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those bills while the table was clear enough to do it—she had a desk in one of the second-floor rooms, but its main purpose seemed to have evolved into providing a delicate balance of shifting and layered papers. And she ought to pay some of those bills...but not tonight.
           Tonight she would beat Em's kids to bed; tomorrow she'd deal with the bills and other such things that hadn't been done over the course of this week. Spring grooming season, getting into gear...it was always like this.
           Sunny waited for her, back to snorting at the door jamb. Brenna couldn't blame her; the dog wasn't used to being confined during the evening. "Let me find you that longe line," she said, and started poking around on the metal shelves. Theoretically this was all dog stuff and not horse stuff—the barn held the old horse gear—but maybe if she was lucky...she hadn't sorted the shelves in some time, and that gave her some hope.
           " Whoouh ," Sunny said to her—said to the door, actually, and Brenna jerked to look at her with no little dread—but the dog's hackles were right where they belonged, smooth and slick all the way down her backbone. And her tail swung in an even, happy arc, steady at hip level.
           Of course Brenna had to look, even as her hand closed over a tangled skein of flat cotton line. Absently shaking the line out so she could re-loop it around her hand and elbow, she went to the back door. Not so long ago she'd stood here shaking; now there was no menace—only her back door with a light she ought to have turned off burning outside in the cold night.
           And there, standing at the top step, was the mud-dipped Cardigan Welsh Corgi. Stone-still, as if he had been that way for hours and would stay that way for hours yet. As she appeared in the doorway, Brenna thought she saw the slight tilt of one of those big ears, but she couldn't be sure; it didn't happen again. Finally she nudged Sunny into her crate and put her hand on the doorknob, slowly turning it.
           He heard it, all right. You couldn't get any more alert than those ears, radar-scoped at the door. But his expression was entirely different from the first time she'd seen him. Then he had been terrified beyond rational thought; now he stood at attention, his posture suddenly full of anticipation despite the fact that he hadn't truly moved.
           Slowly, she pulled the door open. Slowly, she pushed the creaky screen door out.
           They stared at one another.
           Finally she said, "Would you like to come in?"
           He trotted in as if she had been a doorman holding the door to his personal doghouse.
           Her eyes widened; that was all. Until she had the door closed behind him, it was the only reaction she could afford. But she needn't have worried. He went to the center of the shallow room and plunked his bottom down, his eyes never leaving her face—and her eyes never leaving his—as she closed and latched the doors. From her crate, Sunny made a noise of protest—she still wanted out —but Brenna shook her head. "In a minute," she said, never moving her gaze from the mud-coated Cardigan. She crouched down and patted the floor. "C'mere," she said, an offhand tone.
           He came.
           He not only came, he rested his muddy face against her leg and gave a sigh of contentment that verged on being an outright groan. Surprised, she hesitated, her hand hovering over his filthy coat—and in the end rested her hand on his shoulder, so damn happy to have him there that she couldn't quite believe herself. Didn't believe herself. This was the happiness of a dog long-lost, regained—not the simple relief that she'd pulled a stray in out of reach of trouble. It made no more sense than his flip-flop in behavior.
           "Only a little while ago," she murmured, searching for her equilibrium, "you were so terrified of me that you practically did a