Free Love Gone to the Dogs by Margaret Daley

what the reason, isn't fun to experience." Leah started forward. "I'll try harder to keep Arnold in his own backyard."
    "You do that," Shane said, as she left his bedroom, hurriedly making her way toward his front door.
    She didn't bother even to look around. Escape dominated her thoughts. She should be ecstatic that they had agreed a relationship between them or their dogs wasn't a good idea. And she would be happy, just as soon as her heart stopped beating so painfully.
    "Well, Mrs. Taylor, I see you're visiting Shane again. You two are getting quite chummy, if I do say so myself. You've been in town less than two weeks and I've seen him coming from your house on three occasions, and now you from his." Madge Shiplock stood in her driveway with a broom in her hand, pretending to sweep three tiny leaves that had had the nerve to fall on her property.
    Leah wanted to ignore the woman but knew she couldn't. Madge was their neighbor, and Leah had even put the woman's obnoxious behavior to good use—she was to be the villainess in Leah's newest Freddie Filmore book.
    She stopped in the middle of her front yard and smiled as sweetly as humanly possible. "Actually, Arnold and Princess can't seem to keep their paws off each other. Shane and I have to pull them apart occasionally. Have a nice day. I know I'm going to."
    Leah waved good-bye as she walked toward the backyard.
    Later she would berate herself for stating that she would have a good day. She was sure that was the reason she found her grandfather slamming open the garage's side door and running toward the house, shouting, "Where's the fire extinguisher?"
     
     
    Chapter Five
     
     
    "You've starting smoking again!" Leah stood next to her grandfather while she waited for the firemen to finish. Her face felt about as red as one of their engines. Becoming the center of the whole neighborhood's attention was definitely on her list of things to do on a dull day. Somewhere between cleaning the toilets and having root canal work done.
    "Just a cigar, girl. I didn't realize it had rolled off the table and dropped into the trash can."
    "Remember what the last doctor said about cigars?" she said in the most patient voice she could muster. Her tone held a note of panic in it, however. Seeing smoke billowing from the garage wasn't conducive to her serenity. In fact, it felt sort of like being pushed from an airplane thirty thousand feet above the earth without the benefit of a parachute.
    "Yeah, yeah." He waved his hand in dismissal.
    "Gramps."
    Shane's hand settled reassuringly on her shoulder, and she wanted so desperately to lean into the man. She wouldn't. She couldn't afford to invest any more of her emotions in that relationship. She just hated the fact she had to keep reminding herself of that reality.
    Shane was the one who had called the fire department. Leah would rather have tried to put the fire out herself; she didn't want to call any more attention to her family. Even though Ned and Madge weren't out on their lawn, like the rest of the neighborhood, Leah saw the glint of their telescope lens as the pair spied on what was happening. Ned had moved it permanently to the window that faced her house on the day after Betsy's—as Ned so poetically put it—"near death" experience.
    "Look, Leah. I'm not giving up a habit I love because it might shorten my life. I'm too dang old for that. I've come too far to allow some doctor to tell me what to do."
    "Oh, no, we wouldn't want anyone to tell you what to do," Leah muttered, her patience gone. She felt as though she had been compressed into a space half her size, that at any moment she would explode outward. The only good thing about the incident was that Joey was nowhere around. At least he was obeying her about staying away from the garage. And as far as she knew, the kid hated cigars.
    Shane remained silent but his hands were speaking a language she could get used to. They massaged her shoulders, kneading the tautness with