Excerpt of A Tail of Love by Alice Sharpe

I'm a patient dog.

Okay, okay, I'm not patient, but on this particular day, I was acting patient.

Well, for a wire fox terrier, anyway.

Plastered as I was to our hostess's front door, I indulged myself with just the occasional yip to remind Isabelle it was closing in on my dinner hour. It didn't seem to be working, mainly because her girlfriend, Heather, was noisily boo-hooing in her ear.

A thump out in the hallway provided some much needed distraction, and I reacted with my usual quick wit. There is no better way to warn away ne'er-do-wells than to bark. Ask anyone.

This got Isabelle's attention. As she ordered me to mind my manners, her distraught friend jumped to her feet, almost tripping over me in her haste to pull open the door.

I'm not sure who or what she expected to find out there, but surely it wasn't the startled kid I saw. Figuring he was up to no good, I did Heather a favor and bounded after him. Isabelle ended my pursuit with a yank on my leash — which, by the way, smarts — so I trotted back to her side. No matter, the boy had left, my job was done.

Isabelle called me a bad dog, which she does often but never with much conviction, so I took it as I usually do.

That's when I noticed the folded newspaper that had magically appeared on the carpet right outside Heather's door. Looking up and down the hall, I saw a few more placed in front of other doors. Curious, no?

Ready to parlay the open door into actual leave-taking, I strained on my leash a bit. Ignoring me, Isabelle gently rolled the newspaper inside with the toe of her shoe and then closed the door. Heather launched into a new round of caterwauling. My stomach growled.

After five minutes, I tried a demure woof. After another couple of minutes, I laid down and stared at the newspaper. It was wrapped with a bright blue rubber band. Interesting. I gave it a nip, but they don't make rubber bands like they used to and the thing snapped. The paper sprang open.

And that's when I saw him.

Right there in the margin above the headline. Three pictures. One of a gooey piece of pie — looked tasty — another of some guy shooting a basketball and the last one of Rick, smiling.

My Rick.

What was his mug doing in the newspaper?

This was one of those occasions when I wished I'd learned to read, but Isabelle gets all her news off her computer and the screen is way too high off the floor to be dog- friendly. I tried tugging on the leash. Figuring there might be another picture of Rick hidden inside the newsprint, I clawed at the paper.

You have to understand. Seeing Rick at this particular juncture had to be fate. I'd been dreaming about him lately. We'd be on the beach, roasting hot dogs. He'd throw a stick, I'd run the other way, he'd dash after me, I'd run the other way — good, dog-worthy dreams of fresh air and yummy snacks.

Since he'd walked out on me and Isabelle four years before, I'd had to settle for dreams. I missed Rick. Some of the guys Isabelle brought around were okay, but one or two hadn't liked dogs. Of course, they didn't tell Isabelle this. I just knew. A dog always does.

Anyway, lately I'd been thinking it was time for Isabelle and Rick to get back together. I was tired of being the victim of a broken relationship.

And now this.

Unfortunately, newsprint isn't the most resilient of materials; within a few seconds, the thing began to shred. At least that got Isabelle's attention. She scooped up the tattered heap and handed it to Heather without so much as glancing at the front page.

Rats.

I wanted her to see that photograph of Rick. I wanted her to remember him. It had been ages since she'd spoken his name. Concentrating real hard on Rick's face, I willed her to look at the paper. I willed him, wherever he was, to think about us.

Before I knew what was happening, the two women were hugging goodbye and Isabelle and I were headed down the hall toward the elevator.

This meant we were on our way home.

Kibble!

Feeling peckish, I walked extra fast. But that's not to say I wasn't still pondering what Rick had done to get his picture in the paper.

Or why he'd left us in the first place.... ***

With a sigh, Isabelle Winters pushed the Down button. What an ordeal the afternoon had been.

Heather's husband had walked out on her. He claimed he needed space. That phrase always made Isabelle feel like scratching her head. What space? Where did this "space" exist? In some alternate universe? What did you do when you got there? Did you sit down and contemplate your navel or stumble about, anxious should you bump into someone else's "space"?

There were two twists on Heather's predicament. The least important was the fate of Heather's small catering business. How could she manage her upcoming commitments without John's help? The more serious by far was that John didn't know Heather was pregnant and Heather didn't know if she should tell him. How could she get him back if she didn't? If she did tell him and he did come back, how would she know it was for the right reasons?

Three hours of this circular logic had Isabelle's head aching. She'd murmured a few words of comfort and thrown in her two cents (Forget the business for now! Call him! Tell him about the baby!), but what else could she do?

Pawing at the carpet in front of the elevator, Marnie made little anxious sounds. The doors swished open and Marnie all but dragged Isabelle inside.

"You were not a good dog," Isabelle said, as she punched the Lobby button. Looking down at her dog's upturned face, she added, "I don't know what got into you. All that racket. And destroying Heather's newspaper!"

Marnie blinked.

The elevator soon delivered them to the lobby. Marnie pranced at the end of her leash, seventeen pounds of wire hair terrier covered with crisp white, black-and-tan fur, tawny ears bobbing, black nose sniffing, dog tags jingling, dark eyes taking in the posh lobby of Heather's apartment building.

One of the things Isabelle admired about her dog was her endless enthusiasm. Another was her take-no-prisoners approach to life.What she liked least, however, was Marnie's absolute remorselessness. However, since scolding her was pointless, holding a grudge seemed pointless, too.

Isabelle became aware of a man pushing open the outside door to enter the glass-enclosed vestibule separating the lobby from the outside. He turned immediately to face the intercom.

As Isabelle pulled the door open for him, all hell broke loose. Marnie, a blur of tri-colored fur, lunged, wiggled and bounced as she circled the man again and again, wrapping his legs in her leash, yapping and squealing the whole time. Despite Isabelle's best efforts, the stranger was soon trussed up like a calf at a rodeo.

Unnerved by Marnie's high-decibel yelps and the deep sounds coming from the startled man's throat, Isabelle murmured both apologies and reprimands as she struggled with the leash.

She finally dared a glance at the man's face. For a second her brain refused to accept what her eyes told her.

How could this be? "Rick?"

"Isabelle! I didn't know you lived here!"

"I don't. Do you?"

"No, I'm visiting a...friend," he said. "And you?"

"I'm visiting a friend, too."

Marnie, bound to Rick's legs and perched more or less on his shoes, leaked delighted squeaks. He bent to pat her head and tousle her V-shaped ears. Staring right into her beady little eyes, he crooned, "Hey there, lamb chop, long time no see. How are you?" With a swift glance up at Isabelle, he added, "I see my girl is still...excitable."

"It was almost like she was expecting you," Isabelle added, a catch in her throat. Lamb chop! The long- forgotten puppy name brought back a host of memories, all of them bittersweet.

She undid Marnie's lead so Rick could unbind himself. When he gave her back the leash, their fingers brushed.

"Sorry," she said.

He smiled, and it was suddenly hard to believe more than four years had passed since they'd parted ways.

Of course, when they'd been...together...he'd been in graduate school, on the fast track, but still a student. He'd worn his dark hair long, walked around in jeans and sweaters, and slouched his six-foot-four-inch frame down a notch or two to blend in. She'd been a few years younger and still an undergrad, a good deal shorter, but wore her dark hair about the same way he did and dressed in a similar fashion. They'd looked like a couple even before they became one.

Now he was Mr. Suave, hair professionally cut, wearing an expensive raincoat over an even more expensive suit. Add Italian shoes and perfect posture and he looked like what he'd become — the youngest member in Portland, Oregon's, most prestigious law firm.

And so handsome there ought to be a law. "You look wonderful," he said, raking her over with a gaze that used to make her shiver. Thinking of her hair caught up in a ponytail and the jeans and sweatshirt she'd thrown on in haste when Heather beckoned her to Portland, Isabelle mumbled a thanks.

"How is your family?" he asked politely. "Your father retired yet? Your mother still golfing twice a day?"

"Dad's still working, Mom's still golfing," Isabelle said fondly. "I took a job in Seaport about two years ago now."

He nodded thoughtfully, and she wondered if it was because of all the memories they shared of the town in which she now lived or because his estranged father also lived and worked there. She decided not to mention that she saw his father often, that they'd remained friends, that Rick's absence in both their lives had taken a long time to heal.

Rick said, "I thought I heard somewhere that you're teaching kindergarten."

"I have twenty-three kids," she said. "There's only a few more days of school until summer vacation, so of course they're all getting a little wild."

She stopped abruptly, right as she'd been about to launch into an anecdote about one of her students. Why would big- time lawyer Rick want to hear about someone else's kid?

"It's what you always wanted," he said. "I'm proud of you for pursuing your dream."

Rick hadn't pursued his dream. He'd chased money instead. And in so doing, he'd abandoned her. That's how she felt, that's how she'd always felt. She tried hard not to show it because it was water under the bridge.

"It's actually rather fortuitous I ran into you," he said. She did not feel fortunate in any way. For four years, she'd put Rick behind her to the point that when she saw his father now, she didn't even think about Rick.

Liar, came an internal voice. You never put him behind you.

"I did, too!" she said.

Rick had been talking, but he stopped abruptly. She'd spoken out loud. She knew her comment made no sense. More than anything in the world, she wanted to escape this tiny foyer.

She said, "It's been a very long day, Rick."

"Wait," he said, briefly touching her arm. "I want to hear about your classroom —"

"No you don't," she said, meeting his gaze. "They're just a bunch of little five-year-olds. They wouldn't interest you."

"I see," he said, his dark eyes flashing. "I'm too busy raking in the corporate dough to care about a bunch of little kids, is that it?"

Things were going from bad to worse, but damn, he was making her angry. Pitching a little more fuel on the fire, she added, "Or maybe you spend your time figuring out ways to keep the bad guys out of jail."

He seemed to swallow a retort. Glancing at his watch, he said, "I'd better go."

She'd been rude. She couldn't seem to think of a way to apologize without making it worse. What did it matter anyway? It had been years since she'd seen him, it would probably be years more before she saw him again. If ever...

She said, "I have to go, too."

They stared at each other for a moment, then Rick grasped her elbow, and leaning close, kissed her cheek. The closeness of his strong body and the feel of his lips on her face evoked still more memories.

"It was great seeing you again," he said.

"You, too," she told him, but she didn't mean it. Seeing him had been painful. She felt rattled and slightly nauseous.