Shelter Me (10 page)

“Or assisted living facility or even one of those adult day cares, just to give your family a break.”

“I honestly don’t know if we can afford it,” she admitted reluctantly, “and something in his eyes is still too ‘here’ for that to feel right.”

“There can be a difference between your conscience and what he needs.”

“Sounds good in theory.” While she knew he had a point, she just couldn’t wrap her brain around it. “Mom and I have talked about it. And yes, I’ve wondered if we’re truly doing this for Gramps, to make sure we don’t miss a single lucid moment left, or if we’re doing this to keep the connection to my father longer. Honest to God, I wish I knew the answer, but I don’t. So I just keep putting one foot in front of the other.”

The crunch of approaching steps echoed, and she sidled away with a guilty flush. Her brother came around the corner of the barn and she chewed her lip. Damn it, she shouldn’t feel self-conscious over talking to Mike, and it wasn’t as if she had a sign across her chest that said
We Just Kissed and It Was Amaaaaazing
.

Her brother jogged closer, his oversized clothes rippling with each hop. “Are you two a couple again or just sex buddies?”

Apparently she didn’t need to wear a sign.

Mike stepped forward and cut short the need for her to answer. “Did you lose the snake?”

“Nah, just thought I would play with the dog. Ya know, toss the ball and maybe he will want to stick around.” Nathan shrugged as if it was no big deal that the nicest words he’d spoken in a year had just fallen out of his mouth. “Dad said in his letters that Trooper likes to play fetch.”

Mike nodded. “That’s right. Trooper had a whole unit of guys who couldn’t wait to get out there to toss around the ball with him. It was a major stress reliever for us.”

“Makes sense.” Nathan pointed to the covered area. “Mom keeps the dog toys and treats in bins on that table over there.”

“Cool, mind if I join you?”

Nathan shrugged again. “Doesn’t make any difference to me one way or another.”

Sierra rolled her eyes behind her brother’s back. Mike winked at her, then jogged toward the covered area. Trooper loped alongside him and Nathan followed more slowly. Clementine stood from her nap under the tree and stretched with interest. Nathan hadn’t played with her for a while, and yet her eyes lit with excitement and forgiveness as if Nathan hadn’t ignored her for the past year and a half. The beauty of that love made her choke up and want to shake her brother as the old three-legged Labrador galloped across the lawn with a tennis ball in her mouth.

She watched Mike and Nathan pitch balls back and forth to the dogs, the young and old pups leaping in the air as if all was right with the world in this simple moment. As if her life hadn’t been turned upside down all over again by a dog.

And a broad-shouldered man who still made her want to forget the reasons he was wrong for her and the fact that he’d rejected her completely and totally.

*   *   *

LACEY SAT IN
her small barn office with all her rescue records and cabinets full of supplies, a part in the curtains giving her a narrow but clear view of the dogs’ play yard. At first she’d been trapped by not wanting to interrupt her daughter making out with Mike—a surprise. But she’d given up trying to understand her daughter’s on-again, off-again relationship with that particular soldier. And quite frankly, watching anything romantic felt like alcohol being poured over a thousand paper cuts.

Was she just being selfish? She wanted her daughter to be happy—God, Sierra had already given up so much to help out here. Still, the thought of life once her daughter left felt so very lonely and overwhelming.

Lacey stroked the cat in her lap, a gorgeous Persian that had been abandoned by a family who didn’t feel up to taking their pet with them when they retired to Florida. Thinking of that self-centered couple enjoying their golden years of happily ever after in Miami made her want to scream.

She was a forty-two-year-old widow, who’d spent half her married life alone while her husband traveled the world—saving the world. The future stretched out before her, a barren, sexless wasteland of just her and her vibrator. How pathetic was that?

Biting back the urge to scream out her grief over all she’d lost, she drew in a breath, willing acceptance to fill her. This was just the way life had played out for her. She had to accept who she was and the hand fate had dealt her. Because she sure as hell wasn’t planning on trying to go back in time to re-create some magical new happily ever after. Marriage had brought her two precious children. She’d had her shot at love, and her time had been cut short. Her nights were filled with bottle-feeding puppies these days.

The thought of dating again made her nauseated. She still felt married. Even if she didn’t, she couldn’t envision how she would even go about meeting men. She wasn’t into face-lifts, boob jobs or tummy tucks.

It wasn’t like the pool to pick from was all that huge, either. Most guys in their forties were married. A man who had never been married and lived alone for a couple of decades would most likely run shrieking in horror from her zoo. Sure, some of the divorced guys might be great fellas, but others were divorced for a reason. And the baggage? Good God, she understood all about baggage.

Her cell phone chimed on the small desk. She checked the screen to make sure it wasn’t one of the “Shut Down the Ranch” brigade ready to harass her again.

She recognized the number of a shelter in the next county over and thumbed the answer button just as the ringing stopped. Damn. She was off her game this week, so sluggish she could have been walking through peanut butter.

The sound of voices and laughter and barking outside were all too energetic for her right now. She needed a few more minutes to level out.

She had a full life and she needed to get to it. She had animals to save and people counting on her. Since she wasn’t ready to face whatever romance was happening between Sierra and Mike—or any couple for that matter—Lacey punched in her voice mail code.

The shelter’s kennel supervisor’s voice came through, loud barking in the background. “Lacey, we just got a litter of three shih tzu puppies, nine weeks old, from a backyard breeder. We just don’t have the room . . . and they have parvo. Please say you have a foster home that can take them. We’ll help with the meds . . . Call me before the end of the day. We can’t keep them in isolation any longer than that.”

A parvovirus through a shelter would be beyond horrible, costing so many lives. Too many shelters didn’t have any choice but to euthanize in that situation . . . Her mind was already running through foster homes affiliated with her rescue, and if she was very lucky, Jill could take them, seventy-one and a retired vet tech who could quarantine and watch them twenty-four/seven. She also understood the sanitizing needed to keep the extremely contagious virus from spreading. It had to happen.

Lacey sent a quick text to Jill, pleading, then moved on to the next voice mail.

Next message . . . Her neighbor to the right, Sam Hershberger. “Have you seen that advertisement for land up county? I can forward you the listing. It would save us all a lot of trouble not to turn this into a confronta—”

Lacey sighed and hit delete. Sam would ramble on, and he would be polite in a veiled way, but his bottom line was the same as cranky Valerie’s, her neighbor on the other side. They both wanted her and her rescue gone.

Next message. An automated reminder about the council meeting. Great. Even if she moved, someone else would have a complaint.

Even if she wanted to relocate, it would take weeks, months even, and that time lost would cost so many lives of animals she wouldn’t be able to save. The Internet and e-mailed pictures of so many animals in need haunted her. She accepted that she couldn’t save them all. Financially, emotionally or physically.

Too easily the line between rescuer and hoarder could be crossed by those who weren’t able to recognize their own limitations. Her heart ached, too, for the shelter workers who didn’t have the option of saying no because they were full. The shelters got demonized unfairly when the irresponsible pet owners were the ones to blame.

One battle at a time . . .

She took the next message, one from her vet. Not just his clinic, but him personally, Dr. Ramon Vega. She frowned. Something wrong with one of the fosters? She clicked through to the message.

A deep voice vibrated through with a clipped, “Lacey, call me.”

Her stomach clenched. What could be so important? She owed him so much literally and figuratively. She had an unpaid bill that was already given at such cut-rate prices she knew he only covered office expenses with what he charged her, and given he was so fresh out of veterinary school, he must have massive college debt of his own. Had she pushed too hard? Asked for too much generosity and flexibility? If so, where else could she go with her rescues?

She thumbed redial. Two ringtones in . . .

“Lacey,” he answered, “thanks for getting back to me so fast.”

“Hey, what do you need?” She hugged her knees to her chest, phone on speaker.

“I’ve got a six-month-old German shepherd puppy here with a broken pelvis. She was dropped off by people who called our emergency line and said they ‘found’ her on the side of the road, but from the way their kid was crying and calling the dog by name . . . You can guess the real story.”

The puppy was theirs, got hit by a car and they didn’t want to pay an expensive vet bill. Still, she had to be sure. “No microchip to trace to them for Animal Control to at least record their abandonment?”

“Really? You have to ask?” He chuckled softly. “You know me better than that.”

“Of course you’ve checked. No chip.”

“Correct. The shelter is full, and their foster homes are full. They have to hold strays for five days regardless. The director and I talked through a deal. I’ll do the surgery at a cut rate for them. They’ll post the pup’s photo on their lost and found, even though we all know nobody’s coming for the dog. If on the off chance someone shows up and can prove the puppy is theirs, then I’ll eat the surgery fee if they won’t pay.”

Sounded like a win-win. But there must be more if he was calling her. “And the catch is?”

“I’ve got nowhere here to stash her after the surgery for five days since I have so many super sick, freeloading boarders from a certain favorite rescue of mine.”

She smiled at the phone, already knowing the answer. “At the end of the five days when no one claims the pup?”

“You’ll have an incredibly adorable German shepherd puppy to adopt out.” His office chair squeaked, and she could almost see him sitting upright again, boots off the desk as he went serious. “Hey, you know I wouldn’t ask if I could figure any other way.”

“You don’t even have to ask. I’ll make it work.”

“Thanks, Lacey, you’re the best.” He paused without hanging up. “You’re coming in with the Iraq dog tomorrow, right?”

“Of course. He needs a checkup and the neuter. No food or water after midnight. I know the drill,” she said lightly, taking comfort in routine.

“You okay with him being there? This has to be . . . uh, pretty emotional.”

The personal question caught her off guard coming from Ray. This was way out of their routine. She struggled for a way to answer that wouldn’t have her bursting into tears.

The roar of a couple of four-wheelers approaching outside offered her a welcome distraction, even if the distraction happened to be the frustrating kind in the form of her cranky neighbors. “Doc, sorry to cut this short, but I need to run. Someone’s, uh, at the door. I’ll pick up the puppy when I bring Trooper tomorrow. Bye, now.”

She pressed the off button, knowing she’d only traded one difficult situation for another. But leaving the question unanswered might make it go away.

And experience told her the duo outside wouldn’t leave without direct confrontation.

*   *   *

AFTER A YEAR
in the Middle East, Mike could sense confrontation crackling in the air, and from the second he’d seen Sierra go on alert at the approaching four-wheelers, he knew they were trouble.

The mother and son from next door. Mama looked pissed. And the son? His eyes raked over Sierra a second longer than normal.

Mike glanced at Nathan. The kid usually wore that disinterested slouch, but even he was bristling like an angry dog. Mike cleared his head—easier said than done since Sierra’s kiss had knocked him on his ass. But something was wrong here. He vaguely remembered these folks from before, but they’d kept to themselves. Apparently not anymore. These neighbors were not on good terms by a long shot.

He couldn’t pin the woman’s age; her anger and sun-weathered skin shouted tough living. Her brightly died red hair didn’t soften the image much, either. There was a “don’t mess with me” edge to her that reminded him of his grandmother.

The son, on the other hand, was pretty-boy country. A little too slick and a little too old to still be living with mama.

Or maybe he was just being judgmental because he didn’t want some other guy staring at Sierra that way when ten minutes ago she’d been his again, with a welcome home kiss to beat all others. Damn it, life shouldn’t be this complicated, and damn it again, there he went thinking about Sierra instead of the menacing look on the woman’s face.

The duo drove their four-wheelers at full speed right up to the second they stopped, leaving the grass pushed down and rutted as if to mark their arrival. He stepped between Sierra and the couple.

Sierra rested a hand on his arm and smiled tightly. “Mike, you remember Valerie Hammond and her son, Kenneth. They’re our neighbors to the left.”

“Yes, of course. Hello, ma’am.”

Valerie didn’t smile back, just stayed perched on her vehicle. “You’re the one who brought another dog to this place.”

“Yes, ma’am. I did.”

“A wild dog.” Her lips pressed together in a thin line.

Nathan tossed a tennis ball in the air again and again. “Maybe we should teach them all to moo like cows since apparently farm animals to slaughter are cool by you but saving a life presents a problem.”