The Dog Who Came for Christmas by Sue Pethick

Author:Sue Pethick [Pethick, Sue]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2017-08-07T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

Renee rolled over in bed the next morning and picked up her phone: seven missed calls since last night and two messages, all of them from Travis. She set it back down on the nightstand and stared at the ceiling.

I won’t talk to him. I can’t—not now. Not until I know what to do. She’d been thinking all night about what Marissa Daniels had said, trying to decide what exactly had upset her so much that she’d felt she had to leave. It wasn’t just that the Diehl Foundation’s program was aiming to medicate the children—Renee knew that some kids needed, and were helped by, their meds—it was that everyone involved had lied about it, even when they knew she had objections. Either Hank and Mrs. Dalton had been instructed to lie, or they didn’t know they were lying because Travis had lied to them. And if he’d do that, how could she ever trust him to tell the truth to her?

The phone buzzed again. Renee glanced at the caller ID and checked the time; Travis was getting an early start. When the buzzing stopped, she threw her legs over the side of the bed and walked into the bathroom. She wasn’t going to sit there all day, jumping like a flea whenever she got a call. In two days, Jack and his family would be showing up, and she had plenty of things to keep herself busy until then. If she left her phone at home, she might even have an hour or two without being reminded of Travis Diehl.

She took a shower and got ready to go before heading down the hall to eat breakfast. Her father was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee when she walked in.

“Eggs and sausage on the stove if you want it.”

“No thanks.”

She opened the refrigerator and took out the milk, noting the level on the side.

“How was the awards show?” he said. “Sounded like you came back early.”

“My last client ran late. I was too tired to stay for the whole thing.”

“Mmm.”

She poured herself a bowl of Cheerios and ate it standing up.

“I’m heading down to the store after breakfast. We’re almost out of milk, and we’ll need stuff for lunches. I still haven’t gotten a turkey for Christmas dinner, either, and I know there are some things that Megan feeds the girls that we don’t have on hand.”

Wendell snorted.

“When I was a kid, you ate what you were served at someone else’s house.”

“Yes, but that was back when dirt was young,” she said. “Besides, the last thing I want to do is alienate my sister-in-law the second she walks through the door. I’m hoping this visit will be a chance to start over.”

Renee gave him a significant look, the unspoken message being that she did not want a repeat of the outburst that had caused their families’ thirteen-month estrangement, but her father was refusing to look at her. She decided not to push it. Whether or not he’d admit it, Wendell knew he’d been in the wrong.

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