by L. P. Maxa
If Lucy was sure of anything in the world, it was that Noah Tindall would show up to marry her. Surely he had a reason for being late. He was a law enforcement officer, after all.
“Do you want to go back into the inn and get out of the sun until he arrives?” Pastor Greening from St. Magnus Community Church slid a finger between his clerical collar and his neck.
Lucy looked around once more. “I suppose we could do—”
She was interrupted by a deep woof followed by several higher yelps. Lucy glanced to her left and saw Noah burst out of the back of the inn with three dogs in tow. Beach ordinance required them to be on leashes despite the rigorous obedience training they had all undergone. But as he neared the wedding party, Noah leaned down and unfastened all three leashes. “Baby, heel. Chessie, Foxy, heel,” he commanded, and all three fell in line on either side of him.
“Sorry I’m late,” he whispered. “Emergency on the way.” Noah stepped into place beside Lucy, just as they had rehearsed the previous evening, and the dogs all sat as if on cue.
“Nothing serious I hope.” Lucy used her thumb to wipe a small smudge from his cheek.
“Not really. But we’re going to have another baby.”
Several people heard Noah’s comment and the word baby buzzed through the group. Lucy’s mother fanned herself with her hand and leaned against her husband.
“Not another dog. Noah.” Lucy dragged out the syllables of his name. “You promised we’d take a break for a while.”
“I know. But he was left up by the shopping center and when I stopped for champagne.” Noah lowered his voice and leaned toward Lucy. “You know, for tonight. There he was and I couldn’t leave him.”
“So where is he? Not in your Jeep.”
Noah pinned her with a stare. “What sort of pet owner would I be if I did that? He’s inside with Layla.”
Layla Fairchild owned the Sandpiper Inn, and if Lucy’s suspicions were correct, Layla would soon be the new owner of a rescued dog.
“Shall we begin?” Pastor Greening raised an eyebrow and looked at the couple.
Noah bowed his head. “Of course.”
“I should be used to this by now. You’re always a hero. But you’re my hero and I’ll love you forever because of it.”
OSCAR
Joan Bird
Chapter One
Maggie & Oscar
Rain leaked through the old roof, her home now, drafty, dank, but safe, at least for the time being. As a testament to her bloodline, symmetrical ebony spots dotted her sleek white coat as she protected her brood. These same qualities that made Maggie distinctive from other canines were emerging in her seven pups.
All except one.
Oscar.
A ball of black curly fur with one brown ear licked her forepaw. Maggie nuzzled Oscar’s square head as he snuggled against her, her child oblivious to the reality of being a mutt. It was Maggie’s fault Oscar had to go. Still, her heart broke with the knowledge of it.
Her owner’s plan to breed Maggie with an AKC champion from Hutten County had not come to fruition when he discovered her pregnancy. And that meant her babies could be anything. So the rancher threw her out.
It was a gift, really, leaving Maggie to fend for herself in the old barn at the edge of his acreage, because without the money for the sale of purebred pups, Max Jackson would have used the simple remedy of a bullet in her brain.
###
His heart was breaking, but Oscar would not cry and instead used precious minutes to memorize the cadence of his mother’s heart as it beat against his shoulder. She had no choice. Oscar’s leaving might keep his siblings alive. For reasons he couldn’t comprehend his brothers and sisters looked like Maggie. Oscar did not.
Closing his eyes against a flash of lightning, he snuggled closer to the warmth generated by his siblings. Thunder rumbled, followed by a few drops plinking off the failing tin roof and against the walls of the barn. Then the rain fell in a soothing rhythm, and Oscar couldn’t help but close his eyes.
###
The rain had stopped, the silence waking Oscar from a deep sleep. Losing time in dreams was a waste, and it didn’t forestall the inevitable, so he stretched, yawned, and stood on his young legs. A dense fog slithered through holes in the crumbling walls. It slipped between missing boards and crawled toward him across the dirt floor. He was bone cold despite a warm and final tongue-lap from his mother.
No slumping allowed. Oscar would not turn his head to look because if she saw him crying, it would break her heart. He longed to be called back, but wouldn’t give his mother the chance to change her mind. At six weeks and one day of age, Oscar chose to try to spare his family from a fate of Max Jackson’s choosing.
A blast of cold air saddled him with terror as he slipped through the big door that hung by a single hinge. Biting back a whimper, he crept through mist and shadow across what seemed a vast open space. His mother had told him of the forest on the far side of the corral. She spoke of the river, and the kinds of plants that would provide shelter, things he could safely eat and warning him of poisonous berries.
Resolute, Oscar’s metamorphosis into an orphan was as simple as his stepping from the clearing into the pines.
Chapter Two
Fiona
Phee felt a little better. The crying jag and puking her guts out helped. “I need a walk. How about it, future child?” She rubbed one hand over her belly.
There was no one to answer. Not yet, anyway. Fiona Kavanagh’s pregnancy didn’t show, and other than being tired and losing her cookies four or five times a day, little had changed. Still, when the truth came out, she didn’t expect to keep her job at Hillside Christian Elementary.
The law said they couldn’t send Phee packing because she was pregnant, but it wouldn't matter to Hillside, because contractually, violation of Clause 2(b) something or other, was grounds for the boot. As it happened, one-night stands qualified as a crime of moral turpitude under this section. Besides, she had no intention of giving the self-righteous Reverand Halsey, headmaster and egocentric jerk, the satisfaction of responding to a lawsuit by taunting her sins to faculty and parents.
True, she’d slept with a man, and that man—the father of her child—was not around. Phee had no intention of hunting him down even if she had a clue where to start. That admittedly blissful coupling, an aberration—not really, but they pretended well—to the likes of Hillside’s patrons, had provided Phee release after her mother’s death.
After the funeral, Phee’s emotional resiliency had less tensile strength than wet linguini, her eyes ached from crying too much, and the focus required to make the eight-hour drive home was MIA. So maybe stopping for the night at a hotel with a bar wasn’t her best idea ever, but the empty hugs and hallow greetings from her siblings before the service that morning worsened her already low self-esteem. After two bourbon rocks and a bowl of bar snacks, Phee merely lived up to her reputation as the family pariah.
Shaking off the memory of that day, and night, including the hot monkey sex she’d had with the uncommittable stranger she’d shared drinks and peanuts with, she studied the calendar tacked to the mudroom wall. Phee mentally checked off the day. Two months without her mom. Two months after the cute man/boy ran out of condoms, and Phee lied about being on contraceptives. And in less than two weeks, summer would land in her life like a jumbo jet out of runway. There would be no classroom, and no students to busy her mind. In short, nothing to let her forget that in one night, she had forever altered her universe.
Hell, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Phee didn’t expect Hillside to keep her on, and she’d spent hours finalizing her resignation letter so she could beat the high and mighty school administration to the punch.
Mid-self-pity sigh, she grabbed a light sweater. And who could she commiserate with anyway? Without her mom, Fiona Kavanagh was alone in the world, unless the town made her pregnancy its business. With a population of fewer than 4,500 people and eleven churches, sh
e expected nothing less.
Really, Phee, The Crystal Room? She should have known better than to drink on an empty stomach, a wounded heart, and in a place where there were only three patrons. One of whom just happened to be way cute, and anxious to show off what the first prize in some podunk-rodeo-belt-buckle was keeping in check. The absurdity of that night and its consequences wouldn’t change no matter how much she rethought it, so she closed the cottage door, and headed for the pond.
Chapter Three
Rescuing Oscar
She sat on a large boulder by the brook every day for a week. Oscar, starving, frozen, filthy, and wounded, had wanted to approach her from that first visit. He hadn’t been sure she wouldn’t hurt him so he’d waited.
Now he had no choice but to dare contact, given he was growing weaker each day. His pond lady seemed like an angel each time she appeared, and Oscar accepted she was exactly what he needed.
He bit at a fly and narrowed his eyes against the ever-brightening sun, pondering all he’d learned his first days in the wilderness. Foxes, bears, and wild dogs—distant kin or not—viewed Oscar as a snack and were dangerous. Snails tasted disgusting but filled him up. Rats he understood from his time in the barn. No one should trust a rat.
Even the inanimate threatened, like the rocks that dappled the stream. Oh, they appeared trustworthy, but turned out to be slick and wobbly, intentionally tossing him into the icy racing water.
These sorts of thoughts had stood in the way of Oscar taking the necessary steps to emerge from hiding, but not today. More determined than ever to change his lot, he returned to his study of the riverbank ten feet away. The girl would arrive. She had to. Oscar wouldn’t make it through another night without real food.
At last, in a flurry of rustling skirts, she came running, sliding, and skidding to a halt. Slipping, she landed on her backside inches from the water’s edge. Her behavior had repeated itself for several days. After tugging off boots and socks, she stood and settled on a big flat rock that jutted into the blue water. Using her feet as leverage, his beautiful visitor propped elbows on exposed knees causing folds of white fabric and a flowery skirt to fall around her. She yanked off a floppy hat, dropped her head back, and closed her eyes against the brightness.
He had observed this same ritual each of the six days the girl had shown, and every time, once settled, she began to cry.
Oscar knew the sound. He had cried himself to sleep among pine needles and dank layers of leaves every night since leaving the barn. He had to believe that if he belly crawled slowly from under the ferns wagging his tail, she would scoop him into her arms. The idea of such a possibility pushed him from the safety of the thicket, causing some branches to snap aloud in the stillness.
“Who’s there?”
Hearing her speak did not surprise him, and Oscar crept farther from the overhang of fronds and river grasses.
“Come out this instant. I’ve got a big stick.”
She didn’t. He could see that she didn’t.
“I’ll use it if you don’t show yourself immediately.”
Oscar wanted to show himself, and a longing over which he was powerless pushed him farther from cover, trembling from ears to tail. The ache of hunger faded beneath excitement despite an instinctive pulse for caution. Any practical imprinting lodged deep in his canine brain disappeared with the desire to be one with the sad lady.
She slid off the rock, her bare feet moving in his direction through the sandy soil at the creek’s edge. “You’re whimpering.” She squinted, looking directly at him, “Are you hurt? Here, I’m putting down my stick, see?”
That was a relief even though he knew there was no stick. Oscar inched forward a teeny bit more, every inch a concession to the softened tone in her voice.
The closer she got, the less he dared to look, and despite sworn courage, his whole body began to quiver again, so that he dropped his head between his paws and prayed a hawk might swoop him up.
“Hush now.”
Had he been making squeaking noises too?
“Let’s see what you are, shall we?” Fingers touched one ear, gently. Then another hand lifted his muzzle so that he couldn’t avoid looking into her eyes. “Oh. Oh my. You are nothing but a harmless little puppy.”
I’m not just a puppy. And I am not harmless. I saved my family. He tried snarling and then wagged his tail to emphasize the point. No sooner than managing his best growl, the lady who now caressed both of his ears burst out laughing. In one swift movement, the river angel swept him into her arms and, standing, lifted Oscar skyward.
“Oh, and a brave puppy at that. Are you alone? Of course you are. I can feel your ribs. And you’ve some scratches that need immediate attention. First warm soapy water and then hydrogen peroxide. I’m sorry to say that latter will sting.” She tucked him against her ribs, his paws dangling over one sun-tinted forearm, and marched them back toward the place she’d abandoned her hat and boots. Relaxing against the soft fabric of her blouse, Oscar allowed his nose to sniff the air that swirled around her as she moved. She smelled like the wild lavender bushes he’d snoozed beneath one day when he’d braved leaving his thicket-fort.
Once again, his rescuer held Oscar high, and it seemed like flying. Daring to open his eyes, he marveled at this new view of the world. Then, with arms straight out, gently shifting him to and fro, she cooed, “You are a most handsome, little…” She paused and looked under his belly, “guy.” Her eyes squinted against the morning sun. “But I can’t possibly keep you.”
He didn’t mean to yip, but terror struck because her words meant a return to the forest floor, alone and hungry.
“But I do so want to keep you, poor little thing. Have you been frightened? Of course you have, and good gracious, you must be starving.” Once more his river goddess curled him into the warmth of her body. One hand disappeared into a place he couldn’t see and returned with something hidden beneath closed fingers.
Is it food? Is it food? He smelled the air. It is food. Deliriously hungry, the food could have been old limp carrots for all he cared.
Oscar gave up keeping secrets from the woman. Instead, he squirmed and wiggled, nearly knocking himself from her grasp as he tried to express that being without food—not counting bugs and snails—was far more significant than the risk of falling to the hard ground or being left alone, or anything one could imagine at seven weeks of age.
“It’s only a stale biscuit.”
There was no way to make her understand that he’d been dreaming of that very thing, a cold biscuit, a moldy one, any variety of biscuit, so when she held it to his nose, Oscar gobbled it up.
“You hungry little thing. What cruel and heartless monster tossed you out of the litter? A mother would never do that.” Rubbing his nose, making a sort-of harness out of her skirt, she snuggled him against her belly. “I would never do that, and I’m to be one—a mother, that is.”
He felt it then, the other thrum-thrum-da-dum beneath her skin. He had lived with six different such heartbeats in his mother’s womb. And after being born into the unforgiving chill of the drafty old barn, Oscar had cherished his mother’s heartbeat as he snuggled up beside her those first blissful weeks. Now he felt the child-to-be through the thickness of cloth, muscle, and fluids that incubated the woman’s baby.
The fact of it worried him even more because there was no reason the wonderful-smelling creature would also want to nurture and love an abandoned puppy.
“We must give you a name. You see, it will be impossible for me to give you up if you have a name.” Oscar wondered if the father of the other heartbeat was the reason for his rescuer’s tears all the days he had watched.
“Madison. It’s a strong name. I bet you think it’s a girl’s name but it isn’t really. It’s a president’s name. Do you know your presidents, Madison? No matter, I’ll teach you along with my students.”
Something about what she said stopped her cold. Oscar looked up trying to figure out the cloud th
at shot across her face. She looked down at him again. “But that’s not right, is it? Can you bear being a Reginald? Some might think it’s snooty-sounding, but it’s my little brother’s name. Of course, he hates me.” Well, Oscar didn’t know that but realized she had more than one possible reason for crying by the pond every afternoon. “Then when I need you—now pay close attention here—I’ll shout out ‘Reggie, Reggie come quick.’ Does that work for you?”
Of course, it would work because being the name she chose seemed to mean she planned on keeping him. Oscar would wear it proudly, but he didn’t know how to tell her except to let out a sharp bark and then wiggle farther into the swoop of fabric that held him in tow.
“Oh, but Reggie, you will have to learn to be quiet until you are bigger and can care for yourself because no one is going to like the idea of me bringing you to school.”
Oscar had no clue what a school was, but he could live with anything she asked. He would live with it. What orphan wouldn’t?
“Oh wait, silly me. You would think, Reggie, that being pregnant robbed a girl of the ability to think.” The cloud crossed her face again. “It won’t matter since I doubt either of us will see the inside of my classroom again, at least here in Benton’s Mill. I’ll explain it to you over dinner, okay?” Oscar licked her hand, which equaled a yes in his vocabulary. “We need to get you cleaned up and fed.” He thumped his tail against her at the idea of food.
“Say, how long have you been out here? How old are you anyway? Are you more than six weeks old? And who threw you out? You never did say. Why did they do this to you? People can be so cruel.”
Oscar couldn't answer any of her questions, at least not so that she’d understand, and it didn’t matter because she fell silent. First one, then another of her tears dropped on the top of his head. It reminded him of the beads of moisture falling from the forest trees early in the morning. Some drips would bounce off his ears and nose, others plopped one by one onto a cushion of spent pine needles.
