Free Blown Away by Shane Gericke

the voice of a cattle wrangler, the fur of a worn-out broom, and the endearing personality of his master, an elderly widower who baked snickerdoodles for the neighbors when he wasn’t out skydiving. She turned to see Shelby’s enormous tongue lick the air like an invisible ice cream cone. How she’d managed to miss him she didn’t know—Shelby was a baby moose. But she’d make up his favorite way. “Come here, sweetie!” she cried, flinging her arms apart. “Hugs ’n’ kisses, come and get ’em!”
    The Lab danced but stayed near the mailbox. That’s unusual , Emily thought. Her invitation always set off a rump wiggle and mad gallop into her arms. This prancing seemed to say, “C’mere, c’mere, I gotta show ya something!”
    Normally, she’d oblige. She’d wanted a pack of beagles after settling into the new house, but Jack wasn’t keen on the idea. “We’d spend forever cleaning hair off my suits, and it’d be difficult to travel.” Engineer logic. She finally bowed to it. Marriage is the art of compromise, right? A year after the funeral, the hollowness of life alone prompted her to build a pet flap in her kitchen door, with every intention of adopting a fuzzy-faced pup from the city pound. But Saturday dawned, and she put off the search till next weekend, Jack’s objections fresh on her mind. Ten years later she was still putting it off till next weekend.
    â€œI’d love to play, but I’m running late!” Emily said, envisioning Chief Cross pulling into the driveway while they romped. “Tonight after supper, I promise! Now run home so you don’t get hit by a car!” Shelby quit prancing but didn’t vamoose, either. “Home! Git!”
    Shelby hung his head and whined. Emily waved good-bye and walked into the foyer, breathing deep the burnt-spice aroma from the back of the house. Excellent! In the mad dash to the Vermont Cemetery, she’d forgotten all about the French roast on the warmer. She trotted into the knotty-pine kitchen to pour her second cup—the first was drunk pre-run—into a coconut-size mug handpainted with the Three Little Pigs. It was a graduation gift from Annie Bates, who taught shooting tactics at the police academy, where they’d met and become fast friends. Each grinning pig wore a badge with Emily’s number—103201—waved a nightstick drawn suspiciously like a penis, and chased a fleeing Big Bad Wolf. Her good humor deepened, and she headed up the stairs.
    The master suite at the landing was large enough for a king-size cannonball bed, triple dresser, two nightstands, armoire, lounging chair, and wide-screen TV. Floors and ceiling beams were crafted from the same knotty pine as the kitchen. She tossed her purse and gun belt on the bed and eagerly tuned the clock radio for news of Lucy’s suicide. A cold snap reduced Florida’s orange crop to pulp. Terrorists blew up a bus of schoolkids. An industrial psychologist named Marwood—she didn’t catch the first name, Trellis, Nellis, something like that—talked about his role in the hunt for the lunatic who’d kidnapped and torture-murdered a Massachusetts state trooper last Christmas. A dozen commercials, Newsradio jingle, traffic, weather, sports, more commercials, a “medical moment” on spring allergies.
    Nothing about Lucy.
    Disappointed, Emily kicked off her shoes and walked into the bathroom. Creak. She glanced at the floor, made a sour face. The pine planks were bowed from humidity, and she hadn’t had time to get them fixed. Or the inclination. She’d rather just rip the noisy things out. Along with the eagles and cannonballs and lace curtains and stupid, rustic, ancient, depressing…
    Yo, Em, chill! The decor isn’t the problem! Well, actually, it was. She disliked Early American and its coffinlike woodiness, so she nearly bit off her tongue