Free How to Knit a Love Song by Rachael Herron Page B

my help, I can see that.” Cade had to yell over the din of the dog, who had now escalated to howling. “But you might need it.”
    Abigail stood and brushed herself off, turning to try to see if she was covered in dirt, hitting her jeans with her hay-scratched hands. Muttering to herself, she said, “I don’t need any damn cowboy to help me, I can handle this myself, thank you very much.”
    While she was talking to herself under her breath, Cade went around to the driver’s-side door, popped it open and released the dog.
    “No!” yelled Abigail.
    “Hi, baby. Oh, who’s a good girl?”
    The dog, traitorous thing, clambered all over Cade, trying to climb up him in her eagerness to lick his face. What had looked like vicious, rabid slaver turned out to be nothing more than eager slime. Abigail watched him kneel in the dirt as the dog hurled herself into his willing arms.
    “Are you kidding me?”
    “Were you really scared of this puppy? This cute little thing?” Cade rubbed the dog’s head and scrunched her ears. “Who could be afraid of this, huh? Huh?”
    He glanced briefly at Abigail, and then turned his full attention back to the dog.
    “What’s her name, anyway?”
    “She doesn’t have one yet.”
    “I think she’s a Clara.”
    “No, she’s not.”
    “Clarabelle. Clarabellerina.” The dog danced in front of him and returned for more love. “Is that you? Is your name Clara?” The dog barked in happiness. “Yes,” Cade said, rubbing it in. “Yes, I knew that.”
    “For Pete’s sake. Give it up. Give me the dog.” Abigail jerked the leash out of his hand and started to walk up the steps of the cottage. She was glad she’d moved the treasures she unpacked earlier back inside. Cade didn’t need to know about her find just yet.
    “Do you have food for her?” Cade asked.
    Abigail’s footing slipped a bit on the step. She clutched the stair rail. “Weak step,” she snapped. “Of course I have food for her.”
    “And food and water bowls?”
    She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t bear to admit that she hadn’t thought that far ahead. Crap. She’d have to drive out again, and find a pet supply store. It was as if she had moved in and left part of her mind at the gate, as if she’d used her brain up in getting here and hadn’t gotten it back yet.
    He said slowly, “I’m sure you have all that, that you’re all prepared. But if you find you’ve forgotten something, there are some extra old food bowls in the back of the big barn, by the grain storage. There’s dry food in a plastic bin. Help yourself.”
    Sure. He welcomed the dog . Too bad she wasn’t a dog. He’d have been happier to see her then, wouldn’t he?
    He walked away. Again. Leaving her with a dog who was pulling against the leash, straining to follow him, with two alpacas in the back that she had no idea what to do with, with a cottage that was probably falling apart.
    She didn’t want to overreact. This was all wonderful, on the surface. An inheritance! A home of her own, away from San Diego. Sure, the man didn’t want her here. But she had a tougher skin than that, didn’t she?
    Even when her little apartment had that fire, years ago when she was in college, when she had been sleeping on friends’ floors, keeping her toothbrush in her backpack and having her mail sent to a post-office box, she hadn’t felt as homeless as this.
    Home was everything to Abigail. She had to know where her things were, which direction the bathroom was when she awoke in a strange place. She unpacked in hotel rooms, using all the drawers. She unpacked in tents, laying her clothes out for the next morning. Even as a teenager, after her mother died, when her father was moving them around every year or so for work, she did the brunt of the packing and unpacking because she liked it. If she had to move around so much, at least she always knew where everything was.
    And she did have a lovely room upstairs in the house. In the house that