It wasn’t as if she were sweet-talking the darn dog. She was being plenty mean and tough. She just happened to be using a crooning tone of voice, because as long as she kept talking, he stopped growling and was letting her wash him. Maybe he was just sick of being filthy, who knew? But her heart was beating hard enough to implode-it wasn’t easy getting this close to the dog, when she had every reason to fear it might attack her. Still. She had to try something. The wild, despairing rage in its eyes-she couldn’t stand it anymore. She understood it. All too well.
“I’m not going near your face or eyes, so don’t get your liver in an uproar. Just a little more now. Then I’ll rinse you off and leave you alone. I’ll be darned, I thought you were almost all brown. But you’re more than half blond, aren’t you, you low-down, ornery-”
From behind her, she heard the sound of a gate unlatching.
“…boneheaded, pea-brained, worthless…”
And then she heard the quiet clomp of a boot on her porch.
“…lazy, stubborn… DAMN IT, KILLER!” She had a pretty good grip on the dog, but her hands and the dog’s coat were both slippery, and suddenly Killer bolted, knocking over the bucket of soapy water. On her. Followed by his shaking all over. On her. And then the dog just stood there, staring at her, sopping wet with his tongue hanging out. As if they were friends. As if he’d forgotten all about wanting to rip her throat out and how much he hated her and all humans and everything else.