Gavin laughed.
The woman frowned. “So who is actually planning to give her a home?”
“That would be us,” Gavin said, gesturing to Amelia. It was too complicated to try to explain anything else. “Elizabeth and David live nearby, though, and will watch her if we ever need a sitter.”
“Oh, well, good. She loves people and she hates to be left alone. Both my husband and I worked, so she would get lonely.”
“She won’t be lonely at all,” Gavin said. “How is she with children?”
“When I take her to the park, she loves meeting them. They’ll come over and hug on her and pet her. She’s really a great family dog.”
“Okay, good, because we’re both planning families,” Gavin said.
Elizabeth and David shared a smile, and his heart soared. He hoped they would be mated wolves sooner rather than later.
Chapter 20
David crouched down and talked to Velvet. Running his hand over her soft white fur, he looked so cute. Just like when he was playing with the kids.
Elizabeth got the rest of the details from the woman about diet and health and shots and anything else she could think of. Velvet seemed to like all of them. A nice friendly dog that should get along with them, Elizabeth hoped.
The woman’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me, I need to get that.”
“So, what do you think?” Elizabeth asked.
“I’m all for taking her,” David said. “She’ll get furrier as she gets older. She’s got a fair amount of fur now. And she seems nice and friendly with all of us.”
“I agree. She seems perfect, sweet-tempered. A little bigger than her breed normally.”
“Do you think she’s old enough to—” Amelia stopped talking when the dog owner came back into the room.
“I have another couple coming to check on her. I just need to tell them if you’re undecided or not,” the woman said.
“We’ll take her,” Amelia said, smiling.
They packed up the car with everything the dog would need and thanked the woman, promising to give Velvet a wonderful home.
“It was a good thing four of us came to check her out.” Elizabeth carried a sack of dog toys and a big box of treats. “She seems good with all of us.”
“And she looks like she loves to go for a car ride,” Amelia said when Velvet jumped right up into the back of the hatchback and looked at them like she was wondering why they hadn’t left yet. “I had a dog once that was terrified of riding in a car, and he would get motion sickness too.”
David got a call from Candice and put it on speakerphone. “Hey, did you get the puppy?”
“Ha, as if you didn’t already know the answer to that question. There was no way we were coming home without the pup—not if the kids had any say in it. Not that any of us adults objected to it either. Her name is Pearl. How about you? Cameron said you were checking out another dog.”
“Yeah, we’re on our way home with her. She seems like a real good match. Velvet’s her name.”
“Okay, good. Then we’re all set. Who gets to housebreak the puppy?” Candice asked, a smile in her voice.
“I suggest Winston and Velvet. They can show the new pup the ropes,” David said.
“Sounds good. We’ll see you soon,” Candice said.
They finally arrived home and the whole pack gathered to meet the new dogs. The dogs were eager to meet each other and the lupus garous; it appeared everyone would get along just fine. The puppy was already plaguing Winston, biting at him and play-bowing. Gavin fetched the tug-of-war rubber toy out of the stuff they unloaded from the car, and Winston grabbed it, lying with one end in his mouth while the puppy tugged ferociously on the other.
“Now hopefully our ploy will work if anyone witnesses us running as wolves,” Faith said. “And if nobody’s too put out by it, we’ll keep the puppy at our house for the time being because I’m home, though Candice could too—”
“But the kids want the puppy at your house.” Candice smiled. “And Winston will stay with you to help housebreak Pearl. Since I’m home all the time, I can take care of Velvet until she gets used to the area.”
They were all in agreement. David would have loved having one of the dogs at his place, too, but he figured he and Elizabeth could use the time to work on their own relationship—though housebreaking or taking care of a dog could be a first step in pre-child-rearing.
As a group, they took Winston and Velvet for a walk through the woods while Gavin worked on leash training with Pearl. Sheri was going home with Slade afterward to have dinner, and David heard they were going to the drive-in theater too.
“Hey,” Gavin said, struggling to get Pearl to listen to commands as he tried to teach her to walk on the leash, “we are going too.”
“Uh, so are we.” David heard the very slightest bit of annoyance in his voice.
Gavin heard it too. He laughed. “Sorry, old man. They finally are showing something that both Amelia and I want to see. So the two of you are going?”
“Yeah, that was the plan for tonight.”
Gavin smiled. “We’ll try to park far away from you.”
***
Really loving the pack dynamics, Elizabeth chuckled, just as glad that a bunch of them were going. “Don’t worry about it. We’re a pack, right? We ought to take up a whole row of the parking area with just our pack members.”
“I agree,” Amelia said.
“Well, you can count us out at least,” Faith said. “Jurassic Park is way too scary for the kids at this age.”
“Can’t we see it?” Corey asked.
“No. You would have nightmares, and all three of you would end up in bed with us,” Faith said.
“Amelia and I need to do all this stuff before the kids are born,” Gavin said.
Everyone laughed.
“Sorry, buddy,” Owen said, slapping David on the back good-naturedly. “We’re going too. Candice loves her dinosaurs.”
“So everyone is going but the MacPherson family?” David asked.
Faith smiled. “Yes, we’ll take all the dogs for the night.”
“Yay!” the kids said.
After a while of starting and stopping as the new dogs marked their territory, Elizabeth and David ended up way ahead, strolling by themselves. Elizabeth enjoyed the pack, but it was nice to have the solitude too.