One Funeral (No Weddings #2)(58)

“Well, you’re carrying a dog at the moment, but yeah. I also stopped by Lila’s and grabbed some sandwiches.” He held up the white paper bag in his hand. “Thought we’d do a picnic in the park.”

I blinked, absorbing all that information. “You walked from the pet store, to Lila’s, to my shop?”

He snatched the puppy from me and put it on the ground. “No, silly. The pet store employee gave me a ride. Part of that forty-dollar tip.”

The puppy bounded ahead, tugging us along the sidewalk, until a weed with a yellow flower growing up through a crack caught her interest. When we continued walking, the leash snapped taut, yanking Cade to a stop. We turned to find her plopped in front of the weed, snapping her jaws at the top of it.

I picked her up before she ate the thing, scolding her with loving tones while I buried my nose into her neck. “That’s yucky, Dog. Might have pesticides on it.”

Cade scowled. “You can’t go calling the poor thing ‘Dog.’”

We crossed the street at the corner, and I put her down in the grass once we reached the other side. She tore off running in every direction, stopping when the leash yanked her short, then circling around in the perimeter she’d been given, tangling the leash up in our legs as we walked.

“So we’re naming borrowed dogs now?”

“Pretend like we’re on a Big Sister outing. You don’t borrow those kids. You mentor them. Spend time with them. Hope that for the small amount of time you’ve been granted in each other’s lives, both of you gain valuable memories from the experience. You don’t go calling them ‘Kid.’”

I snorted. “Of course not. But they already have names.”

Cade found a dry patch of grass in the dappled shade of an oak tree fresh with green leaves, and we sat down. “Well, I think we should name her. For the few hours we have her, we are not calling her ‘Dog.’”

The moment Cade opened the bag, making its paper crinkle, the puppy abandoned chasing grasshoppers and ran over to investigate, toppling into Cade’s lap, paws everywhere. Laughing, Cade held the bag above the reach of her little snapping jaws. He pulled out an iced tea, stabbed a straw through the top of it, and handed it to me. Then he unwrapped my croissant halfway and handed me the paper-covered portion before doing the same with his.

When he put the bag beside him on the lawn, the puppy alerted on the crinkling sound again and scrambled out of Cade’s lap, chasing it. I took small bites of my sandwich, watching the little one’s adventure in trying to capture the bag while the breeze tugged it away inches at a time.

“Mmm, Lila makes a killer chicken salad croissant.” It had shredded chicken instead of chunks, diced Granny Smith apples, and either sweetened cranberries or cherries.

I took a sip of tea, watching the puppy play, when a thought struck me.

“I want to name her Ava.”

Cade glanced at the puppy, who’d finally gotten the better of the bag and caught it. But then she burrowed her head inside, and the bag one-upped the puppy by getting stuck there, refusing to dislodge. The puppy stumbled around, shaking the paper bag back and forth.

“Sure you don’t want to rethink that? Not Trouble or Einstein?”

I laughed as Cade put his big hand on her fuzzy hindquarters, ruffling her fur in rapid movements until she tipped over, the bag crunching. “Why a boy genius name? Why not Amelia? As in Earhart.”

He glanced back at me. “Was Amelia genius, or courageous?”

I smiled. “There’s brilliance in great courage.”

His expression turned serious, almost admiring, as he gazed at me, tilting his head. “Indeed, there is. Thank God for courage.”

Heat flushed into my cheeks, and overwhelmed by the intensity of his gaze, I slid my attention back toward the puppy. She’d discovered how to wriggle while digging her hind paws into the ground and freed herself from her paper prison. With a yip, she bounded up and ran back to us, tumbling into my lap this time.

“Ava was Gran’s name. I think she would’ve loved this little puppy. We never had any pets growing up.”

Cade’s brows rose. “Never? Not even a goldfish?” He’d admitted to me not long after we’d met that he would only commit to a goldfish because he could flush it.

I shook my head. “Not even a flushable goldfish. When my mom died and then Granpop, it was just Gran and me. And I guess I never wanted a pet.” I shrugged.

“You miss your family, don’t you?”

Fingering the soft fur on the puppy’s ear as she curled into a ball in my lap, I gazed out across the park, watching kids tossing a blue Frisbee across the lawn in a triangle formation. “I miss Gran the most. We were the closest, even when Mom and Granpop were still alive. She raised me, really. And it was like she was both my mom and my best friend.”

I finished the last bites of my sandwich as Cade lifted a dozing puppy from my lap, waking her up. In his large hands, he held her up to his face by her front shoulders and belly, the back end of her body hanging relaxed. She licked his chin. He chuckled.

“Well, I think that’s settled, then. Ava it is—named after a courageous and much-loved woman.”

Happier than I expected at the christening, I knocked into Cade with my shoulder, leaning against him. “She looks like an Ava.”