A Very Special Delivery. Brenda Harlen

just light flurries now,” he noted. “Nothing like what we had yesterday.”

      “Everything looks so pretty, covered in a pristine blanket of snow.”

      “Take a look out the back,” he suggested. “It’s not quite so pristine out there.”

      She carried Caden to the window at the back of the room, noted that the snow there had been thoroughly—almost desperately—trampled. And then she spotted the culprit. Einstein, Lukas’s puppy, was racing around as if being chased by the hounds of hell. He had his nose down and was using it like a shovel to tunnel through the cold white stuff and then, when he’d pushed enough to form a mound, he’d attack it.

      She chuckled. “What is he doing?”

      “I have no idea,” Lukas admitted. “He has no idea.”

      “It’s his first snow,” she guessed.

      “Yeah. He’s been out there for half an hour and every few minutes, he spins in a circle and barks at it.”

      “Pets are a lot like kids, aren’t they?” she mused. “They give you a fresh perspective on things we so often take for granted.”

      “Some of them,” he agreed. “Daphne’s perspective is neither sociable nor very sunny.”

      She laughed again. “Considering I haven’t seen more of her than a flick of her tail, I can’t disagree with that.”

      “She ventured downstairs last night to sleep by the fire, but I’m sure it wasn’t for company but only warmth.”

      “It was warm,” Julie agreed. “I even threw the blanket off a couple of times in the night.”