“Good arm,” Morgan commented.
“I’ve been doing this almost nonstop for two years, as soon as she got big enough to get the ball in her mouth.”
Tricks caught the ball on the second bounce and brought it back for a replay, dropping it at Bo’s feet and racing off. “Cheater,” Bo said, bending down to retrieve the ball. She threw it over Tricks’s head, but this time it was caught on the first bounce. Tricks stopped, posed, and Bo said, “Good catch!” in an admiring tone. One tail wag, and they did it all over again.
Then Tricks took the ball to Morgan, dropped it beside his chair.
Bo started to go after it, but he leaned down and got the ball, gave it a sidearm toss. He got good distance on it—too good, because it rolled to a stop before Tricks could get there. The dog gave him a disgusted look and took the ball back to Bo.
She had to laugh. “You failed the ball-throwing test,” she said.
He scowled. “It was a good throw.”
“It went too far. She likes to catch it on the bounce.”
“She told you that, huh?”
The mild skepticism in his tone put her back up a little. “Watch her. A two-bounce catch is acceptable, but she likes the one-bounce catches. She’ll stop, pose, and wait until I praise her. She gave you the honor of throwing her ball and you failed.”
He snorted.
Bo threw the ball, and Tricks caught it on the second bounce. She brought it back, dropped it, took off again. Bo picked it up and heaved it over her head. It was a one-bouncer, and as soon as Tricks caught it, she froze in a proud, head-high pose. Bo let her hold the position for a few heartbeats before she said, “Beautiful catch!” Tricks acknowledged the praise with a quick tail wag, and brought the ball back.
Bo laughed. “I don’t know if I’ve trained her or she’s trained me, but I’ve learned not to underestimate her ego, vanity, persistence, or intelligence. She’d be a pain in the butt if she wasn’t so happy and loving.”
He just shook his head. He looked as if he thought Tricks was a pain in the butt regardless of how happy she was, but so what? Tricks would be here long after he was gone.
“She’s two years old, then?”
“About two and a half, now. She was originally bought—and registered—by old Mrs. Carmichael. I couldn’t have afforded her. But about two weeks after Mrs. Carmichael got her, the old lady had a heart attack on the way to visit a friend and crashed the car. Tricks was with her, in a travel crate, thank God. Mrs. Carmichael died from the heart attack.” Bo watched as Tricks sniffed around, found a suitable place, and finally deigned to empty her bladder. “The puppy was terrified and trembling. I took her with me to the station while Mrs. Carmichael’s son was notified and just held her in my arms. Then it turned out Mrs. Carmichael’s son didn’t want her and told me to give her away to anyone who wanted her.”
“That would be you.”
“Yes, indeed,” Bo said ruefully. “I didn’t know anything about puppies, I’d never had a pet, but by then I’d been holding her for a few hours and I suppose she’d imprinted on me. The son went to his mother’s house and gathered up all Tricks’s food and toys and brought them to me. He was sleepwalking from shock, but he knew his wife didn’t want a dog. I brought Tricks and all her stuff home with me and did some panicked research on how to take care of a puppy. She was still terrified, in a new place, and wouldn’t stop shaking unless I held her. When I put her in her little crate that night, she cried. It broke my heart. So I got her out and let her sleep curled against me. That was that.”
“Pushover.” His mouth quirked with humor.
“You think you could have resisted a little ball of white fur? She looked like a baby’s stuffed animal, or a cotton ball with big feet.” A demonic cotton ball, at that. The first year had been hell on wheels until Tricks decided she had to defer to the human who controlled the food.
“We always had pets when I was growing up,” he said, which didn’t really answer the question. Then he shrugged. “Now, I’m not at home enough to take care of a cactus.”
“Didn’t you say you’re from Florida?” She thought he had, but she’d had other things on her mind that afternoon.
“Yeah. What about you? That isn’t a West Virginia accent.”
“All over. I was born in Arizona, but I don’t remember it. Mom moved a lot.” And married a lot, hence the moving. Morgan was good, spotting the difference between her accent and Jesse’s. Over the years, she thought her speech had modified. In the rare instances when her mother got in touch—both times—she’d said something about how “hick” Bo sounded now. Maybe the accent was a good mother-repellent because she hadn’t heard from Rebecca in a few years now. She loved her mother, but she loved her best at a distance.
“How long have you been here?”
“Seven years.”
That seemed to dry up their small talk for a while. He sat quietly in the sun, looking at the greening grass, the budding trees. Whatever he did for a living was obviously hazardous, so Bo guessed he wasn’t accustomed to either the quiet of country living or his current state of inactivity. She threw the ball some more for Tricks, who joyously retrieved for a good forty-five minutes before going to the bowl of water Bo kept outside, getting a good drink, then flopping down on the concrete to pant and bat the tennis ball back and forth with a paw.
After watching Tricks for a minute, Bo said, “You must be getting a little bored.”