“It’s printed in white. M-U-N-R-O.”
Parker took a look, pulling the collar out of the dog’s hair. “Yep. Munro.” He petted the dog.
“Who told you his name?” Marilee asked.
“Mun-ro told me,” Willie Lee said practically, stroking the dog.
“Did he tell you if he has had his shots?” Parker wanted to know, giving Marilee a wink.
Willie Lee looked at the dog and then said, “He does not want shots.”
They all chuckled. Marilee looked closer at the dog, who smiled happily back at her. She had to admit the name fit him perfectly.
The sheriff and friends and neighbors and Marilee’s mother had been alerted that the crisis was over, and Willie Lee had been returned home safe and sound. Vella, who had made a majority of the telephone calls, left to go to her Rose Club organizational meeting. Now that all was safe and sound, she was in a hurry, backing her Crown Victoria with racing speed.
Tate Holloway decided he would walk home on the sidewalk. “Think I’ll see a bit more of the neighborhood,” he said.
Parker went with Marilee to see their new neighbor out the front door. It occurred to Marilee that in all the years she had worked for Ms. Porter and lived just beyond the rose-lined fence from the big Porter home, the woman had never even once visited her home. Here, in the first hours of his arrival, Tate Holloway had not only visited, he had returned her beloved son and eaten a celebration meal with them.
Streetlights were on now, sending their silvery glow up and down the street and casting shadows into yards.
“Thank you for the delightful meal,” Tate Holloway said, stopping at the foot of the steps and turning to look upward at Marilee and Parker on the edge of the porch. “And for this fine fare for Bubba,” he added, lifting the plastic bag containing the leftover chicken pieces.
Marilee said, “Thank you, Mr. Holloway, for returning Willie Lee.”
Tate Holloway grinned. “Well, now, I think it would be more accurate to say that Willie Lee led me over here.”
He gazed at her with that grin.
“And I’d prefer it, Miss Marilee, if you would call me Tate,” he said in his deep, slow East Texas drawl.
His eyes that seemed to twinkle, even at this distance, rested on her. There was a contagious inner delight in Tate Holloway.
“All right. Tate. I’m glad to meet you.”
“I’m glad to know you, Marilee James, and your family. I won’t be a stranger…you can count on that.”
Marilee gazed down at the tall man who grinned up at her, until Parker slipped his arm around her and said, “We are sure grateful for you bringing Willie Lee home, Tate.”
Tate’s eyes shifted to Parker. “Ah…yes, well, sir…I’m just glad things turned out so fine. Good night.” With another glance at Marilee and a wave of the little bag of chicken, he was off down the walkway.
Marilee’s eyes followed, seeing that his fine, white-blond hair caught the light and shone like sun-warmed silk, and that his shoulders were strong, his torso lean, and his strides long, in the way of a man who is all muscle and purpose.
Then Parker was turning her from the sight. They walked back into the house with his arm around her shoulders. Just inside the closed door, in the dimness, he drew her to him and kissed her.
“Your Willie Lee came home safe and sound, just like I said,” he reminded her.
“Thank you for being here, Parker.” She was very grateful.
He pulled her against him and kissed her neck. She felt him wanting a lot more, but she could not give any thought to it right now. She was too busy clutching to her what she had feared she had lost. There was no energy left at this moment to consider her relationship with Parker.
She tucked Corrine and Willie Lee into bed.
“Honey, we will have to run an announcement in the paper about finding Munro,” she told Willie Lee, taking off his glasses and setting them on the night table.
“He is my dog now.” He put his hand on the dog, who lay beside him.
“He has a collar with his name on it. That means someone bought it for him. Someone who cares for him. What if you had lost him? Wouldn’t you want whoever found him to do their best to get him back to you?”
Willie Lee frowned, and his lower lip quivered. “Munro found me. I did not find-ed him.”
“We will run an ad in the paper for two weeks. That is the right thing to do, the most we can do.”
Willie Lee turned on his side and clutched the dog to him.
Marilee kissed him and considered not running the ad. Maybe just the Sunday paper.
She kissed Corrine and turned out the light, then went to the kitchen to prepare the coffeemaker for the morning. She thought it a wise course to tone down the strength of the brew that Corrine made. Maybe lessening her caffeine intake would help her nerves, which seemed so on edge these days.
At the moment of stretching her hand to the light switch, her eye came to rest on Willie Lee’s picture book lying on the edge of the table. The book he’d had that morning, when he had been trying to show her the picture of the dog.
She took it up and thumbed through the pages, until she came to the one with the dog picture that jumped right out at her.
She scanned the print below, which was a description of the dog. An Australian Shepherd, it said, bred for herding sheep. The dog in the picture had his tail bobbed. Marilee had seen similar dogs in the rural areas.
Taking the book, she went to the open door of the children’s room, where the dog lay on the rug beside Willie Lee’s bed. The dog opened his eyes and looked at her. His tail thumped.
In the dim light cast from the bathroom, Marilee consulted the book, then looked again at the dog.
She would check again in the clear light of day, she thought. So many wild things could occur to a person in the night and be cleared up in the light of day.
When the morning came, Marilee found that Munro did look remarkably like the dog in the picture book, although, he was darker.
Her eyes followed the dog and her son walking through the kitchen. No matter the dog’s appearance, she thought, her son had asked for a dog and been given one. She wondered what she would ask for…and wished she could believe it would be given.
Five
The Beauty of the World
It was bare first light of his first full day in his new town when Tate, dressed in brand-new, grey sweatpants, brand-new, bright-white T-shirt with the words Just Do It emblazoned on the front, and brand-new top-of-the-line jogging shoes, came out on his very own front porch.
Tate had jogged intermittently off and on for years, and had profited from it, too, but now he wanted to really make it routine. He was in the prime of his life and wanted to honor that by making the most of himself physically and mentally. That was the spirit!
Stretching his arms wide, he sucked in a deep breath. Ahh! The brisk morning, quite different from the heavily humid air of Houston.
He jogged down the steps and out to the sidewalk of the quiet street. As he turned along Porter Street, in the direction of Marilee James’s house, the yellow cat, Bubba, streaked out from beneath a lilac bush and joined him, bouncing along behind Tate, looking like an orange basketball with a tail.
Tate wanted to see Marilee’s house clearly in the light of day. He wondered if she was an early riser.
He had a sudden fantasy of her being