Free True Colors by Joyce Lamb Page B

was unlocked and eased it open, calling her name at the same time. “Alex?”
    Several mutts on a tear barreled into the kitchen, and he quickly stepped inside and blocked them before they could bowl him over and escape outside.
    “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Sorry, but I’m not your dinner, guys.”
    As they calmed down, he bestowed some head pats and ear rubs. “Do you know where your mom is? We have dinner plans.”
    And how stupid was it that he was asking half a dozen animals as though they would actually answer?
    “Okay, well, if it’s all right with you, I’m going to take a look around. I promise not to do anything uncool, okay? I just want to see if your mom is here.” He’d set the flowers on the kitchen table when a thought struck him. “Does anyone need to go out?”
    Phoebe and Artemis ran to the door and took turns woofing, which struck Logan as the doggy equivalent of the pee dance. He opened the door, checked to make sure he’d latched the gate, then waited while four of the six dogs shuffled out into the backyard.
    With the remaining two dogs—Gus, the beagle-bloodhound, and Dieter, the German shepherd—trailing in his wake, he walked into Alex’s dim living room and felt along the wall for the light switch and flicked it up. His heart stopped dead when he saw her, out cold on the sofa.
    “Alex?”
    She didn’t stir, even as Gus and Dieter each nudged her arm with their noses and whined.
    Logan fought panic as he crossed to her. She’d slept through frantic barks, two ringing doorbells and at least two phone calls. No one who wasn’t seriously ill snoozed that soundly.
    “Alex? Hey, Alex.”
    He had his palm on her forehead and two fingers pressed to the pulse point in her throat when she snapped her eyes open on a gasp. He twitched back as she sat up so fast their heads almost knocked together. At first, she didn’t seem to recognize him, her dark eyes huge and startled in her pale face.
    Logan raised his hands, palms out. “It’s just me.”
    She focused on him after a moment and blinked slowly, as though having trouble getting oriented. “Hey.”
    “Hey. You okay?”
    She started to respond, but then Dieter reared up and landed his front paws in her lap while Gus plopped his butt on the tile floor and let out a high-pitched yip. Alex gave Dieter a quick, distracted hug before gently pushing him off.
    Logan spotted the bandage. “What happened to your hand?”
    “I broke a glass.” She sounded terrible. Like she had the flu. The shadows under her puffy eyes added to his alarm. Had she been crying?
    “Are you sick?” he asked.
    She ran both hands back through rampant curls. “No. I’m . . .” She trailed off, as if she had no clue what to say.
    He reached for her chin, intending to angle her head so he could check her pupils, but she flinched back from the contact.
    His concern went into overdrive when she brushed his hand away and got up from the sofa. Everything about her was off. She was tense and drawn, so pale her eyes looked sunken. She hadn’t looked this strung out and sick since the first week after she died in the ER and was shocked back to life. His stomach clenched at the memory.
    As he followed her into the kitchen, noting that she didn’t quite walk in a straight line, he wondered if she was drunk. Before the shooting, she and Charlie would sometimes meet for margaritas after work. Maybe they’d resumed the tradition . . . except he hadn’t noticed any alcohol on her breath.
    “Um, did you maybe forget about our dinner plans?” he asked. On top of alarming, this was awkward. He didn’t know whether to go or stay. He sure as hell didn’t want to go until he knew she was indeed okay.
    “You were coming at eight,” she said. “Are you early?”
    “It’s eight fifteen.”
    She stopped and stared at her watch as though she didn’t believe what it told her. “Oh.”
    “Alex, are you okay?”
    She raised her head, a spaciness in her eyes that made them appear out