Waiting for Wyatt (Red Dirt #1) (24 page)

I let out a deep breath, blocking out the memory. I needed to get to work. Wiping the blood off with my thumb, I applied another layer of shaving gel and continued to remove every single hair from my face.

I dressed in jeans and work boots. After a bowl of Cap’n Crunch, I headed to the kennel. Gus and Gatsby were both still in the holding pen. I felt bad for sticking them in the kennel all night, but I hadn’t left my old chair until after midnight. The Labrador lifted his head as I approached. My sister’s Jack Russell was curled up next to him.

Willa had gotten Gus from this very place on her fourteenth birthday. Most girls her age begged for makeup and shit, but my sister wanted a pet. My dad had arranged for her to pick one from the assortment Diana had kept at her kennel. Back then, she only had a few dogs in residence even though she’d built the facility to hold fifty rescue animals. The place didn’t grow to its full capacity until I came to live out here to take care of them.

My sister had wanted Gus from the moment she’d seen the little guy. She brought him home, and he immediately ruled our house as king. She loved him. My whole family loved him.

My thoughts disappeared into the memory of the night Gus and I had come out here. They twisted away, paralyzing me, sending me back to that moment.

I leaned against the wall next to my closet. I just wanted to get this over with and not speak to them. I just wanted out of this damn house. I couldn’t bear to look at them. I couldn’t bear to see myself in their eyes. I’d caused so much pain and destruction.

I looked around the room. I was supposed to be packing, but I wasn’t planning to take a damn thing. Gus came into my room, resting his head on my knee. He knew something was up. I scratched behind his ears.

Glancing up, I saw Willa tiptoeing into my room. She took a seat on my bed. The sad look on her face just about destroyed me. My throat got tight as I struggled to look her in the eyes. I’d fucked up her head and now I was breaking her heart by being sent away.

I stared at the floor as she fidgeted around, twisting her fingers. If she broke down in a teary goodbye, I just might lose my damn mind. It was all too much. I couldn’t handle seeing her like this. My chest constricted into the beginning of another panic attack.

“I think you should take Gus,” she whispered.

My eyes flashed to hers. “No.”

“I know you blame yourself. You want to fix this. Fix me. You know that’s not really possible. I hate that you’re going away. We won’t see you. I’m so sorry. I never wanted this to happen. I’m going to worry about you every day.”

“Please don’t,” I whispered. “You need to just focus on getting better.”

“I will always worry about you, Wyatt. Don’t you know that? But it won’t feel so bad if I know that Gus is out there with you. I don’t think I can handle you being all alone. It will stress me out, and I don’t do so good when I get stressed out.”

I’d refused, but my sister had pulled out the king of daggers. I couldn’t say no to those words and that sadness in her eyes. So I packed a suitcase full of boxers, jeans, T-shirts—and Gus.

Snapping out of my twisted thoughts, I sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm the tightness in my chest. I let the two dogs out of the kennel. They followed me over to the door and down the path to the trailer. Gatsby walked a little sluggishly and the Jack Russell slowed his steps for the older dog. I think Gus knew who needed him the most these days. Opening the aluminum door, they went inside and headed for the bedroom. I knew those two would spend the day stretched out on the pillowtop mattress.

Returning to the kennel, I went to work on pit row. I did a few pens each day, instead of one massive cleanout. I’d learned my lesson the first couple of months. Fifty kennels at one time was insane. Ten a day. Very reasonable.

There wasn’t much shit on the inside since each pen had a dog door to the outside. But the cement did get its share of dirt and other crap. I took a bucket of soapy water over to Lola’s pen. I scratched the pit behind the ears as she leaned against my leg. Her square head tilted up, grabbing my hand between her gummy lips.

Maybe I didn’t tell Emma the truth when she asked about my favorites. I thought back to the day Diana brought Lola out to the kennel. She had just picked her up from the vet. All the wounds had been still fresh as blood, and puss drained from the ripped-up sores. My boss handed me tubes of cream and a list of instructions for Lola.

It was the first time I’d asked Diana about the kennel. It was the first time I’d cared about my new world. As we talked, my questions had gone from Lola to the kind of people who did this sort of thing.

I’d never thought much about animal abuse before that night—or dog fight rings. But her words lit a fire in my chest. I’d wanted to beat the shit out of the man who had sliced up Lola. I’d fantasized about ripping his arms off and shoving them up his asshole. I might have done it too if that ankle monitor hadn’t been attached to my damn leg.

Regardless, that night had changed things for me. I couldn’t fix Willa or Marcus, but I damn sure could fix Lola and all of the other dogs. I had one job and one job only: make sure the animals lived, make sure their lives were better than where they had come from out there in the cruel world. From that day forward, I had taken my duties seriously.

Pulling my hand from Lola’s mouth, I led her out the kennel door to the fenced-in play area. I got Ponyboy and Indy, taking them out to join her. Returning back inside, I used a scrub mop on the cement. I cleaned each of their areas and then moved to the outside runs to scoop the shit from the ground.

Once I was finished, I washed up and then went out to join the dogs outside, carrying a tennis ball. I laughed as I got to the fence. As usual, Lola thought she was a badass. She had Indy on the run, chasing him around in a circle. He should’ve figured it out by now—the girl had no teeth. But I couldn’t blame him. Indy had been burned with a firework. Or rather, someone had tied a firework to his collar, trying to blow his brains out.

“Come on, boy. You can take her.” I threw the ball out across the grass. He scooped it up in his wide mouth before Lola got close, which just made her run faster. Glancing over in the corner, Pony was stretched out like a frog in the sun. Even though I always brought him out with the other dogs, he never gave a shit. Diana had rescued Pony from some hoarder who had kept him crammed in a tiny cage with a bunch of other mutts. The dog still went crazy anytime he was placed in small spaces.

Each of the dogs at the kennel had some story. Some were worse than others, but they were all outsiders in some way, fighting to stay alive or just become a pawn in someone else’s game.

I played with the pits for a while before taking them back inside. The dogs stretched out on the cool cement for a nap. Over the next four hours, I did the same thing, over and over again until I was finished. I went back to the trailer to make a bologna sandwich for lunch.

Afterward, I went to the work shed for the Weed eater. I glanced over at the tarp covering my bike. Every so often, I got it out and washed the dirt off. I figured I owed my grandpa at least that much, and I hated the fact that it just sat neglected in the corner.

My dad had insisted I have at least some form of transportation in case something happened at the kennel. Being alone in the middle of nowhere, I might have an emergency. The court agreed to that one little request of his—considering if I ever left the property, I would violate the agreement. If I ever caused that monitor to light up red, I would go back to court and probably to prison.

I’d be lying if I’d said I never thought about it. I wanted to go to prison, and I could make that happen by stepping over the line. But I would have to see my mom and sister sitting in the courtroom. I would have to see their torn-up faces as they took me away, which would cause another layer of guilt to choke my conscience.

Putting some gas in the Weed eater, I used it around the kennel grounds. It scared most of the dogs so they stayed inside the building. I finished up and did the daily feeding in the kennel. Once everyone had food, I headed to the trailer for another cold shower.

After eating a hot dog for dinner, I went to my bedroom and grabbed
The Hobbit
from my dresser. I’d never finished
Call of the Wild
. Emma had ruined that book with the sound of her sweet voice, the way she got lost reading me the story as my face rested against her soft, sexy thighs.

I shook off the feeling and headed for the door. The sound of cicadas filled the blackness. I hated the evenings the most. Being in the country was always just a little bit darker than in town, enhancing the demons that haunted my thoughts. Maybe that’s why I read to the dogs. The spoken words kept the monsters at bay.

I stopped by Cye’s pen. His dark eyes watched me from the back corner. I took the bag of treats Emma had left for him. Crawling on my hands and knees, I put a little peanut butter-flavored bone on the cement. I stared at the dog for a moment. He knew something wasn’t right with this scenario.

“It’s just you and me now,” I muttered. I doubt he would eat the damn thing since it had come from me. Not that I blamed him. Cye liked Emma, even though he made her think he didn’t.

Most people would’ve never noticed a change in him. But I did. When she was here, Cye didn’t lie on the cement. He sat up on his hind legs and watched her move around the kennel. It was a small change, but more than I’d ever accomplished with him. As I closed the gate, I whispered softly to the black dog with dents in his skull. “I’m sorry, but she’s not coming back.”

O
VER THE NEXT FEW DAYS
, I did my usual activities until one morning I returned from my run and the box unit in the trailer was blowing hot air. The whole single-wide was already a damn sauna. Falling in my old chair, I considered my options. I could just stay in here and let it go, sleeping with the windows up, embracing the late summer heat. But shit. They had no screens. The damn grasshoppers would be on me like a swarm of locusts.

I pulled in a deep breath, which felt like sucking the end of a hair dryer. Gus and Gatsby couldn’t stay in this heat. Either I tried to fix the unit or move the dogs over to the kennel. Maybe all of us should go to the other building. But I knew Diana would flip out if she came back and saw me living with the dogs.

Climbing out of the chair, my legs stuck to the leather. I left my running clothes on and headed out to the work shed. After digging around for a few minutes, I found a toolkit. Time to learn about air conditioners.

Three hours later, I had the unit reassembled after removing every movable part and washing them in the bathtub. What didn’t come out, I wiped down with a rag or cleaned with the end of the vacuum hose. I think the old unit was blowing more dirt than air inside the trailer.

Sweat rolled down my face, burning my eyeballs. I swore under my breath as I plugged the newly cleaned box back into the wall. This better work, or I was taking it outside and killing it with a shovel.

Cool air hit me in the face. Letting out a sigh of relief, I headed out the door to the kennel. Time to get to work. I was already behind schedule. Today was bath day for half of the dogs, and it was already noon. I wouldn’t get today’s chores done unless I worked after dark.