Mr. October examined the bandage for himself. “I’m sorry, baby girl. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.”
I’d seen countless volunteers and potential adopters with our greyhounds. None of them had ever made me all fidgety. He was so kind and gentle with Ash, a contradiction to his tough exterior.
Muffy swiped his tongue over Ash’s ear. She returned the favor, getting him square in the nose.
“Already made a friend, I see. Hope you don’t have a truck or he’ll pee on it.” Mr. October made himself at home on the floor. Both dogs clamored to get into his lap. Each ended up with a head on one of those long legs.
“We could use a few more volunteers,” Miss Adeline said oh-so-helpfully, breaking the spell I was under.
“How many dogs do you have?” He kept his attention on the ones in his lap.
“Eleven,” I said.
His brows shot up. “How many people work here?”
Miss Adeline puffed her chest out. “You’re looking at them.”
“It’s not work.”
He tilted his head and studied me. Technically, it was a lot of work, but these dogs weren’t a job to me. They were my life. How anyone could’ve discarded them so easily, I’d never understand.
I held his gaze, even though it was uncomfortable. His dark eyes were no less fierce than they’d been the other day, but now, I wasn’t exactly sure what was in them. The anger had been a lot easier to take than whatever was there now. It made me want to duck back down behind the desk.
Bark. Bark. Bark.
Mr. October gestured toward the direction the noise came from in the back. “Aren’t you going to go see what that’s all about?”
Bark. Bark. Bark.
“That’s Sadie. She wants her dinner.”
“Sounds like it,” he said, looking uncertain.
“She doesn’t wear a watch, but at six every single morning and night, she demands her meals.” Fondness washed over me. It was aggravating at times, but it made her who she was. “If she doesn’t bark, that’s the time to get worried.”
He continued to rub both dogs. “They all have their personalities, don’t they?”
“They do.” I picked up leashes off the desk. “I’m going to take them outside.” Muffy jumped up at the word outside. It never ceased to amaze me how intelligent they were.
“You’re ready to go.” Ash lifted her head, and Mr. October stroked it. “I’ll take them. We won’t go far.”
I hesitated. Why did I always do that? He was a fireman. He’d come by to check on Ash. I doubted he was going to take off and never come back.
I tossed the leashes beside him. “Thanks.” Bark. Bark. Bark. “I’m going to feed her before she loses her voice.”
He laughed, and I was grateful for the desk to support me. After a second, I moved toward the back.
“You should stay for supper. I don’t know what we’re having yet, but that’s irrelevant.” I stumbled at Miss Adeline’s invitation. We never had anybody over for dinner. We couldn’t have him. I was still struggling with the fact he was at the rescue and why he made me so damn uncomfortable.
I willed Sadie to be quiet for two seconds so I could hear his answer. Bark. Bark. Bark. I craned my neck toward the front and tried to tune out the barking.
“Sure.”
Oh my God.
Chapter Six
Teague
“Best decision I made all day. Eye candy and decent food.”
The old woman I’d come to know as Miss Adeline shoved mac and cheese into her mouth.
“Decent?” I asked, pretending offense. These two women went back and forth like an old married couple and somehow, I’d fallen right into the mix. Dinner with them reminded me a lot of eating meals at the firehouse.
“Yeah, it’s decent.”
“She’s not going to sugarcoat anything,” Pepper said as she hedged around her serving of mac and cheese to the black-eyed peas.
“When you get to be my age, you have to cut through the crap.”
Pepper smirked as she took a sip of water. “You definitely excel at that.”
Muffy nudged me with his nose, then put his head in my lap. Discreetly, I fed him a bite of chicken. He smacked so loudly, I was busted.
The warning glare Pepper shot me was enough to put a little fear in me. “I noticed you barely touched your mac and cheese,” I said to her.
She opened her mouth to respond but Miss Adeline beat her to it. “She doesn’t like it.”
Pepper's glare shifted from me to the older woman. “Yours is good . . .”
“You don’t have to eat it,” I said. That tiny, tentative bite she’d taken earlier made more sense now.
“Unlike some people”—she cut her eyes over to Miss Adeline—“I don’t want to be rude.”
“It’s not rude to not like something,” Miss Adeline said as she scarfed down the rest of hers.
“My feelings are only a little hurt,” I said with a pout.
Pepper’s mouth flattened, making mine turn up. “You were kind enough to make dinner and—”
“Noted. No more mac and cheese on the menu.”
Lines creased her forehead.
“Why do I have to suffer because she doesn’t like it?” Miss Adeline complained.
“That’s a big assumption he’s going to cook for you again,” Pepper said.
I wiped my mouth with my napkin and leaned back in the chair. “Happy to anytime.” Something about making her uncomfortable entertained me.
“I’m sure your job takes up a lot of your time.”
I scowled at the reminder that, for the week, I was out of a job. “Yeah.”
Her brow furrowed, but instead of saying anything, she tore off a piece of dinner roll and shoved it into her mouth.
Then she raked her portion of mac and cheese onto Miss Adeline’s plate, who dug right in. The chair scraped when she pushed back from the table. “Thank you for dinner. It was delicious.”
The words sounded as if they were torn from her throat.
“Beats the hell out of the cereal we were going to have.”
Pepper marched to the sink without a word and turned on the taps. Muffy got up to see if she was okay. Ash looked over at them, ears back, but she stayed at my feet.
“Excuse me,” I said as I stood.
Miss Adeline waved me off as she finished the last bite of her dinner. I pushed my chair in and turned in the small space between where I’d been seated and the wall of cabinets where the sink was.
I pushed up my shirt sleeves and took the fork Pepper had just washed from her fingers.
“You cooked. I’ll clean,” she snapped.
“I don’t mind.” I glanced to the lower cabinets and found there was no dishwasher.
The apartment wasn’t modern by any means, but it appeared as if it had been updated in the period when the appliance was common.
Miss Adeline was halfway out of her chair when I motioned for her to sit back down. “I’ll clear.” I gathered the remaining dishes and plates. “Should I cover the leftovers or do you want them in a different container?”
“There are some glass dishes with snap lids in the bottom cabinet there.” Miss Adeline pointed to the one just beside Pepper.
I squatted and tried to ignore the close view I had of her shapely ass. There was a stain on her back pocket in the shape of a paw print. Lucky dog.
Pepper tapped the cabinet door. “In there. Not my back pocket.”
I smirked but easily found the glass containers once I made an effort. “Do the two of you eat together every night?”
“I try to get her to go out on dates, but does she listen? Everybody I set her up with is a bust,” Miss Adeline said with disgust.
“I don’t need you to set me up,” Pepper argued.
“Well, you ain’t getting any dates on your own.”
Interesting.
“Maybe I don’t want any.”
“Twelve years I’ve known this one.” M
iss Adeline jabbed an old finger toward Pepper. “The only time we’re not together is when she’s walking the dogs, shopping, taking a bath, and sleeping. If she’s gotten laid during any of that, she’s redefined the meaning of quickie.”
And this lady had mastered the art of brutal honesty. Pepper washed the plate in her hand aggressively.
“I’m standing right here.”
“And I’m trying to tell Mr. October here that you’re practically a virgin. At least twelve years celibate counts as a clean slate, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t.”
“I have to agree,” I said, scooping the leftovers into the containers.
“Nobody asked you either,” Pepper said.
How could she not have dated in twelve years? It sounded as if it was by her own choice, but I didn’t understand.
She was beautiful in a simple, understated way. Minimal makeup. Dark hair piled in a high ponytail on top of her head. Jeans and a sweatshirt that appeared well-worn.
Gray eyes that turned a smoky shade when she got mad. Lips that were impossible not to notice, especially when they turned up.
And she had a sharp wit. When she’d asked me if I wanted Muffy to rinse off the rest of the tire, it had taken all my composure not to laugh. But I’d been irritated by a message from my father. She and Muffy had received the brunt of it.
She scrubbed a serving dish. When she was finished, I took it and rinsed before I set it on the towel laid out to dry it.
“I bet you don’t have too many dates with a license plate like yours.” There was fire behind her words, but I understood. Nobody liked to be ribbed even when it came from a good place. Miss Adeline wanted her to be happy. That much was obvious.
And I was used to taking shit for my truck tag. I was well past the point of being upset about it.
“Women dig sensitive men.”
She paused mid-wipe. “Dig?”
“Yeah. Dig.”
“Are you going to the concert that’s coming up?” Miss Adeline asked.
Pepper blushed. Sounded like somebody had been talking about me.
“Nah. Tickets are hard to come by.” Not that I’d tried.
“I know a guy.” She shrugged.
“Somehow, I don’t doubt that.”
Chapter Seven
Pepper
“How did I miss this balcony?”
Mr. October stood frozen in the doorway that led outside. Miss Adeline’s apartment was massive by most New York standards at nearly two thousand square feet. It spanned the top floor of the three-story Grey Paws building, and at times it felt even larger because of the twenty-foot ceilings.
“I told my Hastings I wanted a balcony.” Miss Adeline brushed some snow off her rocking chair and sat down.
“How’d you find one in this city?”
I pressed the starter on the gas heater situated between our two usual chairs, but it didn’t ignite.
Mr. October reached around me and got it going with one try.
“Thanks,” I said as I sat.
He settled in the chair beside me.
“We built it,” Miss Adeline said. She pulled her toboggan lower over her ears.
“I beg your pardon.”
“The building that used to be here was in shambles. We bought it. Rebuilt. I wanted a balcony we could sit on every morning and every evening. And my husband didn’t say no to me.”
I’d heard so many stories about Hastings Gidrey I felt like I knew the man. But he’d passed away of a heart attack a few years before Miss Adeline and I met.
“Does anybody say no to you?” I pressed my foot to the floor and began to rock. “What are these chairs made out of anyway? You’ve had them longer than we’ve known each other.”
“Hastings built them when we moved here sixty years ago.”
They were worn and weathered, but somehow, they’d withstood the test of time. I suggested getting some new ones once before I knew Miss Adeline’s late husband had made them. It didn’t go over well.
“Was he a carpenter?” Mr. October asked. When was he going to tell us his name? Better yet, why hadn’t I asked?
“He did a little of this and that.” She leaned her head on the back of the rocking chair and looked up at the stars.
Muffy and Ash curled up on the blanket we’d brought out for them. Most nights, when it was warmer, we let all the dogs up here so they felt like they were in a home instead of a rescue center.
“How’d you start rescuing dogs?
Miss Adeline snorted. “We were at a racetrack in Miami. I wanted to see the dogs after the race, so we went to the kennels. One of them had broken his leg. They were about to shoot him like he was useless. I stood between Sunshine and the gun. There were two more they were going to put down because they couldn’t race anymore. After that, I was determined to save as many as I could.”
That was over fifty years ago, and by now, things should have been different—humanity should have been—but greyhounds who could no longer race were treated worse than trash. Miss Adeline insisted upon going to every rescue we went on. She might be old, but I’d seen her do what it took to save the dogs.
“Tell him about the ride home,” I said, trying to hide my smile.
“We had a fifty-four Ford we’d driven down. Once we had those dogs, it was like they knew we’d saved them. I opened the passenger side door and all three of them went for the front.” She snickered. “I grabbed the keys from Hastings after I helped Sunshine in the car and my husband had to sit in the backseat all the way back to New York. He said it was nice to be chauffeured. But by the time we were home, we had four more dogs.”
“What did you do with seven dogs? This is a nice apartment, but that would get cramped fast,” Mr. October said incredulously.
“We’d talked for a couple years about what to do with the downstairs space. We went back and forth about renting it, even had a few people want to put a restaurant in. But we never committed because we didn’t want the noise below us. As soon as we had the dogs, I knew why we’d never done anything with it. We were waiting for the dogs to come home.”
“Did you keep all of them?”
She laughed. “We did. It was a circus.”
“So how did the two of you meet?” His penetrating gaze landed on me. “Were you a volunteer?”
Tension, thick and fierce tightened every muscle in my body. Miss Adeline reached over and patted my hand, which helped.
“I was at a track in Virginia. They were abusing the dogs. I found a letter Miss Adeline mails to all the tracks to tell them any dog they don’t want, she’ll come get.” I swallowed hard.
“She called. I went.”
It wasn’t just the dogs she’d picked up that day.
“You the one who called me about the dogs?”
The woman was way older than she’d sounded on the phone. But she had a van. I could help her get them in it.
I hiked my backpack on my shoulders and looked around. “Yes.”
A determination filled her eyes. “Then let’s get to it. Hop on in.”
I shook my head and glanced down the road toward the track . . . which was too far away to see. “I’ll walk back.”
“Honey, if you trust me to rescue those dogs, you can trust me to give you a ride.”
I shook my head again and took a step back. “I unlocked the back gate. Take the first drive before the main entrance and I’ll open it for you.”
She assessed my dirty overalls and messy hair. I’d washed my face in the gas station bathroom while I’d waited, but I was still gross.
“Lead the way.”
I took off, staying as far away from the edge of the pavement on the busy road as I could get. It was early, but the June sun already blazed. Sweat misted my forehead. I swiped away a drop as it trickled down my cheek. A dirt streak was left down my arm. Crap. Probably had that on my face now.
I moved as fast as I could. Once I was almost to the back entrance of the racetrack, I sli
pped into the tree line. Even in the shade, the thick humid air made it hard to breathe.
When I could see the gate, I peered to make sure the lock was as I’d left it before I emerged from the woods. The chain was secured, but the padlock was unlatched.
I scurried to loosen the chain, careful to stay quiet. I froze when a golf cart in the distance inside the fence whizzed by. I exhaled heavily when it kept going.
Creak.
I swung the gate open.
The van crept down the road toward me.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My heartbeats thundered in my ears. The dogs were so close to being saved. At least I prayed I’d made the right call.
The brakes squealed when the van rolled to a stop just inside the gate. I closed it and fixed the chain so it appeared to be locked again.
This is for the dogs.
I shoved down my nerves, opened the passenger side door, and climbed inside. “That way.” I pointed to the kennels.
The old woman gunned it across the parking lot. “You can leave your backpack in here.”
“No,” I snapped quickly, hanging on to the straps for dear life.
She kept driving, unbothered by my outburst. “How many people will be around?”
“There shouldn’t be any. The handlers started working the first group about a half hour ago.” I pointed again. “Stop here. Let me make sure it’s clear.”
She released a grunt of agreement.
I hopped out and slid a window up on the back side of the building. They locked the doors but never this window. It was an easy in and out. I shimmied inside. The scent of dogs hit my nose the way it always did. I couldn’t ever exactly describe the smell . . . only that it was home.
I waited a beat and listened.
The dogs had barked like mad the first few times I came in and out, but they didn’t make a sound now. I crept to the row of kennels.
Lola was curled up, her body jerking with unsteady breaths. I unlatched her door. She lifted her eyes but not her head, as if the effort were too much.
Crash: Crash & Burn Duet Book 1 (Shaken) Page 3
