Then, still silent, Dad walked over and motioned for Logan to take off his jacket. He prodded Logan's shoulder as Logan squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to cry out.
"Can you lift your arm?" he asked.
Logan did.
Dad stepped back. "Do you know how lucky you are that I didn't dislocate it? Or break it?"
"It would have served me right if you did."
Dad gave a disgusted grunt. "Sure, that's what counts: that you deserved it. It wouldn't have bothered me at all. Break my son's shoulder. No big deal."
Logan dropped his gaze. "You're right. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gotten in the way."
"That was just the last in a very long string of mistakes you made tonight."
Logan could hear the anger in his father's voice. Icy anger, pushed down deep, turning his voice bitter cold. Logan wished he would yell--lose his temper and snarl and shout. He did with others. Even with Mom. Especially with Mom, though they tried to hide it. They'd get into a fight, both of their tempers exploding, furniture crashing, and even when Logan had first heard that, listening in with Kate, it hadn't bothered either of them. Because they knew it didn't mean anything. Mom and Dad never hurtled insults, never threatened or tore each other down. It was just anger. Two volatile tempers clashing, until one of them would stalk off into the woods, and the other would follow, and, when they came back, everything would be fine.
Logan understood those flash fights. They didn't say, "I hate you," or even, "At this moment, I hate you." They were just a difference of opinion, strongly worded. "I love you, but I disagree with you." Or, "I love you, but you did something I don't love."
That's what he wanted right now. For his dad to shout and snarl and get it out of his system. To be furious with Logan for doing something stupid, because it had scared him. That's not what he saw, though. What he saw was worse than anger, much worse. It was disappointment.
"I'm sorry," he said, trying not to cry. "I'm really sorry, and I know everything I did tonight was stupid and--"
"We told you not to come into the woods. We told you why."
"I-I thought . . . I didn't think it was true. About the mutt."
Dad pulled back, his blue eyes icing over even more. "You thought we lied to you?"
"N-no, I thought there was another explanation. I was absolutely sure there wasn't a mutt out here."
"You are nine, Logan. I don't care how smart you are--you are not in a position to make that determination. If I'm not sure whether there's a mutt, and your mother isn't sure, then you aren't either."
"I know. I'm--"
"Furthermore, I don't care what you thought. It was an order. You do not disobey an order."
"I know, and I'm sorry--"
"No, Logan, I mean you don't. Not that you shouldn't. You don't. So if you did tonight, then something is wrong, and you are going to tell me what it is, or we are going to spend a very long and cold night on this road."
Logan swallowed. He closed his eyes, and steeled himself and said, "I'll show you."
"No, you'll tell me."
"I-I . . ." He lifted his gaze. "Please. I have to show you."
Dad gave a wave, looking tired and frustrated, and let Logan lead the way.
Dad followed behind Logan. Maybe watching for trouble. Maybe just not really in the mood to walk with him. When they were halfway to the fort, Dad's hand fell on his good shoulder.
"It's late," he said. "Just tell me what--"
"I have to show you."
"No, Logan." He stepped in front of him, his face drawn in the moonlight, lines deepening around his mouth. "Tell me, because I need to get inside and talk to your mother."
"It's a puppy," Logan blurted.
Dad went still. "What?"
"A puppy. In the fort."
"You found a puppy in the fort?" Dad said it slowly, carefully, his face giving nothing away.
"No, in the ditch. There were two. In a bag. I thought they were dead, so I was going to move the bag before Kate found them, and I was carrying it across the road when I realized one puppy was still alive."
"One was . . . ?"
Logan nodded, and the look that passed over his father's face . . . It was a half-dozen expressions, all flickering fast, shock and surprise and anger and outrage and then something like grief and regret as he said, "You were moving dead puppies for your sister."
"I didn't want her to see that."
Dad's expression said he'd rather Logan hadn't seen that either, but Logan started walking again, still talking, "At first, when I thought the puppy was hurt, I was going to take it to Jeremy. But then it was fine, and I . . . I put it in the fort."
"The fort?"
"I wanted to give it to Kate for Christmas." Again, he blurted the words before he could stop himself. Then he hurried on. "I mean, that was my first thought. I know I can't now. It's a bad time. But I didn't know what to do with the puppy, and I was trying to figure it out while I was looking after it, which is why I went out tonight. I thought you didn't smell a mutt this afternoon--just me and the puppy. I was sure that's what it was. So I was going to feed it." He took the baggie of meat from his inside pocket. "Otherwise, I'd never have gone out."
Dad gave a slow nod. They were within sight of the fort when he finally said, "You wanted to give it to Kate. For Christmas."
"I know I can't, so I'm not asking. That isn't fair."
"Isn't fair?"
"To make you and Mom say no. Especially Mom. She wants a perfect Christmas, and a puppy would be, well, perfect. For Kate. So Mom would either have to say no and feel awful or say yes when she really doesn't want to. That's not fair."
Dad's hand fell on his good shoulder again, and before Logan knew it, Dad had pulled him into an embrace. Tight and brief and fierce, saying nothing, just that hug that said everything.
"All right, then," Dad said. "Show me your puppy. Before it breaks down that door."
The puppy was indeed trying to break down the door, throwing itself at it as it yipped and howled. Logan opened it, and the puppy flew out. So did the stink of puppy poop, and Logan's hand flew to his nose. The puppy jumped and leaped against his legs, yelping to be picked up.
"I'll clean that up," he said quickly.
"You look after your puppy," Dad said. "I'll handle the rest. I've changed plenty of diapers."
Dad cleaned out the fort while Logan fed the puppy. He came out again as Logan was trying to get the puppy to eat more.
"Food first, then play," he said to the puppy, dancing around his feet. He looked up at his dad. "It likes to play."
"It?" Dad's brows shot up. "You can't tell if it's male or female?"
"I haven't looked. I don't want . . ." Logan busied himself shoving the meat back into the baggie. "It's not important."
Not important if they couldn't keep it.
Dad scooped up the puppy in one hand. He flipped it onto its back. "Female."
Logan nodded. Dad tried to put the puppy down, but it--she--climbed onto him, licking his face.
"Okay, okay," he said, handing her back to Logan. "You haven't named her, I'm guessing."
"I didn't want to form an attachment."
Dad snorted, as if to say it was already too late. "Play with your puppy for a while. Tire her out."
Logan wished he wouldn't say your puppy. It meant nothing, but it felt like something, like that dream of something just out of reach that you know you're not going to have, and the tease hurts so bad. But he pushed that aside, and he played with the puppy, and Dad did a little too, feinting and chasing, the way he used to when Logan and Kate were little, wearing them out for their nap.
When the puppy collapsed, too exhausted to even move, it was Dad who scooped her up and took her back to her bed. Then, as they headed for the house, he called Mom.
"We have a situation," he said.
A pause, as Logan heard Mom's muffled voice. Then Dad said, "Yeah, actually there was a mutt, but that's taken care of. The problem is our son
."
Logan tensed. He tried to fall back, to not listen, but Dad caught him and kept him there, walking beside him.
"He found a puppy by the road a couple of days ago. Abandoned in a bag." Dad went on and explained as they walked.
Mom met them out back. She said nothing as they approached. She didn't stand with her arms crossed. She didn't look disappointed. Not angry either. Just thoughtful. She looked maybe a little sad, and, when Logan saw that sadness, he faltered and felt like he was going to be sick.
"I'm sor--" he began, but she was already there, in front of him, arms going around him in a hug just as tight as his father's, longer, though. Holding him against her, she bent to whisper, "I'm sorry you had to see that," and he knew she meant the dead puppy, and he nodded, and then she backed up, her hands still on his shoulders.
"Uh . . ." Dad said, and motioned for her to take her hand off his left shoulder. "The mutt. He--"
"I got in the way," Logan said.
Mom winced, but Logan said, "I'm fine. Just going to have a bruise. Lesson learned, right?" He tried for a smile, but she didn't return it.
"We'll discuss that tomorrow," she said. "For now, the puppy. It's late, and we're not going to talk about it tonight. I'm just going to say that you don't need to handle things alone, Logan. No one expects you to. No one but you."
She looked down at his expression and sighed, "But that's what counts, isn't it? What you expect from yourself." Another hug, lighter and quicker. "We'll work on that. Go on inside. Your dad and I need to talk."
Logan was almost asleep when his door creaked open. Footsteps crossed the room and even before he caught the scent, those footsteps said it was Dad. He kept his eyes shut until he felt him standing there, beside his bed, looking down at him. Not checking whether he was awake. Just watching him.
When Logan opened his eyes, Dad sat on the edge of the bed. There was a long minute of silence. Then Dad said, "That kid. The mutt. What he said . . . I caught a little of it. I heard you two talking. I ran that way and just caught the tail end."
"He was just talking. He didn't threaten me or anything."
"I know. I heard enough to tell . . ." Dad eased back. "I'm not sure if I should say you handled yourself well, because that might encourage you to do it again."
"I got lucky. He was just a kid. A scared kid trying to prove he was brave."
Dad nodded. "But the rest. I caught enough to hear what he said about me."
"Just the usual. I've heard it. Variations on it."
Dad went still. "What have you heard?"
"That you're crazy. The psycho-werewolf thing. That's how you keep them away. By making them think you're the big bad wolf." A small smile. "Which doesn't mean you aren't, just that we don't see it."
Dad shifted on the bed. "He said I'd done something. At Stonehaven. To keep mutts off the property."
"You got there before he told me the details."
Silence. At least two minutes of it. "Do you want to know the details?"
"Not really."
There was a soft exhale of relief. "Okay. Someday, yes, you're going to need to hear them, and I'd rather you did from me but . . ."
"Whatever you did, it was to keep them away. To keep us safe--Jeremy and then Mom and then us." He lifted his gaze to his father's. "I get that, Dad. You did something--something bad--because it meant you didn't have to keep doing smaller things until they got the message. One big message that lasted a long time. It makes sense."
Dad watched him for a moment, and there was this look in his eyes, like maybe he'd rather Logan didn't understand, like he'd rather his kids lived in a world where that wouldn't make sense, because they'd never need to consider it.
Logan sat up and put his arms around his dad's neck and squeezed and said, "Everything's good."
Dad gave him a quick hug back and tucked him in, kissed his forehead like he used to when they were little and then padded from the room.
There was no resolution to the puppy problem the next day. It was Christmas Eve, and it seemed Mom and Dad didn't want to think about that. Mom said she and Dad would look after the puppy that day--they needed him and Kate to stay out of the woods, in case the mutt came back.
Logan was fine with that. As much as he told himself she was just postponing disappointing him, he couldn't help but think that if she really didn't want to disappoint him, she'd get it over with before he got his hopes up. So yes, he did get his hopes up. Way up, if he was being honest.
Then, lying in bed that night, stuffed with hot chocolate and Christmas cookies, he began to feel, well, a little sick, and it wasn't from overeating. He kept thinking about the tree, with Kate's gift under it, and how much he wished he could have given her the puppy, how happy that would have made her. He decided he needed an answer. Just an answer, so he could stop hoping if there wasn't any point in it.
When he snuck downstairs, he heard his parents in the study.
"--don't know how to tell him," Mom was saying, and he stopped short.
"I know."
"I keep going over it and over it," she said.
She's decided against the puppy.
Logan took a deep breath. Maybe it wasn't too late. Maybe he could still talk--
"There isn't a solution," she said.
"I know," Dad replied.
"And you're really not helping."
"I know."
A whack, as if she'd smacked him, and Dad let out a soft laugh, and then there was another sound, another smack--a kiss--and Dad said, "You don't need to figure it out right now, darling."
"I do." A sharp intake of breath. "Distracting me isn't going to help."
"Mmm, yes, I think it will. I'll distract you, and you'll stop fretting, and then we can both come up with a solution later."
"It has to be tonight."
"Which has only begun. Now, come back here and . . ."
A laugh, cut short by a kiss. Logan's shoulders slumped, and he trudged back to bed.
Logan tossed and turned all night. He drifted through nightmares of the puppy back in the bag, a new owner getting tired of it. Then, dreams of him handing the puppy to Kate, which were almost as bad, because he'd wake up and remember that wasn't happening. Couldn't happen.
When he first woke thinking he heard the puppy, it was obviously more self-torture. He snarled and pulled the covers up over his head. But, as soon as he started falling asleep, the puppy returned, howling, the sound muffled, as if she were calling to him from the fort, begging him to come out and play, not to send her away to strangers who might do the same as--
He bolted up with a growl, shaking his head sharply. His room was silent, the puppy only in his head. He looked at the window. It was still dark out.
He reached for the books on his nightstand. There was always a stack. He hunted down the titles for the one least likely to contain canines of any kind. Muller's A First German Reader. That would do. He opened the book at random, and his gaze traveled down the page.
Leine: line, rope or leash.
He slapped the book shut, and he was reaching for another when he heard a yip and the scrabbling of nails. He lifted his head and blinked hard. Then he heard another yip.
No, that wasn't possible.
More blinking. More yipping and scrabbling, like tiny nails against a door. Had she escaped the fort? Maybe Mom or Dad had been distracted and didn't quite shut it up right, and the puppy had escaped and followed their trail to the house.
He had to get down there before Kate heard her. That would be the worst Christmas morning ever: his sister waking to a puppy she couldn't have.
He raced into the hall, slowing only to tiptoe past Kate's room, and then trying his best not to thump down the stairs. He could clearly hear the puppy now, and he followed the sound, expecting to hear it at the back door, but it seemed to come from the study.
Logan saw the door cracked open just enough to let in a very determined puppy, who, from the sounds of it, was in there growling at s
omething.
How did she--?
Logan glimpsed a window as he raced for the study. Snow swirled and blasted against the glass. A storm. Mom or Dad had brought the puppy in. He looked over his shoulder to see the basement door also cracked open. They'd brought her in and put her in the basement to keep her warm.
And now she was in the study. Worse than that, as Logan saw when he pushed open the door, she was attacking Jeremy's recliner, ripping at it with her tiny teeth.
Then she saw Logan and forgot all about the chair as she hurled herself at him, yipping and yelping.
"Shhh!" he said as he scooped her up. "Shhh! Please. We need to get you--"
Footsteps thundered down the stairs. Only one person in the house made that much noise.
"Kate," he whispered. "Oh, no."
He looked both ways, as if he could find someplace to stash the puppy where his sister wouldn't smell it. He went to call a warning, to tell her to keep out, make up some story about wrapping one final present or--
The door flew open. Kate stood there, grinning.
"I see you found your gift," she said. "Or did she find you?"
He froze and stared.
Kate thought their parents had given them the puppy.
This was worse, so much worse. His mouth opened and closed, and the puppy leaped out of his arms and scrambled over to Kate, who lifted her in a hug, laughing exactly like he'd imagined, her expression even happier than he'd imagined.
"It's not . . . ," he began. "She's not from Mom and Dad."
"Of course not, silly," she said, making a face as the puppy licked her lips. "She's from me. I found her in the fort."
"Wh-what?"
Kate handed him the puppy, who seemed fine with the transfer, wriggling and whining and licking.
"She got inside the fort and couldn't get out, poor thing. Luckily, we'd both left a couple of sweaters in there, so they kept her warm, and there was snow to drink. I was out walking with Mom and Dad while you and Jeremy went shopping, and they thought they smelled a mutt, so they were getting me back to the house when we smelled the puppy in the fort. I thought that's what the scent was. I guess not, but, well, that's why I was going into the woods the other night--I thought it was safe, and I had another one of your sweaters, because I wanted to make sure she got your scent most of all." She motioned at the puppy. "Merry Christmas, Lo."
He heard a sharp intake of breath and looked to see their parents in the doorway. Mom was in front, watching him, shock and dismay on her face.