by Liz Isaacson
Her heart struggled to beat right now. She reminded herself of the two kisses they’d shared recently, and that things in Ames’s life were currently in a state of flux. It sounded like they had been for at least the past ten months.
“I quit because it was time to quit,” he said. “I knew I wasn’t supposed to be there anymore.”
“And you went to Three Rivers.”
“I bet that made you mad,” he said. “When you found out I was in Three Rivers.”
“A little,” she said, though it had been more than that.
He glanced at her again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “The truth is, I don’t know where I’m supposed to be, or what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m trying to figure it all out, but it’s not happening as fast as I’d like, and I find myself constantly second-guessing every decision I make.”
He slowed and turned off the highway and onto the dirt road that led to Ruff Rescue.
“And that gets us to where we are right now,” Sophia said.
“About,” Ames confirmed as he pulled up to the tiny administration hut that marked the entrance to Ruff Rescue. Lindsey came outside, as she’d probably been watching for them to arrive, a smile on her face.
Sophia couldn’t help smiling back at the woman who’d become a good friend over the years. “Okay, Ames,” she said. “Let’s go have some fun and find you a rescue dog to foster.” She looked at him. “No more serious stuff today, all right?”
He wasn’t too sure about that, Sophia could tell. But he nodded, and he said, “All right,” as he reached for his door handle. She got out of the truck too, squealing, “Lindsey,” and dancing over to her friend to hug her.
She did want a fun day with Ames, but she’d enjoyed the more serious conversation too. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t really ever tried to find someone to fall in love with and spend his life with. Even more shocking was that when he’d finally decided to do so, he’d chosen her.
Bless us, she prayed silently. If we’re meant to be, please bless us to find a way down whatever paths we’re on to one we can walk together.
Chapter Fifteen
Ames smiled at Sophia’s excitement to see her friend, and when it was his turn, he stepped forward and shook Lindsey’s hand.
“My boyfriend, Ames Hammond,” Sophia said, beaming up at him. Heat exploded through him, and his smile got a bit wider. She turned back to the brunette. Lindsey was at least four inches taller than Sophia, and she had wide, dark eyes to go with her hair. She’d pulled that hair into a ponytail and put a visor on to keep her face shaded.
“Nice to meet you, Ames,” she said. “Tell me a little bit about what you’re looking for.”
“I used to be a captain in a police department,” he said. “I oversaw officer and K9 pairings, and I’ve trained police dogs before.”
“Wow,” Lindsey said. “Sophia said you wanted a big dog. I take it you’re not afraid of one that’s maybe a little more aggressive?”
“That would be fine,” Ames said. He could usually tell if he and a canine would get along within the first few minutes of meeting it, and the size and breed didn’t matter to him. “I’d actually like two dogs. I find they work better and learn faster in pairs or packs.”
Lindsey looked at him, keen interest in her eyes. “You really do have experience with dogs.”
“Tons,” he confirmed.
“Are you looking for a job?” she asked, laughing afterward.
He smiled too, but he didn’t answer. Sophia caught his eye, her eyebrows raised, but he shook his head slightly.
“We’re always looking for good people,” Lindsey continued, unaware of the exchange between him and Sophia. “Especially with our bigger dogs. Everyone loves the small lap dogs and the cats. The big dogs need as many advocates as they can get.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” Ames said, not committing to anything.
Lindsey talked about the facility and the dogs they brought in as they walked down a path between two huge kennels. The chain link on both sides of the path stood at least eight feet tall, with a gate every so often.
Some of the dogs they passed just came over to the fence to see them, but some barked their welcome. Ames couldn’t help the joy moving through his soul, and the heavens opened up right there on the hot, dusty path.
He needed to be working with dogs every day. He needed his own facility. His mind started running down a set of greased tracks, and he could barely hear one thought before another took its place.
He needed land.
He needed someone to help him design the facility.
He needed to contact the new captain over the K9 units in Littleton.
He needed to find the right puppies for the program.
He needed to establish himself as a credentialed police dog trainer.
“Here we are,” Lindsey said, and Ames compartmentalized everything quickly. He could think about this later. “We’ve got several different breeds in here, and this is our shelter for dogs over sixty pounds.”
Four or five of them had already approached the gate, but they backed up as Lindsey opened it. The gate swung in, and she followed it closely, talking to the dogs. They clearly knew her and listened to her. Ames followed her, reaching for Sophia’s hand to bring her behind him.
“This is Norman,” Lindsey said, bending down to pat a big black, gray, and white Akita. “He’s an Akita, and he’s got a heart of marshmallow.” She grinned at the dog as she scrubbed him around his jowls.
Ames joined her and extended his hand toward the canine. Norman sniffed him, and then he touched his nose right to Ames’s palm. He crouched down and looked into the dog’s eyes. He saw intelligence, and confidence, and loyalty there, and he wanted this dog to come home with him.
“He’s been here about nine months,” Lindsey said. “He was abused, and he bit some children in the neighborhood. We went to pick him up in Glendale so he wouldn’t get put down.”
Ames slid his hand along the side of Norman’s face, reading his whole history in just a few moments.
“This is Jones,” Lindsey said, introducing him to a brown and black boxer. Ames liked him too, but there wasn’t the instant connection there had been with Norman. He met a hairy black mutt that looked more like a Newfoundland than anything else, though he definitely wasn’t pure.
He met a Doberman named Bonnie, who had some seriously high energy. Ames wanted to work with the dogs and help them be able to integrate into a family, but he wasn’t sure he had the time to dedicate to Bonnie.
“Oh, look at that,” Lindsey said as a Belgian Malinois came right up to Ames. The other dogs had parted as this one came forward, and it was clear he was the pack leader. Or the other canines were simply afraid of him.
“She likes you,” Lindsey said. “This is Florence. She’s a—”
“Belgian Malinois,” Ames said with her. “I recognize them. We had six in Littleton.” He smiled at Lindsey as he crouched down in front of this dog too. He held up his hand, palm forward and about a foot away from the animal.
“She used to be a police dog,” Lindsey said. “But she attacked without being commanded, and she caused some serious damage to a witness the police needed. We got her after that. She’s been here a while—a long while—and she doesn’t like anyone.”
Her nose worked great, and Ames watched her sniff and sniff and sniff, her neck stretching out to find the scent she’d picked up. He saw pure intelligence in her eyes, and she burrowed her way right into his heart.
“She always stays in the shadows,” Lindsey continued. “She avoids the other dogs. They avoid her. I barely know her.” She sank to Ames’s level too, looking from him to the dog.
“I want her,” he said quietly, though the dog had not let him touch her yet, and she hadn’t touched him.
“I don’t know if—”
“I want her,” Ames said, looking at Lindsey. “And not as a foster. I want to adopt her.”
Surprise made Lin
dsey’s eyes widen. “Wow. Uh, okay.”
“I want to foster too,” he said. “I can handle her—and them.”
“He’s got Cy Hammond’s dog for the next couple of weeks too,” Sophia said. “He’s brilliant with dogs, Linds.”
Lindsey looked doubtful, but she didn’t say anything as she got to her feet. A dog nudged his elbow, and he swung around slowly, knowing quick movements startled dogs. Norman sat there, and Ames smiled at the dog. “Yeah, buddy, I haven’t forgotten about you.”
He looked at Florence, who flicked her gaze to the Akita too. They both sat down, and Ames reached out to Norman with his injured hand, because if Florence snapped, he didn’t want to get another injury on his right hand.
Slowly—only moving an inch every few seconds or so—he moved his left hand toward Florence. “Sitz,” he said to her, using the German words they’d used for their police dogs in Colorado. “Platz.”
Florence looked at him, the seconds ticking by. Then she sat—sitz—and she went all the way to the ground—platz.
“That’s a good girl,” he said, reaching out to touch her shoulder. He knew better than to go for the face as he had with Norman. Florence’s eyes drifted halfway closed, and Ames chuckled as he moved his hand up to her ears, and finally to stroke along her nose, down the sides of her face, and under her chin.
He stood up and snapped his fingers. Both Norman and Florence came right to his side, all three of them looking at Lindsey.
“I have never seen anything like that in my entire life,” she said, pure awe in her voice. “That was incredible.” She looked from Ames to Sophia and back. “I will hire you right now. Name your price.”
“I just want to foster right now,” Ames said quietly. Norman nudged his hand again, and he patted the dog. “You’re coming with me, bud. It’s okay.” He met Lindsey’s eye again. “I want Florence as mine. I want to foster Norman, but I want the option to adopt him if I find I can’t give him up.”
“Done,” Lindsey said.
“I want one more foster,” Ames said.
“I think I’m fairly useless here,” Lindsey said. “You can walk around and find that dog that speaks to your soul.”
“Thanks.” Ames turned away from Lindsey and Sophia, and he started walking around the enclosure. There were plenty of trees here, which he liked. The water looked fresh enough in this heat, and the dogs had healthy coats and clear eyes.
There were easily fifteen or twenty dogs in this area, and there had to be more in another enclosure. Sophia said the bigger animals were harder to adopt or foster out, and they certainly had more than twenty of them.
An English setter perked up as Ames went around the corner of a small shed, and she barked once as if Ames had startled her. “Hey,” he said, well-aware that at least six dogs had become his shadow. The others had lost interest already. He bent down as the cream dog with the long hair started trotting toward him. She looked like someone had spilled dark brown dirt all over her, and he found her spots classic and beautiful.
“What’s your name? Huh?” The setter came right up to him and sniffed his neck, licking him in the next moment. He was shocked this sweetheart hadn’t been adopted a long time ago. Maybe she hadn’t been here that long.
“Come with me,” he said to the dog, and he started back to where Lindsey and Sophia stood chatting. “What’s this one’s name?”
Lindsey looked at the English setter. “That’s Cocoa. Someone found her on the streets in Jackson Hole. She was pregnant at the time, and she had nine puppies about six months ago. We adopted them out in less than a few hours.”
“But not her? Seems hard to believe,” Ames said.
“She had some complications in labor,” Lindsey said. “She requires a lot of medical attention, and I guess no one was willing to incur those costs.”
“I want her as a foster too,” he said. “Same conditions as Norman.”
He looked around at the dog pack still with him. “I think that’s it for now. Sorry, friends.” He patted the other dogs who’d clearly taken a shine to him. “I’ll need more dogs soon, okay?” He wanted to take them all, and he found it a little shocking that he could feel so much for these animals in such a short time when it took him so long to connect to humans.
He didn’t have to pretend to be someone or something he wasn’t with dogs. They knew who he was, and they either accepted it and liked him, or they didn’t.
“I’m not going to stop asking you to work here,” Lindsey said. “You have eight dogs following you around as if you rolled in steak-scented cologne before you got here.”
“I wish I could work here,” he said. “But I have some prior obligations.” He flashed her a smile and added, “Do we need leashes for them?”
“Yes,” she said. “Not that they need them. I have a feeling they’ll follow you anywhere.” She took down a couple of lead lines and handed them to him. She looped one around Cocoa’s neck while he did Norman and Florence. “I can’t believe Florence came out of the trees to meet you. I just can’t believe it.”
Sophia started talking to her about her family’s ice cream shop, and Ames glanced at his girlfriend to let her know he appreciated it. He didn’t need Lindsey fawning over him or offering him a job every five seconds. The dogs were put in an indoor kennel while Ames started the paperwork to do the adoption and the fostering.
Forty-five minutes later, he had all three large dogs in the back seat of his truck, Cocoa sniffing Sophia’s hair and the other two sitting demurely next to the open windows on both sides of the truck.
“Thank you,” he said to Sophia as he reached over and took her hand in his. A twinge of pain moved through his hand from his injured thumb. He pulled away and added, “My thumb hurts today. Maybe I should unwrap it and check it.”
“Did they say to do that?”
“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “I was really out of it at the hospital. Do you remember?”
“I think they said to keep it dry and then yes, check it after a few days.”
“It’s been a long time since I rewrapped it. Before the wedding.” He determined he’d do it after he dropped off Sophia, took the dogs back to Cy’s, and got all the things they needed. Bowls, food, leashes, collars, and anything else he saw at the pet supply store. Cy sometimes put sweaters on Blue Velvet in the winter, but Ames had learned that he’d done that because Patsy loved sweaters.
Ames didn’t want to dress up his dogs. He wanted to make them feel loved and safe. He wanted to exercise them and teach them to do what they loved best—work and love their master.
“Down,” he commanded Norman, and the Akita went straight to his stomach, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he panted. Florence knew the English and German commands for down, and she trotted up after Norman and sank all the way down too.
Blue Velvet hadn’t even run after the ball this time, as she didn’t have quite the stamina of Norman and Florence. Likewise, Cocoa had retreated to the shade about ten minutes ago. Ames knew the other two dogs would go and go and go until he told them they could stop.
The summer sun was hot here despite the elevation, and he picked up the ball and dropped it in the bucket. “All right,” he said. “We’re done.” He stepped over to the house and turned on the hose. “Come get a drink.”
Norman and Florence followed him, and they both drank from the water spouting from the hose. Blue Velvet waited, and then she drank too. Cocoa drank last, and Ames filled the big plastic bin they used as a water bowl outside with fresh, cold water too.
“I think we’ve all earned a nap. Let’s go inside.” He went up the front steps and opened Cy’s door. All four dogs filed in, and Ames grinned at each one as they did. Blue Velvet probably couldn’t wait for her real master to get home, as Cy didn’t make her run four miles in the morning, play fetch an hour later, and then train in another language right after lunch.
He’d been throwing them a ball in the afternoon too, before taking all of them
up to Sophia’s in the evenings. Cy and Patsy would be home on Monday, only five days from now, and Ames really needed to find a place of his own.
Colton had said he could come back to his house, even with the three big dogs. Ames simply didn’t want to. So while the dogs jumped up on the couches or flopped on the bare floor, all of them still panting, Ames pulled out his phone and got back to work.
He’d marked four homes he could rent, and he wanted to set up a time to see them. “This is Ames Hammond,” he said when the first woman called. “There’s a house on Merchant Street for rent? I’m interested in seeing it.”
Half an hour later, he had appointments to see all four houses. Two that evening, and two in the morning. The dogs would be thankful he wouldn’t be running them tomorrow, and Ames was glad he might have his own place by the weekend.
He had at least two more months of summer before he had to decide if he was going to stay in Coral Canyon or go back to Three Rivers, and he didn’t want to buy another place and regret it.
The way his relationship was going with Sophia, he had the very real feeling he’d need to figure out how to get his house in Three Rivers fixed up and up for sale from Wyoming.
He sighed and looked out the big windows that framed the front of Cy’s house. All of the dogs had fallen asleep, and a feeling of serenity and peace filled the house in the silence he’d left in the wake of his phone calls.
“What do I do with the house in Three Rivers?” he asked, looking up at the ceiling now. Just like that, like someone turning on a switch to flood a room with light, Ames knew the answer.
“Micah Walker,” he said. He reached for his phone again, scrolled for Jeremiah’s number, and put the phone to his ear once more.
Chapter Sixteen
Sophia opened a container of raspberries and dumped them into the colander in the sink. She’d already put in five other containers, and it still might not be enough. She rinsed them all, picking out the leaves and berries that were softer than she’d like. She tapped the colander against the side of the sink and set it on a towel.
