For Kellie, she’d loved being pregnant; she’d loved having that little being inside her, that person who would love her just because of who she was, instead of hating her just because of who she was. “I’m sure the birth will happen soon enough,” she offered supportively.

  At that, Laura looked over at her, adding an eye roll. “Again we’re back to that whole thing about how you’re way too nice for your own good.”

  “I am who I am,” she stated, with a smile.

  “Yeah, I hear you,” she muttered. “Well, don’t say anything to him. I don’t know if it is him or not,” she noted. “I’ll have to meet him somewhere but not here, definitely not here.”

  “What’s wrong with here?” Kellie asked, looking around at her huge farmhouse. “Lots of places are here where you two can talk privately.”

  “Oh, God no,” she spat, with a shudder. “If you spent a hundred thousand to update this place, it would be much better.”

  “But I don’t have one hundred thousand.” Kellie frowned, as she realized how Laura felt about her home. “Look. You don’t have to have your family stay here either.”

  “I wouldn’t normally,” she said, with a careless hand wave. “But everybody in town is booked up, and I really don’t want them spread all across town. They’ll probably hate being here, but it’s the best answer.” And, with that, she made her way to the door. “I’ll talk to you later.” And she walked out.

  After having some of the most insulting bombs dropped on her, Kellie didn’t know what to think and just stared.

  As he walked out of the hospital, Jenner checked for the addresses of the local veterinarians. There was just one in the next town over. He headed straight there. Soon as he walked in, he asked if it were possible to talk to the vet.

  The woman immediately shook her head. “Lord no, not today especially. It’s surgery day.”

  “Ah, well, maybe I can leave a message, and we can find a moment when I can speak to him, even if it’s just on the phone.”

  “Sure.” She pulled a pad of paper toward him. “What’s going on?” When he explained what he was here for, her jaw dropped. “A War Dog here in town?”

  He nodded. “Yes, exactly, a War Dog here in town. It’s been here for several months with the Stippletones, until they died. But now the dog has been on its own for a couple months.”

  She winced. “They were killed in that car accident.”

  “So I heard.”

  “Nobody’s seen the dog since. Apparently the sheriff went to check for any animals but didn’t find any.”

  He watched her face intently but found no sign that she thought maybe the sheriff would have done anything either.

  “I’ll tell the doctor, but I can tell you right now that I haven’t seen any dogs quite along that description.”

  “Looks like a black shepherd.” He pulled up a picture of Sisco on his phone and showed it to her.

  She looked at it and nodded. “Really does look like a shepherd.”

  “Unless you know the breed differences, it’s pretty hard to tell them apart.”

  “Okay, good enough,” she said. “I’ll let him know, but I can tell you that he’s tied up for most of the day.”

  “Got it,” Jenner noted. “Are there any other vets around here?”

  “Not in town but one is not too far away on the way to the next town,” she noted. “So you can check in there with him too.” And, with her handwritten directions, Jenner headed off to the second clinic. When he explained what was going on to the next vet, he immediately shook his head. “No, haven’t seen anything like that. If I had a dog in, I would have automatically scanned him, particularly one that’s got that kind of breeding or training. That would have triggered a search for the dog’s owners.”

  “Right. So chances are this War Dog hasn’t been brought in for treatment anywhere because of that added military ID chip, right?”

  “That would be my guess,” he noted. “There is an older lady on the other side of town, where animals often seem to find their way to. She found a couple aggressive dogs that were homeless and was afraid that somebody had shot them. When she could get close enough, one had already died from his wounds. She came in with the other dog, and it was badly injured.”

  “Was?”

  “Yeah, we had to put him down.”

  “And it was shot?”

  The vet nodded. “The woman was pretty devastated.”

  Jenner quickly explained to this vet about the neighbor with the angry pack of dogs.

  At that, the vet’s eyebrows shot up. “You know that sounds like one of them. The woman told me how the dog came to her, bleeding, and she looked after it. She mentioned how it wasn’t fighting her, so she figured it had to be pretty badly hurt. She brought it in to me, and unfortunately there was not a whole lot I could do. Already badly infected and all.”

  “Okay. Any chance I can get some contact information for the woman?” When the vet hesitated, Jenner quickly added, “Or could you contact this lady and ask her if she would speak to me?”

  The vet nodded. “That I can do.” He stepped out of the room, and, when he returned a few minutes later, he said, “Martha would be happy to talk to you. Here’s her phone number, and here’s her address. Good luck.”

  And, with that, the vet called for the next patient and headed back into his exam rooms.

  Jenner returned again to the bed-and-breakfast. Mostly his instincts were taking him there to ensure Kellie was okay. He pulled in, seeing nobody else in the parking lot. He pulled up to the front and hopped out, walked inside and called out, “Hey, I’m here.”

  She walked through to the front and gave him a wry smile. “Good timing on your part.”

  “Why’s that?” he asked.

  “Because the sheriff’s gone and so is Laura.”

  “Ah, and does she know?”

  “She asked me about you. Apparently the rumor mill’s already going double-time.”

  “Yeah, what can you expect in a place like this?” he asked. Kellie quickly passed over the little bit of the conversation that she’d had with Laura earlier that concerned Jenner. “Ouch. You seem to be …” And then he hesitated.

  “Yeah, I’m smarting from a couple comments that she made, so, if my tone sounds a little snippy, that’s why.”

  “Maybe you should tell me everything,” he suggested.

  She shrugged. “No point,” she muttered.

  But it didn’t take long for Jenner to get the story out of Kellie. “I’m sorry. I guess there was always that bitchy side to her.”

  “Not so much even a bitchy side,” Kellie noted, “but I didn’t know she was even looking down at my place that way. You know how it’s funny that you consider you’re friends, until you realize how somebody really feels toward you, and you didn’t see it until then.”

  “Of course not and you know what? Short of that conversation where she came here to confirm I was in town, and she was obviously upset about it, you never would have seen that part of her,” he suggested. “You wouldn’t have known still.”

  She nodded slowly. “Doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  “Of course not,” he agreed. “Yet also we know that that’s who she is.”

  Kellie’s shoulders sagged, and she nodded. “And here, just hours earlier, you were the one telling me how she wasn’t like that.”

  “No, I didn’t see it back then,” he noted. “And yet I do remember certain conversations with various people, including a friend of mine, who was like, Dude, why are you even marrying her? But I was in love, so there’s that,” he stated, with a smirk. “Apparently stupid in love.”

  “Well, it’s a common phrase,” she agreed, “and you’re certainly not the only one.”

  He nodded. “How come there’s animosity between you and the sheriff?”

  She hesitated and then sighed. “His son was the father of my child.”

  At that, his eyebrows shot up. “Ouch, that wouldn’t have made for a good time.”

  “No, sure wouldn’t have, and, of course, no matter what I said, his son wouldn’t back up my stories, so the sheriff thinks I made it all up.”

  “Wow. I’m sorry about that too. Sounds like both father and son are asses.”

  “Yep, both are,” she confirmed. “The only good thing is that his son is now married to somebody else he got knocked up recently, and he’s working as a trucker to support them. So he drives through town all the time. We basically ignore each other.”

  “Did you actually go out with him?”

  She looked at him sharply. “Yeah. Remember that prom night story I told? That was him. We’d been going out for months. And he didn’t even tell me that we were broken up and that he was taking my best friend to the prom.”

  He winced. “Hey, sorry. I didn’t mean it quite the way it came out. I was asking if you’d been in a relationship for a long time.”

  “Yeah, well, I was seventeen. So I thought we were in a relationship for a long time, if you count a couple months as a long time.”

  At that, he almost snickered, holding it in, until he caught the humor in her voice and the expression on her face. “You know what? It’s really good to have a sense of humor over shit like this.”

  “Because of shit like this,” she noted, shaking her head, “sometimes I wonder why I even stay.”

  “So let me ask you that. Why do you stay?”

  “Because of this place, the bed-and-breakfast. It was my grandparents’ originally. I loved it. I grew up here, always wanting to be the one who took it over and ran it. I thought, when I had my son, it would be perfect for us, you know? … I can stay home with him, make an income, look after my family. We’d all be good.”

  “And then it didn’t quite work out that way, huh?”

  “No, it sure didn’t.” She sighed. “Anyway, just a heads-up that Laura does think that you’re here, and the sheriff has a bit of history with me. So, if you’re looking for help from him, I’m really not sure if he’d give it to you.”

  “I think he’ll give it to me,” Jenner stated, “but I gather you feel like he won’t give you the time of day.”

  “No, I sure don’t. I guess I can’t blame him. At the time I was pretty irate about his son.” She shrugged. “Obviously it was for the best.”

  “Well, the sheriff also lost out,” Jenner noted. “That was his grandson who passed away.”

  “I know, and there’s nothing like going through what I went through to make you grow up quickly. And, when you grow up, you learn to forgive and forget,” she admitted. “So maybe I haven’t quite learned to forgive everybody, but I’m working on it.”

  “At least you’re doing better than I am,” Jenner said. “It was suggested that I come here and talk to my ex, but, at the time, I was like, Yeah, hell no.”

  She chuckled. “And here I think it’s a good idea, if for no other reason that you’ll upset her.”

  He burst out laughing. “In other words, if it upsets Laura now, you’re all for it.”

  “That makes me sound terribly bitchy too, doesn’t it?” She shook her head. “And I don’t mean it that way.”

  “No, but you’re human, and you’ve been hurt.”

  She raised both hands in frustration. “And you know what? I have homemade ice cream in the back. Would you want some?”

  “Homemade?”

  She glanced at him. “Yeah, I make ice cream when I get upset.”

  “Sure,” he said, “but you do know that you’ll never make money out of your bed-and-breakfast if you keep feeding me.”

  She smiled. “No, maybe not, but you’re good for my soul.” She led the way to the kitchen, opened up a second freezer he hadn’t even seen off in the storeroom, and he whistled. “Are you serious? Is this all ice cream?”

  She nodded. “It occurred to me that, maybe down the road, if I ever get there, it might be something I could set up to sell.”

  He stared at her. “Oh my God, let me try some. The restaurants around here would probably love it.”

  “Well, restaurants in town might love it,” she noted, “but, around here, I think my name’s mud.”

  “Your name’s not mud,” he argued. “And, if it was mud, it shouldn’t still be mud.”

  She shrugged. “Nothing like long memories from people.”

  “Screw them,” he said easily.

  She burst out laughing. “Good point, so screw them.” She studied the labels on her tubs. “What flavor do you like?”

  “Choices?” he asked hesitantly.

  “Oh, I’ve got half a dozen here,” she stated, “and a couple more.” She pulled out several, looked at them, and asked, “How about these?”

  “I like all ice cream,” he said. “Don’t you?”

  She grinned at that. “Now if all my guests were as amiable as you, I’d be doing just fine.”

  “Yeah, are you surviving here?”

  “Well, yes and no,” she replied. “The bed-and-breakfast really helps. I don’t have a mortgage, and that also really helps, and I board some horses too. So I don’t have many expenses, just me and the household bills. I do have an online presence, which I guess might sound weird, but I do a lot of cooking and baking videos, and so I have quite a few people who follow me there. I’m even starting to get endorsements.”

  “As long as they don’t follow you back home again,” he warned her, “I’m all for it.”

  She nodded. “Nobody knows where I live. I’ve given the state but not the town.”

  “Right, I guess that’s always the hazard online, isn’t it?”

  “If I could just cook for a living,” she noted, “I would be fine, but I don’t want to go and actually”—she stopped, stared at him—“I know it sounds absolutely ridiculous, but I don’t want to work nine to five.”

  Ice cream in hand, she went to her kitchen and put them on the counter. Next she pulled out a container with a powdered mix inside, then pulled out a funky machine he’d never seen before and plugged it in. She quickly added some of the dry goods to some liquid and mixed up a batter. He watched, wanting to ask what she was doing but not sure that he should.

  When she poured the batter onto the machine—something like a waffle iron—he was even more confused. “Do you want me to serve the ice cream. It is out of the freezer.”

  “It is, and it will be much easier to scoop up when it’s not quite so hard. So ice cream is always better if you just let it sit for a moment or two.”

  He wanted to say something about it being longer than a moment or two, but, when the machine in front of her beeped, she quickly opened it up, and—from one side to the other—she rolled up the crispy toasted dough, and he stopped dead in wonder. “You just made cones,” he stated in amazement.

  She nodded and gave him a big grin. “Yeah, I did.” And she poured the second portion of the batter into the machine.

  “Wow.” He stared at the cone now sitting, cooling on a plate. “You know that a lot of people would not go to that kind of effort.”

  “But I like cooking,” Kellie said, “and this, for me, is a special effort as much as it’s fun. I think I’ve got this recipe perfected,” she said, tapping the container.

  “So you just take some of that premade mix and add a liquid?”

  She nodded. “And the trick is, you have to roll the waffle as soon as it comes out, then let it cool. If it has a chance to cool before you shape it, then it snaps.” When the second cone was done, she unplugged the machine, put away her mix, and brought the two cones over to the table, where the ice cream sat.

  She opened the tubs, and, with the cooler of the two cones, she scooped in one scoop of each of the three kinds. Then she handed him the cone. He stared at the concoction in front of him. She asked, “Is something wrong?”

  And such worry was in her voice that he shook his head. “No, nothing is wrong at all,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had homemade ice cream in a homemade cone.”

  “Well, hopefully you’ll like it,” she noted. “If not, … you don’t have to eat it. Just throw it in the garbage.”

  He shook his head in amazement. “No, that’s not happening,” he muttered. He took a tentative sample of his ice cream, while she served up hers. And then closed his eyes and took a second sample.

  She quickly put away the ice cream tubs, and, when she returned, she asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Wrong? Nothing,” he said, opening his eyes. “I’m savoring.”

  She beamed. “See? That’s how people should enjoy food. I mean, it’s meant to be enjoyed. I don’t get why it ends up being something that you just cook haphazardly so you can eat fast.”

  “Because, for most of us, that’s all we can handle doing in the kitchen,” he noted in a dry tone.

  “Oh, not me,” she said. “I love food. And, when my son was sick, it’s what I did when I was at home, worrying. I spent as much time as I could with him in the hospital, but, when we lost the battle, cooking was my salvation,” she muttered. “And, since then, it’s what I do all the time.”

  “Oh, please don’t ever stop,” Jenner said, as he sat down at the kitchen table and just worked his way through the ice cream.

  She burst out laughing. “If you could see your face right now,” she teased.

  “I know what it would look like,” he stated immediately, “because this is absolutely to die for.”

  “Thank you.” She nodded. “I am happy with these flavors.” She opened the back door and added, “Want to come outside and sit?” And they sat outside in the backyard, eating the ice cream, just enjoying the pleasant company and the momentary meeting of minds.

  When he looked up, he thought he saw something flash in the hills behind her.

  “Who owns that land?” he asked.

  “I do.”

  He looked at her, frowning.

  She shrugged. “A fair bit of land is here, all of which my family owns. Well, technically it’s mine now.”

  “And you actually own it all yourself?”

  She nodded.

  “Have you seen any animals out there?” he asked, his gaze on the horizon.