by L. P. Maxa
Emily took a picture with her phone and quickly texted it to Thad along with the news that there were more abandoned puppies in Scenic Ridge. Meanwhile, Luke took the items out of the bag and lined them up on her desk. There were two bowls, a bag of dog food, a collar and leash, and a small fleece blanket. “There’s a dog bed in my car,” he added.
“Thank you.” Emily gave Serta a rub on her head. “You are the best little momma.” She looked at Luke. “Any idea of who did this? Think it could possibly be the same person?”
“Until we hear from Shane, I won’t know.”
“I called his cell while you were gone. Since it’s the middle of the night there, I probably won’t hear from him for a couple of hours.” Emily pulled up the number for Luke. “Why don’t you follow up?”
“I will.” Luke typed the number into his phone and called. “There is video of who dropped these guys off but it’s pretty dark. All I can say for sure is it was a woman.” He got Shane’s voice mail and left a detailed message along with his number.
They both watched as Serta nursed the puppies and then bathed the new ones. Emily poured out some food for her and Luke went to get the bed. They were working on setting up the box with the bed and blanket when Emily’s phone rang.
“It’s the Humane Society,” she said as she answered, putting the call on speaker.
“I’ll take her outside to go,” Luke volunteered. Emily nodded as she left her office and went into the kitchen.
“Hi, this is Marla Simpson with Scenic County Humane Society. I received your message about the abandoned dogs.”
“Hi,” Emily replied. “Yes, I called, and now I have to report three more.”
“Excuse me?”
Emily explained what had occurred at the dumpster and the biker bar.
“I am so sorry this has happened,” Marla said. “The problem is, we’re are out of foster space. Is there any way you can hang on to them until someone frees up?” Marla asked. “We always have such an influx of puppies after the holidays. People who got them or gave them as presents and then realize when they have to go back to work and school that they need much more attention than they can give them.”
“So they throw them away?” Emily asked. Luke came in carrying a laptop. He poured himself another cup of coffee then sat at the bar.
“The numbers would astonish you,” Marla replied. “We are fortunate that we have a partnership with North Shore Animal League that takes our puppies under their wing and find them homes. But the next transport isn’t until the end of January, and until that time there’s no space for any more.”
“I’ll keep them.”
Luke grinned at her as Emily didn’t even have to consider it.
“Do you need references or anything like that?”
“We would like for you to fill out a form. We’re a pretty low-key organization, all volunteers. Usually, we do a home check, but I’ve already talked to Thad Cruise this morning. He gave you a glowing recommendation.”
“I guess he really likes my biscuits,” Emily replied.
“I’ve had them myself,” Marla said. “They are good.”
“Thank you.”
Marla gave Emily instructions on where to find the form and added that SCHS would cover any necessary vet bills and gave her the name of the vet they used. Emily ended the call feeling a bit overwhelmed, yet happy with her decision.
“No room in foster care.” She shook her head. Luke had heard most of the conversation.
“Looks like you and Serta were meant to find each other.”
“I’m only fostering her,” Emily began, but then shook her head again. “Who am I kidding. I want to keep her.” Her phone beeped with a text. It was Thad asking if he could use the picture and telling her the story was going on the noon broadcast. She texted back with the news that she was going to foster the lot, and she thanked him for his recommendation.
“Do you mind if I do my reports here?” Luke asked.
“Not a bit,” Emily replied. “Don’t you need to get some sleep?”
He looked sheepishly at his cup. “I should have thought of that before I drank all this coffee.”
“Do you have to work again tonight?”
Luke nodded. “Every night this week. We do a rotating thing where I work nights, then afternoons, then days and then I get a long weekend off before it starts all over again. I figured I could write up these reports while I wait for Shane to call back, then I’ll get some sleep this afternoon.”
“Let’s hope he calls back.”
Emily went to work then, mixing dough and setting it to rise, baking specialty loaves and waiting on customers. Luke worked quietly at his seat at the end of the counter. Emily couldn’t help but steal looks at him as she worked.
How did a guy from Indiana end up in the foothills of North Carolina?
Didn’t he have any family back home?
What made him decide to enlist?
What made him decide to go into law enforcement?
And the most insistent thought in her mind since she’d first seen him: was he seeing anyone?
She couldn’t deny that there were sparks. Emily couldn’t help but roll her eyes and then pray that Luke hadn’t notice. Well, maybe sparks on her end…yet he wasn’t in that big of a hurry to leave her company and he had made a special trip back. Sure, it was to bring dog supplies but still…
It had been a long time since she’d dated. Sure, she’d had the regular run of boyfriends in high school and college and then she’d graduated and gotten a job working at one of the big corporate banks that were located in Charlotte, one of thousands of folks who showed up from nine to five in the high-rises that looked over uptown. She went to the breweries that were along the light rail on the weekends and tailgated the Panther games in the fall and went to the baseball games in the summer. Emily did everything she could in hopes that someday, somewhere, she would meet “the one.” She’d been a bridesmaid more times than she could count, and she kept a supply of Freshly Picked baby moccasins on hand for shower gifts because, of course, they were all having babies.
Then her grandmother died. Emily was an only child of an only child. Her parents were well off and loved to travel and did so at every opportunity. Emily inherited her grandmother’s house and a nice nest egg with instructions from her grandmother to take this opportunity to do what Emily loved.
She loved to bake bread. It was her go-to thing when she was stressed, and through the years her friends had come to expect at Christmas and birthdays that there would be a basket filled with fresh baked goodies.
There was something about the process. The quiet hours of the morning when she mixed the dough, then the kneading, which, in her opinion, was better than therapy. Follow that up with the wonderful smells from the ovens. Even the process of wrapping a loaf up in paper and tying it with a piece of twine—she loved every bit of it.
Emily had quit her job in Charlotte last September for small-town Scenic Ridge and opened Knead. And she found that she was really happy doing what she loved, although getting up on cold mornings was not her favorite thing to do. She’d met a bunch of people and made some friends. She was part of the Chamber of Commerce and had joined the local church. On occasion she would go to Charlotte for the weekend to see her friends because they really had no interest in coming to see her, and who could blame them. Charlotte had a lot to offer; small-town Scenic Ridge, not so much.
But she was still lonely. At twenty-eight she was afraid that she wasn’t going to meet “the one.” That her dreams of having a large family (since she was an only child she wanted her kids to have lots of sibs) were fading away with the years. Maybe she would end up being the old lady with the cranky cat or ten. While living in a small town had its benefits, an abundance of single men was not one of them. And she wasn’t quite ready to go the online dating route since almost all of her time was devoted to getting Knead off the ground.
Maybe fate had meant for her to have mor
e than a spunky little dog on this day.
Luke’s phone rang and Emily looked at him expectantly. He shook his head. It wasn’t Shane. He left the bar and went to one of the sofas. Emily went back to check on Serta, who was now sound asleep along with the five puppies. She tucked the blanket in around them and then went to the pantry to retrieve a box of chips that she added to her lunch orders. Her menu was simple, deli sandwiches with chips or fruit, along with the specialty breads, muffins, and biscuits. There was another bakery located in historic downtown that specialized in cakes, pies and cookies, and the occasional pastry. It was nice because they didn’t compete with each other. Emily already had what she considered to be regular customers for each day of the week and some of the local businesses called her to fix bag lunches for meetings. She had one such order due for pickup today at 11:30. As it was already 8:45 she decided to start preparations now.
Luke was still on the phone. Emily turned the TV on to channel 14, where the morning news show was in full swing. She muted the sound and went about her work until she noticed the story about the wreck and stopped to watch it. Luke ended his call and once again joined her at the bar as they watched Thad report the story.
Then came a teaser with a shot of the Knead sign, followed by a video of Emily talking to Thad. “What this woman found in the dumpster this morning will surprise you,” was the voice-over and then a quick shot of Serta and her puppies. “Today at noon.”
“Thad assured me that featuring the puppies would get some donations for the Humane Society.”
“It might drum up some business for you too.”
“You think?”
“It can’t hurt for the world to see how compassionate you are.”
She poked at Luke’s solid bicep. “Are you trying to score a free lunch?”
He grinned at her. “How about dinner instead. And I pay?”
A delicious shiver sprung up from her toes “Are you asking me out on a date?”
Luke’s grin got wider. “I guess I am.”
Chapter Six
They decided that Serta shouldn’t be left alone on her first night so the plan was for Luke to grab some takeout and come to Emily’s house after he slept for a bit. He rang the doorbell of her two-story Victorian promptly at 6:00 pm.
“Yay, pizza,” she shouted when she opened the door.
“I bought salad too.”
“Smart man.”
“Nice house,” he replied as he came into the foyer. Wood floors, an elegant staircase, and a built-in for coats filled the circular space. “Really nice,” he said again as he admired the woodwork. A cat sat at the top of the staircase. It studied him for a moment, then walked away.
“It’s been in the family for four generations now. The house, not the cat.” She grinned. “Another thing I inherited from my grandmother. She did keep the house pretty updated.”
“Really?” Luke observed. “In my experience, older people aren’t open to change.” He followed Emily through a large cased opening into a den-dining-kitchen combination. “Wow,” he called out. A fireplace sat against the opposite wall with a TV above it, tuned to the news.
“I know,” Emily agreed. “I think she didn’t want me to have any excuses not to come here. Even though she knew she was dying, she had all this done. She moved into an assisted-living facility and hired a contractor. She was kicking ass up until the day she died.”
“Sounds like she was a remarkable lady.” Luke sat the food down on the island.
“She was.” Emily led him to the back hallway. “And here is Serta’s room.” There was a laundry room off to the left. The box with the puppies sat in the corner next to a bowl of food and water. Serta jumped from the box and came to Luke, her tail wagging a mile a minute. He crouched down to pet her. She was so tiny he could cup her in both of his hands.
“I ran her by the vet after work,” Emily told him. “Everything looks good. I’ll get her spayed as soon as she weans the puppies.”
“Sounds like a permanent arrangement.”
“I filled out an adoption form while I was doing the foster form.” Her grin held a hint of mischief. Her hair was down, flowing over her shoulders with a touch of curl on the ends. She wore jeans and a dark purple v-neck sweater. She also had on makeup. A bare hint of it. Some mascara and lip-gloss.
“Did you get any sleep?” Emily asked as he followed her back into the kitchen. She got out plates and flatware and put them on the bar.
“I did. I missed the piece on the news.”
“I’ve got it on. It’s supposed to run again after 6:30.”
“And?” Luke sat down at the island and opened the pizza box while Emily got the salad and dressing from the bag.
“You were right. I was pretty busy after the story ran. It got to the point where I had to tell people that Serta wasn’t in the building because everyone wanted to see her. I even set up a donation jar and got over a hundred dollars.”
“Wow.”
“Somebody even suggested testing the mattress for DNA.” Emily laughed and shook her head.
Luke shook his head. “Let’s hope we hear from Shane and don’t have to take it that far.”
“I was hoping you’d heard from him by now.”
“Nope, I was hoping the same with you.”
She got two bottles of water from the fridge. “I have beer and wine, but I figured since you have to work tonight…”
“Water is fine.”
Emily joined him at the bar. “So tell me why here?” she asked. “I mean I know you said you wanted some different scenery, but what made you choose here?”
Luke had taken a bite of pizza, so he took the moment he needed to gather his thoughts. He’d been leading pretty much a solitary life in the year since he’d returned from Afghanistan. He’d gone back to Indiana after his stint in the army was up. He’d enlisted to get the money to pay for college. He’d hoped for a football scholarship, but while he was good in high school, he wasn’t great, and there were none forthcoming.
His mom had left when he was three. His dad always said he was grateful she stuck around long enough to get him out of diapers. His dad remarried when Luke was fifteen, and he had a couple of half-brothers that were twenty years younger than him. There was no room for him in his dad’s house, so he slept on a futon in the garage. His friends from high school had moved on to bigger towns with better opportunities and Luke felt too old, and knew he had seen too much, to fit in at college.
He swallowed and took a drink of water. He could continue to be alone, to keep to himself and remain closed off. Or he could jump in. Emily had taken in six strays today. Maybe one more would be easy. “Forrest Gump,” he said.
“What?”
“You’ve seen Forrest Gump?”
“Sure, I have.”
“You know how his friend talks about the shrimp and the boat and what he’s going to do when he gets home from Vietnam and his friend dies, so Forrest Gump goes and does it for him?”
“Yes.”
“I had a friend in the army who talked about this area. He was actually from Winston-Salem, but he had cousins up here and he said some of the best times of his life were spent here, hiking, swimming, riding four-wheelers. He couldn’t wait to get back here, but he didn’t make it. And since I didn’t have a place to go, not a real place, I thought why not come here. For Dan. Because he saved my life.”
He hadn’t looked at her while he spoke. He was afraid he’d chicken out if he looked into her warm brown eyes. So he was surprised when he finished and he turned his head and saw a tear sliding down her cheek.
“Hey. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
She swiped at her cheek. “It’s not that, or maybe it is. I told you I lost a cousin in Afghanistan. He was on my dad’s side. My dad’s family is from this area too. They lived in Pilot Mountain.”
Luke knew what she was going to say before she said it.
“His name was Daniel Beroth. From Winston-Salem. He died over
there.”
Before he was even conscious of what he was doing, Luke slid his arm around Emily. She leaned into his chest and his other arm came round to embrace her, somewhat awkwardly as they were sitting on bar stools. Her head was right beneath his chin and even though he couldn’t quite place the scent, it reminded him of fresh baked bread.
“He saved my life.”
“We were told he stepped on a mine.”
“He did. The area was supposed to be clean. At least we were told it was clean. A bunch of us were tossing a football around on our down time. Dan and I both went after a pass. We both missed. I was on my way to pick up the ball and Dan suddenly shoved me aside. I don’t know if he saw it or heard the trigger or what. All I know is one second I was there and the next I was flying through the air and Dan was gone. I got a mild concussion and a couple of days of rest. When I got back to my unit, everything of his was gone. Like he was never there.”
Emily shifted and he let her go as she returned to her seat. She grabbed a napkin and wiped her eyes. “They never told us that part,” she said. “That he gave his life to save yours. They said it was an accident. I think that was the worst part for his parents. That it was random and not important.”
“You don’t know how many times I wish it had been me.”
“Don’t say that, Luke.”
“No, seriously. I didn’t have a family that would miss me. Only my dad. And he has a new family now.”
Emily put her hand on his cheek. Her touch was so sweet, so tender, something Luke didn’t know he was missing until he felt it. His heart swelled as she leaned in. “I would miss you.” She kissed him, tentatively, barely a promise, until he put his hands on her arms to pull her closer and the kiss deepened to something more, no longer a promise, more like a certainty.
Then two things happened at once. Serta was suddenly beneath their feet, barking like mad, and Luke’s phone rang.
“She must need to go out,” Emily said as they finally, regretfully pulled apart. “Come on, girl, let’s go.”
Luke pulled his phone from his pocket. It was Shane.
“Hello, this is Luke.”
