A Gift to Remember by Melissa Hill Page A

older woman was suddenly smiling, waggling her long fingers as if flirting with her schoolyard crush.
    ‘What a gorgeous pooch,’ she said, catching Darcy completely offguard. ‘I had a dog, many years ago back in Queens before my husband dragged me to the city. We had no yard, and
one day he just let the dog run free. I thought it would come back, but . . .’
    Darcy stood there, her mouth agape. It was the most her neighbour had ever said to her in the three years she’d lived here, by about a hundred words! Bailey’s big paws padded along
the hardwood floor of the hallway as he sniffed at Mrs Henley’s housecoat.
    The older woman knelt slowly, reaching a wrinkled hand out to pat the Husky’s silky grey crown. ‘What a good boy,’ she said, her voice gentle, as if speaking to a child.
‘What a good, good boy.’ Bailey edged into her hand, sneezing twice before turning around and skittering back across the hall into the apartment.
    ‘Thank you,’ Darcy said, accepting the compliment as if Bailey really was her dog.
    The two women stood there awkwardly, nothing to say any more without Bailey slinking between them. ‘Well, goodnight,’ Mrs Henley said then, abruptly shutting her door but, Darcy
noted, not slamming it.
    Going back inside, she was surprised to find Bailey lying contentedly on the rug beneath the bookshelf, curled into himself like a mink stole and looking for all the world like he belonged
there.
    ‘Maybe slumming it isn’t so bad after all, eh, buddy?’ Darcy whispered, reaching down to caress his silky head before grabbing another slice of pizza.
    Bailey woke her early the next morning; impossibly early, it was still dark out.
    She nuzzled beneath the covers, simultaneously moaning and marvelling at his energy, bounding and leaping about as if it was the best game in the world.
    ‘Go away,’ she murmured, trying to pull the covers over her head, but again, the dog just thought it was another game.
    Darcy rose, the Husky circling her legs like a cyclone so that she had to take short steps for fear of tumbling over. It was only as she was using the bathroom, Bailey staring at her resentfully
from the doorway, that she realised the poor guy hadn’t gone all night.
    Dressing quickly, she grabbed her ski jacket and the dog’s red leather leash. Then, remembering the reason he was here in the first place, she took out her phone to see if Bailey’s
owners had called looking for him yet, but there were no missed calls at all.
    She guessed that Aidan Harris’s family probably had enough to deal with after the accident, but she did think at the very least a courtesy call would be in order, checking to see if Bailey
was OK. But perhaps the message with her number hadn’t got through to them yet? She made a mental note to keep her cell phone close by at work today.
    Work! What on earth was she going to do with Bailey while she went to work? She couldn’t very well leave him alone in the apartment all day. For one thing, he was much too large and it
wouldn’t be fair to keep him cooped up, and for another, what kind of chaos would she be facing when she came back? In the few hours she’d had him, he’d already shed a massive
amount of his grey fur, and she couldn’t even begin to imagine the level of damage those sharp claws (or indeed teeth) would do if he was alone and bored in the apartment all day. But she
couldn’t very well take him to work with her either. Could she?
    But at that moment, the only place Bailey was focused on going was outside.
    Leash on, he practically dragged Darcy through the door, whining the whole way downstairs, through the front entrance and out into the street. Then at the first fire hydrant he saw, the big guy
lifted a leg and let out a steady stream. Darcy was amazed; dogs really
did
that.
    ‘Who’s your friend?’ asked a familiar voice from the doorway of the restaurant.
    Damn
. Darcy winced and her heart pounded with nerves as she turned to face