Page 40 of 15 Summers Later

“I’ve been talking about it with some of the volunteers. We have to figure out when and where.”

“You could really play it up on social media so everybody knows you’re doing it.”

“Actually,” Madi said, “that reminds me. I was going to see if you want to help me out with a special project.”

“What kind of special project?” Sierra looked intrigued but wary.

“How would you feel about helping me out with our social media? I know how much fun you have looking at clips online. You could take some pictures to document some of the things we’re doing and maybe create a couple of short videos every so often with the animals.”

Sierra’s face lit up, her eyes looking less devastated by the minute. “That could be fun.”

“You can be my official deputy social media manager.”

“Can I have my own office?”

Madi grinned and gestured around the grassy area. “Sure. How about right here in the play yard?”

“That would be awesome! You can bring me out a desk and everything!”

“A lawn chair, maybe. We could probably swing that.”

“Good enough for me,” Sierra said, then returned to playing with the puppies.

She loved Luke’s daughter. She had a generous spirit and a kind soul. When Sierra was younger, she had always been drawn to Madi. Sierra had never seemed to mind when her words didn’t come out right or she couldn’t smile fully.

Over the past four years since Johanna’s death, their relationship had deepened. Madi could relate to losing her mother at around the same age, in a deep, visceral way that others couldn’t quite understand.

Sierra would talk to Madi about her mom and how much she missed her. Madi suspected she confided inherthings she couldn’t tell her father, her aunt or her grandmother.

In many ways, she considered Sierra the younger sister she never had.

“Are you feeling better?” she asked, after they had played with the puppies for another half hour.

“It’s hard to be sad when you’re laughing at these guys.”

“I’ve always found that keeping busy helping someone else is an excellent antidote to feeling sad.”

“You sound like my grandma.”

“I can only dream of being as wise as Tilly.”

Sierra helped her carry the puppies back into their large shared dog run.

She was filling the bowl with food while Sierra refilled the water bowl when the girl spoke out of the blue.

“Do you think my dad would ever date somebody again?”

Madi jerked, startled, and some of the kibble spilled on the floor. The grateful puppies didn’t seem to mind.

“Why would you ask that?” she asked, keeping her tone as neutral as she could manage.

Sierra shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe thinking about how weird it is for Zoe, now that her dad has married someone else and moved away. I mean, she likes her stepmom okay but it still seems weird. I don’t ever want a stepmom.”

Madi didnotwant to have this conversation with the girl right now, especially when she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about how something seemed to have shifted in her relationship with Luke since the other night.

How could she tell Sierra that of all the confidences she and the girl had shared over the years, her father’s love life was one subject Madi would prefer to avoid?

None of this was any of her business. But she couldn’t shrug off the question. She drew in a deep breath and forced a smile.

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