Chapter 5
Outside the Good Eats cafe, Mel turned her face to the rays of the morning sun, appreciating its wane new warmth tingling on her skin. With temperatures already inching above the freezing mark, the day promised to be a relatively mild one. The mountains of plowed snow were starting to mutate at their edges into slush and puddles, indicating that the icy grip of winter was beginning to loosen as the seasons inexorably cycled through their change. Winter had a few nasty last gasps left in it, she was sure (it always did), but spring was undeniably on its way.
Where to now?
Home, she supposed. Somehow she would have to find a way to deal with everything, a way to manage, a way to cope.
Somehow.
Running from herself simply wasn't possible.
And it was pointless masochism to mourn for what could never have been anyway.
The trick would be in forcing herself to keep busy, forcing herself to stay focused on other things.
"Piece of cake."
"No, thank you."
She'd go home, try to get a decent night's sleep, then worry about destroying all of Cole's electronic and computer stuff and distributing it in bits and pieces in dumpsters and trash bins all over the City. Then she'd see a realtor, arrange to have a garage sale, make appointments with her lawyer, her banker, her broker, her financial advisor...
It all seemed so hopelessly overwhelming, hardly worth the effort it would take.
She'd have to get herself organized as never before, decide what to do with her life and where she wanted to go, make lists...
Then, of course, there was still Vic and his broken heart (and her guilt over that!) and his endless probing investigative questions to contend with.
Great. Was there any reason why she shouldn't just put a gun to her head right now? Outside of not even owning a gun, that is?
And ... Oh, God. Jess and Ewan were flying in for their promised visit at the end of the week. With everything else, it had completely slipped her mind.
Double damn! She dearly wanted to see Jess again, but the timing here was so incredibly lousy and she simply wasn't up for it. Truth be told, all she really wanted to do was put herself to bed in a drunken coma and pull the blankets up over her head for at least a solid month.
Preferably longer.
Maybe she'd just call and postpone, make up some sort of excuse...
No. Jess' taste in men not withstanding, she was a bright gal and would likely see right through any dumb excuse she could come up with. She usually did. And she was still smugly razzing her about there only being a single bed in the hotel room she and Cole had shared in London.
And the two of them had postponed coming twice already...
But how was she supposed to explain the condition of the Watchfire? What should she say when they asked where Cole was and what happened? How...
She closed her eyes and drew in a deep but unsteady breath, then slowly exhaled, seeking to find a measure of increasingly elusive calm.
Baby steps, she told herself. Itty-bitty baby steps. Only one thing at a time and first things first.
She had a long and tedious drive ahead of her to get back to Chicago – probably at least nine or ten hours – and it was best she get started. With any luck, if she left now she could be home by six or seven. With even greater luck, she just might be able to come to a few decisions along the way, figure out exactly how to handle Vic and what she should do about the upcoming British invasion.
But she'd never considered herself to be particularly lucky.
Boisterous activity in the window of the Dinosaur Feathers pet shop next door caught Mel's attention as her thoughts uneasily settled and she gave a last glance around, but reflections off of the glass made it impossible for her to tell what was doing it from her angle.
After a brief moment's hesitation, curiosity won out and she walked over to take a look.
Aww! She should've known. Puppies!
Immediately the fur balls forgot their doggie wrestling matches and came bounding over to the glass to greet her, tails wagging their chubby little rumps so hard that they kept loosing their balance and falling over. Clambering over each other, the five of them vied for which could slobber the store's plate glass the most with shiny wet noses and eagerly slurping pink tongues.
The hand-lettered sign taped to the inside of the window read:
Just In! THE ONLY LOVE YOU CAN BUY!
Adorable, Locally-Bred
SCHNOODLE PUPPIES
(Miniature Schnauzer x Miniature Poodle breed cross)
Health Absolutely and Unconditionally Guaranteed!
We NEVER do business with puppy mills!
And heart-melting adorable they certainly were. She could get herself the love, loyalty and companionship of a cute little pooch, have an always sympathetic, non-judgmental ear to share her confidences with and unburden her fears and sorrows to; have a warm, furry body to share her bed and hug and snuggle with through the endless empty, lonely nights that stretched out ahead.
"Do you have dogs where you come from?"
She didn't have to be alone. She could obtain true, unconditional love on a leash.
"Yes. Something very similar. They don't have fur, and they don't have legs or teeth, but they do sound very much the same."
It was such an achingly tempting idea, especially with that appealing little apricot-colored one with the pink collar and the soulful shoe-button eyes, but...
What the hell was she thinking?
It was a bad idea. A very bad idea.
Dogs must be housebroken and taken for walks several times a day without fail, rain or shine. They have to be trained and regularly groomed and brought to the vet for shots and worming and fixing'. They bark and they drool and they piddle on the carpets and, if given half a chance, they raid the garbage can and drink out of the toilet bowl. They eat your best shoes and they chase after cars and they bite the mailman.
Everything about her life was a totaled wreck right now – and she was the totaled wreckage helplessly marooned at the center of it – with far too many messes, loose ends, unanswered (unanswerable?) questions, plus a numbing host of multiplying fears and problems she was still shying away from fully looking in the eye. And she simply couldn't handle yet another set of problems or even attempt to manage the responsibility for anyone or anything other than herself. Not even a puppy.
She sighed. There's always a price for love, but this was one she thankfully didn't have to pay. This was one love she could bring herself to just walk away from without remorse or regret.
She looked into those soulful shoe-button eyes.
Well, maybe with only a little.
The puppies seemed to sense that she'd made her decision and one by one gave up on trying to charm her, the apricot-colored one the last to reluctantly do so, finally resuming their doggie wrestling matches.
Time to start heading home, she mumbled to herself as she turned away. Then she stopped, turning back to look beyond the playful puppies into the store itself.
The slender silhouette of a lone figure could be seen moving about.
The young woman from the cafe's take out counter.