Free Nick of Time by Tim Downs

wedding.”
    Donovan said nothing.
    “You’re wrong,” Nick said. “I’m not running. I know what I want and I know what I’m doing.”
    “Do you? Then prove it. Get in your car and drive home.”
    Nick’s laptop emitted a single note, announcing the arrival of an e-mail in his in-box. He looked at the message; it had an attachment titled “Vidocq Presenters’ Eyes Only.”
    Nick looked across the table at his friend. “Thanks for breakfast, Donovan—and thanks for driving up here. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to read this.”

10
    A lena watched the dogs as they wandered through the unmowed grass around her feet. Some of them rolled on their backs in the morning sun, some of them pawed at each other in mock combat, and some of them sniffed at invisible spots their companions had just marked moments before. There were about two dozen dogs of every imaginable age, shape, and size, from a six-week-old puppy barely weaned to a worldly old hound with a graying muzzle. Alena looked over the pack; sorting out the different bits of breed was like trying to pick socks from a moving dryer. She could see a lot of beagle and shepherd and Lab in the group; a little rottweiler too, judging by the head shapes and the size of some of the paws. She could make out terrier and poodle and schnauzer in the smaller animals, but there were a couple that defied all classification—“pure dog,” her father used to call them. But they were good dogs, every one of them, and they deserved a better fate than the one that had been awaiting them.
    She watched the young family standing in her meadow as the dogs mingled around their feet. The little girl seemed afraid of them; she ducked behind her mother’s legs every time one of the pups came near. The boy was a few years older and he was grinning from ear to ear; he jumped from dog to dog like a flea, patting and stroking and scratching each one behind the ears. The mother and father just stood there, watching and smiling—and probably wondering how they would ever choose.
    “Where do you get them all?” the woman asked.
    “Shelters,” Alena replied. “Over in Front Royal and Winchester—sometimes down in Culpeper and Harrisonburg.”
    “We saw your sign on the road—‘Free Dogs.’ When you got them from the shelters, did the dogs have any . . . you know . . . problems?”
    “Yeah, they had a big problem,” Alena said. “It’s called ‘death by lethal injection.’ ” Alena felt suddenly irritated—like she was being accused of trying to stick these people with damaged goods. And she wasn’t even selling these dogs—she was giving them away! But she knew it was more than the woman’s simple question that had triggered her anger. She was mad because her gate was open, and she never left her gate open. She was mad because their car was parked on her land—they had driven right in and pulled off the gravel onto her grass. She was mad because they were standing in her meadow, looking at her dogs, expecting to take one of them away from her .
    But what bothered her most of all was that it was her own idea.
    Well—not completely. It was Gunner’s idea first—he was the one who had encouraged her to try to open up to people more. It was just the kind of thing a nosy pastor would suggest. Gunner reminded her that she was getting married soon, and that her husband was a college professor with responsibilities and social obligations, and that she couldn’t just hole up on a mountaintop anymore. Marriage would mean moving to Raleigh and becoming part of Nick’s world; marriage would mean a whole new life for her, Gunner said, a life full of not just dogs but people. But Alena had lived alone on this mountain since her father disappeared when she was only ten years old. She had surrounded herself with dogs like these ever since— faithful, beautiful creatures that she seemed to somehow understand and connect with on an almost supernatural level.
    And after her