Always Conditions

"No, wait. I think we can work this out if it's your Dusty. The guy who took the dog is legally blind and wanted a dog to be trained as a service dog. Labs are good for that and the SPCA said they'd hook the guy up with a dog trainer if he took the Lab they had. They called me for a reference of someone who could do that in their area—and when they told me it was a Lab named Dusty, I hopped all over the opportunity and gave them your name. The blind guy in Spring Hill will be expecting you to come and maybe train the Lab he's got as a service dog. If it's your Dusty, I'll be happy to give the guy a dog that's already trained to his needs if he'll trade for Dusty. If it isn't your Dusty, you can still consider taking the job of training the guy's dog—he apparently is rich and has accommodations for anyone who will train his dog if they're willing to stay on the premises. You'd be close enough to the area you're in to continue searching for Dusty there. What do you think about that?"

"I think I love you."

The line went silent, and Ken felt the shock of what he had said. He had wanted to say that to Brad for some time now, and something had prevented him from doing it. And this had just burbled out. But this isn't how he'd wanted to say it. He didn't want Brad to think he'd say this because of what Brad was doing to help him find Dusty rather than being something between him and Brad—no strings, no conditions.

"God, I'm sorry, Brad. I didn't mean it like that. It isn't because of what you're doing about Dusty."

"I'll take it any way I can get it," Brad said. And Ken could tell from the sound of his voice that Brad was happy. "And who can do anything but love a man who wants a dog so badly he'll go through what you have to find him?"

* * * *

Ken drove up to the iron gates of an estate in a wooded section of Spring Hill, where houses could barely be glimpsed through the trees from the narrow, winding, oak-lined lane, but where what little could be seen was dripping in money and size.

He rolled up to a box on a pole arcing out to the side of the section of the drive separating the lane from the eight-foot gates suspended between fieldstone pillars with a six-foot stone fence disappearing into fir trees in both directions. He punched the button, and the gates started opening without a vocal challenge. He had called ahead. The voice at the other end of the phone had been soft, cultured, unmistakably male, with a slight southern accent.

As he drove up to the Mediterranean-style stucco house with a red-tile roof and made a swing into the parking apron, Ken's eye was caught by what he saw in a large window to the left of the entrance porch. And his heart fell to his feet. The dog in the window was a Lab, but it was no puppy. It was fully mature and very likely was old. It wasn't barking. It was standing on something inside, its full chest framed in the window, and it was looking warily at Ken, on guard in case its services were needed, but fully in control, showing no sign of hysteria.

Ken almost didn't turn the engine off; he almost just turned the car around in dejection. But he'd called ahead—and the man living here had a different idea why Ken was here than Ken did. There had always been a good chance it wouldn't be Dusty. And maybe there'd be a job here for a while to give Ken a chance to continue his search.

The door opened as Ken reached the top step of the fieldstone entry porch. The man who opened the door was perhaps in his late fifties. He was trim and patrician looking. He had been a handsome man once and was distinctive-enough looking still. He was squinting at Ken, though, and leaning a bit toward him, as if he was trying to locate him, even though Ken stood only a couple of steps short of the double front door. Ken remembered that the man he'd come here to see was legally blind. Strange that he opened his own door in a house like this, however, Ken thought.

"Tim Drayton? Are you Tim Drayton?"

"No, I'm sorry, my name's Ken. I'm here about the service dog training. I called ahead."

"Oh, yes, sorry, so you did. I had thought you were the man they were sending over for the companion position. I thought he was supposed to come today too. But, please, where are my manners? Please, please come in. Two steps in and five to the left, and we'll be in the library. Sorry, my life is ruled by counting steps now, I'm afraid. Oh, and my name is Harold Caswell. But then you probably knew that or you wouldn't have made it here."

Ken followed the man into the library, and as he did so, it clicked with him why the name Harold Caswell had been familiar. This was obviously Harold Caswell the mystery novel author. The library's walls were lined with books and there was a display of Caswell books between bookends on the large mahogany desk that dominated the far end of the room. Two wing chairs were positioned by a fireplace, and Caswell directed Ken to one of these as he lowered his body with a sigh into the other.

The Lab sat in the leather couch in front of the window that Ken had seen him perched on from the outside. His ears were perked up and he was watching Ken closely, and Ken had no question that the dog would intervene if Ken made the slightest threatening move toward Caswell.

Ken was confused. This dog was fully trained. And fully mature too.

"I'm sorry," Ken said. "I was led to believe you had a Lab that needed to be trained as a service dog. Your Lab here—"

"Oh, Sadie? Sadie's here? Come here, girl," Caswell said as he let his eyes scan the room, trying to focus on his dog.

The Lab struggled down from the sofa and trotted over to Caswell's side and pushed its nose into Caswell's lap. Caswell brought his hands in and scratched behind the Lab's ears, and the dog sat down primly—and happily—at her master's side, casting her eyes at Ken with a "didn't you wish he'd do this for you?" look.

"Sadie's my companion dog now. But she's getting on in years, and I thought it was time to let her retire and just be my dog. So, before I lose her services, I thought . . . well, I got another Lab. He should be along . . . ah, I hear him coming now."

Ken heard the woof and was barely able to get half way out of the wing chair when a young Lab bounced into the room and, heading directly for Ken, leaped into his arms with an exuberant bark, and started licking the tears that had instantly appeared on Ken's cheeks. If there was any question that Dusty had forgotten Ken, they were immediately dispelled, although Ken's hand instinctively went to the dog's ear and was rewarded with the feel of a slight notch right where it should be.

Caswell laughed and gazed at the hazily merged vision of man and dog in front of where he sat, while Sadie sat up on her haunches and gave the unwanted puppy a disgusted stare of censure.

"It sounds like my new dog likes you. So, considering the referral I was given on your training abilities, I don't think we really need to spin this interview out," Caswell said, while Ken was doing his best to bring Dusty under control. "You know the salary and offer of accommodations and board while you are here. If they are satisfactory, I'll show you the room you can use—it's really a suite. A mother-in-law's suite, you could say. But I never was in a position to have a mother-in-law. Just a succession of young men using the suite."

As Ken stood and put Dusty down on the floor and tried to keep his balance as the puppy wove in and around his lost friend's legs, Caswell added, "It's not too much to hope for that you can do some cooking, I hope. There's a woman who comes in to fix dinner, but until and unless I can hire a companion, breakfast and lunch . . ."

* * * *

Ken felt like such a coward. It was three weeks later, and still he was playing this charade. Caswell still thought he was here just to train Dusty to be Caswell's replacement service dog, which of course Ken was doing. And, increasingly, it seemed like Caswell thought Ken was falling into the position of being his companion as well. And the longer Ken stayed in the house with Caswell, the clearer it became to him what Caswell really wanted in a companion—and because Caswell was so charming and persuasive, Ken felt himself weakening to him. Perhaps the man's physical impairment had something to do with it, but Ken just couldn't bring himself to be honest with the author on what he was there for.

Almost nightly Ken spilled out his frustration and the feeling of inevitably of spiraling into a long-term position with Caswell—on Caswell's terms—to Brad, who didn't either rail at him or pressure him to get on with the arrangement Brad had offered him.

Throughout it all, Dusty was the ray of sunshine. The puppy reveled in the return of the one he considered his mother—the human who had brought him into the world and protected and nurtured him and who unexpectedly had disappeared from the scene. None of that mattered to Dusty, though, and as happens with dogs, only the joy of the here and now had any effect on him. Dusty was both affectionate and smart, and Ken was having no trouble training him to the duties of a service dog. It wouldn't be more than a month or two before Dusty was trained and whatever relationship that was building up between Ken and Harold Caswell would come to a crossroad.

Caswell made little effort to hide his sexual preferences, and it didn't take Ken long to realize that Caswell's former companion had been more than just that—he'd been Caswell's live-in boyfriend and had left almost in the middle of the night in a snit, with no regrets on Caswell's part except that it abruptly left him without the support staff he needed.

The Tim Drayton Caswell had expected to interview for the companion position had shown up for an interview eventually, but only weeks later. And by that time Ken realized that Caswell had grown attached to him, and the perfunctory interview with Drayton and sending him away signaled to Ken that Caswell had compared the two young men and was pinning his hopes on Ken now—even after Drayton had made clear that he was comfortable with the arrangement being more than that of a companion. Caswell, after all, was a famous author and was quite presentable still. Ken almost felt he was being too picky himself—too selfish on what he wanted in life—and was not taking his opportunities as he found them.

But Ken now knew that what he wanted was Brad—Brad and Dusty. And therein was the rub, because the longer he went without being honest with Caswell, the more Dusty became Caswell's dog—and not just his dog, but his service support as well.

There came the inevitable evening when Ken knew this all was coming to a head—and he hadn't the vaguest notion what he was going to do when Caswell asked him to climb the stairs to Caswell's bedroom.

Caswell had spent the afternoon on the open back porch, with Sadie by his side, listening to and casting a smile at Ken working in the yard with Dusty. Everything about the afternoon was mellow mixed with the anticipation of something important about to happen.

As the afternoon shadows lengthened, Caswell asked Ken to come up on the porch—to open a couple of bottles of fine wine—and to sit with him, Sadie at Caswell's side and Dusty at Ken's and to read back the chapter of his latest book that he had dictated to the secretary who transcribed his writing just that morning.

Near the dinner hour, Ken looked over and noticed that Caswell had nodded off, but as Ken quietly put the book aside and rose to go into the house, Caswell murmured, "Thank you, Ken. You are a true treasure," and Ken went on into the house. As he passed the dining room table, he saw that the best china and silverware were out and candles and a large bouquet of flowers in the center of the table.

All of this was screaming at him Caswell's intent to make this a romantic evening that would end with the two of them in the same bed.

And Ken had no idea what he would say, how he would react. He only knew that he had been weak up to this point. He went upstairs and rang Brad, wanting counsel and support. But Brad didn't answer.

That evening, as the cook brought in the coffee and port and was dismissed for the evening, with Caswell's soft-voiced thanks, Caswell asked Ken to move to a chair closer to him. Ken steeled himself and moved to beside Caswell, miserable in the knowledge that he was so weak in the presence of Caswell, regretting that Brad hadn't answered the phone, and taking that as a sign on where Ken would be sleeping that night.

"I understand now that you didn't come here for me, Ken—that you came here for Dusty."

"Harold—"

"No, no, it's OK. I understand. I admire you for searching for Dusty until you found him. I think Dusty is one lucky being. I had hoped . . . but I see how it is, and I don't want to be an impediment."

"You're no impediment, Harold," Ken said in a low, husky voice. "You've been nothing but kind, and . . ." He couldn't go on. It shocked him, but he found that he was arguing Caswell's case for him now. He was only a simple "yes" now from climbing those stairs with Caswell.

"Nevertheless, I know more today than I knew yesterday."

Ken was confused and his confusion showed in his face. Caswell couldn't clearly see it, but he was holding Ken's hand now, and he could feel it in the touch.

"You have a very good friend in St. Louis, Ken. I understand he's the one who referred you for this job—found Dusty here and referred you so that you could be reunited. He called me and told me much of what you were too polite and kindhearted to tell me. He has made a generous offer to me. He is willing to send me a fully trained service dog if I will release Dusty to you. I have no problem with that, Ken. I only have one condition."

"One condition," Ken thought, snapping into attention, all of his senses focused on that hand that was holding his, the finger stroking the back of his hand. Always conditions, those inevitable condition. But in this case not so dire, and in this case, Ken was much more swayed, conditioned, willing than he had been with Clyde's and Coach's "conditions."

"Yes?" Ken asked, steeling himself for the proposal—afraid that he'd say yes, and that it would probably change his life forever. Seeing Brad becoming more and more dim in his future, and feeling his betrayal of the one man who had moved him to acknowledge his love and who had done so much to support him.

"The one thing I need from you is that you will stay here until the substitute dog is sent out from St. Louis and that you put the dog and me through our paces so that I can adjust from Sadie to the new dog."

"That's it, that's all?" Ken said.

"Yes,"

Relief and gratitude flowed into Ken's body and he wanted to stand and cry out for joy. But he stayed put, because Dusty had sensed the joy in Ken's body and had hopped up into his lap and was licking at his cheeks—a serious break in training for dining room behavior that Ken totally ignored.

"But what about your need for a companion? I can't just walk off and leave you—"

"Oh, I've decided Tim Drayton will be satisfactory after all," Caswell said. "I called him this morning right after your friend called me—and I said yes to your friend already, by the way—and Drayton will be moving in this weekend. You can keep your room; I have someplace else for Drayton to sleep."

Fifteen minutes later, Ken was in his room, still fighting off the affections of Dusty, and dialing to St. Louis. "Brad? Brad, is that you? Send that new dog for Caswell as soon as you can, please. Dusty and I want to come home."