Page 3 of Forever Home

“Animal control?” Delaney wrinkled her nose. “As in, the pound? You want to send him to the pound?”

Ronnie shrugged. “Are you going to take him home?”

“I don’t have a home.” Delaney was staying at a hotel, ten minutes away. Now that she’d officially retired from the Marine Corps she’d jumped head first into civilian life. Up first was getting off Quantico Marine Base and into normal quarters. If you could call an apartment over a bike shop normal. “Besides.” Delaney gestured to the black Honda Rebel 500 parked out in front of the shop, just visible through the doorway that Ronnie had propped open. “Even if I had a home, I couldn’t put the dog on my bike.”

“Well, there you go.” Ronnie shrugged. She slipped her cell phone from the front pocket of her suit.

“Wait.” Delaney held up a hand. She crouched down and walked toward the bed. “He’s wearing a collar.” Delaney extended the same hand the pit bull had bumped with his nose earlier. He crawled forward, using his paws to inch closer, like he was stretching, and sniffed around Delaney’s knuckles. She brushed them back, against his muzzle and then down to his neck, where she felt around for an ID tag. Her fingers closed over smooth, flat metal. Delaney peered at the tag. “Sinbad,” she read. Meh. Maybe. He did have an eye patch. “There’s a phone number.”

Ronnie sighed.

“I’ll call.” Delaney slipped her phone from the back of her jeans and tapped in the number. “Do you think I’m just going to reach the guys who rented this shop?” She mused aloud. “Do you think they really meant to leave him here?” She suddenly remembered seeing a dog that looked like this one in a picture on the Dude’s Bikes website.

“I don’t know them,” Ronnie said. “I don’t ride motorcycles.”

Delaney was busy thinking about all the ways she might be able to buy this place without Ronnie getting any commission when a bright, cheery voice popped on the other end of the line. “Pittie Place, this is Sunny.”

“Hey, Sunny. My name’s Delaney Monroe. I’m over here on Three Rebels Street.” For about the millionth time since Dad had died she squelched the urge to text him. Last time it had been to tell him that, after roaming around on her bike, crying inside her helmet over his death, she’d suddenly found herself on Three Rebels Street. This time she wanted to tell him that she was going toliveon Three Rebels Street. “I’m at a motorcycle shop that used to be called Dude’s? There’s a dog here. A brown and white pittie named Sinbad. He’s got a collar with your number on it.”

A long pause followed, along with some background noise that sounded like Sunny was questioning someone else about the dog’s whereabouts. Finally, her voice came back on the line. “Sorry,” she said. “Did you say Sinbad? We didn’t even know he was missing.”

“Yep. That’s what his collar says. Sinbad. Like the pirate.” Delaney noted that the dog gave no visible reaction when his name was mentioned.

“He got out somehow,” Sunny said, and Delaney could tell by her tone she spoke mostly to herself, “and found his way back to the shop. Isn’t that something.”

“Is he yours?”

The pittie curled into a ball and huffed a sigh.

“He is now. I’ll come get him right away.”

Delaney waited outside with Sinbad on a leash that she found hanging inside the storeroom. Talk about douchebags. The Dudes had stripped the store of every last nut and bolt but left the dog bed, the dog leash and the dog.

Ronnie had bailed, with a promise to get back to her on the shop and apartment, and Delaney was left with the pittie. Together, they watched the fireball of a setting sun on the horizon. “Don’t worry.” Delaney squatted down next to the dog, who sat on the pavement and stared into the woods like he, too, wondered if he could hide there from tornados. Up close he smelled clean and woodsy. He’d probably traipsed through there to get back to the shop. “Those stupid Dudes didn’t deserve you.”

Delaney laid a hand on his back and he flinched. She dropped her hand away just as an old Ford truck, snow-white, pulled into the lot. A long, slender blonde emerged; solid posture and a strong gait. She wore blue jeans and an old peacoat. Delaney slackened her grip on the leash, to see if the pittie would run to her. He perked up his ears, but didn’t budge. He looked anxiously toward the shop, then shifted his weight from paw to paw.

This guy had been passed around. He was an orphan. Dad used to fidget, especially during times he forgot himself, like when he wasn’t working on a bike or riding. He’d be all over the place, sweeping or scrubbing or organizing, like he didn’t know where to settle. Maybe afraid to. He only slept when he passed out from exhaustion. Delaney would find him on the couch in the morning before school, zonked out in a sea of throw pillows and blankets, TV muttering in the background. Delaney would fix herself a bowl of Sugar Smacks—back when it was okay for a cereal to be named Sugar Smacks—then sit by his feet and watchThe Price Is Rightbefore running for the bus. Sometimes Dad would wake up in time for the Showcase Showdown and they’d take bets on who would win. Sometimes they’d ask each other what they’d do with the money if they ever wonThe Price Is Right.Their answers always matched: open my own motorcycle shop.

“Hey!” The blonde spotted them, even though Delaney and the dog hadn’t budged. She headed their way, her strides quick and focused. She held a leash in one hand. “I’m Sunny,” she said, as Delaney rose to meet her. “Hey there, Sinbad. Hey, boy.” Sunny’s voice changed, filling with warmth.

He pushed his muzzle forward and smacked his tail on the ground. It seemed like he knew her, but was trying to remember how she fit into his vagabond life.

Only after she’d greeted and made sure Sinbad was okay did Sunny extend her hand toward Delaney. “Sunny.”

“Delaney.”

They shook hands like women do, just a gentle touch hello, no clasping, owning, dueling or innuendo. Sunny glanced around. “You found him out here?”

Delaney tilted her head toward the shop. “I was with a real estate agent, checking it out. The bay was open and this guy just came trotting inside. There’s a dog bed in the storeroom. He settled right in.”

Sunny’s mouth turned to a grim line, the opposite of her pretty and cheerful name. Delaney imagined Sunny got told to smile a lot.

“The guys who owned this shop adopted Sinbad less than a year ago. As far as I can tell, they weren’t abusive. But he was apparently just an ornament. As soon as the shop failed, they bailed, gave him back to me with some story about moving somewhere they can’t have a dog but will come back for him once they have more space.”

Delaney looked down at the pit bull, who kept equal amounts of empty space all around his body, like he favored no direction. Or, maybe he had no direction. She found herself disliking the Dudes even more than before. They hadn’t even bought their dog a new tag, with their phone number on it. Hadn’t even committed to the level of a cheap piece of metal. She wondered if they knew what that kind of thing did to a person—being part of a world where you mattered only within other people’s framework of existence. Delaney wondered if the Dudes knew what it was like to not have anyone beall inon you.

It was a deeply lonely feeling, one Delaney had never felt until she stood staring down at her father’s wrecked body.

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