Shiloh is safe with Marty…unless his previous owner decides he wants him back in the second book in the series by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor that began with the Newbery Medal–winning perennial bestseller Shiloh . Marty gets to keep Shiloh! He wasn’t able to rescue all the dogs that Judd Travers mistreated, but at least Shiloh is safe…right? Not necessarily, it turns out. Judd has started drinking again, and with hunting season approaching, he’s been seen on the outskirts of Marty’s family property. What if Judd tries to take Shiloh back? What if one of Marty’s sisters gets in the way of Judd’s shotgun? It seems only a matter of time before something goes very wrong. The thing is, Marty knows a secret about Judd that no one else does, and if anything terrible happens, he will never be able to forgive himself for keeping quiet. Is it time for Marty to speak up? And can he find the courage to do so before someone he loves gets hurt? * “The author’s sympathy for her characters, both the good guys and those who menace them, communicates itself almost invisibly to the reader, who may well come away hoping for a full-fledged Shiloh series.”— Publishers Weekly , starred review * Taut with suspense, touched by a fine sense of humanity, and narrated in an authentic West Virginia dialect, this cmopelling page-turner will be in justifiable demand."-- Booklist , starred review Phyllis Reynolds Naylor has written more than 135 books, including the Newbery Award–winning Shiloh and its sequels, three of which were made into movies; the Alice series; Roxie and the Hooligans ; and Roxie and the Hooligans at Buzzard’s Roost . She lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland. To hear from Phyllis and find out more about Alice, visit AliceMcKinley.com. Excerpt Chapter One After Shiloh come to live with us, two things happened. One started out bad and ended good. The other started out good and...Well, let me tell it the way it was. Most everybody near Friendly, West Virginia, knows how Judd Travers treats his dogs, and how he bought this new little beagle to help him hunt, and how the beagle kept running away from Judd's kicks and curses. Ran to me. They know the story of how I hid the dog in a pen I made for him up in our woods and named him Shiloh. Judd just calls his dogs cuss words. And everybody in Tyler County, almost, heard how a German shepherd jumped into that pen and tore up Shiloh something awful, and then the secret was out. My dad drove Shiloh over to Doc Murphy, who sewed him up and helped him live. And then, because my friend David Howard has the biggest mouth from here to Sistersville, most everybody knows how I worked for Judd Travers two weeks to earn that dog. So now he's mine. Mine and Ma's and Dad's and Dara Lynn's and Becky's. We all just love him so's he can hardly stand it sometimes; tail wags so hard you figure it's about to fly off. Anyway, the thing that started out bad and ended good was that I promised Doc Murphy I'd pay him every cent we owed him for fixing up Shiloh. I looked for bottles and aluminum cans the whole test of the summer, but only earned two dollars and seventy cents. When I took it to Doc Murphy, though, so he could subtract it from our bill, he says I can work off the rest, same as I worked for Judd. Next to Judd telling me I can have Shiloh for my own, that was the best news I'd heard in a long time. And now for the good part that turned bad and then worse: after figuring that everything's okay now between me and Judd Travers - he even gave me a collar for Shiloh - Judd starts drinking. Not that he didn't drink before. Got a belly on him like a watermelon sticking out over his belt buckle, but now he's drinkin' hard. First time I know anything about it, I'm coming up the road from Doc Murphy's, Shiloh trottin' along ahead or behind. That dog always finds something old he's got to smell twice or something new he ain't smelled at all, and his legs can hardly get him there fast enough. I think he was down in the creek while I was working at Doc's, and he's trying to make like he was with me the whole time. I'm following along, thinking how happiness is a wet dog with a full stomach, when I hear this truck coming up the road behind me. I can tell by the sound that it's going faster than it should. My first thought, as I turn my head, is that if it don't slow down, it won't make the bend, air and then I see that it's Judd Travers's pickup. I take this flying leap into the field, like I'm doing a belly flop in Middle Island Creek, and for a couple seconds I can't even breathe - it's knocked the wind right out of me. I watch the truck go off the road a couple feet farther on, then weave back on again, over to the other side, and finally it starts slowing down for the bridge. Shiloh comes running back, licks my face to see if I'm all right. The question in my mind is did Judd try to run me over or didn't he even see me, he's that drunk? And if Shiloh had been behind