Creed's Honor by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

Becky brought him out into the waiting area, all spiffy. His coat was a lovely, dark honey shade, and when he spotted Tricia, he immediately started wagging his tail. She’d have sworn he was smiling at her, too.
    “See?” Becky bent to tell him. “I told you she’d come back.”
    Tricia felt a stab at those words—she was only looking after this dog temporarily, not adopting him—but when she handed over her ATM card to pay the bill, she got over the guilt in short order.
    Good heavens, what had Doc done? Performed a kidney transplant?
    Taking Valentino’s new collar and leash from her bag, Tricia got him ready to leave. While she was bending over him, he gave her a big, wet kiss.
    “Eeeew,” she fussed, but she was smiling.
    “Looks like we’re due for a change in the weather,” Becky commented, nodding her head toward the big picture window looking out over the parking lot and the street beyond. She sighed. “I guess it’s typical for this time of year. Winter will be on us before we know it.”
    Tricia had noticed the dark clouds rolling in to cover the blue, but she hadn’t really registered that there was a storm approaching. She’d been thinking about Valentino, and Hunter’s text message—and Conner Creed.
    “Let’s hope the snow holds off until after the big rummage sale and the chili feed,” Tricia said, her tone deceptively breezy. If the weather was bad, the campersand RVers wouldn’t show up for that all-important final weekend of the season, and if that happened, she was going to have to dip into her savings to pay the bills.
    “Amen to that,” Becky said, but her old smile was back. She leaned down to pat Valentino’s shiny head. “Aren’t you the handsome fella, now that you’ve had a bath?” she murmured.
    A light sprinkle of rain dappled the dry gravel in the parking lot, raising an acrid scent of dust, as Tricia and Valentino hurried toward the Pathfinder. She opened the rear hatch and was about to hoist the dog inside when he leaped up there on his own, nimble as could be. “You are pretty handsome,” Tricia told him, once she’d gotten behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. She’d just buckled her seat belt when the drizzle suddenly turned into a downpour so intense that the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up, even on their fastest setting.
    Thunder boomed, directly over their heads, it seemed, and Valentino gave a frightened yelp.
    “We’re safe, buddy,” Tricia said gently, looking back over one shoulder.
    The dog stood with his muzzle resting on the top of the backseat, looking bravely pathetic.
    “Now, now,” she murmured, in her most soothing voice, “you’re going to be fine, I promise. We’re just going to sit right here in the parking lot until the storm lets up a little, and then we’ll go back to the office and you can eat and drink out of your new bowls and sleep on your new bed and play with your new blue chicken—”
    Tricia McCall, said the voice of reason, you are definitely losing it.
    Another crash of thunder seemed to roll down out of the foothills like a giant ball, and that was it for Valentino. He sprang over the backseat, squirmed over the console and landed squarely in Tricia’s lap, whining and trembling and trying to lick her face again.
    That was the bad news. The good news was that even though there was more thunder, and a few flashes of lightning to add a touch of Old Testament drama, the rain stopped coming down so hard.
    After gently shifting Valentino off her thighs and onto the passenger seat, Tricia put the SUV in gear and went slowly, carefully on her way.
    Valentino, panicked before, sat stalwartly now, probably glad to be up front with Tricia instead of all alone in the back.
    “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” she asked the dog, as they crept along the rainy streets with the other traffic.
    Valentino made that whining sound again, low in his throat.
    “I’ll take that as a no,” Tricia