For Keeps Read online

  Lyn thought that was the saddest thing she had ever heard.

  Perhaps it was selfish, but comforting her sister made it easier for Lyn to deal with her own pain. It was hard to feel sorry for oneself when someone else needed you... which was exactly what Casey had tried to teach her when he first insisted that she come to work for him.

  But the bad dreams didn't go away, and when she awoke at night gasping and shaking there was no one there to comfort her.

  Lyn devoted herself, in the two weeks that remained to her in Florida, to working with Rabbit. She brushed him, she walked him, she bribed him with treats to come when he was called; she took him on pet-sitting jobs and to the bank and to the grocery store, until he became so familiar with the routine that when he saw Lyn pick up her purse he would run to the car and wait to be let into the back seat. She spent every spare moment working with him, thinking up little tricks for him to do and then teaching him, through long hours of patient repetition, to execute the simplest of them. It was a form of therapy—for her, for the dog, and for Pat, who, after the first shocked protests, had not only begun to accept Rabbit's presence in her home, but actually liked him.

  Rabbit's favorite game was hide-and-seek. With the command "Find Pat!" the dog would scurry through the house and yard, sniffing the ground, checking closets and behind draperies and under the furniture until he found whatever ingenious hiding place Pat had come up with, and helped himself to the dog biscuit that was invariably in her hand.

  After one such exercise Pat commented, "That dog is smarter than most people, you know that? How many more tricks are you going to teach him?"

  Lyn shrugged. "He's really not all that smart. He still runs away when you take the leash off and he growls at the postman and cowers in traffic. He's got to do better than that before anybody'll want to adopt him."

  "Like what?" Pat insisted incredulously. "Look at him! He brings in the paper and carries packages and finds things that are lost. And that cute thing you taught him where he barks when you whistle..."

  "I didn't teach him that," Lyn pointed out uncomfortably. "He just does it. He's supposed to come when I whistle."

  "Well, it's still cute. And I've never seen a happier dog! Anyone would be glad to have him—what more do you want from him?"

  Lyn hesitated, watching Rabbit as he slipped a paw between the frame and the screen door, widening the opening, and then squeezed inside, trotting across the tile floor of the family room and settling down to rest in his favorite cool spot. He had put on ten pounds since she had had him, his coat was glossy and his eyes were bright. His ears pricked up whenever he heard his name, and he spent most of his waking hours at Lyn's side, eagerly waiting for the next job to do or the next game to play.

  He was a far, far different dog than the one she had found tied to a tree with only a few hours to live, and she had made the difference.

  "Casey said it couldn't be done," she murmured.

  Pat looked at her, puzzled, "What?"

  But Lyn did not respond, a little confused by the newness of what she was thinking. Casey had said Rabbit was untrainable, worthless, and he was the expert. But Casey had been wrong. What else had he been wrong about?

  "Besides," Pat added in the most casual of tones, following Rabbit inside, "you don't have to look for anyone to adopt him. He's got a home, right here."

  Lyn stared at her. "But—he leaves muddy paw prints on the floor and brings fleas in the house and gets dog hair all over your sofa. You said you didn't want a dog."

  Pat shrugged. "I changed my mind. I want this one. And if you're sure you can't take him to Philadelphia with you, then I think he should stay here with me."

  Lyn heard herself replying, "I don't think I want to leave him behind."

  "Well, I don't think you should, either, but you told me your building doesn't allow dogs, and with the hours you'll be working you won't have much time for him..."

  Lyn said abruptly, "I'm going to make some popcorn. You want some?"

  She went into the kitchen without waiting for a reply.

  For two weeks Lyn had thrown herself into the demands of the moment so completely that she had lost track, not only of the time, but of what she was working toward. She thought she had just been tying up loose ends so she could leave with a clear conscience, but in some ways, without her even being aware of it, she was building a whole new life.

  All she had wanted to do was to smooth out some of Rabbit's rough edges so that he would be adoptable; in two short weeks she had done as professional a job with him as Casey could have—perhaps better—without even realizing until this moment that she didn't want to put him up for adoption. She had stayed to comfort her sister, to take some of the burden of the business off her while she recovered from her broken heart... only Pat's heart wasn't really broken. She had made her own choice of her own free will and, after the first few days, she had not needed Lyn's comfort. It was Lyn who had needed Pat, to make her feel useful, to keep her busy... to give her an excuse to stay.

  She was supposed to report to the Philadelphia office Monday, and this was Friday. She hadn't even packed her bags yet, and it would be a two-day drive at best. She had been so busy trying to avoid the fact that she would have to leave soon that she hadn't even realized time was running out.

  She dreaded going back. Casey didn't want her, Pat didn't need her, and there was no reason for her to stay. There was every reason for her to go. But she had never dreaded anything so much in her life as the thought of the wonderful opportunities that awaited her in Philadelphia.

  She brought a bowl of popcorn and two wine coolers into the living room, where Pat was lounging on the sofa, watching the last few minutes of a game show before the evening news came on. Lyn handed her one of the bottled coolers and sat beside her, placing the bowl of popcorn between them.

  "What a great supper," Pat said, scooping up a handful of popcorn. "I'm really going to miss you, kid. My diet hasn't taken such a beating since I was seventeen."

  "Yeah," agreed Lyn absently, drawing an abstract pattern in the condensation on the wide end of her bottle. "I'm going to miss you, too."

  Pat's smile was wistful as she reached across and squeezed Lyn's knee. "I really wish you didn't have to leave. You know, you're the only family I have left and we just don't see each other often enough. I can't tell you how great it's been having you here, even though..." And her face clouded a little. "I didn't get to spend as much time with you as I would have liked."

  She tossed a piece of popcorn to an eagerly waiting Rabbit, who snapped it out of the air and swallowed in one movement, then anxiously watched Pat for more. Pat chuckled and tossed him another piece.

  "Of course," she added, "I'm happy for you, and so proud of you—at your age, to be offered a job with that kind of responsibility. Chances like that don't come along every day, do they?"

  "No," Lyn murmured, sipping from the bottle. "I guess not." Of course, she realized slowly, it really wasn't much of a chance. Taking that job would only be doing what she was trained to do, what she was expected to do, what she had done before.

  And then Lyn said, without planning to speak out loud, "But that's not what I want to do.”

  Pat’s hand was arrested in the midst of tossing another piece of popcorn, and she turned to Lyn with surprise stamped on her face. "What?"

  "I said," Lyn repeated more clearly, wondering over the words even as she spoke them, "I don't want to take that job. I don't want to go back to Philadelphia."

  "But—for heaven's sake, Lyn, I thought you made up your mind! You're supposed to be there Monday. Why in the world did you ever agreed to take it?"

  "Because I never had a good reason not to." Lyn's hand tightened on the bottle as the answers came almost more quickly than she could assimilate them; answers to questions she had never bothered to ask herself because if she had she would have never come so close to making the biggest mistake of her life.

  "I knew I didn't want to go back fr
om the very first, I kept telling him I didn't, but it all happened so fast I never had a chance to think about what I really wanted to do. It was flattering, I guess, and a little exciting, to get the job I'd been working for for so long but I never stopped to think that maybe I wasn't the same person who had wanted that job in the first place!" She turned to her sister, relief coursing through her in waves. "So I said yes because it seemed like the right thing to do, the easy thing to do... because Casey said that was what I should do. But he was wrong," she added softly. "He was wrong."

  She set the wine cooler down on the coffee table with a thump and glanced at her watch. "I'm calling Philadelphia. Maybe there's still someone in the office."

  "Lyn, wait, don't you think you should—"

  But Lyn was finished with listening to other people tell her what to do with her life—even her sister, who loved her and wanted her to stay. Lyn was in control now, and she had made the decision.

  The familiar theme music of the six o'clock news came on as she was dialing the number, and she knew it was probably too late to reach anyone in the office. She would have to try Lois at home later. She waited impatiently for the connection to be made while Pat watched her anxiously from the sofa.

  "Good evening." The television anchorman's handsome face appeared on-screen, his voice sonorous and serious. "The search continues this evening for the last of the three men who were trapped beneath wreckage this afternoon during a construction accident at the Spring Mill mall."

  Pat turned around to watch the television. The mall was only a few miles from her house, and in a small town like Summerville, local news was very important. Lyn counted eight rings on Lois's private number with no answer. She racked her brain for another number that might be more likely to be answered.

  "... And now we go to Jeff Ringer, live at the scene."

  "Good heavens," Pat exclaimed involuntarily. "Look at that."

  Lyn glanced briefly at the television, her hand poised over the disconnect button as she tried to remember the number of the administration office. An intense young man with a microphone in his hand was standing before the pile of rubble, which had once been a thriving construction site.

  "There is good news tonight, as Lincoln Wade, the last of the three men trapped beneath the debris you see behind me, was pulled to safety only seconds ago." The camera flashed to the scene of a stretcher and busy paramedics as the narrative went on. Lyn disconnected and started to dial again, only half her attention on the television set.

  "Rescue workers, complete with dogs, have been on the scene since only a few moments after the accident occurred, as you see from this tape shot earlier in the day. The building is so unstable that, at times, efforts were called to a halt for fear for the rescuers' safety."

  Lyn stared at the screen, at the dog in the bright red harness and identifying cape picking its way carefully over the broken planks and cement blocks. "Montana!" she whispered.

  "And, although all of the trapped men have now been brought to safety, there is one sad note to this story. One of the rescue dogs who worked so remarkably all afternoon to save the trapped and injured construction workers is at this hour buried beneath a portion of a support wall that shifted during the rescue efforts. Although there are no further human casualties, this is indeed an unfortunate ending to a remarkable tale of canine heroism. Back to you in the studio."

  "Lyn!" Pat cried, leaping to her feet. "Wait! What are you—"

  But Lyn was already out the door.

  **************

  TEN

  Lyn did not even realize that Rabbit had gotten in the car with her until she opened the door and he bounded out beside her. The area in front of the shopping mall disaster was crowded with vehicles and spectators; she pushed her way past fire engines and news vans until she reached the black-and-yellow police tape barrier. And she saw Casey.

  He was standing on the other side of the barrier, arguing with a man in shirtsleeves and a hard hat. His khaki shirt was stained with patches of perspiration and dirt, his face was streaked with grime, and his hair had been molded to his head by the hard hat he now held in one hand. His muscles were tense and his gestures were angry and sharp, and though Lyn could not hear his words she could see the intensity blazing in his eyes. The sight of him took her breath away.

  Throughout the brief drive to the construction site her heart had been pounding with anxiety and fear, now it all but exploded in her chest. It had been Casey who had been working all day in the midst of this disaster, Casey who had risked his life beneath shattered girders and crumbling walls, Casey who could have been killed and she would never have known about it but for the evening news...

  She started to push toward him, but a uniformed officer caught her arm. "Sorry, ma'am, you'll have to stay behind the line."

  Lyn gestured desperately toward Casey. "I'm with him."

  Rabbit barked sharply and dashed under the barrier toward Casey. Casey looked startled when the black-and-white bundle of enthusiasm flung itself against his legs, then his head swung around sharply and his eyes fastened on Lyn's. The sudden surge of joy, of hunger and fierce, desperate welcome that she saw there went through Lyn like an electric current; magnets finding their polarity and coming together with a flash of light and power, across the throng of people and debris-strewn disaster area they found each other, and held.

  It might have been the flare of recognition on Casey's face, or it might have been the behavior of the dog, whose companions had certainly distinguished themselves in the eyes of all present today, but after a moment the officer lifted the tape for her. "You'll have to wear this," he said,

  Lyn took the hard hat he handed her and scrambled under the barrier.

  Casey wanted to run to her, to grab her up and hold her hard and never let her go. He wanted to crush her to him, to cover her mouth with a kiss that was as deep as the agony he had endured these past two weeks, to feel her against him, to smell her, to taste her, to prove to himself that she was really here. She shouldn't have been here. She should have been in Philadelphia. All this time the only thing that had kept his hand away from the telephone was thinking that she was already gone. Now she was here and his heart started beating again, his lungs started drawing air again, for what felt like the first time in two weeks. She was here and his head swam with the impact of her presence. She was running toward him and he wanted to sweep her into his arms... but he stopped himself just in time. He caught her shoulders when she was about two feet away from him, clenching his hands in a fierce grip that was only a reflection of the battle he fought inside, and the words that blazed unspoken between them were so thick they clogged the air.

  And then he said hoarsely, "What are you doing here? You're crazy to come here. It's dangerous."

  "It's Montana, isn't it?" she demanded urgently.

  Casey made himself drop her arms and turned back to the man in the hard hat. Go away, Lyn, he thought desperately. Don't do this to me, not now... "I'm going in there," he said tightly. "I'm not going to leave that animal to die."

  The other man pushed a handkerchief over his sweat-drenched face and said, with obvious difficulty, "Look, Casey, I know how you feel but... the dog is probably already dead. It's not that I don't appreciate everything you've done here today, but I can't let anybody back in here, not until we've secured this place—"

  "Then secure it!"

  "We're trying! But it's going to take time—"

  "I don't have that kind of time!"

  Suddenly Rabbit pricked up his ears and barked and, without further warning, started running toward the collapsed building.

  "Rabbit! Come back here!" Lyn lunged after him, and then stopped. There was something familiar about the prick of his ears, the enthusiastic swishing of his tail, the purposeful lowering of his head... he looked very much the way he did when he was playing hide-and-seek, and was close to finding Pat.

  Lyn gripped Casey's arm. "Look!" she exclaimed softly.

  Case
y's eyes went from the dog, who was squeezing himself between a narrow opening between two pillars, and then back to Lyn. He read the animal's body language and knew what it meant; he just couldn't, for a moment, believe it. Then he placed a firm hand on Lyn's arm, pushing her aside. "Stay here," he commanded.

  The other man shouted, "Casey, damn it!" And then, "Hey, lady, you can't—"

  Lyn ignored him, just as Casey had. She pulled the hard hat on and ran after Casey, through the shattered remnants of the doorway where Rabbit had gone.

  Casey turned angrily when he felt her presence behind her. "What are you doing? I told you to stay put!"

  Lyn replied, "I don't take orders from you anymore, Casey Carmichael. Rabbit's my dog and you don't know how he works."

  Casey was torn between astonishment, outrage and frustration.. .and need, and joy, because it was Lyn, and she was here. But he couldn't think about that now. He just couldn't. "Works? What the hell are you talking about? Lyn, get out of here before—"

  Lyn whistled sharply, and in a moment heard the muffled ruff of a reply. She gestured to the left. "He went that way, and we'd better hurry before you lose him again."

  Casey registered momentary confusion, but it was quickly replaced by adamancy. "No," he said. "I've worked this building all day, I know how dangerous it is. Now get out of here before you get hurt.''

  "No."

  "For God's sake, Lyn!" He gripped her arm, his face taut with pain and despair. "I'm not going to lose you, too!"

  She met his eyes steadily. "Damn right you're not," she said softly. "Now, let's go!"

  It was hot inside the building, and the only illumination was the dying daylight that filtered down through cracks and holes. The air was thick with cement dust and plaster, and the occasional creak of yet another failing support beam made them both freeze in place, waiting for the remainder of the building to fall down around them. For most of the time the passage was so narrow that they had to edge along in single file; finally they were forced to crawl...