*This snippet is straight out of my work in progress. It hasn’t been edited and may not look like this in the final book. But I thought it would be fun to share.

 

Something dark streaked out at her from between two homes. A large dog headed right for her. Rachel was already running at top speed and the dog was gaining on her.  Speeding up to lose it was not an option.
She reached for her pistol and remembered she hadn’t wanted to bring it on her run. She cursed herself for a fool. Rachel slowed down so she could maneuver better to avoid the dog’s teeth.
But…
The dog slowed down too.
The dog was young, maybe a year old. The black and brown markings of a German Shepard had been what increased her breathing above its already heaving level. But this dog didn’t act like a military-train shepherd in attack mode. The oversized puppy keeping pace with Rachel had its tongue lolling out the side of its mouth, both ears flopped as it loped alongside her.
Rachel slowed to a stop. The dog stopped a few feet away and sat staring at Rachel. The thin, gangly pup had the most beautiful and un-nerving, bright blue eyes. Did pure-bred shepherd have blue eyes, she wondered.
The pup sat there with her tongue still hanging out of the side of her mouth and her tail kicking up the gravel from the road. One ear hung partially over her eye and the other ear lay across the top of her head. But it was those blue eyes that felt like they could look into her soul that had Rachel squatting down and holding her hand out.
“Hi, sweetie.”
The dog started forward then sat back down. She whined and shifted in place.
“What are you doing about at this hour, huh?” This time when Rachel spoke, the dog crept toward her in a slightly hunched stance.
She let Rachel scratch behind her floppy ears.
“You are a cutie. Yes, you are.”
The dog almost knocked Rachel over as it tried to crawl into Rachel’s lap.
After a few moments of staring into those beautiful blue eyes and rubbing behind the dog’s ears, Rachel stood up and scanned the nearby houses. None had lights on or any indication anyone was awake. In fact, most of the homes around her looked vacant. Like the homes of snowbirds who had already moved north.