Warrant trotted at her side as they passed their neighbor’s scarily perfect yard. Mr. Petra silently watched from his wide, immaculate porch, his narrow-eyed glare boring into her.

Baring her teeth in a wide smile, Molly waved. “Hey, Mr. P! Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

As he continued to glower, Molly felt her forced smile shift to a real grin. Being passive-aggressively friendly to her sourpuss of a neighbor was oddly satisfying. She felt his disapproving glare follow her until she reached the end of their street and turned the corner. Warrant happily bumbled along next to her, although his broad, pink tongue was already hanging out of his mouth.

“We’ve gone a block,” she said. “You can’t be getting tired already.”

Warrant just blinked his oblivious dark eyes at her, and she sighed.

“You’re the laziest dog in the world. It’s a good thing you’re cute, or we wouldn’t put up with your shenanigans.” That last part was a lie. Molly and her sisters would put up with Warrant even if all of his fur fell out and he sprouted leathery, bat-like wings. They’d probably even get specially made sweaters with appropriately placed holes for his new appendages. She smiled at the mental image as she ran a hand over his silky-soft head.

The sun beamed down warmly on them as they walked, light filtering through the trees that lined the residential street. Langston was close enough to Denver—just an hour’s drive from downtown to downtown if traffic was light—that commuters were snapping up new cookie-cutter homes on the northern edge of the small city as fast as they could be built. Set tucked against the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the new suburbs had wide stretches of fresh sod and spindly saplings that cast barely any shade, but Molly’s house was in the older, richer, southern part of town. That meant neighbors eyed her family’s worn and comfortably raggedy property from their own perfectly restored Victorians with lush, Mr. P-approved lawns, but it also meant that the trees were old enough to spread their sheltering branches over the yards and quiet streets, protecting Molly and Warrant from the strong Colorado sun.

Although it was mid-September, it still looked—and felt—like summer. The only hint that fall had begun was the absence of kids running around at two thirty on a Tuesday afternoon. Despite Warrant’s slowing pace, the mile-long walk went quickly, the peace of the quiet, warm day soothing Molly’s too-busy brain.

After much coaxing and a minimal amount of dragging her increasingly lazy dog, Molly made it to the park. Only a handful of people were there, mostly parents watching their preschool-age kids play. Warrant perked up once the dog park came into view, but Molly towed him in the opposite direction toward an empty bench next to the swings, doing her best to pretend she couldn’t see his sad look. She failed miserably.

“I know, Warrant.” She sat and tried to ignore the guilt swamping her. “We need to make some money, though. You eat a lot, and it’s not the cheap stuff, either. Your food is the equivalent of dog caviar, so I don’t think it’s too much to ask for you to help out occasionally.”