by Ash Harlow
“Sure, I understand,” he said, his moss-green eyes for once dropping their guard and giving her a look that suggested he thought she could be anything but annoying. And that look didn’t bother her one bit.
Volunteering was supposed to give Vince a sense of purpose, at least, that’s what his counselor insisted. He’d agreed to the idea because physically he was strong and capable, and working at the Dog Sanctuary, he thought, would be an outdoors job. It was close to home and near the mountains where he loved to hike.
Walking down the drive he’d almost faltered, not through any sort of fear or apprehension, even though he’d climbed the locked gates, but the mere presence of the woman standing outside a large building, watching him.
Lulah.
Around five-foot-five, spiky platinum hair, elfin features and grey eyes that seemed speckled with dark flint and bright light. There was this happiness about her, a joy for life that until meeting her, he’d forgotten he’d once had, too. When she took his outstretched hand something passed between them that stayed with him long after she showed him around the sanctuary and gave him a job.
It went beyond anything he’d experienced since returning from Afghanistan and he felt almost sick with hope that it might last. But he couldn’t pin his recovery on simply being in her presence; that gave her a mythical healing ability that even he knew was absurd.
Lulah directed him into the break room that had a kitchen at one end, then tables, chairs and sofas at the other. Open doors led out to a courtyard where a couple of dogs slept. Beyond that was a view across meadows and foothills to the mountains.
“Wait here while I find Marlo,” she said.
In minutes a woman appeared, introducing herself as Marlo. Vince shook her hand then glanced to the door to find Lulah.
“Lulah’s busy training dogs.”
He nodded, uncomfortable that Marlo had pinpointed exactly what he’d been doing. She had a different sort of energy about her, but was more guarded than Lulah.
She led him to the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil. “We’re a bit like the military here, Vince. We have a recruitment policy, and we run a tight organization. It has to be that way because of what we’re dealing with. The dogs take priority over everything, they have to because they’re our reason for existing. Staff must fit in, but I’m guessing you know how to do that through your training. To me you look troubled, like a jack-in-a-box ready to fire when the lid comes off. Am I close?”
She’d picked his state perfectly, and he couldn’t lie about it. What was the point? They’d see for themselves soon enough, if he wasn’t careful. “I thought I might be of help.”
Marlo considered him for long enough that he felt uncomfortable. “I understand, Vince. Come with me and meet Josh. They’re putting a new surface down in the indoor working area, I’m sure he could use some muscle. Be here by nine each morning, and I expect you to stay until lunchtime if you can’t manage a whole day.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Call me Marlo.”
He followed her to where a few guys were barrowing and spreading sawdust in a large, modern indoor work area. At the far end of the building, Lulah worked with a small group of people and a couple of dogs. Just seeing her felt familiar, sending a warm sensation spreading through his chest. Incredible. He couldn’t remember when he’d last experienced anything like it.
Josh handed him a rake and he shifted to a newly-dumped load of sawdust and began to spread it. He enjoyed the physicality of the work, making straight furrows that ran parallel to the wall, with the tines of the rake.
He finished up at Lulah’s end of the building and enjoyed listening to her instructing the interns on various aspects of dog training and behavior. For something he’d never given much thought he found the subject fascinating him. Or maybe that was Lulah.
She passed by during breaks between dogs.
“The surface has never looked so groomed,” she said. “I don’t want to walk on it and mess up your work.”
“I can do patterns and pictures, too, but I figured that would be distracting,” he replied, and she watched him for an extra beat, before agreeing.
By lunchtime, Lulah felt like an old friend, even though throughout the morning they’d exchanged more looks than words.
The following morning as he passed through the Sanctuary gates he couldn’t say whether he’d returned because he liked the work, or because he wanted to spend more time in Lulah’s company.
When it came to cleaning the kennels, all the dogs were either in outdoor runs, or training sessions, so he was surprised when a little blue-and-white pit bull joined him as he was coiling the hose. She was skinny and her lack of muscle made her look gangly and uncoordinated. The person she’d been working with called out for her, but she was deaf to that voice, and followed along after Vince.
The dog’s name was Misty, and it seemed she thought as little of it as a name as Vince did, judging by the way she ignored anyone who called her and stuck to Vince’s side. She was more like a shadow, keeping a constant distance from him, but attached to any movement he made.
At midday he was ready to head for the hills. The strain of working alongside so many strangers, and the sudden noises and barking dogs took their toll. In the lunchroom he grabbed his pack, and announced he’d be back the next day but when Misty tried to follow him he had to enlist Lulah’s help to restrain the dog.
“Why don’t you take her with you, Vince? A walk would do her good. She’d be company for you.”
He shook his head. “I can’t, Lulah, I don’t know how long I’ll be. And, a dog…I wouldn’t know what to do.”
Lulah smiled, as if she understood, and it made him want to touch her lips. Just a finger to the corner of her mouth to see if he could catch some of her happiness.
He was probably like most men who came across Lulah; imagining she needed him when she smiled that way. That impression was wrong; she didn’t need him at all, but even wanting her to want his company was such a big step towards feeling human again, that he ran with it, as a fantasy.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “Misty knows what to do. She’ll stick to your side and make sure you’re okay.”
Vince looked down at the dog. Poor thing. Her head looked too big for her scrawny body. The wounds she had were healing, but she was still a pathetic sight. The dog latched on to his gaze as if his look was a meaty bone, capable of fortifying her.
“My life doesn’t work like that, Lulah. You’re only seeing the good side of me. Other times, it’s dark in here.” He touched his chest. “I don’t get any sort of warning when that’s going to happen.”
In her face he could see the disappointment and it made him want to take Lulah aside, away from the watch of the people in the courtyard who pretended not to look. He wanted to tell her that he was drawn to something in her, and that he knew she felt it, too, but that he ruined good things.
But all that was impossible because words and ideas like that were better left unsaid. Before he had the chance to falter, he turned on his heel and left the Sanctuary. A few yards on he heard Lulah call the dog, and immediately missed its presence.
“How’s Vince working out?” Marlo asked a week later.
They’d just finished their regular Monday morning meeting, and Lulah had dived at the box of donuts Marlo had picked up in town. As usual she always snagged two, powdered with lemon cream. Not for the first time, Marlo accused her of harboring a tapeworm and suggested a visit to the veterinarian.
Lulah just stuck her tongue out at her, before poking it into a hole she’d bored into the donut to get access to the cream. She made a hum of satisfaction, adding Vince’s name to the end of it, earning her an eye roll from Marlo.
“Let me see. Physically, he’s amazing, battle-fit, strong and willing to pitch in. Emotionally…hell, it’s hard to explain. The guy’s so deep and brooding. We’ve had a virulent strain of savior-complex run through the kennels that most of the female interns
, plus one of the dogs, seem to have caught. Vince appears oblivious. I’ve got staff volunteering to scrub kennels who’d previously have bitched about damage to manicures.”
“It must make rostering easier.”
“No, it makes it worse, because they all want to work alongside Vince. He speaks if when spoken to, works like a trooper, and never makes it much past lunchtime before disappearing into the hills. Afternoons, once he’s gone, those girls aren’t nearly as productive so I schedule the menial tasks for mornings.”
Marlo laughed. “And how do you feel about him?”
“I won’t lie to you, the guy’s hot. Scorching, damaged, and I don’t have a savior complex, unless it’s a dog. Did I mention he’s hot?”
“No, tell me about that.”
Lulah grinned. “Misty has fallen deeply in love with him. She won’t leave his side, even tries to leave with him each afternoon. I’m trying to encourage him to take her with him, but he won’t. A dog could help him, you know. You can tell he has issues.”
“Do you think he’s safe to have around?”
“Yeah, he’s fine. When he gets edgy, he leaves. And it’s weird, because the other side of him, when he’s not wired, is kind of peaceful. He’s artistic, too. Yesterday I needed name tags for the kennel doors of the new dogs and I asked him to write them out. He did their names, then these gorgeous caricatures of each of the dogs. They’re fantastic. And I noticed he did a new one for Misty’s door; he’s renamed her Calliope, says she’s his muse. Today I’m going to have another go at getting him to take her when he heads off.”
Like every lunchtime when Vince left, Lulah wondered if it would be the last they saw of him, but the next morning he’d be back. No explanation, just ready to roll up his sleeves, expose his muscular forearms that made all the women pause and appreciate, and get on with the day’s tasks.
He watched her sometimes, but she watched him often. In those moments when their eyes first locked, his guard down because he thought she wasn’t looking, she caught a quick glimpse of longing; not necessarily for her, but for what she was.
Lulah noticed he had the same effect on Calliope. The dog watched Vince and did her best to always be near him. What’s more, her confidence had grown with the task she seemed to have set herself, making sure he was never left alone.
Stories of an animal connecting to a single person, as if they were the mate they’d spent their life waiting for, were common to sanctuaries and shelters around the world. Lulah never questioned why Calliope had attached herself to Vince, but unfortunately Vince didn’t appear to be quite so enamored of the dog.
That afternoon when Vince left, Lulah decided to watch from a distance, rather than help him out by calling Calliope back to the kennels. Perhaps if there was nobody available to take the dog away, Vince would allow her to accompany him.
Vince had been quieter than usual that morning, and Lulah had really felt for him because she could see the way he struggled, and the effort it took for him to get through. He looked short on sleep, and all but dropped to the floor when one of the girls tripped over a metal bucket and sent it flying.
She noticed his clenched fists, muscles bulging beneath the ink on his arms. When she sidled up to him to quietly ask if he was okay, he looked to her with a dog’s beseeching eyes.
“God, Lulah, sometimes a sudden noise takes me back there.” There was a break in his voice, short, like a finger-snap, before it returned to his usual controlled measure. “I’m sorry, I’m not usually this pathetic.”
She reached up and placed her hand on his shoulder. His t-shirt was warm, damp with perspiration, and he tilted his head back, closing his eyes for a moment before sucking in a breath, then aiming a rare smile at her.
“It’s almost midday,” she said. “Why don’t you head off.”
“Thanks, but I’ll finish up my work first.”
Reluctantly, she left him to his task of scrubbing out the food bowls. Lulah paused at the kitchen door, to check one last time, and saw that Calliope had leaned against his leg, her head stretched up over his knee, ready to be his emotional sponge and soak up whatever troubled him.
An hour later Lulah stood at the edge of the courtyard watching as Vince, followed by Calliope, headed along the back path towards the mountain trails.
He ignored Calliope for the first twenty yards, and Lulah hoped he’d finally decided to allow the dog to walk with him. Then she heard his voice, raised, telling her to go back. Calliope stood on the path, her head lowered, tail tucked, but making a slow, short pendulum movement.
Vince turned and started walking, and Calliope immediately raised her head and trotted after him. This time when he stopped he shouted and flung his arms at her, trying to shoo her away. Calliope rolled to her back and showed him her belly. He’d frightened her, but he kept shouting at her to get up and go back.
The dog refused to move. She wouldn’t give up on him.
Lulah sighed. It was time to rescue Calliope and she headed after them at a jog, but before she got near, Vince suddenly dropped to the ground, lying alongside Calliope and pulling her into his chest.
She saw the shudders run through his body, the dog licking his wet face, and backed away to allow Calliope to work her magic.
“Those two need each other,” she muttered to herself as she withdrew to a place where she could observe them unseen. Vince had rolled to a sitting position, and Calliope crawled into his lap. That sat like that for a while, before Vince got to his feet and took his familiar path into the hills with a small blue-and-white pit bull, not following him, but at his side.
Chapter Two
Six Months Later
Lulah dropped into a chair, propped her feet on the low table, and scrolled through the phone messages that had come in during her last session training the Dog Haven Sanctuary interns. From the office kitchen Marlo called out, offering tea or coffee, but Lulah remained stuck on the first message, her emotions polarized.
Three short words: Help me, pls.
“Crappity-crap, we got us a Vince bomb!” Lulah called out. Geez, here we go again.
Vince was not the guy for her. Not even close. Lulah knew that all the way to the depth of her heart and soul. Still, that hadn’t stopped her spending each spare moment through the morning imagining herself hard-up against totally hot Vince who had promised to stop by this evening and help with her course work.
“What’s up?” Marlo asked.
Lulah tapped out a quick Where r u? message and hit the reply button, muttering at the phone. “Can’t help, buddy, if I don’t know where you are.” She rocked back into the armchair. “SOS from Vince.”
“Uh-huh.”
“In trouble.” She passed Marlo the phone. “But he is asking for help, so breakthrough, maybe?”
“Or a breaking point,” Marlo replied as she read the short message and handed the phone back. “Where is he?”
Today, Lulah had no idea where he was, because despite their friendship, when Vince moved into self-isolation mode, he never told her where he went. He would arrive at her cabin, his usually steady eyes filled with distress as he asked her to take care of his dog, Calliope, for a few days. When he turned up in that state she couldn’t refuse him.
Each time he climbed into his pickup and drove away, he left her as disillusioned as the dog sitting at her feet. Left her to work through an infuriating mix of anger and sympathy, vowing this would be the last freaking time she’d collude with his can’t cope so I’m shipping out stunt.
What really annoyed her was that when he fixed her with that pain-filled gaze, her resolve dissolved into a messy heap that saw her step up to help him out, one last time.
Combat PTSD from his second tour in Afghanistan kept him teetering on the edge of being permanently broken, and if that latest text message was anything to go by, he might have reached his tipping point.
Despite Lulah spending the past few months training Calliope as a service dog to help Vince with his issues,
he had yet to agree that he actually wanted a service dog. He said it would define him as a broken person, dependent, when in reality he expected to improve.
Except he wasn’t improving. If anything, he was becoming worse.
Lulah ran her hands through her hair. “You see, that’s the problem. I’m presuming he headed out into the wilderness somewhere, because he looked exhausted when he dropped Calliope to me last night. About crisis-3.”
“Crisis-3, which is…?”
“Oh, a three sits around mid-range, so it isn’t too bad. Elevated stress but recently showered and shaved, wearing clean clothes. Still capable of driving, but couldn’t ride the escalator in a shopping mall.”
“Lulah!”
“Hey, those are Vince’s words, not mine. Anyway, I’m guessing he’s up in the mountains somewhere, but…” She shrugged. “I’m just wondering at what stage we call out a search team. If Vince is in the mountains, he could have fallen, cozied up with a bear, or—” Lulah’s phone rang. She reached for it, and her heart tripped, hoping the caller was Vince. “It’s Dad; I’d better take it. Can you contact Adam and see if he can pin a location on Vince? There’s been no response to my text.”
Adam was Marlo’s boyfriend of almost a year. Recently, to be closer to the woman he couldn’t walk away from, he’d transferred from his position as a New Zealand police officer to a job at Dog Haven. Perhaps his understanding and experience with PTSD could help steady Vince now.
Lulah ducked outside to take her father’s call.
“Hey, Dad, did you find your phone charger?” she joked. Most times she called him his phone went straight to voicemail. Ray rarely called her, and the fact that he was now made her uneasy. Her mind tossed up between health issues and money issues, unable to settle on which would be preferable.
“Lulah-la, how’s my girl?” His voice was gravelly, liked he’d been singing a lot, or cheering at a football game. Or maybe it was age-related from a life spent hunched over a card game in a smoke-filled room.
