“You’re right, it would have been a foolish waste to throw the tickets away. But I was impatient to get home, and you really wanted to fly, so I figured a little foolishness would be all right this time.”

  “For a rich person, you’re all right, you know that?”

  Betsy laughed. “Thank you.”

  The corned beef hash was the best Betsy had ever eaten.

  They’d barely gotten back to their seats when the conductor came through to announce their arrival in Saint Paul.

  Betsy spent two minutes combing her hair and putting on lipstick, then smoothing and brushing her suit coat with the palms of her hands before she put on her coat.

  “Who’s meeting us?” asked Annie.

  “Connor Sullivan, I hope.”

  “Boyfriend, I guess.”

  “Yes—that’s right, you haven’t met him.”

  “Is he really good-looking?”

  “I think so.”

  “Another millionaire?”

  “I haven’t looked at his bank accounts, but probably not.”

  “You be careful he’s not after your money.”

  “I will keep that in mind.” Betsy turned her head away to hide her smile.

  Connor, a man of Betsy’s age, reasonably tall and athletic, good-looking rather than handsome, with a grin she found bewitching and laughing sea gray eyes, stood inside the depot waiting for them. He wore a tan overcoat over a tan wool suit, and had pulled off his old-fashioned fedora to expose his curling salt-and-pepper hair. “Machree!” he called on seeing them. “Hello, Connor!” replied Betsy, hurrying to him, and dropping her suitcase to give him a hug. He smelled wonderfully male, of cold, wool, and a hint of aftershave.

  Annie stood politely silent while greetings were exchanged.

  “Connor, this is Annie Summerhill, whom I’ve told you about.”

  “Hello, Annie,” said Connor, holding out his hand.

  “Hello,” said Annie, suddenly shy, taking it tentatively. When he released her hand, she put it in her pocket. But as Connor took up Betsy’s suitcase and they started for the door, Betsy noticed Annie giving him a pretty sharp look-over.

  “Anything happen while I was gone?” Betsy asked after they were in the car and on their way to take Annie to the Naomi Shelter.

  “Nothing important. Sergeant Malloy called to ask that you call him when you get home. They had some interesting video on the news last night of a locomotive with a big snowplow on its front end clearing the tracks west of Fargo.”

  “That must be why they didn’t shut the line down,” said Betsy. “It was snowing like crazy in Fargo last night.”

  “I’m glad you’re home safe.”

  “We had a good time and learned some important facts,” asserted Annie from the backseat.

  “She really was helpful, Connor,” said Betsy.

  “Anytime you need more help, I’m available,” said Annie.

  A few minutes later, “Thank you for coming along, Annie,” said Betsy as the car rolled to a stop in front of the Naomi Shelter. “Your assistance was extremely valuable.”

  “Will you let me know how this turns out?” asked Annie. She had one hand on the backseat door handle.

  “Okay, if you like. But that means you have to stay in touch.”

  “I’d like to do that.”

  “Good. I’d like you to do that, too.”

  “Oh, you’re just so nice!” Annie stooped forward and put her arms around Betsy’s shoulders.

  Betsy stroked her arms with both hands. “Thank you, you’re nice, too.”

  “Thanks. Bye.” Annie grabbed her shabby suitcase and went out into the cold.

  As they pulled away, Connor asked, “Was she really helpful?”

  “Yes, she was. And very brave, too, poor thing. I wish . . .”

  “What?”

  “That there was something I could do for her. But the problem is, if you give them anything, the government deducts the value of it from their dole. If you give them enough, they can become cut off altogether. And while I could probably manage to pay her rent for an apartment, I certainly couldn’t afford to pay for her medical care—and considering what rents are running these days, she’d likely end up getting nothing from the government.”

  “That can’t be true!” protested Connor.

  “That’s what I’ve been told.”

  “Let me do a little sleuthing of my own in that regard.”

  “That would be great. I hope you can find out some good news in there somewhere.” Betsy hesitated. “Connor . . .” she began.

  “Suzanna has gone back to Ireland. She promised she’d write to me, but she’s not much of a letter writer.”

  “Are you going to visit her there?”

  “No. I made no promise to do that, and I have no intention of going over there.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “What?”

  “I think I’m going to cry.”

  “You were that worried?”

  “I was. Very foolishly, I was.”

  “You want to know something? So was I.”

  THERE was no time for even a brief nap. Betsy put her suitcase in her apartment, washed her hands and face, and went down to open the shop. She found Godwin already there, making coffee. He was wearing a pale ivory sweater with a faintly raised checker pattern, something he’d knit himself.

  “Lord, that smells good!” she said.

  He greeted her with a smile that turned shocked. “Wow, I hope you don’t feel as awful as you look!” he blurted out, surprised.

  Betsy looked down at the deep red pantsuit she was wearing. It had looked so great only yesterday. “I’ll go up and change in a little while, as soon as we get things started down here.”

  “You look like you slept in that outfit,” Godwin said as he came toward her with the first mug of coffee out of the urn. Crewel World offered free coffee to paying customers.

  Betsy took the mug and sipped from it. “I did. The train got held up in Montana and North Dakota by a blizzard, and when we finally got on in Fargo, we went to sleep. I got a whole four hours’ worth before the sun woke me up, and not enough time to nap or even change before I had to come down to get us opened up.”

  “Well, you just sit down and drink that coffee, while I shovel the front walk.”

  “Thank you, I will. How much snow did we get here?” Looking out the front window, it certainly didn’t look as if a blizzard had struck Excelsior.

  “Only five inches. The worst of the storm went north of us. I hear Duluth is up to its eyebrows in drifts this morning.” Godwin had been putting his coat back on while he talked. He went in back and returned with an ergonomically designed snow shovel. “Be right back.”

  Betsy sat at the library table and, between tired sighs, drank her coffee, which was extra-strong but not really bitter. In a few minutes, Godwin had finished his task. He opened the door and stood for a few moments, kicking snow off his good shoes. Coming in, he said, “Look, I’m here now. Why don’t you go upstairs and get some rest?”

  “No, I’ll stay till Vicki Sue gets here. She’s scheduled to work just this morning—in fact, where is she?” Betsy checked her watch; it was nearly twenty past ten.

  Godwin checked his own watch. “I don’t think she’s ever been this late—in fact, she’s always on time.”

  “Yes, that’s been my experience with her, too.” Betsy finished her coffee and felt the caffeine start its goodly work. She wanted badly to go upstairs and take a shower, put on something more presentable, but now she was as worried about Vicki Sue as she had been miffed at her a few minutes ago. She tried phoning her, but there was no answer.

  She had scarcely hung up when the door sounded its two notes and Vicki Sue came in. A medium-size young woman with brown hair and eyes, usually she was a lively creature, full of little gestures, good-natured and pleasant. She made Betsy think of a tame finch when it sees someone coming with a box of seeds.

  But not today. Today she came in slowly, head down, feet dragging.

  “Vicki Sue, whatever is the matter?” asked Betsy.

  “Oh, Betsy, I’m so upset! It’s Penny! I don’t know what to do!” And she burst into tears.

  “Oh, Vicki Sue, my dear! Here, sit down and tell us what the problem is!” Godwin, all sympathy and concern, came to help her take her blue winter coat off, unwrapping her purple knit scarf and touching her gently on her shoulders.

  Betsy came to hug her. “Would a cup of tea help?” she asked.

  With an obvious effort, Vicki stopped crying enough to say, “Nothing will help!” But then her sobs became even more furious. “Penny has to die, and there’s nothing I can do to prevent it!”

  Twenty

  “HERE now, you’d better tell just what this is all about,” said Betsy. She took the girl’s elbow in a firm grip and led her to the back half of the shop, where there was a small round table covered with a tablecloth printed with hearts and cherubs. “Please sit down and explain it to us. First, who is Penny?”

  Godwin produced a handkerchief from somewhere—how like him to have one, thought Betsy irrelevantly.

  Vicki Sue wiped her eyes and nose. “She’s my little dog, a Chihuahua mix. She’s got a coat that’s the color of a penny, that’s why I named her that. I took her out for her afternoon walk yesterday and there was this big dog coming the other way. Before I could pick her up, Penny panicked and pulled back and her collar came off over her head. She ran out into the street and there was this car coming by and it hit her. I screamed but it didn’t stop. Penny was going ‘Yi, yi, yi’ really loud and holding up her front leg, and I could see it was crooked.”

  Godwin made a shocked sound and took Vicki Sue’s hand.

  Tears spilled from her eyes as Vicki Sue continued bravely. “I took her to the vet. He took an X-ray and he says the leg is so bad it can’t be fixed, so he wants to cut it off!”

  “That’s horrible!” said Betsy.

  “I hate it, but he says it’s too damaged to fix. And worse, the cost is seven hundred dollars. I said could he maybe just put a cast on it, and he said no, it’ll never heal properly and so will never stop hurting. I can’t afford seven hundred dollars, of course, and he said she was suffering, and if I couldn’t afford an operation, I should take her to the Humane Society and tell them to put her to sleep.”

  “Oh, my God!” said Godwin.

  “This is so awful, I can’t make up my mind what to do!” Tears ran down Vicki Sue’s cheeks so copiously they dripped into her lap.

  Betsy sat down on the other chair and reached for Vicki Sue’s other hand. “Here now, here now, slow down. There must be something that can fix this.”

  “But what? What else can I do? She’s almost just a puppy, she won’t be two until April!”

  “Just a baby!” mourned Godwin, who had a heart so tender he was nearly crying himself.

  “Surely there’s a vet who would be willing to take payments,” said Betsy.

  “I’ve been calling and calling, but the ones who will do it at all, they want a lot of money down, and they want payments higher than I can afford.”

  Vicki Sue was a full-time student at the university, and worked two part-time jobs to pay some of her college expenses. Betsy knew that if it weren’t for student loans, Vicki Sue would have to drop out. A sudden expense of this magnitude must be devastating.

  “Where is the dog now?” Betsy asked.

  “She’s at home in her little kennel. She can’t put her broken leg down or lay on it or let me touch it, and she makes this crying sound all the time. I had to get out of the apartment, I can’t stand to stay and listen to her, it breaks my heart. My roommates are both gone—one to school and one to work—so she’s there alone. But what can I do? I don’t know what to do!”

  “When did this happen?” asked Godwin.

  “Yesterday afternoon, around four o’clock. I’d just gotten home from class.”

  “Maybe if I called your vet, talked to him,” suggested Betsy.

  “Oh, don’t call him, he’s no good. I want to know if the leg can be fixed, it’s just broken, for God’s sake, but he won’t even try to fix it, he just wants to cut it off. He said her bones are too tiny to be put back together. I had to dip into my student loan account to pay for the X-ray, and there’s not enough in there to pay for the operation.” Vicki slammed both fists on the table. “It isn’t fair! Penny’s been the sweetest dog I’ve ever known! I can’t have her put to sleep!” She wiped her eyes with both hands.

  A look of determination came over her ravaged face. “It’s wrong for me to let her suffer, it’s wrong! I guess the next stop is the Humane Society.”

  But Betsy was appalled at the deadly solution, and sick at the thought of the hurting animal all alone and crying. “Didn’t he even give you a painkiller for Penny?”

  “He gave her an injection, but it’s worn off. She woke me up this morning with her crying. My roommates are upset, of course, but they can’t help, they’re as poor as I am.” Vicki blew her nose on Godwin’s handkerchief, and pushed herself to her feet. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come in. This isn’t helping any of us, is it? Burdening you with this mess. I might as well go back home, I can’t stand being there, but abandoning her is even worse. I’ll do what I have to do.”

  Betsy said, “Just hold on for two minutes, okay? Godwin, get Vicki a cup of coffee or tea. I’ll be right back.”

  She went to the desktop computer at the checkout desk in the front of the shop, pulled up Google, and typed, Dr. Alec Porter, Veterinarian, Saint Paul, MN. Immediately the name of a veterinary clinic came up—Small Animal Medical Center—with a notation that Dr. Porter was the veterinarian there. She wrote down the phone number printed on the screen.

  Then she picked up the cordless phone and dialed. “Dr. Porter?” she asked when a man answered.

  “Yes, how may I help you?”

  “I have a friend who has a small dog with a badly broken foreleg. Her own vet took an X-ray and suggested the leg be amputated. But her owner is hoping there’s another way, perhaps an operation to put the bones back into place. Complicating all this, she’s a poor college student, with very little money. I’m willing to help her, if I can. May we bring the dog to you?”

  “Yes, of course. How did you get my name?”

  “Someone told me about you, said you were a very clever surgeon.”

  Dr. Porter’s voice warmed suddenly. “Yes, I do have good hands for surgery. This is an emergency, obviously. Bring her in right now. How far away are you?”

  “Excelsior—but the dog is in Orono.” Betsy held her breath. Both were a very long way from the eastern side of Saint Paul, and he might be wondering why they wanted to travel so far.

  “Hmmmm. All right, I’ll be standing by.”

  “Thank you.”

  Orono wasn’t far from Excelsior. Betsy followed Vicki’s rusty and dilapidated old car to the little town up along the shore of Lake Minnetonka. They pulled into a freshly plowed parking lot in front of an elderly gray stucco fourplex.

  Vicki piled out of her car and ran to the front entrance of the place, thrust her key into the lock, and opened the door. She froze in place, turning a white face to Betsy, who was hurrying to catch up. As she approached, Betsy could hear the lamentations of a small dog.

  “Oh, my God, oh, my God!” Vicki whimpered.

  “Go on, get her and we’ll get her to a doctor.”

  “Yes, yes!” Vicki hurried halfway down a short hall and unlocked the door on the left. Suddenly the dog’s cries were louder.

  The blue plastic kennel was in the little kitchen, and small enough that it fit easily into the backseat of Betsy’s Buick.

  The dog’s cries did not cease the whole fifty minutes of the trip to Dr. Porter’s clinic.

  Dr. Porter sedated Penny with an injection—the swiftly fallen silence was a relief—and took the animal away to the X-ray lab. While they waited for his assistant to develop the films, Betsy tried to make conversation with him.

  “You must see a lot of animals in pain,” she said.

  “Quite a few.” Perhaps his short tone was because he was thinking about what might be shown on the X-rays.

  “How long did you have to study to learn animal surgery?”

  “Long enough.”

  Undaunted by his brusque tone, Betsy continued, “I’m glad you were willing to take a look at this animal. I hope you can save her leg.”

  “You say this happened yesterday,” he said in an accusing voice.

  “Yes,” said Vicki Sue humbly. “I didn’t know who to ask for help. They said I should take her to be put to sleep, but I couldn’t! I just couldn’t!”

  The back door to the examination room opened and a young woman dressed in blue scrubs, with very fair hair and an air of competence, came in with three large X-ray films in one hand. “Here they are, Doctor,” she said in a quiet voice.

  “Let’s see what they can tell us,” said Dr. Porter. He took the films from her and put them up on a light board hanging on the wall.

  It showed a limb not merely broken, but shattered into several small pieces. Betsy winced when she saw the awful state of the bone, and Vicki Sue started to cry.

  “Hush,” said Dr. Porter absently, studying the X-rays.

  Betsy put a comforting arm around Vicki Sue’s waist, and the young woman sniffled into silence. Betsy let go of Vicki Sue long enough to pull a Kleenex from her purse and hand it to her.

  “Thanks,” murmured the wretched girl.

  “I said, hush,” said Dr. Porter, now standing very close to the light board and looking intently at the damaged limb on first one film, then another, then the third, then going back to repeat the examination.

  The women fell silent, though Betsy could feel Vicki Sue trembling.

  “All right,” said Dr. Porter at last, turning toward them. “I think I can save your dog’s leg. It’ll be tricky—and expensive. You may want to go with amputation. It’s quicker to heal, and less costly. On the other hand, I think I can give your dog back its leg, maybe even in a state to be walked on.” He turned away from the women and began studying the X-rays again. Betsy could sense his eagerness to go for the tricky save.