by Ev Bishop
Jo whispered a steady stream of encouragement and Callum ran ahead, back to Silver, muttering something about getting blankets ready and making broth. Charlie could only shake his head.
It wasn’t until Sam was wrapped in a quilt and resting on the leather couch, with Jo carefully cutting the seam of Sam’s pants to check out the injury, that Charlie found his voice. But he was horrified by what poured out. None of it was what he wanted to say.
“Of all the harebrained, idiotic, immature, unreasonable things to do. What were you thinking? Who runs off into the middle of bloody nowhere without saying a word to anyone?”
Sam’s eyelids were heavy and her face was impossibly pale, but her mouth curved with a trace of her sardonic smile. “Sorry, Officer—but do you think the ticket can wait until we douse the fire in my leg? I’m thinking amputation might do the trick.”
Jo gasped. “No, no, surely not.” She resumed snipping the wet denim on Sam’s leg with even greater urgency. “Shut the hell up, Charlie. Shut up.” The anger in Jo’s voice was as hot as his own.
But Charlie wasn’t done. Not even close. All he could see is what could have happened, what had happened. . . . “What kind of selfish, arrogant asshole of a person are you? You’re not invincible.”
“Well, I almost am,” Sam tried to joke.
“No, no one is. No one.” Charlie’s voice broke. “I told you a hundred times, a hundred times, to go the doctor, to get checked, but you kept putting it off and putting it off and then it was too late—”
Callum grabbed Charlie’s shoulder roughly. “Come on, man. What are you on about? I think it’s time for you to go.”
Charlie’s face flooded with heat, and he tapped his clenched fist against his mouth. “I . . . I’m sorry. I—”
“Get him out of here,” Jo said. “Please.”
“Wait,” Sam said wanly.
“No, you can talk to the—”
Whatever name Jo was going to call him was lost as Callum shoved Charlie out the door, then said, not unkindly, “Whatever you think this is, it’s not—and you’re not helping the situation any. Sam’s banged up, but she’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
The door clicked shut behind Charlie, the lock turned in the knob, then the deadbolt slid too. The rain hadn’t let up and the cold was penetrating. What had he just done? Officially lost it? What was wrong with him?
A wavering howl filled the air. For a minute he thought the noise came from his own chest, and then he realized it was just that strange, lonely dog out of reach in the shadows.
Chapter 24
Sam had been waiting in Emergency for five hours, and she was fed up.
“In the time it takes to see a doctor around here, I could actually develop a medical problem,” she said, not bothering to whisper.
“Shhh, you’re not funny. And maybe it’s a good thing. If you were in dire straits they wouldn’t keep bumping you for other patients.”
“I’ve told you, it’s not broken. I climbed on it and walked on it, for crying out loud.”
“You’re right. It’s in perfect condition.” They both looked down at Sam’s foot where it protruded from the bottom of a fuzzy fleece nightgown she’d borrowed from Jo. It was swollen to almost triple its usual size right up to her knee, with no distinguishable ankle or toe knuckles or anything else. The really disturbing thing, however, was the color—her toes were an ugly blue-black and the rest of her foot was a mottled purplish green. “They did the monster mash,” Sam sang under her breath and tried to wiggle her foot.
Jo cracked a smile, but then saw sweat pop out on Sam’s brow at the effort. “Quit it!”
“Okay, fine. I admit having it looked at isn’t the worst idea.”
“They should check your head too.”
“Oh, pshaw.” Sam jostled Jo’s arm. “You always say that.”
Jo shook her head. “Whatever drugs you’re on? They are gooood shit.”
Sam grinned, but an icy shiver ran down her spine. The drug affecting her most, and she knew it without any pride or self-congratulations, was relief. It was a miracle she hadn’t died, let alone survived with nothing more than—
“A greenstick fracture and a grade three sprain,” the doctor confirmed when they finally got in to see her, showing them an X-ray and expressing mild shock and disapproval that Sam had walked on it.
“Didn’t really have a choice,” Sam muttered.
Later still, when Sam was sporting a fluorescent pink cast, the doctor snapped off her latex gloves and proceeded to bore Samantha with care details. Jo, however, seemed mesmerized, so Sam listened obligingly and even asked a question or two. Finally, though, she’d had enough. She agreed to see a GP in the next week and asked where to rent crutches.
“Come on, Jo,” she whispered as the doctor went to a side counter and scribbled out two different prescriptions for painkillers. “Enough already. Let’s get out of here. I have things to do.”
“Things, hey? What on earth’s so compelling that you can’t stay another second to finish discussing your injury and recovery?”
Sam considered Charlie’s rant and sighed. “Is there something else I should ask about?”
Jo’s forehead creased. “No,” she finally admitted. “You were a model patient.”
“Good. So grab me some crutches and let’s go.”
*
It was Day Two of crutch-crap, but Sam had pretty much gotten the hang of using them by now. Her butt was numb and slightly damp from sitting on Silver’s bottom porch step, but she’d gotten the damn dog to come so close she wasn’t about to give up and go inside now. She opened the last weapon in her arsenal, wondering if she should’ve tried it first: beef jerky. She tore off a big piece and chewed it down herself. Then she held out a wad as near to the ground as she could manage with her casted leg stretched out in front of her.
“Here, Dog. Come on.”
The black nose appeared from beneath the edge of the bushes again, but still didn’t come any closer.
“You know you want it,” she whispered. “Come on.”
The dog—for the first time in the hour Sam had been out there—slid her whole body out of hiding and inched forward on her belly.
“You poor thing, we’ve already met. You should know I won’t hurt you.” Sam broke off a tiny piece of jerky and tossed it. The dog had to move forward another inch or two to snap it up. Sam repeated the motion twice. The dog went for the jerky each time. It was only feet away from her now, but stayed low to the ground, ready to flee. Sam set a large tempting piece at her feet. Then had an idea. It might scare the dog at first, but in the end . . .
She scrabbled to her feet, got her crutches under her, and maneuvered into the cabin, leaving a trail of well-spaced jerky tidbits behind her. She hoped Jo wouldn’t mind her trapping a dog in there. And if the animal went nuts? Oh well, she’d just pay for any cleaning or repairs.
She propped herself behind the open door and waited. For a long moment she thought she’d failed and then Dog started to move. Slowly at first, then with more confidence. She halted at the threshold, however, and Sam held her breath. But the pile of jerky sitting three feet into the entrance was more temptation than Dog could bear. She lunged inside—
Sam quickly shut the door. Dog startled—but made quick work of the jerky pile. Bizarrely, now that she was trapped, she didn’t seem that perturbed. And up close, Sam was able to see just how badly in need of care she actually was. She turned away from the animal and crutch-walked to the counter where she had readied dishes of water and canned food earlier, just in case.
She talked the whole time she moved, not loudly, not quietly, just matter-of-factly. “You look hungry so I took the chance. Hope you like chicken. You definitely need fattening up. And a vet. And—whew—a bath. You reek like a dog.”
Although Sam kept her back turned, she sensed the dog watching her, listening to every word. She put the food down by the island—quite a feat on crutches—then walked to the living
room, giving the dog the widest berth possible, and settled on the couch.
She then tried to ignore the animal for all she was worth, and flipped through a magazine. A few minutes passed—and then she heard greedy gulps and chews. Dog practically inhaled her food. But Sam only knew she’d succeeded when, after a few minutes of pacing and a whine or two, Dog curled into a ball in the corner of the dining room. Yes, she’d settled as far away from Sam as she could, but settled she had. It was huge.
Sam pulled out her new replacement phone and entered Jo’s number.
“Guess what I just got?” she asked when Jo answered.
“What?”
“A dog!”
“What? Is that why you were so urgent about shopping yesterday? You were buying dog stuff?”
Sam laughed. “Yep. Come visit after lunch. I want your opinion.”
“Callum can eat alone today.” Jo was over in minutes.
Dog didn’t fuss when Sam opened the door, but she took off, skittering across the kitchen and hightailing it for the living room when Jo entered.
“I don’t know, Sam.” Jo crouched and studied the dog cowering between the recliner and the wall. Dog showed her teeth but didn’t growl, and Jo straightened up. “She seems pretty wild, and in pretty bad shape. If you want a dog, this might not be the best—”
“I don’t want ‘a’ dog. I want Dog.”
“You named her ‘Dog’?”
Sam nodded.
“What a heartwarming, cuddly name.”
“It’s ironic.”
Jo laughed. “Of course it is.”
“So can I keep her?”
“Are you, like . . . asking my permission?”
“Well, I’m going to be staying here for a while and . . .”
Jo patted Sam’s shoulder. “Of course you can keep Dog here, and who knows? You might be the perfect owner for her. It’s a big commitment though, and when you travel and stuff—”
“We’ll cross those bridges when we come to them. Don’t you think she’s beautiful?”
Jo looked at the dog again. “I do actually.”
“She just needs some TLC—and to get used to life and people not kicking the crap out of her.”
“You think she’s been abused?”
Sam cocked her head and gave her new pet an appraising look. “I don’t know. Abused or neglected—or maybe she just got lost and never found her way back. In some ways it doesn’t matter what happened in the past, she’s in a good place now.”
Jo was staring at her, wide-eyed—almost like she was worried. A zing of apprehension tingled through Sam. “What? What’s wrong?”
Jo shook her head. “Nothing, nothing. I just . . . you seem different. That’s all.” Sam snorted. “Don’t worry. I’m not. Why mess with perfection?”
“Yeah . . . why indeed?” Jo asked but she still seemed lost in thought, even as she agreed that yes, Dog should definitely see a vet and, even more surprisingly, didn’t argue at Sam’s insistence to pay a higher nightly rate since she had a pet now.
Jo headed out. Dog waited a good ten minutes to be sure the terror had actually left the building, then took over the mat in front of the door as if to ward off any other unwanted intrusions. Sam fidgeted with her phone. It had been fun talking to Jo about Dog, but—and she felt irritated and anxious at the realization—who she really wanted to tell, who she really wanted to see, was Charlie. But would he still be off his rocker with rage when she saw him, or were they still friends? If they weren’t, well, fine. He was half-lunatic anyway. So why did her stomach feel like a mess of coiling snakes at the idea that maybe they weren’t on speaking terms anymore and maybe she wouldn’t get to share Dog with him?
Chapter 25
Charlie was seated at the small kitchen table, laptop in front of him all but forgotten. He stared down at his cell phone, and hit a button to listen to Sam’s message again. He was dying to see her—and mortified at the very idea. He wasn’t exactly sure what had happened in his head the other evening, but it was probably as close to a breakdown as he’d ever had.
She sounded chipper in the voicemail initially, excited about some surprise she had for him, then her voice had lowered. “And well, we should probably talk about how we left things the other night.”
How they’d left things the other night. Did she mean like, between the two of them the last night they’d fooled around and had dinner, etc., etc., or did she mean the other night as in three nights ago when she’d found her way back to River’s Sigh bruised and beaten up, and he’d lost his shit on her?
He sighed heavily. There was only one way to find out, and despite the embarrassment boiling his blood as he tried to figure out what to say in apology, his mind buzzed with happy anticipation. Whether she’d written him off as relationship material for good or not, she’d invited him over to her cabin and she had a surprise for him. At least he was getting to spend time with her again.
He sent a quick text saying he’d be right over—actually, that he’d love to come right over. And what the heck, it was the truth.
“Are you sure you’re up to this?” he found himself asking a few minutes later.
“Absolutely, and Dog needs to walk.”
“Dog”—the funniest name for a dog Charlie had ever heard—growled low in her throat as Sam transferred the leash to Charlie, and continued to make angry, complaining sounds the whole time they trekked around the perimeter of the parking area and down the driveway. Sam’s speed surprised Charlie. She moved so swiftly over the damp gravel, it was like the crutches were an extension of her body.
“You’re pretty good on those.”
Sam gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Now. You should’ve seen me day one and two.”
“Yeah, about that . . . I’m sorry I didn’t come by to see how you were doing.”
They were both quiet for a bit and Charlie wondered what she was thinking. Had she just invited him along to manage the dog, or was it something else?
Sam paused and took a deep breath. “It sure smells good, hey? Pine and rain and running sap. . . .”
Charlie stopped walking. “It sure does, but be careful. You’re dragging me on a walk, commenting on the fresh air. . . . You hurt yourself hiking. If you don’t watch it, I’m going to start thinking that you, Samantha Kendall, are becoming a lover of the great outdoors.”
“Let’s not get too crazy. I was complimenting the air quality, not writing a sonnet.”
Charlie laughed.
They were about halfway down the long driveway that led to the highway when Samantha waved a crutch at something nearby. “Okay, I need a rest.”
Charlie glanced where she pointed and noted a huge fallen log. He strode over to check whether she’d be able to handle the terrain between it and the road, gave a nod, and headed back to help her.
Moments later, they were sitting on the furthest end of the log, deepest into the forest. Sheltered by a huge sweeping bough of ancient greenery, the spot was remarkably dry and private.
Sam took the leash back, Dog finally quit complaining and settled into a doughnut shape in the crook between the log and the ground. “In another few weeks, when the undergrowth greens up, this place will be invisible to the road, but it will still be here. A perfect refuge, even if no one but us knows about it.”
Charlie took her hand like it was something he did all the time, and looked down at the bandages protecting her scraped up palm. He had no idea how to reply, but her words sparked a tiny flare of hope. What was she saying?
She was squinting off into some unseen place in the distance when she spoke again. “So here’s the thing. I haven’t been quite honest with myself—or with you. I do want you, Charlie. In a way I find a little terrifying actually.”
He had to refrain from tightening his grasp on her sensitive hand.
“And it occurred to me while I was attempting to keep my dumb ass alive that it’s not like me to not go for what I want.”
He could hardly breathe
for the joy forming a huge lump in his throat, and he calmed himself by rubbing her wrist with his thumb.
“I have no idea if we’ll work out long term as you so optimistically think we might.” He opened his mouth to speak, but she pushed on before he could. “But it’s worth trying if you can figure out some things. One, if you’re really over Maureen—”
A pained gasp escaped him and he realized he’d been holding his breath.
Sam’s expression was tender and her eyes were as green as the cedar boughs around them as they reflected the light. “Oh, I know you still love her and always will—and that’s fine. But that transference crap, you taking issues you had with her out on me. I’m not in. I like to be the high maintenance one in a relationship.”
Charlie laughed, even as he winced. “Yeah, about that—”
“No, save the apology. I get it. The stress of the situation came to a head when I turned up all right, but the ramifications of what could have happened overwhelmed you, triggered memories, blah, blah, blah.”
“Wait, what?” It definitely wasn’t normal to be grinning like a fool and trying to fight off a laugh when you were having your ass nailed to the ground in some slightly derisive—though pretty spot on—pseudo-psychoanalysis, but he couldn’t help it. Would her astringent wit always make him laugh or would he tire of it one day? He hoped he got the opportunity to find out.
“Two. You have to figure out how to make it okay with Aisha. If you can get her blessing, I’m in. If not . . . ” She shrugged again.
“It shouldn’t matter what Aisha thinks.”
“Don’t be daft. Of course it does. I have less than no interest in coming between you guys or being some hated stepmother-slash-bio mom. It’s too weird.” She gently untangled her fingers from his. “And don’t kid yourself either. I’ve seen you with her and Mo. You were furious with me before you even knew me, thinking I’d come between you guys or wreck your relationship. Don’t think you’ll be any less devastated if you willingly choose the same result.”
