Silent Night: A Raine Stockton Dog Mystery (18 page)

I was so emotionally and physically exhausted that I didn’t even bother to put the girls in their crates.  I didn’t take off my makeup or brush my teeth.  I just shucked off my ruined red dress in the dark, left it lying in a puddle on the floor and crawled into bed with the covers pulled up over my ears, letting the tears leak out onto my pillow.  Eventually I felt the featherlight weight of an Australian shepherd land on one side of my feet, and then on the other.  I didn’t even bother to reprimand them.

But then the bed creaked with a heavier weight, and I pulled the quilt away from my face and looked over my shoulder.  Cisco’s eyes, catching the reflection of ambient light, looked up at me balefully from the foot of the bed.  He was lying flat on his belly, head down and paws out, as though he thought he could blend in with the covers.  As I watched, he started to belly-crawl toward me.

“No dogs on the bed,” I said thickly.

He stopped dead, trying to make himself invisible.

I turned my head back to the pillow and closed my eyes.

Cisco inched his way alongside me until his head was beside mine on the pillow.  I stretched out my arm around his shoulders and fell asleep with my face in his fur.

What the hell.  It was Christmas.

If you are ever feeling lonely, blue or out-of-sorts at Christmastime, here’s what you do: put an ad in the paper and on the radio that says
Golden retriever/lab mix puppies ready to come home for the holidays.  8 weeks old, all shots. Adorable balls of fluff!  Small adoption fee.
  And leave your phone number.
 
I guarantee you won’t have a minute to feel sorry for yourself until the last puppy leaves in the arms of its new Forever Mom or Dad.

  As a general rule, our policy is not to adopt rescue dogs—particularly puppies—during the holidays.  In the first place, people get such a sentimental notion about puppies under the Christmas tree with big red bows around their necks that they forget all about the puddles on the carpets, the chewed up furniture, and the standing out in the icy wind at two a.m. waiting for Puppy to finish his business. They make impulsive decisions that they would not have made any other time of the year.  Secondly, the holidays are just too hectic around most households for a new dog or puppy to get the attention he needs, and a stressful environment like that is the worst possible way to welcome home a new member of the family.  And of course we categorically discourage giving puppies as surprise gifts; very often the person who is surprised is the giver when their good intentions turn out to be completely unwelcome.

But rules were made to be broken, and Maude and I had decided that, with two weeks to go before Christmas and only three puppies to re-home, we would begin a screening process that would make sure all the puppies had homes by New Year’s Day.  The phone hadn’t stopped ringing since.

I immediately eliminated any household with children under six.  Puppies are not educational toys, and no mother of preschool children needs another responsibility on her to-take-care-of list.  I also eliminated the frail, infirm, and those over eighty.  These were going to be big dogs.
 
I was left with a list of front-runners from whom Maude and I would choose who would be invited to come for a personal interview and to interact with the pups. 

It was a brilliant Tuesday morning, with a sky so blue it practically hurt to look at it, and a rime of new snow on the high mountain peaks.  My steps had been repaired and were awaiting the first day with temperatures above forty for paint.  My kitchen smelled like coffee and the cinnamon rolls Maude had brought from the bakery in town, and a fire crackled in the wood stove—which was securely screened by a metal puppy gate, of course.

I sat on the kitchen floor and watched the puppies, temporarily released from their ex-pen, explore the big world of rag rugs, chair legs, and slippery polished floors. I defy anyone, no matter how sour he or she is feeling, to watch a puppy scramble to gain traction on a hardwood floor and not laugh out loud.  Cisco lay beside me with his chin on the ground, determinedly pretending to ignore the puppies, even when one stopped by to chew on his tail or climb on his back.  His eyes, however, never stopped following them around the room.

Maude sipped tea at the kitchen table and carefully went over the list I had made of prospective puppy parents. “Jason Comstock,” she said, striking through another name on the list.  “Don’t bother.  He’s only looking for a hunting dog.”  It’s not that we had anything against hunting dogs, but our contract stipulated that the dogs we adopted must be pets only and live indoors.

I scooped up one of the little males who was trying to make a chew toy out of Cisco’s ear, and turned him in the other direction.  “What about that guy from Worley?  He says he owns a garage and could take the puppy to work with him.”

“Hmm.”  Maude sipped her tea.  “A garage is not the safest place for a puppy, is it?  But we’ll see.”

The female puppy placed a shy paw on my thigh and I cradled her on my lap.  Doc had pronounced her clear of any deadly contagion and put her vitamins and liquid antibiotics three times a day.  She already looked better, but was half the size of her brothers and I suspected would always have a more reticent personality.  Early handling and proper socialization would do a lot to build her confidence, but she was not going to be the easiest puppy to place.

“This young couple from Asheville looks promising,” Maude said.  “But why would they want to come all the way down here to adopt a puppy?”

“They’re just visiting relatives for a few days,” I said.  “That’s how they heard about us. The husband wanted to surprise his wife with a puppy for Christmas but I told him if he wanted to see the puppies both of them would have to come for the interview.”

“It looks as though we have a nice selection here.  Why don’t you ring them up and ask them to pop round tomorrow morning.  I can be here by nine or so.”

I was surprised.  It didn’t take two of us to show a litter of puppies, and I had always handled this kind of thing by myself.
 
“Since when do you not trust me to place a puppy?”

“Don’t be absurd.”  She sipped her tea.  “I should merely think that after what happened the other night you wouldn’t want to have strangers mucking about when you’re here alone.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!”  I didn’t know whether to be annoyed or touched.  “In the first place, I don’t need a babysitter.  In the second place, it wasn’t a stranger who tried to drive his truck through my house, it was a neighbor.  And in the third place—”

My cell phone rang.

“Unless it’s a retired veterinarian who also has a wall full of blue ribbons and is looking for a new dog to train to his OTCH, I think you can safely tell them we’ve placed the puppies.”

I got to my feet, cradling the female puppy in one arm.  “It’s not a puppy call,” I said.  “They come on the landline.”  I found my cell phone on the kitchen counter and checked the caller ID.  My heart actually skipped a beat and I quickly answered it.

  “Hi,” I said.  “Please notice that I not only answered my phone, I answered it on the second ring.”

But the voice on the other end did not belong to Miles.

“This is Melanie Young,” she said, in a very grown-up, businesslike tone.  “You need to come get me.”

My brows drew together in puzzled alarm.  “What?”  I placed the puppy back in the ex-pen and latched the gate.  She promptly sought out the fleece mat in the corner and curled up.  “Where are you?”
 

“I’m at the Middle Mercy Hospital,” Melanie said, “with my dad.  I think he’s dying.”

And she burst into tears.

__________

THIRTEEN

I
left Maude with the puppies and ran out of the house, still pulling on my coat and digging in my purse for my keys.
 
I reached the emergency room twenty minutes later, having horrible flashbacks to the night of Uncle Roe’s heart attack only two months ago, and of my own father’s fatal stroke years earlier.  I stopped by the  nurse’s station long enough to determine that Miles Young was not anywhere close to death, but that only calmed my racing heart and gasping breath marginally.  I knew what it was like to be sitting in a hospital waiting room, terrified you were going to lose your daddy.  I thanked the nurse briefly, got Miles’ room number, and hurried down the hall to find Melanie.

She was sitting on one of the orange, hard-plastic chairs, still wearing her puff coat with her mittens on a string around her neck, swinging her feet.
 
For once she did not have her iPad.  A young woman in the blue poplin uniform of a hospital volunteer was trying to interest her in one of those Chinese box puzzles, but Melanie was having none of it.

In dog training, demeanor is everything:  tension, anxiety and anger go straight down the leash and will ruin your training program no matter how skilled you are at everything else.  And because dogs live almost entirely on an emotional level, there’s no point in trying to fake them out; they can see through you like a lace curtain.  I suspect the same thing is true of kids.  So I paused at the door and took a moment to get my composure, found an easy smile for my face and a relaxed posture for my gait, and went over to her.

“Hi, Melanie,” I said.  And to the volunteer I added, “I’m a friend of the family.”

The girl smiled cheerily and got up.  “Melanie has been great,” she assured me with a little too much enthusiasm.  “Just great.  What a brave girl.  And everything is going to be fine, isn’t it, Melanie?”

Melanie did not reply.

I said, “Thanks for staying with her.”  I was glad when she left, and I think Melanie was, too.  I took the seat she had vacated, clasping my hands between my knees and trying to look casual.

“How’re you doing?” I asked.

Melanie looked up at me with eyes that were red from crying, and for the first time since I had known her, she looked like a little girl.  “I want my mom,” she said.

Of course my instinct was to put my arm around her and draw her close, but I didn’t think that would be received in the spirit it was meant.  So I said, “I’m sure it would be okay if you called her—”

She started shaking her head before I was finished. “I called her.  She wouldn’t come.”

There was nothing I could say to that.  Nothing in this world. 

“Well,” I said, trying for a change of subject, “I’m glad you called me.”

She shrugged morosely.  “You were number one on Dad’s speed dial.”

I was number one on Miles’ speed dial.
 
I know it was completely inappropriate, but I felt a glow that started at my toes and spread all the way to my cheeks at that, and I wanted to grin like a fool.  I was number one.

I said, “Your dad’s just fine, you know.  He’s just got a little bump on his head."

She stared stoically straight ahead.  “I know that. I didn't think you would come if I told you that.”

I smiled, sensing the brave lie.  “The doctors want to take your dad upstairs to a room where he can rest overnight, but the nurse said we can go in and say hello to him before they do.  Do you want to?”

She nodded uncertainly, and I put my arm around her shoulders as we walked down the hall to the examining room.  The door was open and I could hear Miles’s voice long before we reached him.

“And I’m telling you, doctor, thank you for your advice, but I won’t be staying.  I have a little girl who’s waiting for me, and I’m just fine.  Where do I sign?”

“Mr. Young, I cannot allow you to drive in your condition, particularly with a child in the car.  Do you understand the danger if you should pass out at the wheel?”

The silence that followed was the opening I needed to tap lightly on the doorframe, and I have to confess, I was as relieved as Melanie when I saw Miles on his feet and almost fully dressed.  There was a large gauze patch on his head and his left arm was cradled in a blue sling.  He was struggling to pull the sleeve of a wool shirt over the other arm, and I have to admit I spent an inappropriate moment admiring his naked chest which, even with the angry blue bruise that was spreading over his left rib cage, was worth staring at.  He had the physique of a man who wouldn't mind climbing on a roof and swinging a hammer if he had to, and I liked that.

Melanie ran into the room and flung her arms around his legs.  He exclaimed, “Hey sweetheart!” and hugged her with his good arm, but the enthusiasm of her embrace cause him to stagger back against the examining table and the doctor, a middle-aged woman with broad shoulders and a grim expression, quickly caught his arm to steady him.

“Dizziness, nausea, disorientation, loss of consciousness, coma,” she said.  “Reconsider what’s best for the child.”

I said, “It’s useless to argue with him, doctor.  His stubbornness is legendary. Really, Miles,” I added.  “On the bunny slope?”

He noticed me for the first time.  “Raine?”

“Melanie called me,” I said, coming into the room.

“Thank God,” he said, easing himself gingerly into a sitting position on the examining table.
 
“I thought I was hallucinating, which would mean I really am as bad off as these idiots think I am.”  Melanie climbed up beside him and settled in the crook of his good arm, and he gave her a squeeze.
 
“Good thinking, Mel.  I knew I could count on you.”