Free Finding Home by Georgia Beers

energy teaching him. Does that sound like an abusive person?”
    Shifting on the futon so she faced her, Andrea stared at her for several long beats. “You know what sounds abusive to me?
    Leaving your beloved pet in the hands of an idiot stupid enough not only to allow it to run away, but then not be able to Þ nd it.
    Given all the technology and animal rights activists today willing to help, don’t you think they could have looked a little harder for him?”
    Natalie scratched at her forehead. She knew Andrea was trying to help. She also knew Andrea loved Chino as much as she did and was unwilling to give him up. When she Þ nally spoke, her voice was soft and pained. “What kind of person does this make me? If I keep this woman’s dog from her, what does that make me?”
    “Sweetie, look at me.” When Natalie obeyed, Andrea continued. “It makes you somebody who cares about the welfare of this animal. He was starving, Natty. Starving . He was Þ lthy.
    His leg was gashed open. He was terriÞ ed. He’d been on his own for a long time. You rescued him. You saved him.”
    “Yeah, I guess.”
    “He loves you. You deserve him.”
    Natalie wasn’t sure she looked totally convinced and Andrea conÞ rmed that by jumping up and crossing the room to the answering machine. With one swift push of a button, the machine’s robotic voice announced, “Message erased.”
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    FINDING HOME
    “Andrea!” Natalie’s eyes were wide with disbelief.
    Lifting one shoulder in a half-shrug, Andrea responded,
    “There.”
    “I can’t believe you just did that.”
    “Now you don’t have her number and you can’t call her back.
    She probably won’t call you again, so it’s done. Everything’s Þ ne. Okay?” She returned to the futon and plopped down. “Have some more pizza. You shouldn’t be skinnier than me. I had cancer, remember?”
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    FINDING HOME

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Sarah’s feel-good attitude lasted slightly longer than a week. Work had become nuts, and she always found herself the most depressed when she worked late and came home to a dark and empty house. It never failed to cause an ache in the pit of her stomach and send her scrambling to the liquor cabinet to mix herself a Bombay and tonic. It had happened almost every night this week.
    On Saturday, Sarah slammed the phone down, annoyed by her own annoyance and trying not to notice that her temper seemed to be getting shorter and shorter by the day. She was starting to feel like her old self—and not in a good way. She wanted to be able to control everything around her and she couldn’t, and it was driving her crazy.
    Who the hell does this Natalie person think she is anyway?
    She’d left Þ ve messages for the woman—named Natalie according to her answering machine—who had posted the ß yer about the dog she’d found. Five messages in less than a week.
    Now it was Saturday and not one of them had been acknowledged, no return phone calls, and Sarah was irritated that the woman didn’t even have the decency to call back and say, “Sorry, not your dog.”
    In reality, the dog was probably not Bentley. She knew that and she wanted to be able to just leave it alone and let it go. She’d
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    even been checking the newspaper for ads with puppies for sale, thinking that maybe if she got another one, she could eliminate the niggling feeling about Bentley that she couldn’t explain. And maybe she could stop calling this poor woman.
    On the other hand, who didn’t return a phone call like that?
    There was something a little Þ shy, some kind of weird inkling that she couldn’t seem to shake, and it had been driving her nuts for several days now. Suddenly ß ashing on an idea, she took the steps of her townhouse two at a time and entered the third bedroom that she used as an ofÞ ce.
    Aside from her own bedroom, this room was the one that looked the most lived in, the most comfortable, probably because she spent