Shelter Me (26 page)

Lacey stood by a table with a Rubbermaid container full of what looked like puppy gear and assorted dog care items. She wore yoga pants that showed off her legs to perfection. Her T-shirt was fitted, something she must have pulled from her son’s drawer since it had a video game logo on the front. The whole outfit was so totally Lacey, her wavy light brown hair swinging down her back. But then the pink Chucks on her feet—well, those alone would have turned him inside out. He was once again slayed by everything about this unique, unpredictable woman.

He stepped down into the glass room, full of the scent of lavender and bleach. Signature Lacey. He smiled. “Congratulations on adopting out that poodle boy, Marley.”

“Thank you. It’s tough to remember to celebrate. Especially after what happened last weekend and knowing whoever did it is still out there somewhere. And then to be blindsided by more sick puppies and I’m blaming myself for missing the signs because there’s so much going on.”

“Where are the pit puppies?” Hopefully not exposed to the sick ones here.

“The pit puppies are thriving, fully weaned from the bottle and eating solid food, so I moved them to a regular foster home until they’re old enough for adoption. These little ones needed me now.”

He knew too well people didn’t dump their animals at the shelter in perfect condition.

“I expected the mama and babies to be full of parasites, but I’m worried maybe it’s worse than normal. They seem dehydrated and their gums are getting pale. I’m sorry to bother you but—”

“Don’t apologize. That’s definitely cause for concern.” He knelt down beside the pen and lifted out one pup that looked particularly lethargic, a three-week-old fuzzy ball of white and black fur.

He pinched up the scruff of the neck and, sure enough, it didn’t slide back into place as it should. He lifted the lip and checked the gums, pale pink, not great but at least not white. He looked into the pup’s eyes cataloguing with a combination of training and instinct. “Any fever?”

She shook her head. “No nasal drainage either. They’re just . . . not right.”

And yes, yes, he’d noticed that while she’d always been careful she’d become particularly . . . jumpy. Fearful, even.

“Did I panic over nothing?”

“Don’t apologize.” He checked each of the puppies one by one, and they did need fluids, which she knew how to administer, even though most fosters wouldn’t. Still, he was glad for the excuse to see her. “They could all use some subcutaneous fluids. Mama dog, too. I’ve got a bag with me and I see you’ve already got one ready.” He pointed to the bag of clear fluids hanging from a chair. “We’ll have them set in no time.”

A sigh shuddered through her. “Maybe you should do them all.”

“You’re good. You know the drill. I’ll holler if I see anything to worry about.”

While he set up a second bag, she knelt beside the nursing dog murmuring soothing words as she cradled a puppy. “It’s okay, Mama. I’m just trying to help your babies.”

“I’m glad to assist, but I’m wondering what’s up with your sudden lack of confidence?” He dug in his vet bag for the smallest gauge needles.

She draped a clean towel over her lap and soothed the pup on her leg until it calmed, then reached for the needle attached to the line. “It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Having Trooper here, well, I’m glad it worked, but—”

Understanding hit him. “But it’s made losing your husband fresh again.”

“Exactly. I’m not sure I even realized how much the stress was building until tonight when I tried to play catch-up only to realize I can’t seem to find my footing.”

He hated seeing her this rattled. So, even though he knew it was going to hurt, he had to at least try to get her to talk about it. Bracing himself, he asked, “How did you two meet?”

She injected the pup slowly, her hands steady even though her voice wasn’t.

“I was a senior and this new guy came to school. His dad had just transferred to the local Army post, forcing him to move his senior year. I saw him in his Junior ROTC uniform and wow, call it love at first sight or lust at first sight, but I knew he was mine and I’d better act fast before the other girls moved in on him.”

He could have done without the lust mention. Ray pinched up the scruff again, made a tent and positioned the needle, easing a flow of subcu fluids under the skin of another dehydrated pup. “Sounds like you both knew right away.”

“He truly was a great guy, good grades and smart. He worked his butt off to make his father proud.”

“Did he succeed?” God knows his own father hadn’t been pleased with a hippie son who spent a fortune on vet school then didn’t seem to care about raking in the big bucks back home so his father could trot out his successful son at election time.

“It’s tough to tell with the General, and our window to find out is closing fast,” she said sadly, withdrawing the needle from the pup and cuddling her close for comfort. “I think so. Allen made full bird. That’s big. Would he have made general? I don’t know. Allen wasn’t as ruthlessly driven as Joshua—and I mean that in a good way.”

“He sounds like the perfect guy.” Great. When the time came, he had to compete with a saintly ghost. Not that he wanted her to be unhappy, but damn.

“He had his flaws.”

“Such as?” He left the last two puppies for Lacey to hydrate while he stepped over a chew toy and checked on the mama dog.

“He put up with too much crap from me. Just look at our home.” She held up a puppy. “He wasn’t great at managing money, but since he was gone a lot I took over the bills. That helped.”

He wasn’t so comfortable talking about the married years, the successful man who genuinely seemed to cherish his wife’s unique calling to save. “But back to high school when you met.”

“Halfway through our senior year we learned Allen had gotten into West Point, but he turned down the appointment to marry me. He took an ROTC scholarship at a local college instead.”

“What did your family say?” He put a fresh needle on the IV line and distracted mama dog with an ear scratch a second before he slid in the needle under her skin. She didn’t even wince, poor, worn-out girl.

“They said that I should have encouraged him to take the amazing opportunity.” She winced with guilt. “They were right. I pressured him for all the wrong reasons. I was scared he would outgrow me and find someone else . . . And then it was all a moot issue.”

He stayed silent, finishing the fluids on the mama as Lacey set the last puppy back in to nurse.

“I got pregnant the summer before college. So he would have been kicked out of West Point for getting married or I would have had Sierra on my own.” She glanced over at him. “West Point cadets can’t be married during school.”

“He seems to have had a successful Army career anyway.”

“Did he? If he’d gone to West Point he might have been in a different place.” She leaned against the puppy pen as if unsteady, her eyes glazed with unshed tears. “Or safer place.”

Ah, now he understood the path of her life review, and it had to be hell. “You can drive yourself crazy with thoughts like that.”

“I think I’m already there.” She blinked and one tear slid free, tracking down her cheek.

To hell with restraint. He put his arms around her and hauled her to his chest. He cupped her head, his fingers tangled in the waves of her hair, every bit as soft as he’d dreamed about. This was okay, holding her when she was upset, and he’d waited so long to touch her he couldn’t bring himself to cut this moment short. Even if he was a selfish ass for using her grief to take advantage of the chance to touch her.

A sigh shuddered through her. “I don’t know what I would have done without your help this past week.”

Hearing her say that led him to tell her the decision that had been weighing so heavily on him. “Lacey, I’ve gotten an offer from a practice back in my hometown out west, a big clinic with high-end clientele, which allows the vets a hefty budget to do charity work.”

She glanced up at him, her smile tentative, her eyes glittering. “What a fantastic opportunity for you. Congratulations.” Her throat moved with a slow swallow. “Are you going to take the offer?”

How could he tell her he wanted to stick around for her? How could he expect her to give him a sign there was a chance so soon after she’d lost her husband? “I don’t know. I’m still weighing the options. I’ve grown really, uh, fond of the people I work with—”

A cleared throat in the doorway sent her lurching back. She scraped her wrists under her eyes.

He checked and found—shit. Her son, Nathan, stood stock-still and not happy, looking from one to the other of them with an accusatory glare that wouldn’t have bothered him if it weren’t for the pain he saw in those eyes that looked so much like Lacey’s.

“Mom, the cops just called your cell phone, which you left in the kitchen and apparently were too
busy
to hear.”

She stood up sharply, then stumbled, losing her balance for an instant. Ray palmed her back, taking his place beside her even as her son’s eyes narrowed further. “Ray, I’m okay.” She reached for her son. “Why are the police calling?”

“You forgot to turn the security system back on after Doctor Vega arrived and Gramps got out. He took the Barge and he’s been in a wreck. You need to pick him up at the station.” He turned away, then looked back with an attitude that some teenager should have patented a long time ago. “Oh, and Trooper’s locked up at the pound.”

*   *   *

YES, I UNDERSTAND
when people talk even though I’m a dog, but that doesn’t mean I always know certain phrases or labels. Like this “Animal Control” place Lacey talked about. It took a while for me to figure that one out. She would mention going to visit her friends at Animal Control, and the next thing I knew, there were more dogs or cats and one day even a bunny rabbit.

Those new pups on the block always smelled kinda different, but Lacey bathed them fast. God, these humans love baths. I like swimming fine, but baths? Get real. Soap gets in my eyes and I’m crammed in a tub. Then if I won’t use the tub, it’s time for a cold hose rinse off.

I get muddy. A lot. Sierra doesn’t like it. She always sighs, “Not again, Trooper.”

But I know. There will be an “again.”

Anyhow, about this Animal Control thing. I understood that it was a place where animals lived, but not much beyond that. Until the night I went for a drive with the General.

The ride was fun at first, better than the late walks we snuck. I had my head out the window, breathing in a million scents coming at me all at once. All those smells were kinda like doggie crack, drugging my senses.

Gramps bought me a burger in a drive-through. I gobbled it right up, except I spit the pickles out the window. Made another driver really mad, but hey, I’m a dog. I thought it was highly advanced of me not to hide the pickles under the backseat.

The driver in the other car got pissed off. What’s it called? Oh yeah, road rage. She drove faster, right up alongside us, blaring the horn again and again. Gramps started twitching that way he did when I could tell he was getting disoriented and having war flashbacks.

Humans have a fancy name for it. Post-traumatic stress disorder.

I understood, even without the fancy words. We dogs get the crap kicked out of us a lot. When I was a puppy, the local kids threw rocks at us to chase us away. Some of the dogs at the rescue have their own stories about war wounds from their previous lives.

It leaves marks. And there are triggers to those fears.

That honking horn triggered something in Gramps. He mashed the gas and lost control of the big car—the Barge. He swerved. Then bam. He popped up a curb and rammed a tree. We had a wreck.

Obviously I’m okay because I’m telling you about the accident now. I was flung from the car since the window was down. I sprained my leg and it hurt. But I limped back to the Barge against the tree. Steam rose from the hood.

Gramps didn’t look good slumped over the wheel unconscious, so I figured I should get help for the General. The Colonel would want me to take care of his dad. Since it didn’t seem like I was able to do much for Lacey and the kids except make more work with my baths, I was all in on finding a cop. Someone like that Officer Parker we met at the adoption event when he was sniffing around Lacey.

Cops equal help. Even a dog knows that.

Or so I thought.

The policeman I found that night wouldn’t listen to me no matter how loudly I barked. And man, he got mad when I tugged his pants leg to show him where we needed to go find Gramps. The dude acted like I was dangerous.

For real?

I wasn’t a wild pup anymore. But apparently someone forgot to give him the memo.

Prepare yourself for what he did, because it sure surprised the pee out of me.

He threw a blanket over me.

Not playing around, either. He wrapped me up tight, making it tough to breathe and hurting my sprained leg. I was not happy about that. I yelped and thrashed. Hard. He adjusted his grip and he held me tighter, which didn’t go well for either of us. I knocked him down and we hit the road. My leg felt like it was on fire it ached so bad, but not badly enough to stop me. I bolted.

As I race-limped into the cluster of houses, I heard the policeman on his radio shouting, “Need assistance from Animal Control pronto. Wild dog on the loose.”

And that’s when I learned Animal Control is actually doggie jail.

Fourteen

E
ARLY MORNING SUN
steaming the dew off the parking lot, Sierra sat in her running car with the air conditioner blasting while she waited for the shelter to open so she could retrieve Trooper. The night had been beyond horrible, but they were lucky. Very lucky.

Her mother was home with her grandfather. He’d suffered a mild concussion from driving the Barge into a tree, totaling the car, but Lacey was terrified to let him out of her sight for even a minute. Mike had offered to feed all the animals so Sierra could get Trooper. How would they manage when Mike left?

What would
she
do?