Rhett rose up with a groan and laughed. Yeah, it was good to have Sean back. But his leg still hurt like a son of a bitch. Time to see how well he could hide it.
four
White Fern Road wasn’t even paved. The long gravel lane was dotted with a half dozen houses, set far apart and well back from the road that crunched beneath Sunny’s tires. Number 13 turned out to be several acres of old farmland, overgrown with grass and trees that hadn’t been trimmed in years. A small house sat nestled in a grove of pin oaks that looked like zombies, slowly bending toward the home that they tried to consume. Even from this distance, Sunny could see that the wood siding was chipped and the wraparound porch rotting. If it hadn’t been for the car parked out front, she might’ve thought the place was abandoned. Way out, in the middle of what might’ve been tobacco fields once upon a time, sat a faded, red barn.
Sunny typically liked old barns, big farms, rotting silos in the middle of Civil War–era battlefields. But not this one. That barn gave her the creeps.
She narrowed her eyes at the house. Was anyone home? She pictured a white-haired old lady sitting on a moldy couch, staring at the TV.
Something black, out by the barn, popped up. Once it reared on its hind legs, Sunny could see that it was a dog. So, Constance had been right.
The dog looked like he sniffed the air. Maybe he barked. Sunny wished she’d brought binoculars. It was impossible to tell from this distance if the dog was neglected or just outside doing his business.
The curtain covering one of the front windows of the house shifted. A face appeared behind the glass. Sunny cursed under her breath, got one more look at the dog, who had frozen, before she put her foot to the gas and drove away. She’d have to come back later to get a better look. Pete was expected at the house in ten minutes.
By the time Sunny got home, Pete’s battered blue pickup was already parked in the long, rustic driveway that led to her Queen Anne–style dwelling. Even though the house was proudly excessive, the passing of the elderly Potters and subsequent sale five years ago had been a sign to Sunny that it was time to make a serious go of Pittie Place. The Potter home had been the site of her first rescue: Bert, the coonhound. Daddy was already sick of her bringing home more dogs than his modest property could handle, so it hadn’t taken much to convince him to front her the money on her vision: to restore the house into a home for herself and into a headquarters for Pittie Place, which sat on a sprawling twenty acres.
Sunny still remembered Daddy’s expression when she’d told him of her plans and proudly announced, “It’s a Queen Anne.” When he was silent, his forehead wrinkled, Sunny had pressed on. “Do you know why this style bears that name?”
“Because it’s hoity-toity?” Daddy snapped back.
“No.” Sunny had faked a laugh. “It’s actually an inaccurate term, Daddy. The architectural expression is based more on the Elizabethan era than during Queen Anne’s reign. We’re talking a one-hundred-and-fifty-year difference. Isn’t that fascinating?”
“What’s fascinating is how much work this sumbitch is going to take,” Daddy grumped, arms crossed over his chest. “The Potters haven’t done anything to this house for years. And I’m guessing I’m the poor sumbitch who’s gonna do most of it.”
He hadn’t been wrong. The three-story home had been a serious task of restoration, but with Daddy’s help Sunny had completed it within a year to impeccable classic style. The intricate scrollwork had been cleaned and patched, the Williamsburg-blue fish-scale siding redone, the rotting boards of the wraparound porch replaced and the towers and turrets, flanked by two small balconies, revived to their former glory. Sunny’s bedroom was inside one of the towers, an octagon-shaped master suite that had one hundred and eighty degrees of light from the long, single-paned, double-hung windows. The other tower held a smaller but no less glorious bedroom.
When Sunny walked by Pete’s truck she saw that, despite the cold, the windows were rolled down. The interior was worn and muddy and smelled like dogs. Typical Pete. He was not, however, behind the wheel.
She went behind the house and spied him through the window of one of the several outbuildings Daddy had restored for the dogs. He was talking to Roger. Though not long into adulthood, Roger was Sunny’s longest-standing and most trusted employee. Off in the distance, Sunny could see one of the couples who had rented out one of her cottages, walking through the woods. Rather than tear down the vast array of structures the Potters had neglected, Sunny had turned them all into either vacation cabins or buildings for the rescue. Everything went hand in hand: the people who rented here wanted a rustic getaway and loved being exposed to the rescue.
Sunny went inside. Roger was closing up the feed bin. Pete was nearby, arms crossed over his chest, flannel shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows and ankles crossed in his tan work boots while the two laughed about something one or the other had said.
“Hey, Ms. Morrigan.” Roger offered his wide grin. “How’s it going?”
“Hey, Rog. Hey, Pete.” She did a head count of the current brood. Twelve. Not counting the cats that came and went. Many were pitties, but not all. There was a German shepherd from the kill shelter, a dalmatian someone had tied to her front door with a length of rope and a retired greyhound she’d found in a metal cage in someone’s backyard. He was healthy now, but at the time he was so starved each and every bone had shown through his skin.
“Hey, girl.” Pete winked at her. His light brown eyes, the color of honey, always looked like they were sparkling. “Where are those pups?”
Sunny smiled. “In the house.” She gestured with a tilt of her head and headed that way, knowing Pete would follow. She’d put the whelping box in the nook off the kitchen, which was warm and safe.
It didn’t take long for Pete to appraise Chevy and her brood with a look of satisfaction. “Constance says they’re good candidates, huh?”
“She did. Though I guess only time will tell.”
“Cici’s word is good as gold, far as I’m concerned.”
Sunny gave him a nudge. “You just have a thing for her.”
“A little bit.”
“Like, since we were kids.”
Pete shrugged. “She saw me as the pesky boy next door. Pesky Petie.”
“Well, the pesky boy a mile over, anyway.” Sunny laughed.
“I sure put in a lot of travel time to meet up with the Morrigan sisters.” Pete shook his head. His voice dropped an octave. “How’s she doing? Haven’t seen her this week.”
“She’s okay,” Sunny said. “Still not herself.”
Pete tucked in the corner of his lip.
“She’s getting by,” Sunny amended.
“And how’s my boy Fezzi?” The warm, smooth quality returned to Pete’s voice when he spoke about the dog he’d trained for Daddy.
“Fezzi’s good. He really liked this bunch.” Sunny nodded at Chevy and her pups.
“He’s a smart old guy.” Pete gave the pups one last appraisal. “Thought you said there were four, though.”
Sunny sighed. “Dr. Winters has the runt. She’s feeding him because he’s not latching by himself anymore. I don’t think he’s going to make it.” Sunny nodded toward the kitchen, where she planned to fix them both some coffee.
Pete rubbed her shoulder. “Sorry, girl. You know that happens sometimes.”
Sunny stiffened. “If the pup was born weak he’d have died within hours or days after birth. No. This wouldn’t have happened if Chevy’d had somewhere decent to live. All because of that rotten Janice Matteri.”
Someone pounded on the front door. Pete paused his strides on the way to the kitchen. “Expecting company?” He scratched the back of his head, ruffling his sandy hair. “Speak of the devil.”
Sunny followed his gaze out the window and spied a tall, skinny figure with sickly pale skin and bleached blond hair.
&nbs
p; Pete crossed his eyes and choked himself.
Sunny steeled herself as she headed down the hallway.
“Stay off my land.” Janice’s words erupted like vomit as soon as Sunny opened the door. She pointed a bony finger in Sunny’s face.
“The hell you say.” Sunny crossed her arms over her chest and tipped on her toes, making herself taller. In the back of her mind she heard Constance’s voice, telling her to keep calm, not get confrontational.
“Don’t you play dumb with me, Sunny Morrigan.” Janice had saliva wadded in the corners of her mouth. It looked thick and white, like foam. “The police pay you a visit recently?”
Sunny tilted her chin in the air. “Maybe.”
“Uh-huh.” Janice took a step closer. “Consider this my follow-up warning. I see you anywhere near my dogs or my property—if I even think you’re on my property—you and I are going to settle this the old-fashioned way.” She sneered enough to reveal orange lipstick across her front teeth.
Sunny sputtered a laugh. “Do you think that scares me? You’re nothing but a broomstick on legs, with smoker’s lungs to boot.”
“The great equalizer don’t need strength, Little Miss Fit.” Janice made a gun with her thumb and forefinger, pointed it toward Sunny’s head and dropped the trigger.
“You threatening me?” Sunny wanted to step closer, but in order to do so she’d have to step down, onto the porch, and she’d lose the equal height she now enjoyed with the tall woman in front of her.
“You better believe I am.” Janice nodded her head rapidly. “I let it slide all those other times. What with you always taking those used-up dogs nobody wanted, anyway. Damn near doing me a favor. But last time you snagged a wheaten terrier somebody came looking to buy. They’d picked her out online and everything.”
“They’d have changed their mind when they saw her.” Sunny’s voice dropped as anger filled her to choking. Keep calm. Don’t get confrontational. “Your online picture probably showed a healthy wheatie. You and I both know the one in your back kennel was shy ten pounds, and hadn’t been fed in days.”
Janice’s cheeks went red beneath her clown rouge. “You.” She stammered a bunch of words that never proved up. “You lost me money,” she finally hissed. “And I’m here telling you, in no uncertain terms, to stay off my land! And you, too!”
Sunny sensed Pete’s presence behind her shoulder.
“Stop smiling,” Janice spat.
Yep, he was back there, all right.
Janice turned to go, but halted. Her expression changed. She smirked. “Oh, my God. Is that you, Stella? Dumb bitch. You ain’t dead yet?”
Sunny turned to look and couldn’t contain a gasp. Chevy had left the whelping box and pattered her way into the foyer. She peeked out from behind Pete’s legs. When she saw Janice, she loosed a high-pitched whine from the back of her throat.
“Tossed her ass out after Tommy went to jail,” Janice said, her voice oily with satisfaction. “Bait bitch was no use to me once all the fighting dogs were gone.”
Sunny didn’t realize she’d lunged at Janice until the firm grab of Pete’s hands on her shoulders snapped her backward, against his chest. His grip slid down to her wrists, where he stilled her struggle.
Janice laughed, showing off her lipsticked teeth. “Bye.” She waggled her fingers. “Remember what I said.” She made a gun with her fingers again before she turned and strode away on her grasshopper legs.
“Pete.” Sunny turned to face him, once his grip slackened. “I want to hurt her. Bad.”
“I know.” Pete spoke with a deep calm. “But you already got the upper hand. You got her abused dogs.” He nodded at Chevy, who whined up at them. “And you got Chevy.”
“I got everyone but the beagle,” Sunny murmured, thinking back to the scared creature who she couldn’t get out on her last raid. “But I will.” She stooped down and cradled Chevy’s torso in her arms while she petted her head. She didn’t let go until Chevy stopped shaking.
“You need to be careful.” Pete closed the door and edged Sunny down the hall. “C’mon. Chevy is hungry. That’s why she’s begging. She’s eating for four, y’know.”
“I know that.” Sunny was about to tell him he sounded like Constance when her cell rang. It was Dr. Winters. After a quick conversation, Sunny faced Pete, whose eyes told her he already knew what she was going to say. “The runt didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry, Sunny.”
“You know who’s going to be sorry?” Sunny clutched the phone tight in her hand. “Janice Matteri.”
five
A cold front had moved in overnight, the kind that made the sheets hard to touch in any spot. Constance had been lying in one place all night, curled in a ball like a cat. Fezzi was curved around the arch of her back, a welcome weight and warmth. She petted his head and glanced at the half-empty bottle of wine on the floor by the bed. She didn’t particularly like wine, but had wanted to dull her senses last night after Sunny called to tell her the runt had died. Constance had no idea why that made her feel empty inside—like a complete failure. They’d known the pup wasn’t going to make it. But even a year after Daddy’s death, Constance didn’t handle bad news well. Especially not that kind.
Just don’t get up today. If she didn’t get out of bed, nothing bad could happen.
But Fezzi had other ideas. He stretched, made a satisfied yawning sound, then plopped down on the floor, his nails tapping over the hardwood as he headed for the door.
Constance slid from the sheets, the warmth leaving her so fast she shivered. She tripped over her running sneakers, which had been in the same place on her floor since her birthday. Sunny had bought them for her, a not-so-subtle hint that it was time Constance start to regain her old self.
“What the hell.” Like a snake you give a wide berth, the new shoes were on her radar. Constance had put them there the day they were unwrapped, to motivate her when she got out of bed. Instead of motivating her, she walked around them. Not once had she forgotten they were there and tripped over them.
Until today.
A chill ran through her body. Today, Sunny would say, would be a good day to dare dump trucks. That was the analogy she used for being at rock bottom and not giving a flying leap. Just step out in the middle of the street and dare the dump trucks to hit you. Which was easy for Sunny to say. With Mom’s bright yellow hair, big blue eyes, sweet smile and secret fear of the dark, Sunny thought she could get through life by exposing a little leg and sweet-talking her way out of whatever trouble her impulsive personality got her into.
And that’s the way it usually worked.
Constance hugged her arms around herself and pulled open the blinds. It might be cold, but it was bright and sunny as summer. Across the street, the Old Commonwealth Disposal truck went in reverse, beep beep beep, as it sidled up to her neighbor’s house. Constance watched the men collect the trash and move off down the road.
From downstairs, Fezzi whined to get outside.
Like a tide, life was moving her, even if all she wanted to do was float.
After she let Fezzi into the backyard, she caught sight of her reflection in the sliding glass doors. One hand ran over her middle and the other down her thigh. Only then did Constance realize she’d been avoiding mirrors for a long time. She looked like a pudgy version of Daddy, before he got sick and frail, with the same red hair, pale skin, tiny nose.
“Well,” Constance murmured as she watched Fezzi run around the yard, collecting sticks and putting them in a pile. He’d done that ever since Daddy died and he no longer needed to fetch the old man’s socks. “Maybe spin class wouldn’t be so bad.”
What was it Sunny had said, about when and where she taught? Evenings at the shopping center and mornings at Spin City.
Great. Morning at the shopping center, it was.
* * *
Constance stood outside the gym and watched through the glass walls. Spin class had just ended, and the women were now falling off their bikes in pools of sweat. Most of them were adorable soccer moms who spun their hearts out to the house music booming out the doorway.
They chatted while they stripped their seats of the gel covers they’d brought with them. The seriously hard-core even had special shoes, with some kind of clips on the bottom. Were those cleats? Constance stifled a giggle—cleats on shoes that would never touch grass! She couldn’t wait to tease Sunny about that: Hey, baby sister. Do you wear cleats to ride a bike that goes nowhere?
The ladies’ towels were even more adorable than their owners, brightly colored and slung over their shoulders after they mopped away the happy shine from their foreheads. As they came out, they said things to each other like, “Ooh, girlfriend, that was serious!” and “My butt’s gonna be sore tomorrow!”
“I feel soooooo tired,” one lady said, rubbing her flat stomach. “That workout actually had me breathing heavy! I should not have had that bacon for breakfast!”
Constance closed her eyes and let her head sink to the glass. As the giggles and chatter moved away, Constance felt a wave of nausea roll through her. She needed to eat. She pushed off the building and headed toward a bakery that was three doors down in the strip mall. A man got there first and held the door. Constance went to go inside, enticed by the buttery aroma of warm eggs, sugar and flour, but paused.
The building across the street had caught her eye. Large and ugly, it used to be a tire factory, Constance was pretty sure. Now it read Semper Fit. She’d probably passed it a million times. She’d never been inside but she’d seen people going in and out with gym bags, or jogging around the perimeter, puffing in the cold, sloshing in the rain. It was supposed to be the kind of gym that attracted the types who liked to jump out of airplanes.
“Miss?”
Rescue You Page 4
