“I was trying to figure out where to take her,” I say. “Are we sleeping at your place or mine?”
“I wanted to talk about that. The dog-rearing books say she’ll be more comfortable with a permanent home. Like a den, right?”
“Ah, I hadn’t thought of that. So bopping between our houses isn’t puppy-friendly. We need to pick a place and stick with it.”
“Yeah. Is that a problem?”
“Not at all. Petra said you collected the puppy’s things earlier. Are they at my place?”
“Uh, no.” He shifts the puppy. “I was walking past mine, so I put them in there. Just for now. Unless you’re okay with staying there until she’s bigger or … whatever.”
“Sure. Your place is closer to the station, and you’re more settled in than I am.”
“So that’s all right? Moving into my place?”
He’s studying my expression carefully, and I’m not sure why, but I smile and say, “Completely all right. Let’s go make this puppy a den.”
*
An hour later, we’re in bed, snuggled up and talking, too tired for anything else and too aware there’s a puppy whining on the floor.
“Should I move her bed downstairs?” Dalton asks.
I shake my head. “She misses her mother. She’s only been away from her, what, a night or two? You picked her up in Dawson?”
He hesitates. “Yeah, but … she came from down south.”
In other words, he hadn’t just happened to learn that someone in Dawson City was breeding Newfoundlands. I ease back onto the pillow and say, “Did you give her a name?”
“Figured that was your job. She came with one, but it doesn’t seem like a real dog name. They said it was for registering her.”
So she didn’t even come from a hobbyist breeding Newfoundlands in her backyard. He bought me a pedigree dog.
“What’s the name?” I ask.
“Uh…” He rolls over and reaches for his jeans. It’s tucked in his pocket. We don’t carry wallets in Rockton, needing neither cash nor ID. Another of those oddities that took a while to get used to.
He unfolds the paper. “Blackmoor Down’s Bohemian Rhapsody.”
“That’s a mouthful,” I say.
“Yeah. I tried Rhapsody. She didn’t respond to it. So you can call her whatever you want.”
I flip to hang over the foot of the bed and ask, “What’s your name?”
She bounces up, pawing at the bed. I pet her. “How about Storm?”
“Because she came to you in one?”
“I’ll tell everyone that, but actually I’m naming her after my favorite character in X-Men.”
“Which is the movie with the wolverine guy.”
“Comics first. I’ll get you those, so you can catch up. Storm dresses in black and has white hair.” I pat the puppy’s white ear. “We’ll have to teach her to control weather. Which would be even more useful than tracking.”
I give Storm one last pat and lie back on the bed, and she erupts in a veritable storm of despondency, crying and yowling as if she’s been abandoned in the forest while surrounded by wolves.
“Guess I shouldn’t have paid attention to her,” I say.
“She wasn’t settling anyway.”
I reach down again to pet her, and she mood swings into utter joy, complete with slobber.
“I remember this about Newfies,” I say, lifting my dripping hand. “Drool and fur. Lots of both.” I peer at Storm. “You’ll be worth it, right?”
She rolls on the floor, sending both fur and drool flying. I lean farther to rub her belly. Then I back up, and the crisis-crying starts anew. I keep retreating. She begins leaping at the foot of the bed.
“She can’t come up,” Dalton says.
“I know. Once she’s in the habit, we’re screwed.”
“Especially when we’re sharing our bed with a hundred-and-twenty-pound dog.”
“Oh, I’d regret it even with a puppy.” I reach to pat her again. “You’re adorable, baby, but no one interferes with my sex life.”
Dalton chuckles. Then he says, “Pick her up.”
“We just agreed—”
“Pick her up.”
I do, and he rolls out of bed and hoists us both into his arms.
“Impressive,” I say. “Now let’s see you do it when she’s full grown.”
He carries us downstairs and lays us on the rug in front of the fire. It’s bearskin. No head, though. If Dalton has to shoot a nuisance bear, he’ll take the pelt to find some good in a bad situation, but it’s utility rather than a trophy.
As he starts the fire, Storm sniffs the rug, gets a noseful of grizzly and starts a little dance—jump off the rug growling, do a puppy spin and then pounce back on, sniff the carpet again, jump off growling …
I’m laughing, which confuses the poor thing and only makes me laugh more, and Dalton stops what he’s doing to watch. Watch me, not the puppy, until I glance over and he busies himself with the fire again.
Once he gets it going, he grabs caribou skin blankets, and by then, Storm has decided I can sufficiently protect her from the terrifying flat predator, and she’s snuggled with me, half asleep already. Dalton slides in behind us, and I cuddle up, him on one side, a puppy on the other, and I fall asleep thinking—not of Nicole or the cave—but simply, This is perfect.