by J. R. Ward
His eyes focused on her lips, and a sudden shift in the air had her taking a step back. But not because she was scared of him. No, for another reason.
Anne pushed her hair out of her face and tried to regroup. “I should leave.”
“Finished talking at me?” His voice grew even deeper. “And that’s that?”
“I only wanted to help.”
“Why.”
She glared at him. “You weren’t going to leave me to die in that fire. And I don’t want to leave you to kill yourself after it. It’s really that simple—”
“I’m not so sure it is, Anne.”
“What?”
“Why don’t you want me to die now?”
Anne started to walk around him. “Let’s talk when you’re sober—”
He snagged a hold on her upper arm and pulled her back. “I’m sober enough. Answer the question, Anne. You seem to know everything else on the planet. What’s one more pronouncement from on high? If you don’t take things personally because you’re so above everything, why do you care whether I live or die now?”
“I don’t want any of us to be killed!”
“Why?” He put his face in hers. “I thought it wasn’t personal? Oh, wait . . . maybe it’s not all random risk, Anne. Do you think maybe you don’t want me to self-destruct because you might feel a little responsible if I do? That you’re worried you might wonder after the fact about whether you could have done something more, something better, something different? Do you think it’s because you might possibly spend night after night after night staring at the ceiling, replaying, again and again, every single second you were here with me now, looking for opportunities or openings that maybe you hadn’t seen in the moment—and then also praying that you don’t find any? Because if you do, and there was an action you could have taken, you just might be at fault?” He released her abruptly. “But nah, that can’t be it. Right? Because if a tragedy like me killing myself happened, you would just dust yourself off and skip away, light and free as a child. Off into the sunset, perfectly sound mentally because it was just a risk pool. Tra-la-fucking-la.”
As her head started to pound, she rubbed the back of her neck. “You need to go to that psych eval, and not just to keep your job.”
Danny threw his arms up. “Moose totally needs to shut his mouth.”
“There’s more going on here than I, or anybody else, can deal with.”
He jabbed a finger right into her face. “Don’t you pity me.”
“Then don’t give me a reason to.” She looked at his body from head to toe. “And you’re wrong. I wasn’t the best firefighter in the city. That’s you, Danny. Everyone knows it. You’re the best we’ve got, and we need you. We need you healthy and strong on all levels. So fine, if you can’t put this into perspective, and you don’t want to see reality for what it is, then stay in your paradigm—and protect people from that beast you fight. Stay alive yourself so you can save others. I don’t really care what the rhetoric is or what vocabulary you put on it. What I care about is the result—which is you still on this planet with a fire hose in your hand.”
Abruptly, her eyes stung and she had to blink quick and look away. She was not going to cry in front of him—
The palms that cradled her face and turned her back to him were calloused yet gentle.
“Let me go,” she said hoarsely.
But he wasn’t holding her. Not really. She could have broken away at any second, and he would have dropped his hands.
“Anne . . .” His voice cracked. “Oh, God, Anne . . .”
chapter
16
The following morning, at eight a.m., Anne called Dr. Delgado at the vet clinic. As she waited for the receptionist to answer, she drummed her fingers on her kitchen countertop. Took a sip of her coffee. Tucked in the back of her blouse—
“Metro Vet, how may I help you?”
“Oh, yes, hi.” She cleared her throat. “This is Anne Ashburn calling about the—”
“The rescue you brought in? The gray pit?”
“Ah, yes. I’d like to—”
“We just gave him over to the New Brunie pound. So you don’t have to worry about any more charges to your card—”
“Wait, what? You gave him to the city shelter? I thought you were going to try to adopt him out?”
“We really couldn’t keep him here. His injuries were not life-threatening, and we are not in a position to—”
“Hold on, stop.” Anne reminded herself that yelling was not going to help. “Who can I call there? I mean, who can I phone to—never mind. Thanks, bye.”
As she hung up, she couldn’t breathe, and went for her keys. But then she stopped herself. The rehab social workers had warned her not to make any big life-altering plans in the first twelve months following her injuries—and with her working all day at a new job, how was she going to take care of a—
“Screw that,” she said out loud. “That’s my damn dog.”
Traffic was horrible as she tried to get across town, and no matter how many red lights she ran or bypasses she took, it was clear she was in trouble for time if she wanted to make it to work by nine.
When she pulled into the city shelter’s parking lot, she was one of only three cars, and as soon as she got out, she heard the muffled barking.
She jogged to the front door, only to find it locked.
Knocking. Lots of knocking.
Eventually, a tired-looking middle-aged woman with a travel mug appeared on the other side of the glass door. “We’re not open ’til nine—”
“My dog is here,” Anne said loudly. “I need to get him now. I have to go to work.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t let you in. It’s policy and—”
“Debbie?”
The woman leaned in. “Anne . . . ?”
The door got opened in a flash and a strong pair of arms shot around her. “Oh, my God, I haven’t seen you forever.”
Anne closed her eyes and tried to keep her voice level. “I know, right?”
Debbie Fazio pushed her back. “How are you. And I mean that really. Not socially.”
“I’m okay. How’s Sal?”
“He’s good. He’s Sal, you know the drill. Working overtime at the 508.”
Sal Fazio was a veteran firefighter, a good man, and almost at retirement. He and Debbie had three kids, and Anne had met the family at department functions.
“So you got a dog?” Debbie said. “After you . . .”
As the woman tripped over words and avoided looking at the prosthesis, Anne wanted to hug her again and tell her it was all right to feel awkward. Instead, she nodded. “Yes, I got a dog. I mean, I found him on the streets yesterday and the vets couldn’t keep him and I’ve decided to— I’m babbling. I just, can I have him?”
“So he didn’t have an owner?”
“He was feral.”
“What vet did he come from?” Debbie motioned for her to come in. Then she relocked the front door and indicated for Anne to follow her. “Oh—wait, we have a delivery coming in. It’s being processed.”
They went behind the registration desk and entered a concrete kennel area that stretched out behind the administration section of the facility. Anne looked at the first couple of dogs, and then found that she had to focus on the bald floor or she got teary. It helped that everything was clean, and the animals perky, but all she could think about was how they had come to be here. And what would happen if they didn’t get chosen.
“Hey, Bobby, where did those three dogs come in this morning?”
Anne glanced up at a young guy dressed in a green janitor’s uniform. He had dreadlocks and a calm smile. “I brought ’em in and they’re in B down at the end.”
“Great. Thanks.” Debbie hung a left and opened the door to another kennel run. “We have four different buildings.”
“I don’t—I gotta be honest, I don’t know how you do this job.”
“We save so many. I love to see the famil
ies come in with the kids. It’s not always easy, but we do good work—we ease suffering, stop cruelty, and give joy every day. You have to focus on the happy if you’re going to keep going, you know?”
“Ah, yes . . . yes, I do.”
Debbie started down another run. “Okay, here we are. Over here.”
At the far end of the sixty or so kennels, Debbie stopped. “One of these three?”
The first two dogs were the wrong size, so she turned to the last and—
The gray mix was all the way back in the cage again, his tail tucked in tight, his head hanging low, his eyes unfocused. But then he looked up and seemed surprised.
Anne went over and lowered herself onto her knees. Curling her fingers through the chain links, she checked his carefully sutured and bandaged wounds and measured the swelling of that ear. “Hi.”
That tail wagged, just at the tip. And then the animal shuffled over slowly and sniffed at her fingers. Licked at her.
“Looks like he knows who his mom is,” Debbie said.
* * *
“Okay.” Anne glanced across at her passenger seat. “Here’s the plan, Soot.”
As the light ahead turned red, she hit the brakes. “We’re going to go up the back stairs and I need you to keep a low profile. You can hang out behind my desk in my office and I’ll take you out on the regular. Debbie told me the guy who picked you up said you are not a biter, and I’m going to ask you to keep that up.”
Looking in the rearview, she thanked Sal’s wife in her head again for all the things that filled the back seat. The woman had lent her a collapsible crate that was big enough for Soot to be comfortable in, and provided a stack of old but clean towels, as well as a bowl for water. There was also a halter and leash, and Soot was sporting a plain red nylon collar with his brand-new license and rabies-vaccine tags on it.
“So what do you think? We good?”
Soot’s caramel eyes looked around, checking out the passing cars and the shops as they went along. He was calm, and she told herself he somehow knew that he was safe with her. Whether that was true, she had no idea.
When she pulled into the parking lot of the Fire and Safety Building, she went around back. She was ten minutes late already, but she was going to add to that injury. Soot was patient as she put his halter on, and he let her lift him out of the seat and down onto the pavement.
He wasn’t necessarily big, but he was dense even though he was thin.
“Okay, let’s go potty.” What the hell was she doing? “Come on, let’s go onto the grass.”
Soot didn’t move, which made sense. Because he didn’t friggin’ speak English. What he did do, however, was limp along with her when she walked onto the mowed strip of faded lawn. He didn’t seem to like the halter and he shook his head a lot, as if either his ear were bothering him or he hated the leash.
But he did squat and pee.
Anne felt triumph like she had won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Sneaking him into the building and up to her office with the towels, the crate and the bowl was a thing, though. They used the rear stairs—slowly, because Soot was tentative about it all—and then she was trying to rush him down the carpeted hall of her floor, passing enough open doors to make her feel like she was on a Broadway stage. But they made it.
Closing them in, she quickly set up the crate behind her L-shaped desk and padded the base with all those towels. As her hands lingered on the soft bed of towels, she thought of all the animals that had come into contact with the terry cloths of various colors. She prayed all of them had found homes like Soot had, even as she knew that wasn’t the case.
When things were set up, she eased back on her heels. Soot was watching her in that way he did, his big, exhausted eyes on her. “Come in here, boy. This is where you have to be.”
When he didn’t move, she reached in and patted the towels. “Come on.”
Nope. No go.
Another Fiber One did the trick. She got the bar out of her purse, fed him a little, and put the rest on the nest she’d made.
Soot walked in, ate slowly . . . and curled into a ball facing out at her. As she stared at him, she had an absurd worry that he might not like her over time. Saviors were one thing. Friends? That was a choice—
Abruptly, her conversation with Danny from the night before barged in and took over—as it had been doing since pretty much the second she’d stepped back from his almost-kiss and beat feet out his front door.
It had been a while since she’d watched the sunrise. Not since the rehab hospital. But, yup, this morning’s had been peach and pink and magnificent.
“You’re going to be okay in there. And I’ll take you with me if I leave.”
He laid his head down and stared at her.
As she went to close the crate door, she stopped and took off the jacket that matched her slacks. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a knockoff she’d gotten at TJ Maxx when she’d had to find at least one week’s worth of office clothes at a dead run. But it smelled like her, and maybe that would help them bond? Or something?
“God, what am I doing,” she muttered as she wadded the thing up and put it in the crate. “I’ve never even had a house plant—”
The knock on her door was sharp, and she quickly stood up. Tucking in her blouse, she smoothed her hair and tried to look professional. Damn it, she should have put on that lip gloss.
“Yes?”
Don Marshall stuck his head in and muttered, “I didn’t know it was Bring Your Dog to Work Day.”
chapter
17
Moose was fucking late. Of course.
As Danny stopped his truck in front of a dilapidated old house with a Jumanji yard, he yanked the parking brake and made sure the gear shift was in first before he canned the engine. Getting out, he rubbed his wet hair and jacked up his work pants.
Twenty minutes, two cigarettes, and three voicemails later, he was still killing time.
To keep himself from cursing, he stared at the structure and was reminded of his own farm. As with what he had saddled himself with, this place was two stories of vacated-long-ago, the roof holier than the Christmas season, the dormers more broken glass than window, the siding worn to paint chips and bare wood from countless winter blizzards, spring gales, summer thunderstorms, and fall winds. Maybe the property had once had a lawn, but now a meadow on its seasonal last gasp was a scruffy base for the vines that grew Charles Addams–style all over everything.
The nearest neighbor was a quarter of a mile away.
Walking forward, he high-stepped through the tall grass and weeds until he crossed over onto a broad, freshly mowed ring around the house and its collapsing porch. As he mounted the three steps, he stayed on the nail pattern on the left so his weight was supported by the stairs’ undercarriage.
Beside the off-kilter front door, there was an official document stapled to the jamb, proclaiming that the structure was going to be used by the fire department on this date, and that trespassing was prohibited.
Hinges creaked as he opened the way in, and inside, everything was all haunted house, cobwebs hanging from darkened corners, dirty windows filtering light that seemed more portent than illumination, rotting places in the floors and ceilings creating pockmarks, open wounds, sores.
Danny walked throughout the first floor to make sure there were no people and no wild animals anywhere. It was a short trip. Upstairs, he went more slowly because there was a lot longer distance to fall through courtesy of a bad floorboard. He checked closets, inspecting the odd lonely hanger. He ducked into bedrooms, reviewing the shells of bedposts and bureaus. He stepped into baths that had claw-footed tubs with cracked porcelain and broken mirrors over stained sinks.
The attic on the third floor was all bat guano, water stains, and leaves that had come in through the holes in the roof.
As he went back downstairs, his sinuses were pissed from the mold and dust, his ribs sore from that messy rescue the day before, and his head pounding
from the alcohol and the no-sleep he’d pulled during the night hours. And yes, he refused to see any parallels between the state of his life and the condition the old house was in.
Nope.
There was no connection between the two.
Off in the distance, he heard a low growl. “ ’Bout fucking time.”
As he went out the front door, Moose’s bumblebee-yellow Charger was stopping behind his truck, and the guy unfurled his heft from the driver’s side with a glower.
“You got a helluva nerve.”
“Good morning to you, sunshine.” Danny put his cig out on the tread of his work boot. “What took you so long. You’re late.”
Moose stomped over and did not come up onto the shallow porch. He looked tired with those bags under his eyes, and his hair was messy like it had taken a page from his beard’s book and was trying the disorderly routine out at a higher elevation. New Brunie FD shirt was tighter around the middle, looser than it had been on the shoulders, testament to brawn turning into paunch—oh, and naturally, his heavy khakis had the faded stains of motor oil all over them.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” the guy said.
“You’ve never done a training exercise by yourself.”
“You’re suspended.”
“Do you have the accelerant?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
As Danny thought about Anne showing up in the middle of the night, that anger of his came back. “Fine, how’s Deandra. She ask about me lately?”
Moose went still. “No, she hasn’t. And don’t be an asshole.”
“Sorry. I thought I was being polite. You wanna talk about your car instead?”
“Don’t get pissy with me about Anne, okay? That shit’s on you—”
“You should never have called her.” Danny went down the steps, ignoring that follow-the-nails rule. “She’s got more than enough on her plate. She doesn’t need to worry about me or anybody else.”
“Come on, Danny. What am I supposed to do, huh? There’s talk about you and not just at the station. Jack’s worried about you, too—”
