Toward the Sound of Chaos (4 page)

Ellie

B
y
Friday week we aren’t doing much better. I spent all week feeling guilty, about
everyone and everything. I cried my eyes out when we got to the shelter and
Lady wasn’t there to greet us. I felt responsible for her death, because if I
hadn’t been watching Jake Damn Tucker in my rear-view mirror, I never would
have crashed my car, Olivia wouldn’t have had to babysit me, and she’d have
been at home with Lady and Pebbles.

I’m
so humiliated and confused beyond belief. I’d puked on Jake one day, chewed him
out the next, and the following day he’d had a Spencer-sized meltdown in my salon.
I never did thank him for pulling me from the car, and I guess I had been a
little hard on him at the beach, but with the way he came at me, and then
seeing that blood on Spencer’s arm, and the torment in his gaze when I
accidently cut him—well, I was completely flummoxed.

That
man just turns me into a walking hormone, which is so unlike me. Okay, that’s a
lie—it’s not completely unheard of for me to lose my head around those big,
broody, silent types. I did fall hard and fast for Spencer’s dad and look where
that got me. It seems the meaner they are, the harder I fall.

Being
attracted to those kinds of men, though? Well, it’s hard not to lose yourself
and become a walking doormat. I stayed with Spencer’s daddy when I should have
tucked tail and run. It took two years for me to pluck up the courage to take
my son and get the hell outta Dodge. I didn’t make it to the next town before
he found me and dragged me kicking and screaming back home.

The
next time I left, I made sure he’d never find us again. We zigzagged all over Southern
Carolina before deciding on moving two states over and settling in Fairhope.
That was six years ago, and I hadn’t been interested in letting a man get close
to me since. Before Jake Tucker came home, that was.

I
lean against the railing of the shelter’s training ring. Until Olivia bought
this property it was used as a horse ranch; now it’s the perfect place to train
and house the dogs she rescues from death row.

Spencer
plays in the small puppy pen off to one side of the ring. He giggles as those
furry little monsters climb all over him and lick and slobber and mouth his
hands, face, and boots. Olivia comes out from the house and I hand her the
double-shot mocha with low-fat whip that I promised her for making my week with
this here little visit.

“How
you doing, Spence?”

He
laughs again and calls out a greeting to Olivia, but one of the pups sticks its
long, pink tongue in Spencer’s face, and he giggles and tackles the dog.

“He
okay?” She tilts her chin toward Spencer.

“Yeah,
we both got a bit teary when we came in, but he’ll be alright. We sure are
going to miss her, though,” I say. Spencer picks up the puppy and holds it up
in the air, zooming it around as if it’s an airplane while he hums the Superman
theme song. “Careful, baby, they’re little and what do we do with things that
are smaller than us?”

“We
protect them,” he replies, setting the dog on his chest and rubbing its silky
ears between his thumbs and forefingers.

“That’s
right, so you be gentle, and you be their protector. Okay?”

“Yes,
Mamma.” He glances down at the wriggling ball of fur and whispers his secrets
to the puppy.

I
turn my attention back to Olivia. “We held our own little memorial for Lady
down by Mobile Bay yesterday. We’ve both been moping ever since.”

“That
mean old bastard Williams. If he’d let you have a pet—”

 “Mamma,”
Spence says, sitting up as an array of furry bodies go sprawling. “Aunt Olivia
cussed.”

“I
know, honey.” I give my friend a pointed look.

“Speaking
of service dogs . . .” Olivia trails off, and I follow her gaze across the
yard. Jake Tucker and his dog approach us.

“What
is he doing here?”

“Who,
Jake?” Olivia says, as if she doesn’t know. “Well, I asked him to help out with
the puppies. Plus, Nuke’s comin’ in for a little more training. Can’t have him
disobeying orders, now can we?”

My
mouth falls open. “How did you know about that?”

“Honey,
there ain’t a thing that happens in this town that everyone and their dog don’t
know about by the end of the day.” Olivia pushes off of the fence and walks
toward him. “Jake, nice to see you again,” she purrs, and raises a brow at me
before turning to Nuke. She sooks him up appropriately and he wags his tail.
“Eloise and Percy are just finishing up inside, and then we’ll get started. Why
don’t you two talk amongst yourselves a little while I go and help them out?”

“Olivia,”
I protest, but she just chuckles, tying up her rich chestnut locks as she walks
across the yard to the big old brick building.

“Hi,”
Jake says, holding up his hand, which has a camouflage lead wrapped around it.
“He’s on the leash.”

I
smile sheepishly. “I may have overreacted a little bit that day.”

“It’s
okay. You were just lookin’ out for your boy.”

I
give a half-hearted nod. “I may have also been embarrassed about puking on you
the day before.”

“Ah.
Well, I could lie and tell you it’s fine, but it was pretty gross.”

I
stare at him, my mouth agape. Did he seriously just say that? I mean, obviously
it was gross, but still, could he make me feel any worse?

Jake
chuckles, one corner of his mouth quirking up in a half grin. “I’m teasin’ you,
Elle. Besides, I’d say we’re even after I ran outta your salon screaming like a
little girl, wouldn’t you?”

Elle
?
Where did that come from
? My whole life no one has ever called me Elle, but
I like the way it sounds in his deep, husky drawl. Like a dram of whiskey on a
cold winter night, warm and rough as it goes down. I swallow hard as I think
about Jake Tucker going down, and I have to drop my gaze so he won’t see the
come-and-do-ridiculously-naughty-things-to-me look that I give him.

“Well,
you didn’t exactly scream. You were more like a ninja, disarming me faster than
I could blink and tossing my cut-throat razor like a throwing star before
vanishing into thin air,” I say, shrugging.

“I’m
sorry I hurt you.” He swallows hard and glances at my wrists before turning
away.

“You
wanna just start over?” I ask. “Hi, I’m Ellie Mason. I’m a single mom, and hairdresser.
I drink too much coffee, run my car into poor unsuspecting footbridges, and
puke all over nice men. I don’t do close shaves anymore though on account of
some trouble I had a week back with a highly trained ninja.”

He
chuckles darkly. “Okay, let’s see. Jake Tucker, ex-Marine, PTSD survivor,
single—surprising right? I’m a sucker for hot blondes who puke all over me
after I pull them from burning vehicles. I also like long walks on the beach
where I tackle unsuspecting women to the ground to save them from rogue
fireworks, and I singlehandedly took out a cut-throat razor last week with my
stealth moves.”

“For
your information, that vehicle wasn’t burning.” I laugh.

“No
it wasn’t. I may have a tendency to over exaggerate in order to make myself
look better.” He grins and clears his throat. “You haven’t been at the beach
lately.”

“Not
really. We went a few days ago, but we haven’t made it out since.” I lower my
voice so my son won’t hear. “Spencer’s friend, Lady, died.”

“Olivia’s
Lady?”

“Yeah.
My landlord won’t let us have an assistance dog, so we’d come and work with
Lady here at the shelter. He’s been a little torn up ever since. More
meltdowns, more attitude, and over things that never used to bother him
before.”

Jake
studies Spencer, who’s so caught up in the puppies he hasn’t even seen Jake
yet. I can tell the Marine’s trying to work out what’s wrong with him, but he’s
too polite to ask.

“Spencer
has Autism and SPD,” I blurt out. A part of me hates having to explain my son’s
diagnosis. It’s not that I’m ashamed, and I know as the parent of an ASD child
that I should be willing to answer questions in the hopes of removing the awful
stigma associated with Autism, but sometimes you can talk until you’re blue in
the face and it won’t change people’s prejudice. My son is not diseased, it’s
not catching, and we’re not looking for a miracle cure or a way to change him.
We just need to find a way to work with him. We need to sort out a way to make
all of those beautiful puzzle pieces inside his brain fit together.

“What’s
SPD?” Jake says quietly.

“Sensory
Processing Disorder,” I say. “It’s like a neurological traffic jam. His wires
get a little crossed sometimes and he can’t process loud noises, or touch, tags
on clothing, or scratchy material—even certain foods cause him distress. Most
ASD kids sit somewhere on the scale with Sensory Processing Disorder, but for
Spence it can be really debilitating. I’ve been saving up to buy him some of
those electronic ear muffs. The good ones that they use in the police force and
the military. They still let you hear but they block out any loud noise that
gets too close.”

“The
fireworks.” Jake nods as if he understands and something in me, some terrible
tension I’ve been holding onto for the last few minutes just dissolves. It can
be difficult to explain Spencer’s condition to people at the best of times, so
having someone take it all in without asking questions like
Are you sure
that’s his diagnosis and not just him being an eight-year-old brat?
is
refreshing. “He doesn’t like to be touched either?”

“Either?”
I ask.

Did
I give the impression that I don’t like to be touched?
I may be an exhausted thirty-year-old single mother, but I ain’t dead.

Just
like that, Jake’s face shuts down.

Oh.

He
runs a hand over his beard and glances back at the shelter, like he’s dying for
some kind of interruption. “PTSD, remember?”

“Right.”
I nod, “And you don’t like to be touched?”

“No,”
he says abruptly.

Well
damn.
There goes every fantasy I’ve ever had
starring this man, and trust me, there have been a lot. Jake shifts his weight
from foot to foot. Nuke butts his head against Jake’s thigh, and he ruffles the
dog’s fur.

“You
ever talk about it?”

“No.”
His tone is sharp, too sharp, and it stings, but I understand a thing or two
about people pushing you to open up when you’re not ready, so I leave him be.
For now.

Olivia,
Eloise, and Percy emerge from the shelter carrying dog leads and what looks to
be a giant bag of treats.

“Alrighty
then, gather round, you two,” Olivia says, heading straight for the puppy pen
with her no-nonsense face on. “These pups are nine weeks old. Training for
these guys should have started two weeks ago but the Beasleys ummed and ahhed
so long over their decision to sell or hand them over to me that it’s put us a
couple weeks behind. Now we only have a week with them before I have to ship
them off to the center in Mobile to their foster homes, so we’re gonna train
them hard.”

She
leans over and picks up one of the pups. “Do not be fooled by these little
faces, people. These dogs will make suckers out of you all, and we need firm
commands and rewards when they do something right. Spencer, you go ahead and
pick your pup; he’s going to be your responsibility in this ring every day for
a week.”

Spence
looks to me for clarification. Normally, putting him on the spot like this in
front of an audience would send him into meltdown, but it seems his decision is
already made for him because he nods at the puppy that was falling asleep in
his lap and says, “This one, I want this one.”

“Good
choice, son.” Olivia hands him a green lead and he clips it onto the puppy’s
matching collar.

We
all take turns choosing a dog and fixing a lead to its collar, and Olivia talks
us through some basic training. Jake’s pup keeps getting distracted, nipping at
Nuke’s heels so the big black dog that Olivia tells me is a German Shephard—and
not a wolf like I’d previously thought—gets to sit this one out.

The
rest of us work in five-minute rounds of training and play, and then a half
hour later we’re done for the day. We each take off our pup’s lead and carry
them back to the kennels where they’re fed and put to bed in a big puppy pile.
Spence and I watch their eyes close after an exhausting day. I know how they
feel.

I
leave my son outside their kennel as I go in search of Olivia, who’s inside
cleaning up the mess from the dog’s dinnertime. Percy left five minutes ago and
Jake is helping Eloise with the puppy pen and a few other bits and pieces that
need carrying back to the main building.

“You
need any more help?” I ask Olivia.

“Nope,
we’re right as rain.”

“Alright
then, Spence and I are going to head off.” I let out a tired sigh, feeling the
weight of this week hit me all at once. “Assuming I can tear him away from the
kennel without a meltdown, that is.”