Best Friends Read Free

that—a wonderful home. She has an enormous garden, three older dogs for you to play with, and . . .” Faith wasn’t doing too well with the stiff upper lip bit. She buried her face in the scratchy ruff of fur tickling her chin.
    It never changes, she thought . We get so attached, especially to the most needy.
    â€œCome on, Rhonda,” Faith groaned as she straightened up. “My thighs are killing me. Let’s save the good-byes until later.”
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    Lydia was stiff. She sat with her back against the Dumpster, knees hugged to her chest, wondering what she’d come to. Three nights now she’d waited. Three nights Tommy and Tyson had paused at the lip of the trap, then turned away.
    It was frustrating. The usual cage baited with food at the rear wasn’t built to trap two cats bonded like Siamese twins. Lydia thought she’d been very inventive in fashioning a tight-woven net like a party tent over the mound of tuna bait. If the brothers would just venture inside, all she had to do was pull the light thread that held up the retaining pole and they were hers.
    She’d fed the other regulars and shooed them away. Tommy and Tyson should be here soon. Was that them? Yes! Two blended bodies, blacker than pitch, were wending their way down the alley.
    Lydia held her breath, afraid they would intuit her presence by the very air she breathed. But something was different. Tyson had no hesitation this night. The bigger brother drew abreast and turned two glowing yellow eyes in her direction. If Lydia didn’t consider herself a pragmatic woman, she’d say the little feline was sending her a message: that he knew—that it was time.
    Tyson guided his brother toward the food they’d rejected for three nights, into the trap waiting to be sprung. They screamed when the net fell upon them. Lydia rushed forward, carrier and gloved hands at the ready. She had an edge: Tyson, with Tommy slowing him down, could not move fast enough to escape the enveloping mesh. She had them. “It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay,” she soothed the yowling felines as she sprinted toward her car.
    Lydia had it all planned. Las Vegas was an easy shuttle from Los Angeles. She’d take the first flight, grab a rental, and, if all went well, be at Best Friends the same morning. She smiled as she eased the cat carrier onto the back seat of her car. Tommy and Tyson would never be in harm’s way again.
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    By 6:00 A.M. Faith had stopped asking herself why a blind cat and his brother would keep her up worrying half the night. She knew. Faith could name every one of the over eighteen hundred animals at the sanctuary, and she carried their histories and quirks like biographies in her head. They were all special in some way.
    She thought of Rhonda for the hundredth time that morning. Yes, they were all special, yet there were always those who took your heart, those whose bravery, spirit, sweetness, even irascibility made you smile and promise they would never be hurt again. It was the same for everyone at Best Friends. All the humans had their secret favorites among the animals. The happiness when one went to a good home was always tinged with regret at losing it.
    She would miss Rhonda. It had been a joy to watch the forlorn little mutt discard her doggie depression. Eleven years was a long time. Come to think of it, eleven years was longer than her three marriages had lasted.
    Faith Maloney laughed. The universe had funny ways of working things out sometimes. Rhonda was gone, and in a few hours Tommy and Tyson would arrive.
    Faith stood and stretched out the kinks in her back. She tightened the belt around her thick flannel bathrobe and, taking a cup of her favorite decaf with her, padded barefoot through the trailer. Eight old dogs rose stiffly in greeting as she slid on her slippers past the door. Smiling, Faith bent and stroked each one back to dreamland. Tiptoeing carefully over the last