Free The Goodbye Summer by Patricia Gaffney Page B

admit. “I’m not sure I’dbe any good as an animal handler anyway. To tell you the truth, dogs never do what I say. I’m not forceful. They ignore me.”
    “All of them?”
    “Yes.”
    “Turn around and look the other way?”
    “They turn their backs on me.”
    “It must hurt your feelings.”
    “It’s devastating.”
    The light from the streetlamp cast interesting shadows on his broad, reassuring, Midwestern face. She smiled at him, feeling safe and accepted, not judged. He was so easy to talk to. She didn’t want this to end yet, she wanted to sit in the close, ticking car and talk and talk, establish herself in his mind as a viable person, someone he might be interested in.
    But he was turning away, unbuckling his seat belt, unlocking his door. “You haven’t met the right dogs, that’s your problem. You don’t know how easy this could be if you were paired with the right animal.”
    He got out of the car and came around, opened her door for her. They ambled up the walk, and she forgot to be embarrassed about the sculptures when he suddenly said, “What are you doing Saturday afternoon?”
    “Oh, I have lessons. All day. Saturday’s my longest day.”
    “Sunday?”
    “Sunday. Sunday I’m not doing anything.”
    “Meet me in the park. About two o’clock, is that a good time?”
    “Two, yes, two is great.”
    “If it doesn’t rain, you’ll see King in action.”
    She took her bag off her shoulder to fumble in it for the key, and also to hide her expression, which she imagined was confused. Even now, when it was almost over, she couldn’t be sure what sort of evening they were having, business or social. About dogs or about them. “Thanks so much for dinner,” she said, trying for a breezy tone to cover all the possibilities. “I really enjoyed hearing about what you do, what your job is like.”
    “Don’t rub it in.”
    “What?”
    “That I monopolized the conversation.”
    “You didn’t!”
    “I’m not really like this. Your fault, you’re too good a listener.”
    She’d heard that before. She never felt especially complimented by it, since people who were good listeners usually weren’t very good talkers.
    “Next time,” Christopher said. He brushed the backs of her fingers with his. “I’ll shut up and you can tell me all about yourself.”
    “Oh, well. I’m not that interesting.”
    “I disagree.” He caught her hand and swung it between them—a chummy, lighthearted gesture, she thought, until he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. Then everything fell into place. Like playing computer solitaire, you put the last king up and all the cards flapped down in triumphant spirals. The end. Want to play again?
    She moved into his open arms. They exchanged the lightest of kisses, more of a caress with their mouths than a kiss, but they lingered over it, drawing the moment out. Caddie felt dizzy, disembodied. “Night,” Christopher said, and she whispered it back.
    She put her key in the lock, and that was the end of romance. Finney went berserk—he must’ve had his ear to the door, listening for metal on metal.
    Christopher chuckled and stepped back. They waved, and she went in the house, closing the door fast so the dog couldn’t escape.
    If she did what she wanted to do, which was dance around the living room, Finney would never stop barking, so she sat on the second-to-last step of the staircase in the dim hall and petted him until he settled down, got over his frantic gladness. “That’s Christopher, yes,” she told him while he sniffed her shoes, her hands, her face. “Yes, Christopher. You like him, don’t you? Me, too. We like Christopher, don’t we? Yes, we do.”
    And he liked them. Christopher Dalton Fox. What a wonderful name. She felt euphoric. Very likely things would not work out, he’d realize they weren’t meant to be, or she’d find out he had a wife in Youngstown, something would happen to spoil it. But even so, she’d always remember