Shelter Me (27 page)

As much as it hurt to think about, she was beginning to wonder if Gramps required a level of care beyond their scope at home. For his health and safety, was it time to consider some kind of assisted living facility?

Before she could even chase that thought any further, the front door to the shelter opened and the director poked her head out. “Come on in, hon. We’re not open yet, but there’s no need for you to sit out here waiting.”

Please Lord, she prayed Trooper was really inside and okay. It had been a horribly long night without him barking his head off at that blasted cuckoo clock.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul . . .
The words to a Dickinson poem flashed through her mind even as Sierra turned off the car and raced across the parking lot. “Thank you so much. He’s here, right? We read your text message correctly?”

The Animal Control officer had scanned Trooper when he came in, plus he’d kept his collar on this time. They’d had to process him, but they’d sent Lacey a text message.

And sings the tune without the words, and never stops—at all . . .
Damn but it was hard to be hopeful as that little bird, especially when life kept throwing one curveball after another.

“Yes,” Dahlia reassured her, stepping aside for Sierra to enter. “Your boy is here. How’s your grandfather?”

Relief flooded through her. Thank goodness. What was it about Trooper that made him so apt to run? And why had her last gift from her father been something that tested her at every turn? She took a deep breath.

“He’s resting. Mom wakes him up every hour since he has a mild concussion, but we’re lucky we only lost the car.” Gramps was growing as escape prone as Trooper. She followed Dahlia back, the shelter humming with activity as staff fed the animals and cleaned, preparing to open for the public. “And Trooper’s okay?”

“He’s limping, and you’ll want to check that out, but it doesn’t appear to be more than a sprain. Thank God Trooper is microchipped and had his collar. I would have recognized him once I did my walk-through, but still, I’m so relieved for your family.”

“I’m glad he’s here. He lived on his own for so long, he could have been missing, scavenging for who knows how long. Or worse.” Hit by a car. Taken in by some stranger. Or picked up by one of those horrible dogfighting rings the cops suspected had broken into their barn.

As if it wasn’t hard enough to keep watch over Gramps. There was just too much to remember in keeping him out of harm’s way these days. Or was she allowing herself to be distracted by Mike? Guilt pinched as she admitted this was a distinct possibility.

Posters filled the wall with photos of adoptable pets, spay/neuter incentives and flea prevention reminders mixed with framed photos of the employees. Huge bulletin boards were packed with photos of adopted dogs with their families and letters of appreciation. A few notes written in crayon or scribbled marker pictures of stick figure dogs were the sweetest highlights.

She and her mom should do something like that at Second Chance Ranch. In all their spare time. She winced.

“Mom asked me to say thanks and to let you know we would love it if you joined us Sunday evening—any Sunday—for a picnic. They’re becoming a bit of a Second Chance tradition.”

Dahlia pushed open the heavy door leading to the section where they kept the strays. She stopped in front of the first kennel run with Trooper and a couple of skinny Labradors. “Thank you. I may well take you up on that.”

Trooper lay curled up on a blue dog cot, low to the ground, his back pressed to the wall as he eyed everyone with fear and suspicion. Sierra stepped forward to reassure him, but Dahlia held up a hand, keeping her back for now. The director inched the door open, sliding her arm in and looping a leash around Trooper’s neck with professional ease.

Given the shelter director wore leather knee boots and a sleek business suit, the image was . . . different. Sierra couldn’t help but notice how the boss got Trooper herself rather than pull one of the kennel techs from their fast-paced morning routine.

Part of Sierra ached to walk down the length of runs and give each dog at least an extra hello or scratch on the nose, but the stray section was full of animals that hadn’t been temperament tested yet. Dogs that were scared and abandoned. Some kennel runs held bold red signs warning
Quarantine Bite Case
or
Beware: Aggressive
. Even in the cleanest of shelters there was a scent of despair she didn’t need a canine sense of smell to detect.

No wonder her mother came home with carloads full of animals half the time she visited this place. The conditions were clean, safe and caring, but with thousands of animals a year to process, the shelter couldn’t possibly replicate the environment of a home-based rescue.

Dahlia passed over the leash and led them out of the stray area. Trooper limped alongside her, his head low, neck swiveling from side to side as he looked around warily. The soothing music hadn’t come close to working its magic on him yet.

“Sierra, you can sign him out up front. I’m off to a breakfast meeting with the chamber of commerce. Tell your mom hello for me.”

“We owe you.”

“There are no tallies. If there were, I would be the one deeply in debt.” Her hand trailed over Trooper’s head so lightly a sigh rippled through the dog.

Then she left, efficient, always on the move with her cell phone in her hand as she texted.

The director’s boots clicked on her way back out to the reception area. Dahlia passed the paperwork from the kennel across the desk before waving on her way out. Sierra realized she’d gotten the royal treatment thanks to her mom, and God, she was grateful.

She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around Trooper’s neck, burying her face in his fur, which had gotten more than a little smelly from his night’s adventure. What if she’d lost her father’s dog? The dog that Mike had risked his career to bring to them?

What if something had happened to this whacky, quirky animal that was stealing her heart in spite of all the painful memories he brought with him?

“Hope” is the thing with feathers . . .

For the first time, she wondered if Emily Dickinson got it wrong. Because right now, it felt like Hope came with fur.

She kissed him on the nose. “You’re a crazy lucky dog, do you know that? You have really got to stop running away.”

Trooper plastered himself so tightly to her, Velcro dog style, she could almost swear she heard him promise.

*   *   *

A WEEK LATER,
Mike scraped the grease off the grill, cleaning the racks as everyone finished up the last of their burgers and hot dogs, twice as many burgers as last Sunday. The weekend gathering was expanding. But he was grateful for the support today of all days.

Father’s Day.

The McDaniel women continued on like it was any other day, but it had to be hell for them both. Helping those two fiercely independent females was easier said than done. At least Gramps had seemed to given up on escaping since his accident. The General might not remember the details, but something appeared to have resonated in him, a shift, a surrender of independence, necessary but so damn sad at the same time.

Sierra refilled the three-gallon cooler of tea, and another of lemonade. Her jean shorts and cowboy boots were driving him crazy to get her alone later. But it would likely be much later.

According to Sierra, it wasn’t unusual for the rescue volunteers who came in on the weekend to gather around for a meal. In the past, they would order pizza or bring bagged lunches and sit around to talk.

Yet when Lacey had showed up with her vet buddy, the get-together grew more . . . official. More volunteers came, all bringing side dishes and sodas, while Lacey supplied burgers and hot dogs. He was surprised at the turnout today, though, given this was Father’s Day. But then maybe these people—friends of Lacey and Sierra—were here for just that reason. They’d turned out to offer support because they knew this would be an especially difficult time for the McDaniel family.

His time to offer them support was coming to a close. Only a week left on his leave. Only a week left until the county made a decision on the rescue.

Only a week left with Sierra before he moved and he needed to figure out what the hell that meant for them.

Their relationship was . . . complicated. They weren’t officially a couple—even though they’d had sex every day for the past two weeks, secretly, neither of them willing to face the implications of going back to the way things were before.

Her mother knew, though. That was obvious from the half smiles Lacey couldn’t always hide, but Sierra didn’t want to acknowledge anything, even in front of her mom.

Because her mom was recently widowed, or for some other reason? Like wanting to stay here and build a life rather than continue the military vagabond lifestyle for another twenty years?

Twenty years? Like marriage? Where the hell had that thought come from?

He slammed the grill lid and turned fast as if someone in the crowd might be a mind reader. Instead, he just found a row of dogs at the fence. A
very long
row lined up as the smoke of burning grease drifted toward them. Trooper, the other three McDaniel dogs, the vet’s two border collies. And of course all the fosters, including a new brindle—Pixie? Cute mutt. He wondered if she might be staying.

His eyes slid back to Trooper. The dog cocked his head to the side as if listening, understanding. He was going to miss the mutt. They’d been together nearly seven months.

And the people? He would miss them, too.

What an—he dug for a Scrabble word—
eclectic
group of folks. Why couldn’t the neighbors see this aspect of the Second Chance Ranch Rescue? The way Lacey and Sierra pulled the community together? This kind of camaraderie was rare. He would have given anything to be a part of a community like this growing up, relatives and friends.

The veterinarian had been here all three Sundays, the humanitarian who volunteered his services to a shelter fund-raiser. The kind of guy who would be perfect for Sierra. Not that Ray Vega made any overt romantic moves on any of the women.

Was Lacey matchmaking for her daughter?

The thought persisted over the weeks, no matter that Sierra had protested. And the idea stung. A lot. He shouldn’t care what her mother thought, since neither he nor Sierra had committed to each other. In fact, she made it clear she didn’t want a military life, and he could understand that her family had already made the ultimate sacrifice.

An acrid whiff from the grill stirred memories of that day. He swallowed down bile and turned fast to open the lid. Flames crackled. His nose twitched. He scraped more of the charred excess off, forcing himself to focus on the now, to be in the moment and stop worrying about a week from now, much less twenty years from now.

More than volunteers and the vet were joining in to offer support today. His buddy Calvin had come over as well—and was currently hitting on the shelter director, Dahlia. The echo of four-wheelers in the distance growled a warning that the neighbors were always watching, even from afar.

He didn’t like the idea of anyone spying on Sierra. He couldn’t deny the urge to protect her even though he had not acknowledged the right to do so beyond this week.

He turned off the grill as he watched Sierra by a tire swing that held a volunteer’s kid. Sierra looked like the sort of woman in the kind of life he’d imagined having one day. So why the hell couldn’t he just make that happen? A tic started in the corner of his eye.

Okay, to be honest, he wanted to take her out on dates, and instead they were sneaking around like teenagers forbidden to see each other. He wasn’t sure why that rankled, because he didn’t have a clue how to make things end differently this go-round.

His time out of the smoke was only temporary.

*   *   *

SIERRA SLIPPED HER
hand into Mike’s surreptitiously, under the cover of the darkness as everyone sat around the bonfire. Half the group had stayed on for the evening, and she was so grateful for her mom and for Nathan that this many people had cared enough to spend their Father’s Day making her family’s a little easier.

She’d made it through this day, one hour at a time for her mom and her brother. Now she wanted something for herself, a distraction, to think about anything other than grief, to feel something other than loss and regret.

To stop being
strong
.

No thoughts of the future. No dwelling on tomorrow. She squeezed Mike’s hand as he sat on a blanket.

He glanced back over his shoulder at her. She held a finger to her lips and tugged him. His smile sent a thrill of anticipation up her spine.

Once they tucked around the barn away from the bonfire crowd, he ducked his head to whisper, “Where are we going?”

A welcome cool breeze ruffled through her hair, the night sky hung with a million stars.

“The supply room, in the barn.”

His laugh rumbled softly. “To do inventory?”

“Of a sort.” She ducked into the barn.

A cat jumped from the rafters, landing at her feet. She squealed and jumped back, slamming against Mike’s rock-solid chest as the gray tabby streaked past to find another hiding spot. The past two weeks had been filled with sex, great sex, with a man who already knew her every want and need. She knew they couldn’t go on like this forever, which made her want to savor every second all the more.

She turned into his arms and kissed him, fully, the darkness of the barn wrapping them in a blanket of privacy. She slipped her hands up under his polo shirt, the warmth and ridges of his hard muscled body a tactile pleasure she would never tire of exploring.

His hands tucked into the waist of her jean shorts, which conveniently brought her hips flush against his solid erection. She nipped his bottom lip. “Can we move to the inventory room a little faster, please?”

“Yes, ma’am, we most certainly can. Just making my way around another cat.” He dodged a ball of fur curled up nearby as he kissed her neck in a delicious path up to her ear. “I’m just not as adept at maneuvering around the critters as you are.”