This time, though, when Joanna tried to return him to her shirt, Lucky was in no mood to be locked back up. He had slept long enough. He was ready to be up and exploring-or chewing. Reluctant to let him loose in the Blazer while she drove, Joanna finally emptied the contents out of one of the plastic carrying cases she used to hold equipment.
She moved the plastic carton to the front seat and put Lucky inside that. Standing on his hind legs, he was tall enough to peek out over the edge, but not quite tall enough to scramble out.
It was only as Joanna pulled out of the retirement center’s parking lot that she realized she had failed to mention anything
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at all to Butch about bringing home a puppy. Now, as she headed home, she wished she had given her husband some advance warning.
“Well, sport,” she said aloud to Lucky, “you’ll probably go over like a pregnant pole-vaulter.”
Which immediately brought her to another problem, one she’d been deliberately dodging all day long. Was she or wasn’t she? For someone whose menstrual cycles were as regular as clockwork, Joanna Brady was now a whole week late. She hadn’t worried about it much for the first couple of days. After all, she was on the Pill, wasn’t she? She took one of those every morning right along with the vitamins Butch dished out. But a whole week?
Joanna and Butch had discussed having a child someday, but they had both agreed that now was too soon. They had wanted time to settle into being a married couple. So why exactly had Joanna waited this long to tell him about her suspicions? Was it because she wanted to know for sure before she mentioned it, or was it because she was just a tiny bit worried about how he might react? Was Butch’s saying he wanted a baby the same as really wanting a baby? During the course of the week, Joanna had examined her own varied reactions to the possible pregnancy. She had determined that she was both scared and exhilarated. Worried and happy. Concerned and thrilled.
But what if Butch’s feelings were far more one-sided than hers? What if his reaction was totally negative? What if he turned out to be scared, worried, and concerned without being exhilarated, happy, and thrilled? Joanna wondered if she would be able to look at his face when she gave him such earth-shattering news and know what was really going on inside that thick skull of his.
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And what would Jenny think once she heard she was going to be joined by a baby brother or sister? She was thirteen and about to enter eighth grade. Joanna was afraid Jenny would be mortified when she found out. After all, what better proof could one have that her parents were actually “doing it” than being presented with the inarguable reality of a baby? Joanna knew that at thirteen she wouldn’t have wanted to see either of her parents as a sexual being, so why would Jenny? Even now, as a married adult, she found it difficult to see her mother, Eleanor, making goo-goo eyes at her relatively new husband, George Winfield.
Then, of course, Joanna had her job to think about. Butch had told her early on that if they ever did have a baby, he’d be more than happy to stay home and take care of it. His first novel remained unsold, but he was convinced he could work on a second or third and look after a baby at the same time. Joanna had to acknowledge that Butch was a pretty capable guy. It was more than likely that he’d do a great job of being a stay-at-home father to a newborn. After all, he had negotiated the dicey minefield of stepparenting Jenny with little apparent difficulty. Still, Joanna remembered what it had been like having a newborn baby in the house. She wondered if Butch had a realistic idea of the nitty-gritty involved.
And what about the people of Cochise County, the ones who had elected Joanna three and a half years ago? Would they go for having a sheriff whose newborn baby was being cared for by a stay-at-home father? Outside the metropolitan areas, Arizona voters were a pretty staid and conservative bunch. Could they be persuaded to vote for a sheriff’s candidate who was already four or five months pregnant on election day?
What if she kept it quiet? Wouldn’t it be dishonest to get herself elected without telling her constituents what was really going on? Didn’t the 52
voters have the right to know a candidate was pregnant before they marked their ballots one way or the other? Election rules obliged Joanna to fill out any number of financial disclosure forms. Shouldn’t she also be obliged to disclose this?
Lost in thought, Joanna turned off Highway 80 onto High Lonesome Road. Then, without thinking, she automatically turned into the driveway that led to High Lonesome Ranch—the old driveway to the old house, the one where she used to live, rather than the new driveway a mile up the road that led to the new house on what had once been Clayton Rhodes’s place. Joanna Brady and Butch Dixon’s new rammed-earth house had been completed two months earlier. They had lived in it now for almost a month and a half. It was a sign of how distracted Joanna was that she made the wrong turn.
You’d better get a grip, she told herself sternly.
Their old house had a detached garage. The new one had attached garages-two of them, his and hers. Joanna could open the garage door with a wireless remote control and then walk from the car into the laundry room without ever having to set foot outside.
Butch had installed a weapons safe next to the laundry room door so she could remove her two Clocks and put them away without bringing them into the house proper. Butch had designed the whole project, down to the tiniest detail. Every part of it had been done with utter practicality and convenience in mind.
And with a new puppy around, Joanna thought as she took the time to remove her weapons, it’s a good thing we have mostly Saltillo tile on the floors rather than carpet.
Prepared for the worst, she went back to the Blazer, retrieved the puppy-laden carton, and headed into the house. Butch sat at the kitchen counter, laboring over his laptop.
There was an
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office in the house—a spacious, nicely furnished office off the dining room, but that was used mostly as Joanna’s at-home office. Butch preferred to work in the kitchen, where he could write and keep tabs on the laundry and the progress of dinner at the same time.
He looked up from the screen when she came in. “What’s this?” he asked, spying the carton. “Surely you didn’t bring home more work to do-” He broke off in mid sentence when Lucky poked his tiny black nose up over the edge of the box. Butch’s jaw dropped.
“Don’t tell me you brought home a puppy!”
“I couldn’t help it,” Joanna explained quickly. “The woman who was murdered had a whole bunch of dogs, including Lucky’s mother …”
“You’ve already named him?” Butch asked. “That sounds a whole lot like we’re keeping him.”
“Lucky’s the only survivor—the other dogs all died, Butch,” Joanna told him. “They were locked in an overheated mobile home with Carol Mossman. We think the heat did them in.”
“Which is why he’s Lucky, I suppose,” Butch said, reaching out and lifting the squirming black fuzz of a dog out of the box.
“By the way, where’s Tigger?” Joanna asked, suddenly worried how their resident half pit-bull, half golden retriever mutt might react to the interloper’s presence.
“In Jenny’s room,” Butch replied, stroking the puppy’s ears. “She has tennis in the morning, so she and Tigger went to bed early. Has this little guy eaten, by the way?”
“Not recently,” Joanna answered. “He had some milk earlier this afternoon.”
“We’re a bit shy on Puppy Chow at the moment,” Butch said. “And he’s way too little for Dog Chow, so let’s see what we can do.”