by Anne Conley
Zane sighed. He was ready to stick to this woman like glue. If something happened to her, his job wouldn’t be the only thing on the line.
“Here. At least put this fucking thing on. And if you see a flame inside, get the hell out. Understood?”
She finally looked him in the eyes, and hers were filled with determination. She nodded and put everything on before going to some room in the back. He hated to take his eyes off her but managed to get Joey to help him with the task of hauling the rest of the dogs outside. When they got there, they found Lettie standing next to cages of puppies in various stages of fear and untidiness.
Every animal was out and now in the parking lot. Each one was freaking the fuck out.
“Stay here, please,” he practically begged. Joey had gone off to help the others with the actual fire. Zane was desperate to do his job but couldn’t bring himself to leave Lettie if she was going to go running back into the building that stood directly in the path of this massive conflagration.
She nodded, focused on the dogs and not him. That was okay, he guessed.
She stopped him when he started to jog back to where the rest of the firefighters were.
“I don’t know where to take them.” Her eyes were glassy with tears, and it was very nearly his undoing. He stalked back to her. “The animals. I don’t know where to take them.”
Zane looked around him and saw probably twenty crates on the ground. Another five or six—all filled with dogs and cats—were in the crew cab of her truck.
He thought. Hard. There wasn’t another public or city building in town that would take them. And nobody he knew had a house with a yard big enough to accommodate so many. Except …
“Take them to my house. We’ll get this under control, and y’all can work on getting the smoke smell out of the building and bring them back in a couple of days. It’s not like I have a couch or anything, and the guest rooms are currently vacant.”
In actuality, he hadn’t ever really done anything with his house except buy a nice bed for it. It seemed like he never really spent much time there and had never had it filled with fancy shit or decorated or anything. He could maybe distribute some of the animals to other firefighters temporarily, to ease some of the strain, but he really was the only one with room.
Lettie nodded, the relief evident in her eyes, and he was grateful to put that look on her face. He gave her a mock salute and turned, pride welling in his chest.
He had a fire to get under control.
Animal control didn’t take long to get there. The man, Mr. Jenkins, who worked for the city of Pamona Gulch, was a guy who was close to retirement and didn’t stand for bullshit, but Lettie enjoyed her work with him. He knew how to take care of the dogs and cats he picked up and delivered to her without a lot of fanfare. Today was no different.
“I’ve never really filled up the truck to take them away from the pound,” he said good-naturedly. “You got a place to take them yet?”
“Yes, a friend is very generously giving us the use of this house for a couple of days.”
“You shouldn’t even take that long with it. The building isn’t burning.” The words were spoken off-handedly over his shoulder as Mr. Jenkins started loading up animals.
“The smoke smell is bothering them, and the actual smoke inside is probably bad for them. I’ll have to clean it up before I can bring them back.” Lettie felt like she was pointing out the obvious, but Mr. Jenkins was old-school with the animals. In his mind, as long as something wasn’t physically hurting them, there wasn’t a problem.
“Whatever you say. You’re the boss.”
If only everyone had that opinion of her.
“Thanks. Just put as many in each cage as you can. I will meet you over there as soon as I get enough food in my truck to feed them.” She smiled as she walked off.
Grunting under the fifty-pound sack of dog food, Lettie coughed as she looked around the store room to see what else she might need to take to get through the night with these animals. If the fire came back this way, she needed to get some paperwork. Her insides tightened as her thoughts raced. If the building burned, there was medicine she needed for long-term stays somewhere.
And that brought a whole other host of issues. What if the fighters missed something and an ember reignited or something and the building burned to the ground while they were away?
She sighed. She couldn’t take it all. That would take hours, and the animals needed her to help them get situated in the new place for a little while. Besides, Zane was just behind the building. She could hear him yelling as he kept the fire from spreading. If he caught her in here, he’d be pissed.
Lettie managed to get the food into the truck and went back for another bag of dog food, a giant bag of cat food, a box of the canned food the older or sick ones were eating, a box of paperwork she deemed the most important, and a box of various medications for emergencies. She also got all the collars they had, as many toys as she could, and a few litter boxes.
By the time they made it to Zane’s house, they were a tidy little caravan—Lettie, Mr. Jenkins, Becca, and the college-aged girl whom she really should learn the name of because she was being amazing. All of them had cars and trucks full of animals in a horrendous panic.
Lettie jumped out of her truck and started barking orders. “Becca, start helping Mr. Jenkins unload so he can go on and do something else. What’s your name again? I’m so sorry, I’ve been trying not to panic,” she apologized to the new girl, who was looking at her with renewed trepidation. Was she really that hard to work with?
“Amanda.”
“Amanda, can you get a bag of each of the foods and we’ll make sure there is food and water wherever the animals go. You’re being amazing, by the way. I don’t know what we would have done today without you. If you have something else you need to do, you can go after the food is out.” Poor girl was only volunteering her time and didn’t need all this madness.
“I don’t. I’ll stay and help you.”
Lettie walked through Zane’s house. She mentally declared the kitchen and master bedroom off limits to the animals, but he had three extra bedrooms he didn’t sleep in. The home gym was outfitted with workout stuff and smelled of exertion and vinyl. Lettie ignored the primal urges that filled her as she imagined Zane shirtless and covered in glistening sweat while lifting weights. There was a room filled with game stuff and an extra refrigerator, where she imagined he had poker night or something else equally manly. The last room was nearly empty except for a few boxes. She decided the boxes could be moved to the living room and the empty room could be used for the cats. The mini-blinds would be destroyed, but the space didn’t have much else for them to tear up.
Lettie began to give Amanda instructions when the girl came back inside lugging a bag of food. “The backyard will be the staging area while I figure out which dogs go where, but this room is for the cats. Bring in a cage or two once they’re emptied of dogs and we’ll set them up in here. I think there’s a box of cat toys behind the driver’s side of my truck.” It wasn’t ideal, but they needed to be as comfortable as possible so they didn’t get sick. Some preferred the cages to anything else, but some liked to be free to play or whatever.
Going into the game room, Lettie tried to pile as much stuff on top of the pool table as she could. At least it wasn’t a super-nice pool table. Zane seemed to be down to earth about his stuff, as everything looked like it was from garage sales and thrift stores or maybe just hand-me-downs. She rearranged the room so the animals would hopefully not be able to destroy much before helping Becca and Amanda haul some dogs in. And then she repeated the process with the workout room. Most of that stuff was washable or metal, so she put all the puppies in there.
Zane’s house would keep them safe, but it would just be a challenge keeping all the dogs and cats happy and healthy
in these close quarters. The house was big compared to her apartment, but being filled with animals made the space feel cramped, giving her a sudden desire to make this stay as short as possible. Lettie had another two volunteers she could call to come help tomorrow while she cleaned up the smoke smell from the shelter so she could get these guys back to their homes.
Chapter Twelve
It was almost dark when they’d managed to push the fire back, almost killing it. Zane had been relegated to the pond where the pumper truck had just refilled with his team while the other trucks had gone up the mountain to work it from the other side. At this point, they were turning over earth and making sure the ashes and embers were burned out in this area before moving up to help the others. So far, there were six departments, both volunteer and paid, working on this fire.
It was almost over.
Zane had been turning over the logs of snags that had been cut. The dead trees, if left standing, tended to add fuel to wildfires and were generally cut immediately. Zane was making sure the area around the pond was dead and had no live embers in it to flare back up.
So far, so good.
He turned to look at the area, looking for glowing red, when he noticed something strange about twenty yards away, right next to the pond.
A large spot of white ash, having burned hotter than the rest, was visible from this distance. He looked at the ground around it. It was singed, as if an explosion had occurred here.
A fragment of orange caught his eye, and he walked over to it carefully. It was a piece of melted extension cord with wires coming from both ends. Another piece of plastic, melted beyond recognition, was across the way a little bit. Zane walked over and picked it up, turning it over. Rubbing it with his gloved hands, he exposed a small white spot and a barely recognizable Mr. Coffee logo on what looked like the back of it.
Who the fuck would need a coffee maker in the middle of the woods?
A goddamn camper who’d let his fire get out of control.
Why go to the trouble of camping, though, if you were bringing a generator to use your freaking coffee pot? Why not just use one over the camp fire? Tourists were fucking weird. He dropped the piece of plastic and made a mental note to tell the investigators about it when they arrived. This was undoubtedly where the fire had started, even though there was no evidence of a camp fire. But still, it made sense. Sort of, in a weird, hipster way. But hipsters drank fancy coffee and turned their noses up at Mr. Coffee coffee makers. Right?
Zane was tired. He couldn’t put the pieces together to save his life, but he could fight this fucking fire. Hell, he could do that shit in his sleep, so he walked back toward the woods to continue his job before the next shift took over and he could go back to the station to rest.
Zane thought of Lettie in his house with all those animals and hoped she was making good use of the place. Heavens knew he wasn’t going to make it home for a couple of days.
Lettie hadn’t slept for shit last night. Between all the scratching at doors, howling, barking, and meowing, she had been freaking out about the very real possibility that when Zane came home, he probably wouldn’t have an interior door left inside his house. And the fact he wasn’t there didn’t help matters either.
She’d paid special attention to Otis because the poor puppy was just as stressed with all the strangers in his new home he hadn’t totally gotten used to. She’d moved his crate into Zane’s room but eventually just let the pup sleep with her in Zane’s bed last night, hoping he’d come home. But he hadn’t. And he hadn’t called either.
Lettie was trying to figure out if they had a relationship where she should call him or not. So far, nothing out of the ordinary had happened, unless you considered having forty-two animals inside your home extraordinary. This morning, a few of Zane’s friends from the department had showed up to grab a few to take home with them. One had taken the shepherd mix that was her biggest concern and a tom cat who fought with all the other cats, while one of the others had picked out a litter of puppies and their mama that had been dumped, and the other one had picked up three of the biggest dogs. They’d all laughed at the fact Zane’s house was a mess, and Lettie hadn’t bothered to point out theirs would be too, just give the animals time. But they were only temporary homes until she got the shelter cleaned up. She usually vetted people who did that, but if they were friends of Zane’s, they would have to do. She didn’t have time right now.
And she couldn’t clean anything to get the animals home until tomorrow. She’d been informed the shelter itself was off limits for another twelve hours while they put fans up to get the smoke out. She could clean tomorrow.
Which meant today was a day for helping Zane in any way she could to keep these animals from destroying his house.
When her help arrived, she put them to work. Becca had the amazing job of walking as many dogs as she could around the neighborhood to tire them out. Amanda and her super sweet, super quiet, super agreeable boyfriend Troy were in charge of cleaning out kitty litter boxes, refilling water bowls, and playing with the dogs in the yard. Troy was quickly becoming Lettie’s hero. He should marry Amanda and they could become the nicest couple ever.
The dogs were being rotated every hour. Zane had a nice back yard, and it was roomy, so about a third of them at a time could stay outside. It was exhausting trying to clean up after the dogs inside while keeping as many as busy as possible outside so they would nap a lot and not destroy Zane’s home, but he was letting her use it—it was the least she could do.
Meanwhile, Lettie couldn’t help but wonder why he wasn’t even calling to check on things. She tried not to think about it much but couldn’t keep the thoughts out of her head. They were all in his house, and it was impossible not to think about it.
Last night, she’d had ten to fifteen dogs in each of the two spare rooms, with some of them outside. She’d let the older, smaller dogs just roam around Zane’s living room. Lettie had completely given up on keeping that part vacant of animals.
There were fights breaking out all over the place, shows of dominance and superiority, and Lettie had sent Troy to the store for spray bottles for everyone to arm themselves with. She was just grateful Zane didn’t have carpet anywhere, but his wood floors looked really bad in some places.
She let herself into the cat room and cringed at the mess. One of the walls was missing the baseboard and she found it across the room covered with teeth marks. The sheetrock by the floor had been clawed to pieces and would need to be replaced.
She didn’t even want to go inside the room with the puppies.
Lettie was pretty sure Zane would kill her when he saw his house.
Chapter Thirteen
“Dude, your house is trashed. What the hell were you thinking?” Jude laughed at him around his beer bottle. They were in Mo’s, and Zane had half an eye out for Lettie but wasn’t expecting her to show up. She probably had her hands full. He felt guilty for not going by his house to check on her but couldn’t bring himself to have the conversation they needed to have.
Zane sipped his beer, thinking. “I’m not sure I was. She needed help. It seemed like the thing to do at the time.” He should have stopped by, but he’d just gotten off his shift and needed a beer in the worst way. Now that he was listening to the guys talk, he wasn’t sure he wanted to go home. He’d offered it, yeah, and he wasn’t sorry for making Lettie feel better. But would seeing the destruction of his home put him in a better mood? Not likely, especially if Lettie was still being prickly.
Logan actually smiled around his beer. “Well, I may keep that cat. He’s a lot like me. Old, grumpy, and fatter than shit. And not nearly as destructive as the fucking dog. My landlord’s gonna shit.”
“You are not fat,” Joey pointed out at the same time Jude said, “Dude, you got a cat? I ended up with a half-dozen fucking puppies.”
“Maybe not,
but I’m the biggest guy at the station.” Logan turned to Jude. “I got a cat and some satanic dog. Didn’t you hear that part?”
“Chief is the biggest.” Joey swirled his beer around in his mug, ignoring Logan’s last statement.
“He’s the fattest,” Logan corrected with a raised eyebrow. As far as sheer mass went, Chief probably was bigger, but Logan could out-bench him in a heartbeat.
“So give the cat to him,” Joey said, but no one was listening anymore. Logan’s raised brow had ended the topic of conversation.
“Have you seen it?” Jude was talking to Zane, even as Zane was zoning out to the good-natured ribbing of his friends.
“Seen what?”
“Your house, dude. Seriously.” Jude rolled his eyes.
“No.” Zane finished his beer, not entirely sure he wanted to see what having all those animals in his house had done. Of course, it was his idea, and he would do it again in a heartbeat, but his only consolation was the fact he didn’t have a single really nice thing in his house except his mattress and his poker table. Hopefully, Lettie had taken precautions for those things, but since he hadn’t specifically told her to, he couldn’t get mad if she hadn’t.
He lived on the side of a mountain—well, everyone here did—but he had an enormous back yard and hoped all the dogs were spending as much time out there as possible.
Logan was glaring at someone over Zane’s shoulder, and he turned to see it was Katie, sitting at her usual spot at the bar watching Logan. She looked so forlorn, as if Logan had stomped all over her puppy. It was a normal look when he was around. When he wasn’t, she had this cheery disposition, but for some reason, she was clearly in love with Logan, and he acted like he hated her guts.
