Shelter Me (5 page)

Now her folks pretended they were happily retired in a Tampa condo they’d managed to purchase after selling off Mom’s jewelry. She still wore really good fakes.

Faking it. Something Lacey had inherited from her mother even as she turned her back on their values. She stroked her bare toes along the chocolate Lab sleeping at her feet.

Life should have meaning. Allen’s had. He’d saved five soldiers by throwing himself on the roadside bomb. He’d left behind a stack of medals, a folded flag and a family hanging on by a thread. The insurance money had paid off most of their debt, and she was teaching high school chemistry online to make ends meet, still running her rescue and taking care of her father-in-law. She had fourteen animals on-site, but over fifty were in foster homes. With more money, she could expand. With more time. More help.

Less stress.

She sipped again. And again. Until the alcohol hummed along her frayed nerves, soothing her like the whir of the lawn mower firing to life outside.

Her father-in-law mowed the lawn at night, as close to driving a car as they could trust. The headlight strobed across the two-acre lot. The task gave Joshua a sense of purpose, one of the few chores he could still perform without fear of hurting himself or others. Yard work was somehow ingrained in his DNA like buttoning his uniform. Thank heavens. Last time she’d mowed the two acres, she’d cut crop circles into the yard.

Might have had something to do with the wine.

There were days she wondered if maybe she had a drinking problem. Then life kicked into high gear with another crisis and she didn’t have time to think about herself.

She glanced down at the puppy sleeping in her hand, Thumbelina’s mouth slack with sleep. Lacey tugged a wet wipe and cleaned the little one’s waste before lining her up alongside her brothers and sisters, a mix of brown, tan and brindle babies.

The mother dog had been hit by a car when her litter was three days old. The family who owned the dog had tried to care for the puppies for forty-eight hours before losing three then taking the remaining five straight to the local animal shelter. Since the shelter was overflowing, they’d called Lacey.

Five little lives.

She’d been rescuing for over ten years for other groups before starting her own. But these days, preserving life had taken on a frenetic edge. She tried and tried, yet each success left her feeling emptier. Two friends who volunteered with the rescue told her she wasn’t dealing with her grief.

Like there was a way to get over losing her husband in a war.

She only knew one way to cope. Keep moving forward so quickly she didn’t have time to think. She couldn’t afford to dwell on the past or the present, and most especially she couldn’t think overlong about that new dog asleep in a crate in the family room. Trooper was the final tie to an honorable man more committed to others than his family or even himself. If she gave in to those raging thoughts, she would surrender to the temptation to hurl the last piece of wedding crystal at the wall.

She soaked in the familiarity around her, needing something steady to hold on to in her shredded world. Trooper seemed to be settling in well—other than barking his head off at the cuckoo clock. He hadn’t even protested over being crated in the family room, growling a couple more times at the clock before settling to sleep. He seemed to take comfort in all the animals around rather than feeling overwhelmed.

A novelty.

Some said she should give up rescue work, that it was too draining. They just didn’t understand that saving these abandoned and abused animals hauled her grieving body out of bed each morning.

Her eyes were beyond gritty as she checked each little body in the line of puppies snoozing away in a milk coma. She wasn’t far behind. Exhaustion tugged at her. Her head lolled against the screened wall, and she didn’t have the energy to move from the plaid dog bed. Each breath of barley-scented air drew her deeper into the intoxicating allure of sleep. Just leaving her insane life behind for a few blissful hours. Peace, she craved it all the way to her tipsy toes. Might as well sleep here rather than in her bed with a conspicuously empty space beside her . . .

“Mom?” Her daughter’s voice pierced her sleepy fog. “Mom, wake up.”

Startled, Lacey jolted awake. Sunlight streamed through the screens onto her Lab Clementine sleeping at her feet. Morning? But she’d only closed her eyes for a minute. Or maybe not.

Her daughter stood beside her, wearing a tank top and blue running shorts. Sierra used to wear nightshirts and cute little PJs, but she slept in clothes these days, always ready to face the world.

Lacey looked fast at the puppies, and they all breathed and slept and twitched. Her neck screamed with a crick from sleeping sitting up. She rubbed the kink. “Sierra? What time is it?”

“Six, but Mom, we have a problem.”

Lacey looked out at the freshly mowed lawn, over to the lawnmower abandoned in the middle of the driveway. Panic fired hard and fast. “Has Grandpa wandered off again?”

Sierra shook her head. “Not this time. He’s asleep in his room. But Trooper’s missing.”

Three

S
IERRA STIFLED A
yawn and scratched her toe along the back of her leg, her brain still foggy even as her heart raced with anxiety over the missing dog. Her days of sleeping until noon were long gone. Life started early around here,
Little House on the Freakin’ Manic Prairie
style. Of course she might not feel like a zombie if she hadn’t spent half the night tossing and turning with dreams of Mike. Naughty, dangerous, distracting dreams . . .

She didn’t have time for this. Not now.

“Mom,” Sierra repeated, taking in her mother’s tangled hair and the empty wineglass. She would think about that later. They had more pressing problems now, like Dad’s legacy going MIA. “Trooper is missing.”

“Missing? Are you sleepwalking again?” Her mother stood, then staggered. Drunk or were her feet asleep from sitting cross-legged so long in a dog bed? Lacey reached out with steady hands and patted her daughter’s face. “Sierra, honey, wake up.”

“I’m fine.” Sierra batted away her mother’s hands as their three-legged Labrador went out through the doggie door. “Listen to me.
Trooper. Is. Gone.
He must have gone out through the doggie door, and then from there, who knows. But I can’t find him.”

Her mother frowned and looked past into the kitchen at the cuckoo clock they’d bought while stationed in Germany. “You must be mistaken. Trooper’s in a crate in the family room. What are you doing up at six in the morning? You hate mornings.”

A flash of irritation pierced her fear. Her mother apparently hadn’t noticed she’d been waking before eight to help with the animals for months now. But her mom didn’t need anyone sniping at her.

And they had more pressing concerns.

“I heard barking. Okay, barking’s normal, but this was worse. The crazy, pissed-off kind of barking. I was afraid the dogs had gotten loose . . . again.” It had happened too many times lately to be accidental. “When I came downstairs, I saw Trooper’s crate was open. He must have gone outside, which upset the other dogs. Except he’s nowhere inside the fence. Nowhere. And I’ve looked inside and out. Under every bed and bush. Trooper is missing.”

Lacey turned to look through the screen, palms flat on the mesh, fully alert now. “The gate outside is closed. Secured. I don’t understand how this keeps happening. Heaven knows if he’d gone next door to Valerie Hammond’s house we would have heard already.”

And not in a good way. Mrs. Hammond already had a complaint filed with the county council to shut down the rescue, and they couldn’t afford to relocate the rescue setup—her mom’s dream. Lacey had lost too much. Resolve swept away any remaining grogginess.

“Maybe Trooper jumped over the fence on the other side and headed toward the wooded area? He wouldn’t be the first.” Although he was smaller than the ones that had managed that move before. Please, Lord, let him just be hiding somewhere enjoying a good nap and doggie laugh at their expense.

“Or maybe your grandfather let him out.” Tiny lines fanned from Lacey’s eyes. Caregiver’s stress.

Not that Lacey didn’t complain or lose her cool. She ran full tilt all day, cried sometimes, misplaced her reading glasses, left her day planner in the house, ran back inside to get it and dropped her keys. Yet somehow she still managed to cram twenty-eight hours’ worth of living into every day. The glass of wine probably didn’t mean anything other than unwinding on a particularly bad evening.

“If Gramps did it, good luck asking him for details.” There were days Sierra missed her grandfather as much as her dad. Gramps was just leaving them in a different way.

“Trooper can’t have gotten far.” Lacey scraped her tangled hair back and dragged a rubber band off her wrist, clearing the mess into a sloppy ponytail that somehow managed to look cool. “I’ll start driving around the neighborhood. Will you get Nathan to watch your grandfather before you help me look?”

“Sure, don’t forget your cell phone,” Sierra called after her mom, remembering the last time she’d been unable to cancel a search for an hour.

“Right. Thanks.” Lacey backtracked and swiped her phone off the iron patio table before she ran out the screen door, shouting, “Trooper! Trooooper . . .”

Sierra shot a quick look at the five puppies squirming and squawking in their box. The other dogs would have to wait for breakfast. The puppies needed feeding now. She bypassed the mudroom and pushed open the sliding door into the family room.

Nathan sat in his boxers on the sofa with his feet on the coffee table, watching the History Channel and eating cereal. He must have been in the kitchen when she found the crate—but sure enough it was still open at the end of the couch. Why was he even up this early?

“Why aren’t you still asleep?”

“Why aren’t you?” he retorted, then shrugged. “Noise woke me up. Started thinking about Dad . . .”

Their father had watched the History Channel with them so many times. She swallowed hard, wanting to comfort her baby brother but knowing he wouldn’t let her.

Two tabby cats slept along the back of the sofa like bookends around Nathan. He cradled a bowl against his scrawny chest and shoveled Lucky Charms into his mouth, his favorite breakfast since he’d been a kid. Except it had to be doused in goat’s milk because he had a serious cow’s milk allergy.

And the goat’s milk made her remember . . . Oh God, Mom’s puppies. She didn’t have time to milk the goat again, much less feed the pups and other dogs.

Sierra ran past the island and into the kitchen. She checked the fridge and saw the container still had at least a cup left. Enough. Good. She reached into a cabinet under the sink and pulled out a box of rubber gloves.

“Nathan, the animals need to eat. All of them. But the puppies on the porch need you first and since you’re awake you can help. You can feed five at a time if you put goat’s milk in the fingers—not cow’s milk. Poke a small hole in the end of each finger of the gloves. They don’t have teeth yet. Just be careful they don’t suck in the latex. Keep the fingers full.” She dropped the box on the coffee table next to his feet and a basket of gnawed-up tennis balls. “If you drink the last of the goat’s milk, have fun milking Sookie. Okay?”

“Five puppies? Really?” He started shaking his head.

Sierra clapped his face in her hands and guided his no into a yes. “Really. Or you can feed them one at a time if you’d rather. Or go chase down Dad’s dog.”

“Fine. Whatever.” He shrugged free, then tipped the bowl up to his mouth to slurp the leftover milk. He smacked his lips, burped, then said, “Dog hopped the fence and ran for the woods.”

She froze in her tracks, halfway to the door. Anger fumed inside her that her brother could care so little for something that meant so much to their mother. Fighting with him wouldn’t find the dog, though. Heaven help them all if her brother decided not to talk because he felt she was unjustly picking on him. “How do you know which way Trooper went? And how long have you been keeping that to yourself?”

“Saw him go over about a half hour ago.”

“You didn’t think it was worth telling anyone before now?” Sometimes she wondered if her brother wasn’t just a sad nerd, but some psycho after all. “Did you happen to see exactly which part of the woods he ran into?”

“Yep.”

Little shit. “Care to share?”

“He was running around the yard for a while—”

“How did he get in the yard?” If Nathan let him out unsupervised while the dog was still new, skittish and unfamiliar with regions, heaven help her she would—

“Gramps let him out late last night after he mowed the lawn.” Nathan shoved off the sofa and started for the kitchen, the cuckoo chirping quarter after. “Trooper climbed the fence, jumped over and hauled ass past the picnic table there, along the path that leads out to the main road. He’s probably halfway back to Iraq now.”

“That’s so helpful to know.”

“You asked.” Nathan tossed his bowl in the sink so hard the old pottery piece must have broken. “Guess I better feed the rats.”

“They’re puppies.” What made her even bother arguing with her brother? “And you need to watch Gramps so he doesn’t wander off while we’re out. Truly watch him very closely and call me if he gives you trouble or if he tries to leave.”

“I think we should just let Gramps go where he wants. Maybe he’s just looking for Dad like the dog is.”

His words knocked the wind right out of her. For all of five seconds. She didn’t have time to flip out. Sierra swatted her brother on the back of the head. “Thanks for being a jackass.”

He shrugged. “Truth sucks whether you say it out loud or not.”

*   *   *

MIKE SLOUCHED AGAINST
the flimsy motel headboard, guitar on his knee. His internal clock was suffering from a kick-ass case of jet lag that left him wide awake at ten in the morning when he’d hoped to sleep the day away. The thin motel walls barely muffled the couple going at it in the room next door.