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For a time Zelda just stood on the street, watching Max walk away. She’d only returned from her trip a short time before to find Max rushing outside to search for Charlie, who had jumped the fence. But in her panic over the thought of her dog being lost, she’d said some harsh things to Max.

He’d gotten angry. Very angry. And even though Zelda knew she’d played a part in it all, she was slightly taken aback herself to see Max’s temper. A temper that had thrown her into memories of her former fiancé’s outbursts.

So she didn’t go after Max. In fact, she stayed where she was - far up Max’s block - holding tight to Charlie until Max was nearly to his house.

Only then did she head for her car where it was parked at his curb.

“I don’t want someone who yells at me any more than I want someone who yells at you,” Zelda informed Charlie along the way.

Of course she’d been the one to start the shouting, a contrary little voice in her head reminded her as she reached her car and put Charlie inside. But still she didn’t go up to Max’s house. She got behind the wheel and drove around the block to her own place.

Only, once she was home again and Charlie was safely carrying around his toy beaver as he always did when he first came in, Zelda began to cool off. She began to calm down.

She began to have regrets. It was pretty crummy of her to have gotten so furious with Max, she thought. After all, she knew for a fact that Charlie could go over the fence in the blink of an eye. He’d done it on her watch, too. That was how she and Max had met.

And apparently Max had been good to Charlie while she was gone since Charlie had run to Max instead of to her when they’d finally found him. Obviously Charlie was not only no longer afraid of him, Charlie liked him.

Plus now Max liked Charlie, too. He’d told her so.

But what had she done almost the moment she’d arrived on the scene? She’d accused Max of not going after Charlie fast enough when he’d seen the terrier jump the fence. And worse, she’d even suggested that Max might have taken Charlie to the pound to get rid of him and was only pretending that Charlie had run away.

Zelda cringed when she recalled that now. Max had done her a huge favor by dog-sitting for her. He’d spent most of his weekend complying with her request to let Charlie get familiar and comfortable with him. But had she thanked him for all his trouble? No, she’d attacked him.

So she had to admit that maybe Max had had cause to lose his temper with her. Maybe it wasn’t a show of the kind of short fuse her former fiancé had exhibited too often.

“Do you think I really blew it?” she asked Charlie.

But even though Charlie was busy with the beaver and ignored her, Zelda still realized that she really had been unfair to Max and that she couldn’t just let it go at that.

Even if it wasn’t going to be easy to face him again.

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