by Nicole Deese
“To ask me about travel dates.” A flat answer. “They want me to come out early this summer—be there for the Fourth of July. She said she e-mailed you about it.”
My taste buds soured and I reached for my water glass. All I needed was for Vivian and Charles Lockwood to get involved in our recent family dynamics. No, not this summer. Not with Brandon and me so disjointed. “You won’t be going this summer.”
“What?” His eyes flashed fire. “But you can’t do that. You made a promise to them—and to me. I get three weeks in California every summer. It’s what Mom wanted!”
“Don’t.” Every deep-breathing exercise in the world couldn’t keep my temper at bay. “Don’t you dare use your mother’s memory to manipulate me. I know what she wanted, and this”—I gestured between us—“isn’t it.”
The audacity on his face was the first real emotion I’d seen since the day I found him with Collin’s crazy aunt. “So what, then? You’re just going to trap me inside this house all summer long with Grandma like a prisoner?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
Staring me down, he shook his head over and over as if trying to shake the words loose. Good. I was ready to hear them. I’d been ready to hear them for months now. We couldn’t deal with the future until we addressed the present.
“Say it,” I said, balling my napkin into my fist. “Tell me why you’re so angry all the time. Tell me why you’ve been acting like a kid I don’t even know. Tell me how to fix things between us so we can move on. Just . . . tell me something!” I tossed the compressed napkin onto the table, knocking the saltshaker on its side.
But Brandon’s protective walls had returned, his expression a metal gate pulled closed. He pushed his tuna casserole aside and slipped back into himself.
And once again, silence became our main course.
Every day that passed, every word left unsaid, was another reminder that I was losing my son.
And I had no idea how to make it stop.
Chapter Six
CALLIE
A whimper nudged me awake, my recycled dream forgotten. I shoved the covers off my legs and felt blindly for the ladder. Still half-asleep, I climbed down from my loft to the multipurpose area below—the kitchen-living-dining-bathroom, or what I liked to call “the everything room.” Tiny Houses were low maintenance that way.
The pathetic sound coming from outside intensified.
I shuffled my way toward the whine, wincing at the feel of the chilly tile under my toes. A coppery streak of early-morning light winked through the thin fabric covering the front door’s windowpane. It had to be just before dawn.
I twisted the knob and pulled the door open.
The whine fell silent.
I stepped out onto the narrow three-step porch and scanned the property more thoroughly, left to right. The rising sun blanketed the lawn with happy shades of lemon and lilac. But I saw no life beyond the rosebushes and rousing birds.
“Hello?” I called, my voice a thunderclap to the peaceful dawn.
I rubbed at my upper arms and stepped farther out into the dewy grass, wishing I’d taken a second to slip on my sandals first. In the crisp breeze, my naked legs prickled with goose bumps. Mornings in the Cascades of Oregon—no matter what season—were never warm enough to wear sleep shorts out in the open. A lesson I should have mastered by now.
Stopping to wait a few paces away from my house, I became as still as a garden gnome.
Only a minute or two later, and the sorrowful sound was back.
“Where are you?” I checked my surroundings again, this time from a different vantage point. The studio door was latched closed, as was the woodshed to the back side of it. So where was . . . ah.
A furry tail of dappled silvery black caught my eye. Under my porch steps. Directly in front of me.
A dog.
I crouched low, and wet blades of grass tickled my calves and ankles. And when his saddened eyes found mine, my heart thudded an extra beat. Then two.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “You don’t need to be afraid of me.”
Alerted by the sound of my voice, his ears perked. But he didn’t move. Didn’t scurry away. He looked . . . too weary to run. Too weak and worn. Even the rotation of his neck seemed to cost him energy he shouldn’t spare.
“Are you hurt?” Slowly, I inched forward. His eyes followed my every movement, as if he were analyzing my threat level. After a moment or two, his body sagged back into the grass.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, buddy. But if you give me a few minutes to think, maybe I can figure out how to help you.”
He continued to implore me with those milk-chocolate eyes, quite a contrast to his white muzzle. He couldn’t be bigger than twenty-five or thirty pounds, though his size was hard to gauge with his body half-shadowed by the porch.
“Wait . . . you’re the same dog that tried to take out my bumper a few weeks ago! I nearly ran you over, buddy. I take it country living hasn’t really been your thing, huh?”
He turned his head to the side but didn’t seem to share in my aha moment.
“Okay . . . how ’bout you just stay right there, all right?” I glanced over my shoulder at Chris and Clem’s house. The main lights were still off, but even still, Clem likely had some sort of bribery food I could use to lure the dog out from his hiding place. After the latest snack raid from Collin and Corrianna, my cupboards were nearly bare.
Feet numb from the cold soil, I rushed across the yard to the sliding glass door and crept inside the dining room, my feet slick against the wide hardwood planks. The clock on the microwave read 6:08 a.m. I opened the twin fridge doors and rummaged through the contents and drawers. Veggies, fruit, a million types of fancy and subsequently stinky cheese, and . . . kosher dogs. Perfect. What canine didn’t love a good hot dog? And bonus, these were certified organic! Done deal.
But as I turned to make my stealthy exit, I saw my sister’s head peeking out over the top of the sofa. Chin to chest and eyes closed, she balanced an open laptop on her thighs, her back curved into the oversized cushions.
I tiptoed toward her. “Clem?”
She didn’t startle at my voice.
I touched her shoulder, shaking her gently. “Hey, Clem?”
She shot awake, and I ripped my hand away as if shocked by an electric current.
“Callie?” In the same instant she spoke my name, she slammed her laptop closed.
I lifted my palms in mock surrender. “Uh, I’m sorry? But are you okay?”
“No,” she said, her voice low and tight. “You scared me.”
“You scared me, too. Why are you sleeping out here with your computer?”
Still dazed, she took me in, her face shifting through so many emotions at once I wished she were wearing my mood ring. “I just . . . fell asleep working on something.”
“On what?”
Clem didn’t work outside the home. She mom-ed.
“Nothing important.” Yet her voice indicated the opposite.
Suspicion pricked at my subconscious. “Did you ever go upstairs to bed last night?”
“I don’t sleep well when I’m . . .” She stopped herself, but I could easily finish her sentence.
“When you’re alone? Yeah, I know. So were you able to connect with him? I know the time change makes it hard.” Chris’s trips to Asia were brutal that way.
But when she didn’t meet my gaze, my gut twisted into a knot the size of my house. A cold, familiar fear seeped into my skin.
Our father used to spend his nights warming the couch, too. The fleeting memory, like a circling ghost, probed the question I wasn’t ready to ask my steady-as-a-rock sister. But the unkempt house, the dark circles under her eyes, the unexplained all-nighters, and the avoidance of all deep or meaningful conversations . . . they all pointed to the same blinking neon sign.
Chris and Clem were struggling.
“Clem . . . are you and Chris—”
“Please t
ell me there’s a reason why you’re dripping hot-dog juice all over my carpet at six in the morning.” Her gaze seemed to zoom in on my right hand.
“Oh!” I cupped my hand underneath the leaking bag. “This is for the dog.”
All sleepiness cleared from her face. “Callie, we don’t have a dog.”
“I know.” My brother-in-law was highly allergic to fur of any kind. They didn’t even own a hamster—much to Corrianna’s dismay. “But there’s a dog on your property just the same. I actually saw him running through your neighborhood the day I got into town. I think he might be hurt or something. He’s hiding under my porch steps.”
Clem slid the laptop off her legs and stretched her back as she stood. “And so what? You’re going to feed it hot dogs and hope it magically recovers from whatever is wrong with it?”
I bit my lip. I hadn’t actually thought through the next steps yet. “I was going to start with that, yes.”
“What if the thing has rabies?”
“It doesn’t have rabies.” I would have seen foaming of the mouth and beady red eyes, right?
She bent at the waist and patted the couch cushions as if looking for something she’d misplaced. “I’ll call animal control.”
“No!” I gave a violent shake of my head. “Do not call them.”
Hands on her hips, she stared me down. “It’s not like they’ll come barreling in with dart guns cocked and ready.”
The image alone turned my stomach. “I don’t care. If I can get him to come to me, maybe I can figure out what to do with him.”
“Do with him?” She raised her eyebrows, the way she used to when she caught me using the church’s offering envelopes for comic strips. “Callie, your entire house could fit inside my walk-in pantry. And you know you can’t bring him inside here.”
“Maybe he’s microchipped and there’s a super-nice owner looking for him right now.”
“Again, that’s a job for animal control to sort out. Not my gypsy sister.”
I stuck out my tongue. Childish, yes, but absolutely justified. “Don’t you understand, Clem? If he’s sick and in need of medical attention, and they can’t find his owner they’ll . . . they’ll kill him.”
“Euthanize,” she corrected with a tone that said, Don’t be so dramatic.
“I can’t let that happen. I’ll take him somewhere myself first. Like . . . a vet.”
“And you do realize who our local veterinarian is, don’t you?”
I shook my head.
“Davis Carter. The man you called—what was it again?”
I groaned. “Mr. Storm Cloud.” That was a dilemma indeed.
“Exactly. Well, Mr. Storm Cloud is the only vet I know who would take a walk-in. And right now, as you know, he isn’t the happiest with our family. You’d think we were harboring a fugitive the way he was going on about Collin and Brandon’s camp scheme.” She sighed and shuffled toward her coffeepot. “But at this point, I’ve done everything I know to do. Last week I even had Collin ride his bike to the clinic to apologize again.”
“You did?” News to me.
“Yeah, Collin’s been so broken up about this whole thing that I thought it might help.”
“Did it?”
“Davis accepted his apology, yes. But Brandon is still grounded—from the world it would seem.”
“Don’t you think that’s a bit extreme?” A question only a fellow parent should answer.
Clem shrugged. “Maybe. Still, his reputation with animals is unsurpassed in this town.”
I thought back to those gorgeous eyes again—not Davis’s eyes—the eyes of the stowaway underneath my porch.
Game face on, I straightened my spine. “If I can lure my new little friend into my Subaru with these hot dogs,” I said, with a shake of the drippy package, “then I’m taking him to see Davis.”
Not even the world’s grumpiest vet could keep me from my mission.
Turned out that thirty pounds of dog—one who hadn’t been bathed in . . . ever?—felt like lugging around a furry sack of potatoes. Somebody needed to get themselves to a yoga class. And soon.
At five minutes to seven, I stood outside the locked clinic door, shifting the mangy cargo in my arms while practicing my best attempt at Lamaze breathing. If the brute wasn’t so obviously lethargic, I’d call him lazy.
My little hot-dog trick from earlier had worked like magic getting him into the car, but apparently the kosher weenies were only a one-way ticket. When I’d opened the car door to get him out, he resembled my nephew after eating one too many crescent rolls on Thanksgiving. The only way into the veterinary clinic was to lift him out—thus the reason my elbow dripped with doggie drool.
At least we were the first people here. That had to give us a good shot at being seen this morning, right?
A lithesome woman dressed in kitty-cat scrubs passed the front entrance and then backtracked, taking in the multicolored fur ball in my arms with wide eyes. Her pert lips formed an O as she twisted the dead bolt and ushered me into the waiting area. “Please, come on in.”
“Thank you.” I lumbered toward a padded blue chair. The muscles—or lack thereof—in my forearms and shoulders spasmed in unison, and I nearly dropped the patient in question before planting my rear.
“Absolutely.” Kitty-Cat Lady rounded the front desk and began tapping away on her keyboard. “Did you have an appointment with Dr. Carter or Dr. Julie this morning?”
“Neither. But I was told the clinic accepted walk-ins.”
“Oh, we absolutely do.” She lifted her head, her golden-brown hair swinging in tandem with her feathered cockatoo earrings. Two button-hole dimples highlighted her smile, and I decided right then and there that she was most definitely friend material.
“Let me just see what I can do,” she said. “I’m guessing your friend is”—she examined the so-not-a-lapdog canine lying prostrate across my thighs—“a new patient?”
“Yes.” I nodded, extending each of my arms one at a time to encourage blood flow. “Pretty sure he’s a mixed breed.” Mixed as in homeless, stinky, and hopefully not full of rabies. “I found him this morning under my porch, and I think he could use a checkup.” And possibly a bath. Or five.
“We’ll get him everything he needs, don’t worry.” She puckered her lips and leaned closer to her computer screen. “Hmm, well, Dr. Julie appears to be booked out until tomorrow afternoon, but”—more click-clacking away on the keyboard—“Dr. Carter might be able to squeeze you in before his neuter at eight thirty. You’d just have to wait about twenty-five minutes. Is that okay?”
“Yes, uh, thank you.” Though I’d rather have seen his partner, I felt a sudden whoosh of hopefulness fill my lungs. “My canine friend and I appreciate your help.”
Another two women dressed in indigo scrubs—one honey-skinned and exotic, the other a Betty Crocker look-alike—reached for their charts behind the front desk.
Kitty-Cat Scrubs moved toward me again—Marie O’Hare, her name tag read. She handed me a clipboard. “If you could just fill out these papers, I’ll go see what I can do for this little sweetie.” She winked and patted his matted head. “Let’s hope he’s microchipped.”
“Yes,” I agreed. Because if not . . . No, I didn’t want to think about that yet.
Not three minutes later, Marie ushered me and my borrowed dog to a room at the far end of a narrow hallway. Awards, plaques, and framed pictures dotted the length of each wall. Davis holding an oversized check for some charity event. Davis shaking the mayor’s hand during a grand opening. Davis as . . . Santa Claus? . . . with an attractive blonde sitting on his lap, smiling for the camera.
And then we were inside the exam room. Marie pointed to the stainless-steel table. I readily obliged her prompting and transferred the good-as-dead weight from my arms to the table. Marie retrieved the clipboard and, with a big smile, made her exit.
The dog’s limbs trembled, the metal table vibrating from his fear. “It’s okay, buddy.” I scratch
ed the space between his ears and placed my free hand on his sharp spine. “We’re here now. We’ll track down your owner and get you as right as—”
A stiff knock at the door cut my singsong positivity speech in half.
Davis Carter strode through the doorway.
Though his face lacked the scowl he’d worn the day he raided my art studio, his smoky eyes remained the same. Ever appraising. Ever evaluating.
“Hello again, Dr. Carter,” I said with as much cheer as I could muster next to an animal who smelled like hot garbage. “Thanks for seeing me—” I shook my head. “I mean, us. It sounds like you have a pretty full schedule today with all the neuterings and—”
“Please, call me Davis. And it’s not a problem.” With his assessing gaze never straying from my face, he pumped the antibacterial dispenser near the door, rubbed the clear solution into his palms, and reached for the box of non-latex gloves on the counter. “It’s Callie—right?”
A smile surged from within me at his recollection of my name. “Yes, that’s right.”
“And what can you tell me about your new friend here, Callie?” He moved toward the table with light, purposeful steps and secured a hand on the dog’s back, his pinky finger a hairsbreadth from mine.
He crouched in front of his patient, eye to eye. “Hey there, buddy.” He spoke with such gentleness my pulse stuttered at the sound. “You look like you’ve seen better days.”
Davis returned his gaze to me. Oh! He’d asked me a question. “Uh . . . let’s see. I found him hiding under my porch steps this morning. He was whimpering, and as you can see, he’s pretty lethargic and weak. But let me be the first to tell you, this guy’s a lot heavier than he looks.”
“You carried him in here?” Surprise or stupidity? I wasn’t sure which I detected in his tone.
“Believe it or not, these arms of mine can lift thirty pounds.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I meant, most people don’t willingly scoop strays up and bring them in. They call us, or call animal control. The fear of rabies is likely a factor, but generally most people can’t take the smell of an unwashed dog.”
