Chapter 24: Bear

The first Saturday of December came in white and hard, with frost on every rail along the river path.

My boxes were still stacked in Holt's hallway.

I had moved in with a coffee maker, a pie dish and a lamp that Cass said looked like a haunted mushroom.

At six, Holt knocked on the bathroom door.

"We're late," he said.

"Bear's not even dressed."

"Bear's been dressed since five. He sat on your boots."

I opened the door.

Bear stood in the hallway in a gray knitted sweater with a stripe across the back, looking enormously pleased with himself.

"Dacey made it," Holt said. "Before she drove back to Tennessee. She said she'd been collecting the hair off my shoulder for years."

"It's good."

"It's very good. It's also two sizes too big."

"He'll grow into it."

"He's four."

"He'll grow into it spiritually," I said, and Holt laughed out loud, the way he did now.

We went down the stairs together, past the dark garage, with the leash in my hand because he had decided I should hold it.

The pharmacy had called on Thursday.

My manager said the girl who covered my shifts had quit.

She had cried in the stockroom for an hour first, and my full hours were mine whenever I wanted them.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Kept My $11,200 as a Gift, So a Biker's Dog Took My Side from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.