"A dog?"

She turned to him then and tears pooled in her eyes. She nodded.

"It's all right. Hey, he's not stuffed, is he? He's a real dog? I promise, you'll be back soon enough with your dog. What kind is he?"

This time she reached over for the pen and paper he'd set on the table by the sofa the previous evening. This was the first time she'd paid any attention to it. He felt a leap of hope. She drew a dog with lots of spots on it.

"A Dalmatian?"

She nodded, then she smiled, a very small smile, but that's what it was, a smile. She tugged at his sleeve. She actually touched him.

"You want the story to go on?"

She nodded. She moved just a little bit closer to him and snuggled down into the afghan. He said, "Funny thing, she wanted a dog, but she loved her stuffed monkey more than anything. His name was Geek. He had very long arms and a silly brown hairy face. She took him everywhere with her. One day when she and her daddy were walking across their meadow in the mountains, they heard this loud sound. It was a milk delivery truck. 'Why did it come up here on our mountain?' the little girl asked her papa.

" 'He's bringing us our weekly milk supply,' her father said. Sure enough there was milk in the truck, but what the man had really brought was a litter of puppies, all of them pure white. Soon the six puppies were yapping at each other and chasing each other around the meadow, hiding in among the flowers, rolling over on their backs, all in all having a wonderful time.

"But Geek wasn't happy. He sat on the porch, his long arms at his side, watching the puppies steal the little girl's attention. He heard her laugh and saw her play with the puppies, saw them climbing all over her, licking her face, whining when she didn't scratch their tummies quickly enough. His monkey head dropped to his legs. He was very unhappy.

"Then suddenly she came back to where he was sitting on the porch. She picked him up and gave him a big kiss on his hairy face. 'Come and play with the babies, Geek,' she said to him. 'Daddy said they have to go back to their own home soon. The milkman just brought them here so we could play with them.'

"When Geek thought about it later, he realized that he'd liked the puppies, once he'd gotten used to them. They were sort of cute. Now that he thought about it, just maybe he could find a puppy and bring it to the little girl. He went to sleep snuggled up next to her, and he dreamed about a little white puppy that would have black spots appear on it when it was older."

Ramsey made a big production of closing the novel. "There, what do you think of Geek the monkey?"

She picked up the pen and paper. She labored over it a moment, then sat back. He looked down to see a stick figure little girl holding what must be Geek. She was hugging him tightly and she was smiling.

"That's great," he said. Was she sitting right next to him? Hot damn, she was.

It was he who fell asleep, his head flopped back against the sofa. When he awoke several hours later, she was snuggled against him, her head on his chest, boneless as children are when they are utterly relaxed. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. She smelled like his shampoo mixed with little kid. He liked it. He eased her off him, covered her well, and went to the kitchen. He made himself some coffee, sat down at the kitchen table, and listened to the rain pelt against the cabin roof.

She'd been with him nearly four days now. There'd been no sign of anybody near the cabin. He'd rather wanted the man who'd abused her to show up. He'd like to have the chance to kill him himself. Where was that bastard? Probably long gone. How much longer should he keep her with him, hidden away from the outside world? At least he didn't have to worry about her health. The second day he'd given her a third of one of his sleeping pills. When she was deeply asleep, he'd examined her again, checked all the bruises and welts, applied more antibiotic cream, then covered her again. She was healing nicely. She'd never stirred, thank God.

He wondered if she really had a Dalmatian. He realized, too, that he'd put himself in the place of her real father. Well, too bad. As long as she was with him, she was his. But what about her parents? Had they been there when she'd been taken? Maybe they were responsible, maybe they'd allowed it to happen? What were they like? No, it didn't matter, at least not yet. But, of course, it did matter.

He felt good. This was the first time she'd actually gotten close to him. It had taken his falling asleep for her to get closer, but it was a start, a definite start.

He smiled toward the stove, got up, and opened a can of chicken noodle soup. She liked the soup with toasted cheese sandwiches.