathered the dish towel from the ground and headed back to the buggy. The dog watched as she untied the rig, climbed in and backed it up. Then he picked up the bone in his mouth and began to trot alongside.

      She halted the horse. “Git!” she yelled, waving her hand at the dog. “Go on! Go back!”

      He just stared at her. She clucked to the horse and off she went. The mutt followed. She increased her speed. He stayed beside her, loping along as if the pace were nothing. Surely he’d get tired and turn back, she thought.

      She stopped and tried again to make him go away, but he only dropped the bone, sat down and looked at her with his tongue hanging out, panting. Blythe took off at an even faster clip, bouncing over ruts and holes, certain that the next time she looked the big black hound would be nowhere in sight.

      She was wrong. Every time. Since she had no idea how to make him go home, he was still behind her when she rolled into the carriage house. He followed her through the wide doors, dropped his bone and sat down on a pile of straw, watching her warily.

      “What’s that?” Joel asked, casting a wary glance at the dog as he helped Blythe down.

      “The biggest dog I’ve ever seen,” she told him.

      “Me, too. Where’d it come from?”

      “It’s Mr. Slade’s dog. I took some scraps out to him, and he followed me home. I didn’t know how to get rid of him.” Wearily, she turned and started toward the house.

      “What am I supposed to do with him?” Joel asked.

      She faced the hired hand and held out her hands, palms up. “I’m open to suggestions.”

      Joel shrugged and shook his head.

      Blythe mimicked the gesture. “I guess he’s here until his owner gets better or I figure out something else. Let him sleep out here. I’ll see to it he has something to eat every day. He’s huge, but he seems harmless. If he gives you any trouble, I’ll have Colt or Dan come over and see if they can do something with him.”

      “Okay,” Joel said, but he didn’t sound happy.

      Neither was Blythe.

       Chapter Four

      When Will opened his eyes, he felt much better, but when he lifted his hand to rub a palm over his whiskery cheek, he was as weak as a newborn kitten. He raised his head and looked around, then realized that he wasn’t in his own bed. A rush of panic swept through him and then bits and pieces of hazy memories started popping into his head.

      He’d been sick, sicker than he recalled being in a coon’s age. He had a vague recollection of going outside sometime around daylight, hoping the cold morning air would help cool the fever raging inside him. After that, everything was pretty much blank.

      There was a slight memory of having talked to Martha, but that was impossible. Martha was in St. Louis, living the good life with her new husband. Will glanced toward the window. It looked like the sun was almost overhead, so he’d guess it was somewhere around noon.

      “Will? Are you awake?”

      The soft, feminine voice came from the doorway. Dr. Rachel Gentry stood there. She was so close to delivering her baby that she looked ready to pop. Always a pretty woman, the pregnancy gave her a plump and healthy glow that seemed to radiate from within her.

      “More or less,” he told her in a raspy voice.

      “I thought I’d see if you were awake yet and if you feel up to eating something.”

      Just then his stomach rumbled and she smiled. “Maybe so.”

      “Good. Let me check you out first.” She crossed the room and picked up the stethoscope from atop the dresser. “How do you feel?”

      “Like I’ve been run over by a train,” he told her, pushing himself up on his elbows. The room took a little dip. He groaned and closed his eyes at the unaccustomed weakness. Good grief! He wasn’t going to pass out again, was he?

      Rachel had turned at the sound. “Don’t move too quickly,” she advised. “You’ve been very sick since you’ve been here. Your temperature has been up and down.” She took a thermometer out of a solution, shook it and held it out. He looked at her as

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