Rescued

by L. P. Maxa

  After a brief cooling off, Lucy went through the house and closed all the windows, then contemplated her next move. A shower? She rejected that idea because it was too soon to have hot water. Fix something hot to eat? But what? The fridge was empty and the pantry didn’t hold anything remotely resembling a hot meal. As soon as the grocery store was open she would be there to shop. Maybe she would watch TV while she waited for the hot water heater to do its job. Surely she could find a movie to entertain her.

  Lucy reached for the remote, but she didn’t find it in its usual place. After searching under the furniture and even in other rooms, she stopped to laugh at the irony. For four days she’d wanted nothing but electricity and water, and now that she had them again, she was still stymied. She settled for plugging in her iPod and listening to her favorite playlist while she jotted a grocery list and tried to remember everything she had discarded from the fridge.

  By four o’clock the house had cooled, and hot water flowed from the faucets. She couldn’t shower since the puppies were housed in her shower stall and the guest bathroom only had a tub, but she wasn’t complaining.

  After a lavender-scented bubble bath and shampooing and deep conditioning her hair, she let her hair hang loose to air-dry. She dug through her closet for a clean pair of leggings and long top, then slid her feet into her favorite sandals. While she smoothed lotion onto her face, she heard her cell phone ringtone and ran to the kitchen to answer. The caller ID indicated the call was from the dog shelter, and Lucy quickly thumbed the phone to life.

  “Lucy.” Phoebe Nadeau, the shelter director. “How are you and Chestnut? We’ve been so worried about the two of you.”

  “We’re fine and so are Chessie’s six puppies. Three boys and three girls, and they’re beautiful. Chessie is a wonderful mom.”

  “That’s terrific. How far away from St. Magnus did you have to evacuate?”

  “It’s funny you should ask because— Oh, wait. Can I call you back, please? My elderly aunt is calling me. She was evacuated from her assisted-living residence.” Lucy disconnected and picked up the call from Aunt Ruth.

  “Lucy, dear. How are you? I hope you got off the island before that dreadful storm hit. I haven’t slept a wink since we left for worrying about you.”

  Lucy had to make a quick decision—tell the truth and admit her own stupidity or lie and make her aunt feel better. Stupidity won.

  “I wasn’t able to evacuate. Remember I told you about the dog I’m fostering? She has six beautiful puppies now. They were born during the storm.”

  Lucy could hear her aunt gasp sharply. “You’ve been all alone with no electricity and water? I’ve been watching the news coverage and saw how hard St. Magnus was hit.”

  “Well…” Lucy hesitated. Here was another decision. She didn’t think her aunt would think badly of her for staying at Noah’s house. It was an emergency situation after all. And Aunt Ruth’s attitudes were fairly progressive for a woman of her generation.

  “I had help,” she continued. “From a kind deputy sheriff who came to the door checking on us during the storm. He looked after Chessie like she was his own dog.”

  “How nice. One of the island’s deputies spoke here at our residents’ meeting a few months ago. He was a really nice young man and quite good-looking. Several of us commented that if we were only younger we’d be chasing after him. I even remember his name because it was like the story of the flood in the Bible. Noah. His name was Noah.”

  Lucy choked back a cough. She definitely wasn’t going to let her aunt know she had spent several days with the good-looking deputy. “Yes, how nice he spoke to your group,” she replied, though nice wasn’t the word she’d use for Noah Tindall. Sex on a stick came to mind as a more accurate description.

  “I presume you’re all right then?”

  “I’m fine. The dogs are fine. And as far as I can tell, the house doesn’t have any damage. The yard is a bit of a mess but—”

  “Don’t you worry about the yard, dear. I’ll call Lloyd Randall. He’s the one who comes to mow the lawn every week. He does cleanup too and will do a good job of it.”

  Thank goodness for small favors. Lucy had worried about having time for her business in addition to dealing with storm damage. Now her load was lightened, and her deadlines were doable.

  “Are you still in…” Lucy couldn’t remember to what city her aunt had been evacuated. “Where are you?”

  “Macon. They brought us to a hotel here and it has almost been like a little vacation. I’m sharing a room with Marian Sutton. She lives across the hall from me. I think I told you about her. Her late husband worked for the State Department and they lived all over the world. She always has the most interesting stories to share.”

  “It’s good to have a nice roommate. I suppose they’re feeding you well?”

  “We had steak last night with baked potatoes and salad.”

  Lucy’s stomach rumbled in response. “Sounds yummy.” She could have had steak if she had remained at Noah’s house. Instead she had choked down peanut butter on saltine crackers. Now with power restored, she hoped the grocery store would open soon and she could have a decent meal again.

  “I have to go now, honey. They’re calling a meeting about taking us back home. Stay in touch, dear. And remember to let Lloyd clean up the yard. Bye now.”

  After her aunt hung up, Lucy sat at the kitchen island and returned the shelter’s call.

  “We’ll open again at eight o’clock in the morning. We were lucky our facilities sustained no damage and all our animals are safe and sound. When you return to the island, let us know,” Phoebe told her. “We’ll send one of our vets, Andy Boudreaux, to check Chestnut and the puppies and complete all the necessary paperwork. Or pupperwork as we like to say.”

  Lucy squirmed in her chair. She had to make the same decision as with her aunt—tell the truth and risk having the dogs taken away because of her poor decision, or fib and… And what? Let them think nothing had gone wrong when Chessie had difficulty with the last puppy?

  This wasn’t about her. This was about the dogs. Lies never made anything better. Just ask her former boyfriend.

  But if she told the truth, would Noah get dragged into the situation? Of course, he would since he was there when the pups were born.

  “Actually,” Lucy began, then swallowed around the lump in her throat. “Actually, the vet could come by anytime.”

  “Oh? You’ve returned to St. Magnus already? I wasn’t aware the return order had been given.”

  Lucy cleared her throat. This was the moment of truth. “I never left. You see, Chessie’s temperature dropped Thursday afternoon, which meant she’d go into labor Friday afternoon and I knew from the literature you’d given me that it wasn’t good to move her at that point. And besides, St. Magnus hadn’t been hit by a hurricane in, well, forever, so I hoped Dolly would shift and miss us, but I guess I hoped wrong because she didn’t and Chessie went into labor and the power went out, but this deputy sheriff knocked on the door to make us leave only we couldn’t because of Chessie being in labor.”

  Lucy paused to take a breath, then rolled her eyes because she knew she was in full-bore babble mode. Noah may have found it cute but the shelter director wouldn’t. All she could do at this point was beg forgiveness and hope Phoebe didn’t have her charged with some crime against animals. Or worse, swoop in and remove Chessie and the puppies.

  And why did that thought cause her heart to ache so? Had she really grown that attached to a bunch of dogs?

  “My, that’s quite an adventure you had. And while I know it was frightening for you, we can use your storm story in the advertisement for these puppies and their mother. People love that sort of thing.”

  Lucy breathed a sigh of relief, then finished speaking with Phoebe and thumbed the button to end the call. Hurricane puppies. Who’d have guessed? She supposed, though, they would change their names to something more apropos like Storm and Thunder. If that helped them fin
d good homes, then so be it.

  A mournful whine sounded behind her, and Lucy turned to see Chessie enter the kitchen with a rag in her mouth.

  “What’s wrong, girl?” Lucy slapped her thigh and clicked her tongue to call the dog.

  Chessie plodded across the room, then jumped up and put her paws on Lucy’s knees.

  “Is this for me?” Lucy recognized one of the rags she had brought from Noah’s house. But when she held it up, it wasn’t a rag at all. What she held in her hands was a perfectly good button-up shirt.

  “How’d this get in the rag bag?” she asked the dog, but Chessie had disappeared. Lucy folded the garment and laid it on the stool beside her. By then, Chessie had returned with another cloth in her mouth. She dropped it at Lucy’s feet, whined and nosed it in Lucy’s direction.

  The second offering was a t-shirt from the most recent Marlowe County Sheriff’s Department kids’ fishing rodeo. She had no doubt Noah had taken part. That would fit right in with his hero persona.

  Lucy folded the t-shirt as well and laid it atop the other one. “We’ll take these back to Noah’s house sometime.” And at the mention of Noah’s name, Chessie barked excitedly. “Did you smell Noah on these?”

  Again, Chessie barked.

  Lucy couldn’t be sure if the dog actually recognized the name, so she decided to test her. “Mr. Randall is coming to clean the yard today or tomorrow. Maybe the shirt is his.”

  Silence.

  “And I talked to Phoebe at the shelter about you today. She was excited you had your babies.”

  Silence.

  “And Dr. Boudreaux is going to come and check on you soon. I think Phoebe said his name is Andy.”

  More silence.

  “I didn’t realize these rags were really Noah’s shirts—”

  Before she could finish the sentence, Chessie began to howl repeatedly, and Lucy began to understand why Beagles were abandoned.

  “Hush, now. It’ll be okay. I’m sure you miss him. And Baby too. But we have to get on with life. And we have to do it all by ourselves because we don’t really need a man, do we?”

  Chessie snorted and ran from the room.

  So much for female solidarity.

  Chapter Twelve

  By the next morning the island’s residents had begun returning home to get their first in-person glimpse of Dolly’s wrath. The island’s two grocery stores had reopened for business in time for the influx of people. Slowly and steadily, St. Magnus started coming back to life and its inhabitants displayed their resilience and their helping spirit in many ways.

  Lucy finished the grocery list to replace the fridge contents and to give her diet more variety. After Dr. Boudreaux came by to check on the puppies and Chessie and had declared them healthy, Lucy gathered her purse and long shopping list to head to the nearest grocery store.

  “I’ll be gone for a while,” she said to Chessie as the dog followed her around the kitchen. “I’m sure the lines will be long, but I honestly can’t eat any more peanut butter. Be good, okay?”

  And I’m conversing with the dog again.

  Chessie yapped once, then stood on her hind legs and pulled the shirts off the stool where Lucy had left them. She pranced to the front door and dropped the shirts on the tile floor.

  “Bad dog,” Lucy scolded and carried the shirts back to the kitchen where Chessie promptly repeated the behavior.

  Lucy sat beside the dog on the floor and put the shirts in her lap. “That old saying about dog being man’s best friend does not exclude women, you know. I know he helped us, but give me a break. Okay?”

  Chessie stretched out with her head on Lucy’s knee and gave a pitiful whine. “You’re going to nag me about this, aren’t you?” The dog thumped her tail against the floor. Lucy rose and tucked the garments under her arm. “All right. You win. I’ll go by his place and leave them whether he’s home or not.”

  And when she looked at Chessie, Lucy could have sworn the dog smiled.

  Lucy drove through the parking lot of Marlowe Food & Drug three times without finding an empty parking spot.

  “The blasted universe is conspiring against me,” she muttered before exiting the parking lot and heading toward Cypress Street. Her original plan was to have a trunk full of perishables as an excuse not to linger in case Noah was home.

  She had considered draping the shirts over the mailbox until she admitted that was the chicken’s way out, and she wasn’t going to be a chicken. Well, not much anyway.

  He was probably at work and she could leave the shirts in the carport without seeing him. She pulled into his drive and silently cheered when his Jeep wasn’t there. As she walked toward the carport her excitement was cut short when Noah pulled in behind her and stepped out of the Jeep. Faded jeans hugged his body and the tails of his shirt blew in the breeze.

  “Lucy,” he said stoically as he approached her. “Can I help you with something?”

  She shook her head, then held out the shirts. “Well, this. I took them by mistake when I uh…” She flushed at the memory.

  “When you sneaked out without saying a word?”

  “I didn’t sneak. I left in broad daylight.”

  “Yeah, after I left the house.”

  “I explained why I left, though I didn’t owe you an explanation. I had to—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. The fridge.” His lips thinned. “And the dogs. How are they, by the way? Baby misses them. He goes to the bathroom and sniffs around. And I swear he sighs.”

  “The shelter sent the vet to check them out and he gave them a clean bill of health. Once they’re a little older they’ll go up for adoption.”

  “All of them? Chessie too?”

  “Of course. Isn’t that what fostering an animal is all about?”

  Noah leaned one hip against the front of the Jeep. “You’re not really going to give Chessie up, are you? After all you’ve been through with her? Even if you let her go, you should keep one of the puppies.”

  “I don’t want a dog. I don’t need a dog.” Lucy forced the words out between clenched teeth.

  “Then why did you foster one? And a pregnant one at that? It wouldn’t have anything to do with whatshisname, would it?”

  Lucy stiffened and a wave of heat traveled up her neck to her face. “My personal life has nothing to do with the dogs. And it’s none of your business. Nothing about me is any of your business.”

  Noah moved a step closer to her. “Except we spent a couple of days under the same roof. A couple of great days and I kinda enjoyed it.”

  Lucy’s breath caught with a hitch. “Your entertainment isn’t my responsibility.”

  Noah took another step toward her. “I agree. Not your responsibility. But we did have those couple of kisses that were pretty damned hot. And, sweetheart, you were all in.”

  Lucy swallowed hard. And lied. “The couple of days at your place were necessary because of the storm. But the storm’s over and we all need to get back to our lives.”

  “You’re not getting back to your life, Lucy. You’re running away from life. Running away from me. You’re letting that SOB ex-boyfriend of yours continue to control you. And until you break the connection completely, you’ll keep on running until you’re old and alone.”

  Lucy blinked back tears. She had run from Atlanta to St. Magnus, and once here she had gone out of her way to avoid anything that would put her in social situations with men.

  Noah closed the distance between them and took her hands in his. “I like you, Lucy. A lot. And I’d really like to see you outside of a major crisis situation.”

  Lucy picked at the frayed hem of her t-shirt. “You mean like a date?”

  “That’s usually what a man taking a woman out is called. So yeah, I’d like to take you on a date. Whatever you’d like to do. Dinner and a movie. Picnic at the beach. We can take Chessie and Baby to the dog park. You name it.”

  Lucy nibbled her bottom lip as she considered his offer.

  “I’m
not a half bad guy,” he added.

  “Of course you’d say that.”

  “I’ll give you references if you want. My boss. My neighbor, Edna Sloan. The Sullivans, who own Magnolia’s restaurant. I eat there all the time. And Baby. Baby will vouch for me, and you know how they always say dogs are great judges of character.”

  Right. Lucy had heard that. And dammit he was right. Even Chessie thought he was a good guy. She studied him silently for a few beats. “If you’re the poster boy for wonderfulness, why are you still single?”

  “My career, I suppose. I’ve always given a hundred and ten percent to the job. But I’m learning the job doesn’t keep me warm at night or greet me at the back door when I come home. And maybe it’s because I haven’t met the right person. Until now. I think I may have found her and I’d like to explore that. Take a chance on me, Lucy.”

  A chance. She nodded, and the irony of the situation hit her. She laughed. “The last chance I took was fostering Chessie. I thought I’d do a good deed for the community to help rescue a dog. But it looks like I’m the one who was rescued instead.”

  Epilogue

  One year later

  An easy ocean breeze blew across the beach in back of the Sandpiper Inn. Three dozen people had gathered for the five o’clock nuptials, but there was one notable absence.

  Tina and Ralph Jansen stood on each side of their daughter, and Ralph flicked his cuff up for the umpteenth time to check his watch.

  “Is he always late like this?” Ralph asked. He folded his arms across his chest and grunted.

  “Promptness is next to godliness, you know,” Tina added.

  “That’s cleanliness, not promptness,” Aunt Ruth interjected. She had the only chair at the wedding site, which was appropriate given her age and recent surgery. “He’s only fifteen minutes late, for heaven’s sake. Cut him some slack.”

  Lucy turned to her aunt and mouthed a silent thank you for her support.

  “He’d better not be backing out after we drove the RV all the way from Oregon to be here.” Ralph tapped his bare foot against the sand impatiently, then frowned and shook his foot to dislodge the sand sticking to it.