leave him here, then we’ll take him to the city pound.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Michael, look. You need to see him.” She hesitated, then unfastened the top three buttons of the coat. “Come on, Socks. Come on, boy.”
Socks came out-sort of. Two eyes peered from beneath her coat, brown pools of misery and distrust. The eyes looked warily at Michael, decided they didn’t much like what they saw, then disappeared again into the coat’s vastness.
“It’s okay, Socks. He’s a friend.” Jen unfastened a couple more buttons, and the dog’s head was revealed in its scraggy splendor. It was the head of a definitely peculiar dog, Michael thought, dazed. Scruffy, to say the least, with matted hair that was a dirty golden brown. The dog’s ears drooped down like a cocker spaniel’s, but his head looked more like a Labrador’s-a Labrador on a bad hair day.
As Jenny had said, a whole lot had gone into this dog’s breeding, but she was obviously seeing something Michael couldn’t.
“He’s just lovely,” Jenny breathed, hugging him close. “Oh, Michael…”
“No.” Michael shook his head with certainty. “You’re wrong there, Jen. This dog is not lovely. This dog is weird. Seriously weird. I’ve never seen a dog like this in my life.”
The dog looked at him reproachfully, and so did Jenny.
“Why,” Michael asked carefully, still buying time, “are you calling him Socks? Is he wearing a collar?”
“No collar. You should see his ribs.” She held the dog closer, as if he needed protecting. “He’s truly a stray. No one wants this dog.”
Michael could see exactly why.
“Then why Socks?”
“He has white socks. Or they might be white after a bath. And he reminds me of a dog I had as a kid.”
“You had a dog like this?”
“Well, no.” Jenny broke into an involuntary chuckle. “Socks One was a basset hound. But he looked at me the same as Socks Two.” Her smile died, and she stared over the river. “My aunt had Socks One put down when my parents died.”
“When was that?” Michael asked, startled. He knew nothing about this woman, he realized. Nothing!
“When I was ten.”
“Your parents died when you were ten?”
“Mmm. In a car crash. I lost them-and then I lost Socks.”
His heart twisted, and he put a hand on her shoulder. Socks looked up as if he wasn’t the least bit sure he wanted to share, but Michael wasn’t in the mood for dealing with a jealous dog, especially one with ears like this. “I’m sorry, Jen,” he told her, and she shrugged.
“Things happen. I guess you know that as well as anyone. You were adopted, too.”
“So your aunt adopted you?”
“Sort of.” Jenny’s tone changed, hardened. “My parents left me a house, you see, so my aunt and her boyfriend moved in. They took over my life, and that was the end of Socks. They had him put down. It was also the end of my house. I was shunted off to boarding school, the house somehow got sold, and the funds disappeared into never- never land.”
“Oh, Jen…”
“You had better luck with your adoptive parents, though.”
“Yeah.” Michael thought back to his childhood. There was no chance of a dog like Socks being put down in the Lord household. If anything, there’d been pets to spare. There was certainly love to spare.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“And Lana says your birth mother loved you.”
“I wouldn’t know about that.” His voice hardened. “I know nothing about her.”
“And you don’t want to know?”
“The past is history. There’s no need to rake it up.”
“It stays with you, though,” she said softly, staring again at the river. Socks stared with her. Four reproachful eyes. “You can’t let it go completely. If my parents hadn’t loved me, and if I hadn’t known that and remembered it in the bad times, then I don’t think I could have gone on. It’s part of who I am.”
“It’s dead and buried.” His voice was unnecessarily harsh, and he bit his lip, but Jenny looked bleak.
“Is it?”
“It has to be.”
“Dead and buried.” She took a jagged breath. “I just wish it was,” she said bleakly, her face twisting in remembered pain. Her voice cracked, then she seemed to catch herself. “I’m sorry.”
“Jenny, what’s wrong?” He stared, puzzled, but she shrugged, pushing away remembered nightmares.
She took a deep breath. “No, that’s enough of that. I’m just- I was thinking of something I told Peter. But I don’t know what I’m thinking of now. You’ve come down here in the dark just to find me, and here I’ve taken your coat without even asking.” She made as if to pull it off, but he stopped her. The dog whimpered against her, as if expecting to be hauled out and thrust away. His big ears disappeared inside the coat. Socks was staying put.
But Michael was no longer thinking of Socks. “Why did you come down here?” he asked gently, watching her face. The emotion in her eyes was tearing at something deep in his gut. She was so lost, so at sea.
“I came out for a walk to try to decide what to do,” she said with quiet dignity. She had herself in hand again. “I can’t figure how we can stay together in your town house. It’s crazy.”
“There’s no choice.”
“There is. I just need to find another place to stay, somewhere Gloria can’t find me. Then if immigration comes, you can contact me.”
He thought this through and found an immediate flaw. Or rather, the flaw was looking at him again. “You intend on taking Socks with you?”
“I…” She faltered. “I guess I’ll find a place where I can take him.”
“There’s no landlord that’ll take a dog like this.”
“I don’t need to stay in the city,” she said calmly, as if this was a decision she’d made hours ago. “I can go out into the country somewhere. Get a place to stay on a farm or something.”
“Oh, sure,” he mocked. “Farms take in dogs like Socks all the time. And you can always race from a farm to my place at a moment’s notice when immigration officials arrive asking questions. They were here tonight.”
“Here!” Her eyes widened. “You mean at your home?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, Michael.”
“It’s okay,” he said, flinching at the fear in her eyes. “They think you’re safely in bed. In my bed. They had no right to search, and I didn’t let them in. But if you think you can stay someplace else…”
“I must be able to,” she said in distress. “I must!” The fear was still there, with a hint of something else. The knowledge of being trapped?
That was pretty much how he was feeling, Michael acknowledged bleakly. Claustrophobic. Closed in. Hell, they’d done this in such a rush they hadn’t thought it through.
But if he’d had time, would he have acted differently? Michael found himself searching his heart as he watched the misery on her face. Would he have done the same thing? Or would he have waved her off to Mexico alone, to face childbirth and her future with nothing and nobody?
No way! He saw the courage in her eyes and knew he would do no such thing. He’d hurt her this afternoon, he’d hurt her badly. She’d come here to try to figure out a way to get out of his life-for his sake, not her own. Here she was, distress on her face, and it was all on his account, not hers. He’d caused it by showing her how unhappy he was with their situation.
“Hey, Jen.” Reaching out, he touched her face. It was cool, as if the damp and fog had penetrated. She gave an involuntary shiver, and he flinched. Guilt swept in like a physical kick in the rear. Hell, he was being a total jerk. He’d suggested this. He’d married Jenny, despite her doubts. His sense of honor was telling him to accept that fact and move on.
“Come on, Jenny,” he said gently. “Let’s take Socks to the pound and get you home.”
