My daughter was barely thirteen, but she was growing up way too fast for my taste. We’d just come back from New York, where we’d had a sample of the good life from Uncle Joey. He was the mob boss for whom I worked, on account of him knowing my secret.
Recently, he’d claimed my family as part of the Manetto clan, even though we weren’t really related. I’d worked for him for just over a year now and, in that time, things had changed between us. Now I worked for him willingly because… well… he was like an uncle to me, and now the whole family part was basically official.
Then there was his eighteen-year-old son, Miguel, and the fact that Savannah had a huge crush on him. Could my life get any more complicated?
“Did you call him?” she asked.
“Call who?”
She rolled her eyes. “Angel. You said you’d call him today, remember?”
“Right. Sure. I haven’t yet, but I’ll call him now.” Her eyes brightened. I’d promised her that we’d get a dog after our vacation, and she wasn’t about to let me forget it.
I looked through my contacts list and found Angel Molina’s name. He’d been accused of murdering his girlfriend. While he’d been in jail, we’d taken care of his dog. Because of my mind-reading ability, I knew Angel was innocent right off the bat. Then I’d found out who’d really killed his girlfriend, and now we were friends.
Taking care of Angel’s dog had convinced my kids that we needed a dog. After discussing it with my husband, Chris, we had given in to their pleas. Now it was time to follow through. Since I didn’t want to make a mistake, I figured Angel could give us some pointers.
His dog, Pepper, had been rescued from an animal shelter, and I knew he’d be happy to tell us about the process. Plus, I could check up on him and see how he was doing. He greeted me enthusiastically, and it was nice to hear he was doing so well. After exchanging pleasantries, I told him we were ready to adopt a dog.
“That’s great,” he said. He filled me in on the details and told me which shelter he’d gone to. “Good luck. Let me know how it goes. I’d love to stop by once you have your dog.”
“Okay. Thanks Angel. That sounds great. I’ll be sure to give you a call.”
After relaying the details to Savannah, she practically jumped up and down. “Can we go now?”
I tried to come up with a reason to put it off, but there wasn’t one. The truth hit me that I wasn’t ready for this change in our lives. On the other hand, would I ever be ready to get a dog? Right now, it seemed like just one more responsibility. But we’d made a promise, and there was no going back.
On the bright side, my kids were old enough to take care of a pet. And part of me wanted a dog, too. Maybe it would be a good thing. I could sure use something like that in my life right now.
Since it was barely past eight-thirty in the morning, I had plenty of time to fit in a visit to the shelter before my appointment with Bob Spicer. I nodded. “Sure, but only if Josh can come.”
“Sweet!” Savannah ran down the basement stairs to pound on Josh’s bedroom door. I wasn’t sure he’d be too happy about that, since it was his day off from his life-guard job at the country club, and he was sleeping in. If it wasn’t for my nightmare, I’d still be in bed, too.
I heard Savannah telling Josh to get up already. After several tense rounds of negotiation, she ran up the stairs. “Okay. He’s coming.”
“Uh… I’ve got to take a shower, but I won’t be long.” Savannah threw her hands in the air. How could I do this to her? At least she didn’t say it out loud, so I just smiled and hurried upstairs to get ready.
We arrived at the shelter an hour later. The workers were all excited to see us. They loved these animals and wanted them all to find a forever home. One of them, Krista, volunteered to help us. She didn’t seem old enough to be working there, but I caught enough to know she was seventeen and would be a senior at her high school in the fall.
I also picked up that she thought Josh was cute. She wondered how old he was and where he went to high school. I almost told her that he was fifteen and way too young for her, but I kept my mouth shut. Still, I took a moment to study Josh.
Within the last year, he had changed dramatically. He’d shot up to about five foot ten, and he was still growing. But even more obvious was the facial hair. I guess some boys matured earlier than others, but it began to bother me that he looked the same age as Krista. This was not good.
“I’ll take you back to the kennel, and you can see the dogs we have ready for adoption,” Krista said, opening a door and motioning us to follow.
We entered a tile-and-concrete room with floor-to-ceiling cages on both sides that held all different kinds of dogs. As we went down the aisle, Krista spoke to each of the animals and told us a little about them. Every dog came over to us, some jumping up on the wire to sniff and greet us. A few barked with excitement, while others whined for attention.
I listened real close to see if I could pick up anything. When we’d taken care of Angel’s dog, I’d actually managed to understand what some of her barks meant. It was a side effect of reading minds, and it had totally floored me. I’d told Chris, but no one else.
Even Josh and Savannah didn’t have a clue about my limited ability to understand
