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“Well, we’ll just have to fatten him up.” Cliff murmured endearments as he took the puppy from the basket and held him against his chest.

“He has to be fed every couple of hours,” she told him. “Like either of us has time for that.”

Cliff grinned, which irritated Grace even more. “Wipe that smirk off your face, Cliff Harding. I know what you’re thinking and you can stop right this minute.”

“So you’re reading my thoughts now?” Returning the puppy to his basket, he slipped his free arm around her waist as he steered her toward the house.

“You think I’m going to fall for this puppy and we’ll want to keep him ourselves. That’s not going to happen, so you can put it out of your mind.”

“Okay, I will,” he said blandly.

He was being far too agreeable, and Grace didn’t believe a word of it.

He opened the door to the mudroom off the kitchen and motioned her in ahead of him. The soft mewling continued from inside the basket. Cliff put it down to shuck off his boots.

“Bring the basket into the kitchen where it’s warm,” he said. “This little guy’s hungry.”

“Why don’t you give him the bottle while I get dinner started,” Grace suggested. The less she had to do with the puppy, the better.

“I’ll be glad to.”

Grace was grateful. She wouldn’t allow herself to feel any tenderness for this small animal. She couldn’t. Losing Buttercup had broken her heart and she refused to be vulnerable to a pet again. Refused to set herself up for the inevitable grief. As Olivia had pointed out, that was the downside of having pets—their lives were too short. Besides, an additional animal would tie her and Cliff down all the more. As it was, they had the horses. Getting away for even a weekend was difficult and required a lot of advance planning.

Sitting at the kitchen table, her husband cradled the puppy on his lap and gently offered him the tiny bottle of formula. Grace tried not to watch as she peeled potatoes, then bustled about the room, taking the salad fixings out of the refrigerator, washing lettuce, slicing tomatoes and cucumber. She’d put Swiss steak in the Crock-Pot before she’d left for work that morning. All she had to do now was boil the potatoes and finish preparing the salad.

“He needs a name,” Cliff said after a few minutes.

“Give him one if you like,” she said without any real interest.

“What about Rover after the library reading program?” he asked.

“Sure.” A name was just a name and six weeks from now Rover or whatever Cliff chose to call him would be out of her life.

“Nah, Rover doesn’t really fit him. Too generic. We need to come up with something else,” Cliff said.

“I don’t see anything wrong with just calling him Puppy. Or Dog. In six weeks—four weeks if we’re lucky—he’ll be adopted by a new family and they can name him.”

“He needs a name now,” Cliff insisted.

“Fine, then you name him.”

Although he didn’t comment, Cliff’s eyebrows shot up.

“What?” she muttered. “I am not going to let that puppy worm his way into my heart. Got it?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Do you want a glass of wine with dinner?” she asked, wanting to change the subject before the puppy became an object of contention between them.

“If you do.”

“Red or white?”

“Red.”

“Okay.” She went from the kitchen to the walk-in pantry, where they kept several bottles of wine, and chose a Shiraz. She returned with the wine, used a corkscrew to open it and let it breathe.

“What do you think of Beauregard?” Cliff asked.

“Beauregard who?”

“As a name,” he said pointedly.

“Oh, for the puppy. It’s fine but a little long, wouldn’t you say?” She caught herself, adding, “Not that I care.”

“We’d call him Beau for short.”

“We?” She placed her hands on her hips and glared at him. “You name him whatever your heart desires but I want nothing to do with it.”

Cliff nodded. “Then Beau, it is.” He ran his index finger down the puppy’s golden back as Beau sucked greedily at the tiny nipple. The bottle looked like something that came with a child’s doll.

“Make sure he doesn’t do his business in the house,” she warned.

“No problem. I’ll wait fifteen minutes and take him outside.