Page 55 of Finding Gideon
Gideon didn’t answer right away. His gaze was on her and the dog, something unreadable in his expression. I knew what it wasn’t, though—it wasn’t the quiet sadness I’d gotten used to seeing in his eyes. It wasn’t the ache of guilt or loss.
“He’s really good with her,” he said quietly.
“He is.”
Junie turned back to the dog, humming to herself as she rubbed behind the old boy’s ears. “I think his name is Toast.”
“Toast?” I echoed.
She nodded with full seven-year-old conviction. “He’s soft and warm and a little crunchy on the outside. Like toast.”
Gideon made a choked sound beside me, like a laugh he wasn’t expecting.
“That’s… actually kind of perfect,” I said.
Rachel crouched beside her daughter, brushing a curl from her forehead. “Toast, huh?”
Junie beamed. “Yeah. Like the good kind.”
Gideon crouched, too, on the other side of the bars. “Well, Toast does seem to like you.”
Junie leaned her cheek against the metal. “Can he come live with us when he’s feeling better?” she asked again.
Nia looked at us again, this time with a smile that was equal parts cautious and hopeful. “Is that something you’d be willing to talk about?”
Gideon didn’t hesitate. “We’ll think about it.”
Junie squealed and pressed a kiss to the bars.
Gideon looked over at me then, and what I saw nearly undid me.
He didn’t even try to hide it—the wet shine in his eyes, the soft crease at the corners of his mouth. I’d seen him cry before, had held him through the kind of grief that cracked you from the inside out. But this wasn’t that.
This was something else entirely.
Hope, maybe.
Or peace.
Maybe both.
I nudged his elbow gently. “Toast, huh?”
He huffed out a laugh, still blinking too fast. “Could’ve been worse. Could’ve been Peanut Butter.”
“Don’t give her ideas,” I whispered.
But Junie was already trying out the new name on the dog, and for the first time since we’d taken him in, he wagged his tail.
Gideon’s shoulder brushed mine as we stood there, watching a three-legged dog lean into a little girl’s touch.
It wasn’t much.
But it was enough to make the whole yard feel brighter.
Chapter 18
Gideon
