A Feral Darkness Part 26

And him walked back into the barn. "Sure," he said to Emily. "Just make it something a man can eat with one hand," and held out his car keys to Brenna. "Wanna go for a drive? Just twenty minutes or so."

"You called them," Brenna said, and put her hands over her eyes, not knowing what else to do with herself, and not quite understanding why she felt like she was about to step off the edge of a cliff and walk on thin air. "You called them."

"And they said come. Eztebe knows we'll be late for dinner. Your choice."

She took the car keys.

"Call me," Emily said, standing in the doorway with her arms crossed and a knowing smile on her face as they headed for Masera's SUV.

Brenna had become accustomed to driving it these past daysa"it purred along like a luxury car, and didn't jolt Masera around as her truck would have. Now she drove it in a daze, and when she found the right address, pulling in the driveway to sit next to the spanking-new Nuadha Kennel sign, she just sat there with her hands on the wheel. The house stood before them on a large rural lot with lots of gra.s.s and carefully landscaped trees; the realtor sign still leaned against the garage. A newer home than Brenna's, but old enough to have charm instead of a cookie-cutter look. The back was entirely fenced, and several adult Cardigans appeared at a side gate to announce their arrival in tones of great importance.

Masera reached over and removed the keys from the ignition. "It's all right, Brenna. You don't have to explain anything to them. I told them I was in the market for Cardigansa"and I am. I wasn't just spinning words way back when."

"Okay," Brenna said, her voice low. She nodded to herself, and repeated it. "Okay." Then she slid out of the car, tucked her braid into her back pocket, and went around to the pa.s.senger side to help him ease the long step to the ground. He was getting tired; she could tell from just how hard he leaned on her, and she only then realized how long she'd kept him out on this first day of full mobility.

"I'll last," he said, which was the first she knew how much of her thoughts had made it to her face; she wrinkled her nose at him and he grinned. "Let's go."

So she took his hand and walked up to the front door, where she would have hesitated if he hadn't been there, but because he was she punched the doorbell with her finger even as they stepped onto the landing.

The middle-aged woman who answered the door greeted them with a smile and a thick Irish brogue. " 'Twas you who called us, then? I'm Kathleen O'Meara. Please come in." And she opened the door wide, leading the way through to the back of the house without preamble, taking them past moving boxes both empty and full and to a set of wide sliding gla.s.s doors and an enclosed porch. "I was telling the young man, we've just got a litter ready to go, but they're mostly show prospects, and I really do want to place them in show homes. We need to establish a presence here in the Statesa"" Through the porch they went, a brightly lit place full of crates and water bowls and a folded exercise pen.

"Showing's not a problem," Masera said. "I'll be showing obedience in any event."

She gave them a second glance, one with interest and more intent appraisal. "Is that so, then?" she said as she led them through another sliding door and into the backyard, where they were immediately accosted by five Cardigans, tails wagging. But Brenna had eyes only for the second exercise pen, a portable enclosure of wire panels set up in the far corner of the yard where the gra.s.s was thick and the sun was bright. She only vaguely heard Kathleen O'Meara usher the dogs into the house, or the comments she made to Masera as they headed for the ex-pen, where Kathleen unhooked one of the panels and let the puppies spill out. Six of them, a couple of months old and still floppy-eared, aside from one or two oddball exceptions and a single brindle pup with both enormous ears already p.r.i.c.ked upright.

"The brindle is already placed," Kathleen said, and that was the last Brenna heard, for her gaze fell on a stout-legged little tricolor, his jagged white collar gleaming and his struggling ears charmingly speckled, running straight to her feet as if he knew he belonged there. She clutched Masera's arm, unable to say a word. And then she fell to her knees and gathered him up to find familiar love-me eyes framing a white muzzle and a perfectly symmetrical white blaze.

"We just lost one," Masera was saying, as Kathleen murmured an understanding, "Yes, I know the look." And they went on to talk about the things a good breeder asks any prospective ownera"their facilities, their background, the family members, their schedulesa"while Brenna buried her face in the puppy's ruff and cried in disbelieving joy. Until at last the woman said, with some apology, that while their normal policy was to let the new owners choose a registered name, for this first litter in the states they'd decided to name the pups ahead of time. "This particular puppy hasn't ever taken to anyone like this before. We call him Nuadha's Silvera""

"Druid," Brenna whispered, resting her cheek against the top of his puppy-soft head. "Druid," she said again, while the rest of the puppies clamored for her attention, climbing her legs and licking the exposed skin of her arms as Masera's hand grazed the top of her head in a comforting caress. Druid brushed his whiskers against her face, inspecting her.

Not the same. It couldn't be the same.

She looked up at Masera, found him grinning as broadly and foolishly as she'd ever seen.

It could be better.

Doranna's Backstory

After obtaining a degree in wildlife ill.u.s.tration and environmental education, Doranna spent a number of years deep in the Appalachian Mountains, where she knew several Redbones just as deeply brain-challenged as Sunny. When she emerged, it was as a writer who found herself irrevocably tied to the natural world and its creatures.

Doranna, who isn't sure if she lives in New York or Arizona, hangs around with three Cardigan Welsh Corgisa"Carbon Unit (Kacey), Jean-Luc Picardigan, and Bellea"and drags her saddle wherever she goes.

You can contact her at: [email protected] or PMB 207.

2532 North 4th St.

Flagstaff, AZ 86004 (SASE please) * * *

or visit http://www.doranna.net/