This week’s excerpt is from The Beast Next Door, a story that appeared years ago in a Bluestocking Belles’ Collection, but which I’m currently editing for publication as part of Hearts At Home. My heroine has sought a quiet place where she can read uninterrupted by her noisy family.

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The bench outside the long-forgotten folly was wet, but Charis had expected that. She took her book from her bag, and spread the bag on the bench to protect her skirts. She never saw anyone here, not since her friend Eric left, ten years or more ago. But someone must know she came, because the area around the bench was always kept weeded, and the folly itself was cleaned from time to time, so it lacked the heavy overload of dust and cobwebs to be expected in such a neglected spot.

She was settling herself to read, when a large shaggy dog bounded out of the woods, his tongue lolling cheerfully from one corner of his grinning mouth. His tail waved enthusiastically, and she braced for whatever he intended, but he stopped a pace or two away and sat, stirring the wet grass and weeds with his tongue, lifting one paw as if hoping she would shake it.

“What a beautiful gentleman you are,” Charis said to him.

The dog tipped his head to one side, his tail speeding up.

“Shake?” Charis said. Is that what he wanted?

Apparently so. He shuffled forward, not raising his hind end completely from the ground. When he was a few inches nearer, he lifted his paw again, this time within reach if she just bent forward.

And so, she did.

The dog grinned still more broadly and half lifted again so his tail could wag at full speed.

“Yes, you are a friendly boy,” Charis agreed. “And someone has taught you beautiful manners.” She looked around, wondering if the dog’s owner was near, but no one was in sight.

The dog collapsed at her feet, leaning his head against her knee, and she obliged by rubbing behind his ear, then down to his chin. He closed his eyes in ecstasy and tipped his head even higher.

“That’s what you like, is it not?” Charis asked him and continued to caress the dog as she opened her book. Her own place, her book, and a friendly dog to pat. She could feel the tension draining as she settled in to enjoy her brief period of freedom.