by Erin Wright
“No broken bones, though,” Adam continued. “The chances are pretty high that her lungs hurt from the smoke inhalation, but since I can’t ask her, I don’t know for sure. And for the record, she only stayed on the examination table for me because Georgia held her there. Her attachment to Troy is…unexpected.”
“Especially since most animal abusers are male, statistically speaking,” Michelle said baldly, bringing the dark and awful fact out into the open rather than shying away from it. Georgia was proud of her for saying it, rather than ignoring the reality that they all lived in.
Not, of course, that any man in that fire station right then was the kind of man who’d beat a dog.
Georgia looked up at Moose, and he looked down at her, a smile on his lips, concern in his eyes. He was afraid she was judging him with the broad brush of generalities, and her heart hurt a little at the idea. Moose wasn’t capable of abusing a dog, end of story. She reached out to squeeze his hand, and for a few glorious seconds, they were holding hands. A flush stole up her cheeks and she was staring at Moose, wishing with all her might that they were alone and she could finally kiss him—
“Are you gonna adopt her?” Michelle asked Troy, jerking Georgia back to the present, and to the fact that there was an audience in the room. Georgia pulled her hand away, embarrassed. If this got back to Tenny or Uncle Robert…
“Yes,” he said simply, looking up at Michelle, not moving an inch lest he disturb Sparky.
“Good, good,” Michelle said. “Adam, were you able to tell if Sparky has been spayed?”
“No,” he said, moving quietly to the other side of Michelle. They were standing in a half-circle around Troy and Sparky, giving the two of them plenty of room. Sparky was keeping a close eye on them, but was still content to lay in Troy’s lap. At least for the moment. “I’d need to shave her to see if she has the scar, and I didn’t think bringing a blade close to her belly right now was a stand-up idea.”
“Good point,” Michelle said, nodding firmly. “Well, Troy, I’m leaving her in your hands. When she’s gotten a little more used to the idea that the world isn’t out to get her, I want you to promise me that you’ll take her on by to Adam’s place to have her checked out. If she’s not been spayed, you give me your word right now that you’ll pay to have it done, or I won’t let you take her.”
Georgia bit back another grin. Typical Michelle right there. She said it how it was, and didn’t shy away from the truth. She was kind, but blunt as a cement block.
“Promise,” Troy said softly.
“Good, good. Well, I better get to it, then. Y’all just made my life easy. Troy, you take good care of her.” And with that order, she marched off towards the door, ready to take on the world of wrangling the people and animals around her into submission.
“You’ll need to get her a bowl and a leash and some dog food,” Jaxson said. “You want to leave her here while you go to the store?”
Troy looked torn at the idea of abandoning Sparky, even if it was for her own good, but finally nodded. With a cluck of his tongue to Sparky, he got her off his lap and he stood up, looking down at his pants and shirt with a rueful grin. He was covered head to toe with Sparky’s winter coat that she’d been busy shedding while he’d been petting her.
“Be back,” he rumbled, and headed for the door. Sparky followed right on his heels until they got to the door. “Stay,” he told her, and she sat down with a whine, watching as the door closed in front of her.
Suddenly, the last 24 hours hit Georgia like a ton of bricks. Her head swung a little drunkenly as she looked up at Moose. “We should go get my car,” she said, her words slurring a little. He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“I think I ought to take you to Betty’s Diner and get you fed. You didn’t eat lunch, dinner, or breakfast, and you’re in no mood to cook right now. You’d probably nod off and burn down your house. While I’m driving you to Betty’s, you’re going to call Tripp and tell him that you’re not coming in today. After I feed you, then I’ll take you to your car.”
Oh. Tripp. Her eyes flew to the clock on the wall. Holy shit! He was probably panicking right now. She was technically a no-call, no-show at this point. Not exactly professional.
Moose handed her his phone, remembering without her even needing to say it that hers was still dead, thumbing the button to unlock it so she could use it.
The home screen of his phone was a smiling pic of him and Levi together. Tennessee was nowhere to be found. Georgia didn’t know why she cared, because of course she absolutely positively shouldn’t, but a small part of her was delighted to see that.
As she followed Moose obediently to the truck, too tired and hungry to protest about how dirty and smelly she was, and how she absolutely shouldn’t go out into public, she called the credit union.
“Goldfork Credit Union, this is Tripp, how may I help you?”
“Tripp, it’s Georgia.”
“Oh thank God!” he hollered. She yanked the phone away from her ear instinctively, and then when he began rattling on, she quickly pushed it against her cheek again. “—just kept going straight to voicemail and you’ve never been a no-call, no-show and I was damn sure you were dead and—”
“I’m alive, I promise,” she broke in, realizing that if she waited for him to calm down to tell him what had happened, she could be waiting quite a while. “Did you hear about the fire east of town that broke out yesterday afternoon?”
“Oh yeah, a couple of customers were talking about that today.”
“Well, I was up there hiking when the fire broke out. Just down the hill from me – between me and the car, actually. And there was a dog there, too.”
“A dog started a fire?” Tripp asked, completely confused.
“No, her owner did. I’ll tell you all about it later, I promise. I just wanted to let you know that I’m not coming in today. I hardly slept a wink last night, and I’m covered head to toe with ash and dirt, so I’m not exactly presentable. I’m just going to take another vacation day. That should make HR happy.” Even if the loan department isn’t. That damn report wasn’t going to write itself, which was really too bad. “Keep things running for me. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow, I promise.”
“Okay. Take care and sleep lots.” He hung up and Georgia called the HR department next. Moose had driven them to the restaurant and they were now sitting in the parking lot, waiting for her to finish up before going inside. She sent him a smile of apology and he just shrugged.
The phone call went much faster with the HR department; she simply said that she was going to take a mental health day, and the head of HR sniffed her approval before hanging up.
“Don’t you need to call your father?” Georgia asked, handing the phone back to him.
“I will in a minute. For now, let’s get some food inside of you.”
Georgia had to admit that this seemed like a stand-up idea to her.
Chapter 11
Moose
They went walking into the restaurant and found his favorite waitress on staff, Chloe. Her platinum-blonde hair bobbed as she hurried over, tutting as she took in Georgia’s appearance. Georgia was weaving a little on her feet from sheer exhaustion, and Moose had to stop himself from pulling her to his side to physically hold her upright. He absolutely shouldn’t touch Georgia, but he absolutely, positively shouldn’t touch her in public.
He couldn’t hurt Tennessee like that. It wasn’t fair to her.
“Oh darlin’, just look at you!” Chloe exclaimed, reaching out and brushing at a streak of soot across Georgia’s shirt. “I heard you got trapped up in the fire in the foothills, and don’t you just look like it. I’ll go get some coffee and creamer for you. Pick a table and I’ll be right over.” She hurried towards the coffee pot as Georgia drunkenly turned towards the booths, doing her best to act dignified. As if she had not quite literally been dragged through the dirt that morning and almost been burned to death the night before.
Moose ga
ve in and took Georgia’s elbow in his hand, supporting her as he guided them to a booth. It was just an elbow. No one would look at them funny for him touching her elbow.
Well, they would if they could feel the sparks shooting up his arm, like touching an electric fence that’d been turned on high. It was a damn good thing people couldn’t read minds. Not even the gossip kings and queens of Sawyer could, for which he was eternally grateful.
Georgia sank into the booth across from him, her head drooping as she tried to prop her chin on a palm. Her blinks were growing looongeeer byyy theeee mooomeeent…
Her head snapped up and she blearily attempted to focus her eyes on his.
Moose had visions of her face-planting into a plate full of waffles. Normally, he’d just take her home to let her sleep this off, but he was half-afraid that part of her exhaustion was coming from low blood sugar because of not eating for so long.
She wasn’t diabetic – at least that he knew of – but anyone who’d gone through the stressors that she had while also eating practically nothing for 24 hours could crash and burn. He had to get food into her, even if he had to spoon-feed her to do it.
Huh. On second thought, maybe he ought to get the food to go in that case. He could get away with taking Georgia by the elbow to guide her into a booth; he couldn’t get away with spoon-feeding her like a toddler.
Chloe came up with the mugs and creamer and a pot of coffee. She poured a cup for each of them, sliding the creamer towards Georgia, and then said, “Y’all know what you want?”
Moose instinctively looked at Georgia – women always ordered first, of course – but her head was bobbing and jerking as she valiantly tried to stay awake…and not land face first in her coffee. If Moose was going to wait on her to make a decision, they’d be there a very long time.
“Two veggie omelettes with cheese and ham added,” he said, not even bothering to open up the menus stacked at the end of the booth. “Biscuits for each; extra jam for me.”
Chloe winked at him. “You got it. I’ll tell Betty to move y’all to the front of the line. I’m afraid Georgia won’t make it if we wait too long to feed her.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
They both turned to Georgia as she made incoherent noises, waving her hands in the air dismissively. He knew exactly what she was trying to say, even if her mouth didn’t – she was fine. No worries at all. Just because she’d seemingly forgotten how the English language worked, she was fine.
Chloe took off for the kitchen while Moose just shook his head at Georgia, the laughter bubbling up inside of him. Her drive, her backbone, her willingness to put in hard work…it’s how she became the youngest branch manager in Goldfork Credit Union history, and a female to boot. All of that was on display now, as she attempted to give off the illusion that she was in perfect working order.
He pushed her coffee cup towards her, encouraging her to drink it, and then realized with a frown that she hadn’t put any creamer into it yet, and that just wasn’t gonna work. She didn’t touch black coffee with a ten-foot pole. As she put it, she liked a little coffee in her creamer.
He pulled the coffee mug back to him, added three little cups of french vanilla creamer, stirred, and then pushed it back across the table to her.
Georgia gave him a dazzling smile of gratitude, the wide swath of dirt across her forehead giving her a particularly pirate-y look, and promptly began downing the coffee. When she was close to the bottom, Moose waved Chloe over for a refill, then creamered it up for her again. She sipped at the second cup a little slower.
“Feeling any better?” he asked Georgia as Chloe brought by the biscuits with jam. He took over spreading the homemade jam and butter across Georgia’s biscuit – even a butter knife in her hands probably wasn’t a good idea at this point – and then pushed the readied biscuit over to her.
“Yeah,” Georgia slurred unconvincingly, then hungrily dug into the biscuit. Moose eyed her cautiously. She in no way seemed better, although he supposed that she was at least speaking English now. Low bar, for sure, but she was clearing it.
He popped a bite of his own biscuit into his mouth and closed his eyes as he chewed ecstatically. He’d been so focused on making sure Georgia was okay, he’d been ignoring his own stomach growls, but now that food was arriving, his stomach was busy reminding him that he could eat a horse, with a side of cow, at this point.
It also didn’t hurt that Betty made the best biscuits in the area. The woman was a flat-out genius in the kitchen. There was a reason no one had tried to open a competing diner in Sawyer; Betty’s fans were legion. If only she would stay open for dinner, Betty’s Diner would be perfect.
She’d always said that she wanted her evenings off, though, so she wasn’t gonna do it. Despite his selfish desire for her to be open past two each day, Moose had to respect that kind of surety and backbone about her business decisions competing with her private life. Wanting to strike a good balance between work and personal life wasn’t something he’d seen modeled much in his own life.
“Here we go,” Chloe said, sliding their oversized plates in front of them and then standing back with an appraising eye. “Ketchup? Extra butter?”
They both shook their heads, so with another top off of their coffee, Chloe was off to the races again. How she kept her energy level so high all the time was beyond Moose.
“So I kept meaning to ask,” Georgia said after swallowing a particularly large and gooey bite of omelette, “how did the fundraiser go? Did you guys make some decent money? And who won the basketball game?”
“I can’t believe you’d even ask that,” Moose said mock-seriously, shaking his head in disappointment at her. He was honestly just thrilled that she was talking, though. In complete sentences. With only a minimal amount of slurring. “The firefighters, of course. Although your dad put up quite the fight. He made two whole baskets during the game!”
Georgia laughed at that. “I honestly would’ve bet that he wouldn’t have even played,” she said admiringly. “Go, Dad.”
“How is it that you don’t know how the game went?” Moose asked, digging into his omelette, veggies and cheese and ham oozing out. Hmmm…maybe he’d just marry Betty instead. Sure, she was pushing 70 and was as round as she was tall, but damn, could the woman cook. “You were there that night,” he reminded her.
He’d met up with Tennessee at the fundraiser and they’d wandered around for a bit together until they’d spotted Levi and Georgia talking. His heart had…twisted or flipped or squeezed or something funny it probably wasn’t supposed to be doing, when he saw them together.
Not that he’d ever admit that out loud, of course. He had no reason to feel that way.
None whatsoever.
“Uhh…Tenny and I started chatting, and then we wandered outside, and then ended up going home from there.” Suddenly, she was studiously studying the table to her right.
A table that was empty, and not at all interesting.
Interesting…
“I’d wondered what happened. Tennessee just disappeared.”
He was ashamed to admit that he hadn’t even noticed she’d disappeared until Jaxson had asked where she’d gone.
Also not something he was going to admit out loud.
When Georgia didn’t say anything else, Moose prompted her. “What’d you two talk about?”
“Oh, this and that.” She waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Cousinly sorts of things.”
She was still staring at the table to her right.
“Hmmm…” he said noncommittally, suddenly wishing he could’ve been a fly on the wall when they were discussing cousinly things, whatever the hell that meant.
But it was clear that Georgia wasn’t going to fess up to anything else, so he moved back to the question she’d asked. “The spaghetti feed went really well overall, other than a couple of the older farmers complaining that we’d dare to feed them ‘Italian food’ instead of doing a baked potato buffet.”
/> This caught her attention and whatever she’d been studying so intently at the empty table next to them was suddenly not interesting anymore. Her eyes jerked to his. “Are you being serious right now?” she breathed, and then started laughing. “Oh, Sawyer…there are days…”
“I know, right? I had to bite my tongue pretty hard over that one. But other than our daring choices of spaghetti and garlic bread, the event went well overall. A success for Jaxson out of the gate, and that’s something that he needs. Despite what happened down at the bakery, what with saving Gage and Sugar from that fire and all, some of the older farmers still look at him a little askance. I don’t know if they’ll ever truly forgive him from moving in from the giant metropolis of Boise.”
Georgia laughed pretty hard at that one, and then shrugged. “Tell him to join the party. I was born and raised here, but I’m also one of those dastardly females, so there are farmers who come in who refuse to talk to me about operating loans. Not only is Tripp good at his job, he’s also a male, so I dump these guys off onto his lap when it happens. It used to piss me off, but now…” She rolled her eyes dramatically. “They’re in their 70s and 80s, and still clinging to their farms. They’re not going to change their minds about women in the workplace at this late date.”
Her smile was breezy and cheerful, but her eyes…they were dark and unhappy. She wasn’t as good of an actress as she believed she was. Moose wondered if anyone had ever told her that.
“I’m glad Tripp is good at his job, but I’m sorry you have to use him like that.” Even as he said it, he thought back through the Garrett Tractor & Implement customers who came into the dealership every year. He could list off who he thought was giving Georgia a hard time, and probably be at least 90% accurate. They were plenty nice to him, being the owner’s son and all, but these were the kinds of men who treated the shop guys poorly; who looked down at Levi as being inferior because of who his father was.
For being overall-wearing, tobacco-chewing, dirt-stained crusty old farmers, they sure could be judgmental as hell. It was one of the things that he hated about the dealership.
