Forever Home. Allyson Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ the plates and silverware, Brad watched as Izzy tugged on her daughter’s ponytail, a sweet smile softening her features. That woman had a lot of armor on, but it wasn’t as impenetrable as she thought it was. She just needed someone to pry his way in.

      Ana jogged up to the table, jingling a handful of tokens. “Thank God the pizza’s here. I’m staaarving.” She dumped the brass coins on the table and one lazily rolled toward the edge.

      Brad snagged it before it could fall. “Got it.” He tossed it on the pile of tokens.

      Ana slid onto the bench seat. “You could have kept it. It would be like your commission for selling my mom on the extra-large.” She gave him an impish grin, and Brad chuckled.

      Izzy settled across from them and reached into her bag. She pulled out a little squeeze bottle of hand sanitizer and squirted a dab into Ana’s outstretched hands. She offered it up to Brad, and he shrugged and stuck his palm out, too. After rubbing the sanitizer between her own hands, she returned it to her bag and pulled out little packets of red flake pepper.

      She caught his surprised look and shrugged. “The Pizza Pit is good at many things, but refilling their condiments isn’t one of them. I like to be prepared.” She tugged a slice of pizza off the serving dish and placed it on the plate in front of Ana. “There you go, baby. Don’t eat too fast.”

      “I’m not a baby anymore.”

      Brad decided to nip that fight in the bud. “That’s right. We’re growing boys and girls.” He lifted his arm and flexed his biceps. Ana mirrored his action, her thin limb about a tenth the size of his. He poked her muscle. “Definitely need more pizza.”

      Laughing, she lifted her slice and took a large bite. Cheese stretched from the pizza to her mouth, and she chewed her way to the end of the string.

      Brad shared a smile with Izzy and took a bite of his own slice.

      “Those puppies are so cute,” Ana chattered. “Did you see when Pansy licked my neck and Jasmine bit his tail, and then I don’t think their mom, Buttercup, saw this, but then Daffy bit her brother’s nose!” A stream of words was pouring from Ana’s mouth, a seeming impossibility as pepperoni and cheese kept disappearing into that same mouth at the same time.

      “Eat first. Talk later,” Izzy instructed.

      Ana nodded, and lowered her face to her plate. Her eyebrows drew together and she methodically fed the slice into her mouth, her teeth chomping together in a steady beat like a hungry Ms. Pac-Man. It was serious pizza-eating time.

      Brad’s lips twitched.

      “Don’t laugh,” Izzy warned him. “You’ll only encourage her behavior.”

      He lowered his slice. “What? I wasn’t even smiling.”

      “You were amused.” Picking a piece of pepperoni off her pizza, Izzy popped it into her mouth and chewed. “You have a very expressive face. You don’t seem to hide anything you’re feeling.” She leaned over the table and whispered. “Including the fact that you don’t like the names Ana picked out for your new dogs.”

      “I never said—”

      “You wince every time she says them.”

      Well, yes, they were atrocious. He could only hope whoever adopted the dogs did a better job and didn’t inflict flower names on the poor things. But he had told Ana she could name them. The carnage was on him.

      “I just don’t think the names reflect the dogs’ personalities,” he said, his voice low, not wanting to hurt Ana’s feelings. He curled one side of his top lip. “Especially Buttercup.”

      “What were you calling her?”

      “V. I.” Using a plastic knife, Brad cut off two more pieces for him and Ana, deposited one on the kid’s plate. “As in V. I. Warshawski.”

      Izzy pursed her lips, making the plump flesh even rounder and more tempting. “Is that a cop from a book?”

      “Private detective,” Brad corrected her, but was still impressed she’d gotten close. “All the dogs Gabe and I name have detective names. And V. I. was one tough broad, just like our girl back at the shelter.”

      “And now she has a flower name. You’ll just have to suck it up.” Izzy shook her head. “And she’s your girl. She’s not mine.”

      Not yet.

      “It must be tough coming up with female detective names.” Izzy took a sip of her soda. “There can’t have been that many.”

      Brad stopped chewing. “Are you kidding me? There’s Miss Marple, Nancy Drew, Kinsey Millhone, Eve Dallas, Stephanie Plum, and plenty more. If you go to the TV side, there’s all of Charlie’s angels, Cagney and Lacey, Jennifer Hart—”

      “Okay!” Izzy held up a hand, palm out. “Jeez, I get it. I underestimated my sex, apparently.” She tilted her head, and a sheaf of silky, shiny hair slid off one shoulder. It was down today, and Brad could see that it wasn’t actually black, but a brown as rich and deep as his favorite dark roasted coffee. “How do you know all that?” she asked. “Are you some sort of mystery buff?”

      Brad shrugged. “I do like mysteries. But I read anything and everything I could get my hands on when I was a kid.” There’d been nothing else to do but read and watch TV. When stays at the hospital became commonplace, his friends stopped coming to visit him. And his parents both had jobs they couldn’t miss.

      Izzy slid a glance at Ana, who was pulling cheese apart into long strings before sucking them down. Leaning over the table again, Izzy whispered, “Are you okay? You looked sad all of a sudden.”

      Jesus, he really did need to work on his poker face. His hand crept to his side and he rubbed the edge of his scar. “Fine.” He hated this part. Telling new people about his old health problems. They went from seeing the strong man he was to looking at him as if he might break. But if this relationship went where he wanted it to, Izzy would have to know. Clothes would be coming off and she’d see the large scar.

      “In high school and college I spent a lot of time in hospitals and dialysis centers. I had something called polycystic kidney disease. When I was twenty-one I got a kidney transplant that changed my life.” After his recovery, he couldn’t believe how much energy he had. He’d forgotten that feeling tired all the time wasn’t normal. He’d actually been able to run and play sports, stay awake later than ten o’clock, had the time to date. Life had begun again.

      Izzy’s face creased in sympathy. He didn’t like it, didn’t want her feeling bad for him, but knew hers was a normal reaction.

      He pushed his plate away. “There wasn’t much to do when I was lying in those hospital beds, so I was very grateful for whatever books were on the traveling library cart. Mysteries, biographies, even romance. I didn’t care—if it was on the cart I read it. But mysteries were my favorite. Those were the books I could get lost in, forget where I was for a couple of hours. That, and when the therapy dog came around.”

      “They let a dog into the hospital?”

      Ana perked up at that. “What dog went to the hospital? Was it Buttercup?”

      Brad СКАЧАТЬ