Page 14 of Will Bark for Pizza (Bluebell Springs #1)

ELEVEN

KIRA

“Husker, stop stealing my asparagus!” Grandma Connie scolded—not that she meant it. And Husker knew it, as evidenced by the way he trotted off with the stalk he pilfered from her picked pile and lay down in the grass to munch away on his treasure.

I didn’t bother intervening. What was the point? That dog didn’t listen to a damn thing I had to say when Grandma Connie was around.

“All that dog hears is free treats ,” Grandpa chimed in, plucking weeds from the vegetable garden with a hoe.

God, it was good to be back.

After the iced coffee incident, I decided it might be best to secure my room at the farm—and another shower. Dad would be over tonight for the weekly family dinner, and I could talk to him then. We’d go for a walk around the property, away from distractions and my nosy brothers.

“When did you get the new Jeep?” Grandma Connie asked, tossing a few more stalks of asparagus into her bucket.

“Last winter.”

“Looks expensive,” Grandpa said.

I tensed, ready to defend my frivolous purchase.

My family knew I wrote books, but they didn’t know under what name.

Because I wrote paranormal romance, no one pressed me too hard for information.

I was okay with that. But I still felt awkward admitting those books afforded me a very comfortable life, as though I somehow found a glitch in the matrix and happened upon success I didn’t quite deserve.

“Get off her back, Dale,” Grandma Connie said. “Means the girl is doing well. I’m proud of you, honey.”

“Thank you.” The compliment felt like a warm hug I didn’t know I needed.

I was embarrassed that I thought my family would be so upset with me that I wouldn’t be welcome home.

I was so over being afraid of worst-case scenarios.

I wondered if that fear would ever go away. “I can take you for a ride later?”

“Ride?” Grandma Connie shook her head. “I want to drive it.”

“What do you know about driving a Jeep?” Grandpa asked her.

“More than you’re giving me credit for.”

“If she drives your Jeep into the lake, don’t come crying to me,” Grandpa said.

“What reason would I have for driving a perfectly good car into a body of water?”

“Ask me that again when Connor’s towing you out. Because it won’t be me. ”

Their back-and-forth banter was soothing. They liked to jab at one another, but it was never in malice. Their voices never raised. Their tone always hinted at playfulness. They’d send each other off with a kiss before one walked away.

For a long time, I convinced myself that was what Travis and I did.

We bantered. But when the bickering turned to all-out screaming matches, I couldn’t seem to remember how it happened.

One day everything was the storybook version of the love I always wanted.

The next, it was a special kind of hell I didn’t know how to escape.

“Kira?” Grandpa called, as though he’d said my name more than once and I missed it.

“Yeah?”

“You still writing books, then?” he asked, his tone gentler than before.

“Just published one yesterday, actually.” A non-answer was better than an outright lie. Or the truth. Because if I admitted to anyone that the words had dried up and shriveled into nothingness, they’d worry more than they already did.

“ Huh .”

Husker trotted over from his spot in the shade and sniffed around Grandma Connie’s bucket. Before I could warn him off, she tossed him an offering. He refused eye contact with me as he tracked it down.

“We should cook steaks to celebrate,” Grandma Connie suggested. “Probably too late to pull them out of the freezer for tonight. But we’ll do that before you leave. How long are you staying?”

“At least through the weekend.” I wasn’t in a hurry to head back to Omaha. Other than Lila, all that waited for me there was a writing desk void of sticky notes, an apartment I no longer enjoyed, and a bunch of bad memories. “Maybe a little while longer.”

“You have to stay longer,” Grandma Connie insisted. “The book club’s meeting next week. I know they’d love to have you.”

A heavy silence fell over the conversation. I wanted to ask, but I already tried that when I first showed up. Apparently, everyone had formed a consensus. The only person who was going to fill me in was Dad.

“Husker, don’t do it,” I called to my dog when I noticed him sizing up a chipmunk perched on top of a boulder across the yard.

I’d granted him off-the-leash privileges because I knew he wouldn’t stray far from the garden where his favorite snacks were kept.

At least not while Grandma Connie was there to schmooze.

Unless a squirrel-like creature was involved.

“Bubbies,” I said, my tone another warning.

He darted a look at me then refocused on the chipmunk.

Abandoning my weed-picking post, I reached for the leash . . . but I wasn’t fast enough. Husker sprinted after the chipmunk as though it represented the Iditarod finish line.

I held my breath as the Alaskan Husky came within inches of clipping the tail of a really pissed off chipmunk, seconds before it scampered under a giant boulder. Husker stood near the base, looking quite proud of himself as his tail wagged in earnest at my approach.

“C’mon, Bubbies,” I said, reaching for his collar .

But before I could successfully clip the leash on, his head snapped to something else entirely, and he bolted.

“This is your fault, you know,” I said to the chipmunk in hiding.

I spun on my heel, prepared to run in case he’d spotted a chicken on the loose. Connor would not be pleased if Husker terrorized one of his precious hens. But it wasn’t a chicken. It was my eight-year-old niece, Opal.

Her laughter rang out as she dropped to the ground and Husker smothered her with kisses.

“She must taste like bacon,” Grandpa said, shaking his head.

“Probably pizza,” I said.

Husker looked right at me, expectantly.

I held up my hands to show my dog I did not, in fact, have any pizza on me. His ears were extra sensitive to that word. Convinced I was telling the truth, he resumed his obsessive licking of Opal. She was the only one he willingly gave a kiss to. And I’d resorted to begging.

“Dale, why don’t you order us some pizzas for tonight?” Grandma Connie said. “I can make lasagna another night.”

“Husker, let the girl breathe,” I said.

Opal giggled some more as she pushed back to her feet and sprinted for me. She attacked me in a hug, her tiny arms wrapping around my waist and squeezing surprisingly hard for an eight-year-old. I nearly went backwards. “Aunty Kira, I’m so glad you came.”

“It’s good to see you, kiddo.”

Husker circled us a few times, until he spotted my middle brother .

“Kira?” Connor’s confusion was warranted. But at least he, the peacekeeper in our family, was bound to be nicer about my surprise visit than Luke.

“Hey, Connor.”

After Husker got all the booty scratches out of Connor he could, he returned to Opal’s side to lick one of her hands again. She giggled, and the two trotted off toward Grandma Connie and her asparagus bucket.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” Connor said, sounding almost hurt.

“I didn’t tell anyone.”

“Everything okay?”

I studied him, searching for any sign that he was still peeved with me. I’d said some hurtful things to him, too. But his eyes held only compassion.

“Want to take a walk?”

“I need to check on the chickens,” he said, his statement an invitation.

After I secured Husker to a long lead and Opal promised to keep him out of trouble, I followed my brother toward the chicken coop that stood in the middle of the two houses on the expansive property.

Aside from the rescue cow, Millie, the chickens were the only animals on the piece of land we’d all called the farm since we were kids.

And they were new, within the past few years.

It was Grandma Connie’s gigantic garden, more than anything, that gave this place the feeling of a farm.

I couldn’t remember which of us kids had started the nickname the entire family adopted.

The chickens were Emily’s idea. My late sister-in-law had designed the elaborate chicken coop that resembled a hobbit house the year before she passed, and I knew Connor would never change it.

“I’m sorry for all the terrible things I said last summer,” I said, before I lost my nerve. “I was in a bad place. It’s not an excuse. I just?—”

“Travis gone?”

“I broke up with him that night,” I admitted.

“You didn’t say anything.”

“Oh, I did.”

I gulped a swallow, feeling a fresh wave of anxiety threaten to undo me.

I was done crying over this shit. At least, I really wanted to be.

I watched as he grabbed a basket for the eggs just outside the enclosure, and then followed him as he crouched through the circular door just to navigate it.

Emily had been nearly a foot shorter than him and used to tease him about being a giant.

“I said all kinds of things. I just didn’t say any of it well.”

“I figured the breakup was a recent thing, considering the hair.”

I combed my fingers through my long hair, tucking it behind my ear.

Travis hated me as anything other than a platinum blonde.

Dyeing my hair red was the latest silent middle finger I gave him, right after he changed his number yet again and gave me another thing to block.

Not that he ever knew it. But it felt good, all the same.

“The hair was a more recent decision.”

“You’re really done with the guy?”

“I’ve been no contact for almost a year.”

It didn’t mean Travis respected that boundary.

He blew up my phone with hundreds of text messages at first, saying anything and everything to get my attention.

Eventually, I found the courage to block his number.

But he still found creative ways to bother me.

Most recently, he Venmoed me fifty dollars for my birthday.

I used it to buy a steak dinner, and then blocked him there, too.

“Are you okay?” Connor finally asked.