“Oh, well,” Rodney said awkwardly. “I mean, you are the dog walker.”

  “Of course.”

  “Wonderful,” Walter beamed. “I’m glad things are working out.”

  JayB laughed but didn’t sound happy. “It’s so wonderful.”

  We took a car ride to a hot, dry place with lots of noise. Everyone jumped out except JayB, the dogs, and a cat in a bag.

  “Okay, then,” Walter told JayB, “we’ll see you back in the city. Drive safely.”

  “Sure,” JayB said. “What really happens in Vegas is that everyone leaves me to drive the animals.”

  The people walked into a big building. I was unsure what this meant, but I felt fine because I remained with JayB.

  We were going for a car ride! Whatever the others were doing, it could not possibly be as fun as that.

  The smells were familiar: dry air, heat, and dust. We stopped occasionally for water and to run around, and nice people handed sacks of food to JayB through his open window. He gave us dog food, but he also shared a small amount of what was in the sack.

  I loved JayB.

  The cat in the bag sat where Alana had been seated. It made almost no noise at all, and occasionally JayB would say, “Are you doing okay, Rhiannon?”

  Phoebe allowed me to sleep near her, but if I pressed too close, she would get up and shake. Then she would make her way up to between the front seats and put her face on the seat with the cat and sniff the bag.

  “Go sit down now, Phoebe,” JayB always instructed. “Go sit.”

  We all knew Sit, though those of us who were already lying down felt that no additional action was necessary.

  We stopped at one of those big buildings with a lot of rooms, but we all stayed in the same one this time. JayB held us by our leashes for a while so that Rhiannon could jump around on the furniture and sniff it and eat some Kelsey-smelling food from a small can. Odin refused to acknowledge the cat was there. Phoebe stretched at the end of her leash toward Rhiannon and seemed delighted. Spartan sprawled on his stomach, unmoved. The cat ignored us all. Eventually, she crept back into her bag.

  “I’m zipping it up for the dogs’ protection,” JayB told her. “You have a good night, Rhiannon.”

  Fed and watered and content after such a wonderful day, we all found places to sleep. Spartan, Phoebe, and I climbed up on the bed. Rhiannon slept in her bag on top of a piece of furniture with drawers. Odin slept on the floor, as far from Rhiannon as possible. I admired his principled stance.

  My person kept letting out exhalations, each sigh laden with sadness. I watched him roll himself over and back under the sheets. I was concerned that, even with dogs lying next to him, JayB was full of loss and despair.

  The next day, JayB got up early. The air was cold and still as we climbed into the car after squatting and lifting our legs. We found our usual places and sprawled out for what was our new life: a constant drone of tires, warmth rising from the floor, cool air blowing from vents, and JayB sitting silently.

  He pushed at something and a voice filled the car. “Hi JayB, it’s Dominique. Sorry to have missed you. I’m just calling to tell you I’m going to be home late Tuesday, and I’m wondering if you’d be okay bringing Phoebe over on Wednesday?” Phoebe raised her head, looking confused. “Call or text me back if that won’t work. Otherwise, I guess I’ll see you then. And JayB? I’m really looking forward to seeing you again.”

  JayB made a long, low noise, a little like a whistle. “Did she just say she was looking forward to seeing her dog-sitter?”

  I didn’t hear my name, so I put my head back down.

  Quite some time later, I heard a different voice.

  “Hey, JayB.”

  “Hi, Alana. How’s it going there?”

  “Oh, things have been pretty … Well, let’s just say they’re different than what I expected.”

  “Okay…” JayB replied cautiously.

  “Anyway, I have a question for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “How far away are you from Grand Junction?”

  JayB sat up straighter. “Let me think. It’s been about an hour, I guess.”

  “It’s been? You mean you’ve already passed Grand Junction?”

  “Yeah. I got an early start this morning.” There was a long silence. “Alana, you there?”

  “I’m here. So, would you consider coming back?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m at the airport in Grand Junction. I just landed. It’s complicated. I’d like to explain everything in person.”

  JayB became very alert. “Sure.” He looked out his side window. “I’m practically at an exit now. I’ll be there in an hour.”

  “Thanks. See you then.”

  I sensed a change in direction. The sun shifted. Odin glanced at me to see if I knew what we were doing, and I acted as if I did. Spartan and Phoebe continued to snooze. The cat stayed in the bag. When we stopped, I wagged because I recognized the scent of the person opening the side door. It was Alana!

  All the dogs stood at attention, even Spartan.

  “Oh, good dogs. Good dogs,” she told us.

  She did not have any treats, but we knew she loved us. What I didn’t know was how Alana had gotten here. Humans can do all sorts of astounding things.

  She slid into the seat next to JayB. They sat there, regarding each other.

  “Hi,” Alana finally said.

  Dear Diary:

  Odin is not happy that there is a bag with a cat in it, especially this cat, Rhiannon, who radiates such malevolence that I can’t bring myself to meet her glare. I have the very real sense that if JayB opened the bag and let her out, she would kill us and eat us.

  Unlike Odin, Phoebe seems delighted about the cat. She wriggles up into the space between the two front seats and pushes her nose forward as if to try to climb in the bag. She is wagging and happy. Why any dog would be happy to see a bag full of cat is beyond me. Spartan, of course, is neither happy nor unhappy. He has decided to ignore the cat, the same way he ignores everything else in the world.

  I have to admit that, in the case of Rhiannon, this seems exactly the right thing to do.

  Love,

  Clancy

  Twenty-nine

  Alana reached out and touched JayB’s shoulder. “Good to see you,” she murmured softly.

  “Good to see you, too,” JayB replied.

  Alana reached into the bag and pulled out Rhiannon, who made a cat sound at her.

  “Oh, sweetie. Oh, sweetie. How did she do last night?”

  “She’s negotiated a grand truce,” JayB advised. “Odin and Spartan find her invisible. Clancy glances at her sort of furtively, but seems terrorized. Phoebe wants to be best friends.”

  “I think Rhiannon could be friends with a dog, but it would have to be on her terms.”

  I felt the car gaining speed and knew we were back to going wherever it was we were going.

  “So,” JayB prodded, “you want to talk about your, uh, side trip?”

  Alana sighed, “Well, not really, but I think I should. I sort of owe you an explanation, don’t I?” She laughed softly. “Okay, first off, you need to understand that Guy’s really smart. As in, brilliant. He works on AI algorithms. You know, computers that can learn?”

  JayB nodded. “Heard of it.”

  “Right. Of course. So anyway, I kind of think he wrote an algorithm on me. Meaning, he learned exactly what I needed. What I wanted to hear. He seemed so kind, so perfect. ‘Let me handle that for you,’ he’d say. So I think I got to the point where I sort of let him take over my life. I stopped thinking. And when I started having doubts, I sort of shrugged them off.”

  “And did you finally get a chance to talk to him about that?” JayB asked.

  Alana laughed again. “Let’s just say, things did not go well. When I let myself into my apartment—a place I’m paying rent on, by the way—it was clear that Guy was shocked to see me. He had just arrived himself and was sitting there having a glass of wine with this woman. Her name is Nikki. He and Nikki used to go out.”

  “Okay,” JayB responded neutrally.

  “No, I should have figured this out. I don’t know why I thought showing up would fix anything. Nikki’s been back in the picture for a while and I didn’t know it, but clearly the moment I left for Kansas City, she made her move.”

  “So you’re saying that she started seeing Guy on the side, even though you were living with him?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “Wow.”

  Alana shook her head. “I don’t know why I just explained it the way I did. It’s like I work so hard to sugarcoat everything. I had figured it out. By the time my plane pulled back from the gate, I knew what I was going to find in Marina del Rey. I knew Nikki would be there. I let everyone’s encouragement convince me to, in Maddy’s words, take him down like a kangaroo. Then I was so busy trying to make the flight—barely got to the jetway before they closed the door—that I didn’t have time to think until we were wheels-up, and then I second-guessed my whole decision. I felt sick inside, but I went home anyway. My former home.”

  “Maybe if you hadn’t, you always would have wondered if you should have.”

  “Maybe. No, probably not. Guy was pretty clear with me; I just didn’t want to hear it. Seeing Nikki’s smug face pounded it into me in a way I really didn’t need.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “The second I saw his expression, I knew how foolish I was being. In the end, it wasn’t because of Nikki that Guy didn’t want me there. He didn’t want me there because he didn’t want me.”

  “That must have been awful.”

  Alana nodded. “I couldn’t breathe. I turned around and left, and while I was waiting for Uber, I kept listening for him to come running after me. But of course, he didn’t. I’m the only person dumb enough to do something like that.”

  “You’re not dumb. Everyone in the van told you to go.”

  Alana stared at him. “Everyone but you.”

  “I had ulterior motives.”

  “Yeah? Tell me.”

  There was a shift in the mood between the people then. I sensed it, and Phoebe raised her head as well. Odin was asleep.

  JayB shrugged. “It’s just that I’ve wondered for a long time what would happen if there were no guy named Guy.”

  “What do you want to happen?”

  “You’re going to make me spell everything out, aren’t you?”

  “Please.”

  JayB nodded and cleared his throat. “The night we were in a Disney movie?”

  “The fireflies.”

  “Right. The reason why that felt a little overpowering is because it was. Overpowering. For me, I mean. You said what … that you were swept up in the moment?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, that’s exactly how I felt. I didn’t even think about it, we were just kissing.”

  Alana regarded him intently. “You make me feel different than anyone has. Empowered. Like I can do things. Like I’m … capable.”

  “Because you are capable.”

  “You said I should do what my heart tells me. But what if there’s no clear signal? What if my heart is confused?”

  “Then, maybe take your time? Think things through?”

  “Or maybe don’t think things through. Isn’t that what we both do, so much that everyone complains about it?”

  “It’s one of the eight simple rules,” he admitted.

  “So maybe I should stop doing that. Maybe I should just be in the moment. Like I was the night of the fireflies. Make a bad decision and own it, instead of stewing in regret.”

  JayB looked troubled. “So kissing me was a bad decision?”

  “It felt like it the next morning. So, what did I do? I ran from it, ran from you. The way I run from any situation I think I might come to regret later. I’m a coward, JayB. I don’t have any spine at all.”

  “So you regretted our kiss?”

  “No, I regretted that I was afraid to kiss you again.”

  JayB gazed at her a moment before looking back at the road. “So you’re saying the next time your heart tells you something…”

  “… I’m going to listen,” she finished for him.

  JayB smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “It’s a lack of a plan,” Alana corrected.

  “Got it. So now … What happens next?”

  “I don’t know. I arranged for my stuff at the apartment to go into storage and I bought a ticket, hoping you’d pick me up as you drove past Grand Junction. I didn’t expect you to have passed it already.”

  “It was worth turning around.”

  They didn’t say anything for some time, then JayB frowned. “I’m not sure what I’m seeing up there.” I could sense that he was alarmed, so I sat up and focused.

  The vehicle came to a halt. As it did, the other dogs jumped up, yawning in anticipation of fun.

  “Why’re all the cars stopped, I wonder?” Alana asked.

  JayB nodded to the window. “I’ve been watching that cloud. See that black cloud? I thought it was a storm, but now I think it might be a fire.”

  Alana lowered her window and all the dogs raised our noses.

  “I don’t smell any smoke,” JayB noted. I could tell that Odin and Phoebe were reacting to the same thing I was—the clear, acrid scent of smoke on the air. Spartan, of course, didn’t change his expression.

  “We’re not moving,” Alana fretted.

  “Why don’t we get off here in Glenwood Springs?”

  Alana was looking at her phone. “It is a fire. The interstate’s closed up ahead. We can’t get any farther east on this road today.”

  JayB thought about it. “Is there a way to go around?”

  Alana continued to stare at her phone. “Yeah, but it’s some distance. You got to get south, through Aspen, and then go north on 24. Looks like we’ll add several hours to the trip.” She glanced up at him. “We should just stay here, see if they put the fire out.”

  JayB nodded. “Good idea.”

  I felt the car yaw as JayB swerved and drove very slowly. Soon, we pulled up in front of a building like many we had seen the past couple of days—lots of windows in the front.

  “My treat,” Alana announced, opening her door. “You wait here with the dogs, okay?”

  Alana was inside for a while, long enough for us dogs to settle down. Then she came out and walked around to JayB’s window.

  “So”—she waved something at him—“with the fire, they’re completely booked. I got the last available room.”

  “I see.”

  “I told them about the dogs, and it’s okay with a deposit, which I paid, but it’s all of us bunking together.”

  “That’s fine,” JayB observed carefully. “I can take the couch.”

  Alana gazed at him levelly. “What if my heart is telling me I want to sleep in your arms tonight?”

  That night, the dogs were not allowed to lie on the bed for some reason. I wondered if it had something to do with Rhiannon. The next morning, JayB took us for leg lifts and squats, and then we piled into the vehicle. He stood watching Alana load bags in the back.

  When she slammed the back door shut, he said, “Fire’s out and the road’s back open. Want to drive for a while, then stop for a meal?”

  We did a car ride, and then the people sat outside at a table and ate things while all the dogs scrunched uncomfortably at their legs. We all smelled the bacon up there, and tried to press as close to the humans as we could. Phoebe even put her head in Alana’s lap, which I thought was a pretty good maneuver. We sat there for quite some time. Even after a woman came and cleared away the plates, taking the fragrance of bacon with her, we still sat.

  “So, this newspaper is pretty interesting,” JayB observed. “It’s full of want ads.”

  “For what?” Alana wanted to know. “Selling skis and snowmobiles?”

  “Well, sure; that, but also, they’re looking for people. Like, everybody’s hiring here, and they’re offering pretty good money. Actually, very good money.”

  “Really? To work here in the mountains?” Alana glanced around. “It’s beautiful, although I don’t know what the winters are like. I mean, there’s still snow up there.”

  “I know, because I just read about it. They get more than three hundred days of sunshine a year. It snows, but then the sun comes out. There’s skiing and snowshoeing.”

  “It sounds like you should work for the tourism department,” Alana said with a smile.

  “They’re one of the places that is hiring, in fact,” JayB responded, grinning back.

  “What’s going on here that there’s such a hiring boom?” she asked.

  “I think I’ve got it figured out. They’re offering high salaries, but there’s no place to live. The rent in this county is so expensive. To move here, you really need a chunk of money, down payment on a home.”

  Alana gave him a shrewd look. “You’re saying that very deliberately, so there’s a point you’re making, right?”

  “Well, I’ve got a free and clear house in Prairie Village. Originally, I moved there without any sort of plan. Maybe I thought I’d get closer to Walter, but I think he’s going to adopt Rodney instead.”

  Alana laughed.

  “And, I don’t know, I’ve never wanted to be a ski bum like my stepbrother, but it’s a fun sport. That’s in the winter. In the summer, there’s biking and hiking, and the weather here is glorious.”

  “So, you’re thinking of selling your house and moving to, what, Summit County? Here? Frisco?”

  JayB gave her a frank look. “It might be an interesting thing to do. Pull up roots, make a fresh start. New challenges and experiences. I could afford a nice place, and then get a job. I do have skills. I mean, I’m considered one of the top dog walkers in my field.”

  Alana laughed delightedly.

  Soon we were back in the big car. I was content. I slept.

  After a long time, JayB said, “How about you?”

  “How about me, what?”

  “Back when we were at breakfast, what we were talking about. How would you feel about pulling up stakes and moving someplace acutely different? Being, I don’t know”—he arched his eyebrows—“spontaneous.”