Love Is More Than Skin Deep (A Hidden Hearts Novel Book 4)

by Mary Crawford

  I look up animal hospitals on my phone and only one facility is open this early on a Sunday but it’s several miles away. I cross my fingers and hope that I can get her into my vehicle. Hope seems to sense my nerves. She rests her head against my thigh and lets out a big sigh. I reached down to pet her and am once again horrified by the duct tape on her muzzle. I decide that I can’t wait any longer and I tie Hope to my roll cage while I run into the house to get my car keys.

  Fortunately for me, the concept of a car ride does not seem foreign to Hope. She hops right in to my Jeep and asserts herself as my copilot as she happily sticks her head out the window. I guess it’s a good thing that my vehicle is dog friendly. I reach over to pet Hope and I’m dismayed when my hand encounters a fresh trickle of blood. I know that my grandpa preaches that all sin is forgivable, but I sometimes wonder if they should be. Right now I’m not feeling like I should leave the vengeance to the Lord, if you know what I mean.

  “MITCH, I THINK YOU ought to come see what just pulled into the parking lot,” Stuart yells across the warehouse where we keep all the extra bedding.

  Something in his tone warns me that he’s up to something, so I ask, “Are you asking me to evaluate something with two legs or four?”

  “Well, buddy I think that might be the question of the day,” Stuart quips. Then he turns serious as he says, “For the moment though, I think the one with four legs needs the most urgent attention, and if the one with two legs is responsible for the condition of the one with four legs, then you can kiss the one with two legs goodbye.”

  I’ve worked with dogs long enough, it only takes me a matter of seconds to size up the situation and when I do, my rage kicks in to high gear. Before I can fully engage my brain, I take off into a dead sprint and run toward the sport utility vehicle.

  “Ugh! That’s not what I meant!” Stuart calls after me. “What is it about these dogs that makes you lose your ever loving mind?” he says as he jogs behind me.

  When I reach the Jeep, I’m so anxious to reach the dog that I practically rip the hinges off the door. I want to kick my own butt. I know better. I could’ve just completely freaked out the dog.

  The woman occupant of the car shrieks in surprise at my abrupt intrusion. I hear a strange huffing noise and a growl unlike any I’ve heard. Like a shape shifter from the movies, the shepherd mix which had been casually looking out the window moments before is now fiercely standing over her and challenging me to take one step closer.

  “Call your dog off!” I command as I freeze in place not wanting to agitate the dog any further. Every indication of that dog’s body language shows that if I make one false move, I could be spending the night at the hospital being treated for severe dog bites. That certainly is not my idea of fun. I’ve done it before; I just don’t want to do it today. As we have our silent stare down, I take the opportunity to study the dog’s predicament a little more closely. What I see makes me angrier by the second.

  “Listen, it looks like your dog might have some issues with aggression, but that’s not the way you take care of it. Haven’t you ever heard of obedience training? I ought to call the police and have you arrested on the spot,” I threaten.

  As the volume of my voice increases with each word, the body language of the German Shepherd grows more tense. From behind me, I hear Stuart caution, “Buddy, don’t you think you ought to at least hear her side of the story?”

  “Well, the dog can’t exactly tell me her side of the story, so the interview would be rather skewed, do you think?” I say rather sarcastically.

  The color starts to come back into the woman’s face as she turns to talk to Stuart, “I guess I’ll talk to you since you seem to be the only person inclined to listen to me. You’re welcome to call the police on me if you want to. I don’t really have anything to hide. I came here because I thought you all might want to help. Maybe I was wrong. If you aren’t going to treat her any better than you’re treating me, I guess I’ll just keep driving until I find somebody that does.”

  Stuart starts to apologize, “I’m sorry, ma’am—”

  I’m not ready to give up quite that easily; there’s something about this that isn’t quite right. “You’re going to have a hard time going anywhere else since your dog isn’t trained well enough to get off your lap so that you can reach your steering wheel,” I observe.

  The woman gathers her stunning red hair in a ponytail and twists it before tying her hair in one big knot at the base of her neck. She rubs her shoulder as if it’s sore. She mutters to herself, “Oh for God’s sake — it’s too early for this kind of garbage.” She blows a puff of air out the side of her mouth and removes her aviator sunglasses.

  As far as I’m concerned, she should never wear those shades again. I know that this is Florida, and the shades probably have some good UVA protection and all that, but they are really doing humanity a disservice by hiding her face. As soon as I see her, I almost forget why I’m so furious with her — that is — until she speaks.

  “I’d be happy to call this dog off, except I don’t really even know her real name or why she’s doing this. My only guess is because you scared the bee-jeebies out of me and she didn’t care for your tone. In case you’d bothered to ask, I could’ve told you that I brought Hope here to be rescued.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t know her name —” I accuse.

  “Are you always this rude, or am I getting some bizarre two-for-one special today?” she asks with a deep scowl.

  “Don’t mind my friend here, somebody took the prize out of the bottom of his Lucky Charms box this morning,” Stuart says with a wink. “Why don’t you explain to us how you came to find out Hope’s name?” he suggests.

  “Well, first of all, I have real doubts about whether that’s her real name or not. As far as I know, she’s only had that moniker for less than a two hours. I gave it to her because she looked so gosh-darn-hopeful that something good was going to happen in her life for a change.”

  “How did you end up with her?” I press. “She looks mighty comfortable with you and pretty protective.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know about that. I was just minding my own business feeding hummingbirds in my backyard at about five o’clock this morning when I thought I recognized a car which has been causing some problems in our neighborhood. After it left, I thought I heard some weird noises. I went to investigate. I didn’t have any shoes on so I had to go back to the house. By that time, I lost complete track of her and it took me a bit to find her. I couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t crying like a normal dog.”

  “That was a really dangerous situation. You should’ve called in professionals,” I lecture. “She could have been really sick or something. You never know.”

  “What good would it have done me to call in the professionals? You would’ve just threatened to call the police on me again,” she replies pointedly.

  I feel my face grow hot. She’s right; I did jump to every wrong conclusion I possibly could have. “How did you get her to trust you so quickly?” I ask, unable to contain my curiosity.

  She just rolls her eyes at me as she asks Stuart, “Did he forget to eat his Lucky Charms too? It seems to me that he might be lacking in some brain food or maybe it’s because he’s eaten too many Lucky Charms over the course of his lifetime and they’ve caused permanent damage.”

  Stuart just chuckles and shrugs. So much for being my ex-college roommate and former best friend.

  The little spitfire looks at me and says, “I’m going to go over this one more time with you. Maybe, after that you can actually focus on treating Hope. Are you ready? This is not my dog. Before about two hours ago, I had never seen her. I know nothing about her. I found her this way under someone’s hedge. I walked her to my car using my student ID as a leash. She is incredibly mellow in the car. She seems to like the name Hope — as much as a dog can like a name. She doesn’t particularly care for grey cars or loud stereos. That’s the grand total of everything I kno
w about this dog. Oh wait… I know something else… Someone treated this dog like crap and they deserve to have the absolute shit beat out of them. Someone should tape their mouth shut so they can’t scream and set their ass on fire. Of course, that’s only my personal opinion.”

  She gently rubs Hope’s ears and murmurs, “I know you were trying to protect me, baby, but I need you to get out of my personal space because you’re squishing me. So, out please.”

  Hope briefly lays her head on the woman’s shoulder as if to apologize and then goes back to the passenger seat as if nothing happened.

  The women looks up at me and says, “Well, I guess I know one more thing —”

  “Yeah? What’s that?” I ask.

  “She responds to the command out,” she answers with a cheeky smirk.

  I can’t help but answer with a smile of my own as I say, “I think you’re probably correct. It’ll be interesting to see if she knows anything else. Let’s take her inside to an exam room and see if we can figure out what else is going on with her. Can you and I start over? I’m sorry I jumped to all sorts of incorrect assumptions. I’ve just become a little jaded I guess. I’m used to people giving me all sorts of excuses and not enough truth.”

  A sad faraway look comes crosses her face as she says, “True. Very true.”

  I extend my hand for her to shake as I introduce myself properly as I should have done from the start, “Hi, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Mitch Campbell. I don’t usually work here, but they sometimes have me volunteer when they are short staffed. I am here so often, they forget that I’m not actually on the payroll.”

  I watch in fascination as a blush creeps up from her neck all the way to her hairline. I didn’t think I said anything all that controversial. Suddenly she stammers, “Mitch, if I almost started to explain to you how small the universe is right now, you would never believe it — even in a million years.”

  Stuart and I look at each other and then back at the mystery woman. For the first time today, she looks more than a little nervous. The playful bravado that was there just a few minutes ago seems to have completely vanished. To be honest, her reaction is freaking me out just a little. Now, I’m beginning to wonder of my first reaction to the situation was more accurate than my second. When this all started to unfold, I figured she had something to hide. Now, I wonder if I was spot on. Her body language is suddenly very closed off and quite frankly she looks mildly embarrassed.

  “What in the world are you talking about?” I demand feeling defensive again.

  “Well, let me put it this way — of all the ways I anticipated meeting you, this definitely wasn’t one of them. I thought that I would get the chance to get all dressed up looking fierce, like a million dollars — not in my most disgusting Sunday morning I’m-down-to-my-last-pair-but-that’s-okay-because-no-one’s-going-to-see me-today wardrobe.”

  “Who are you? And why do you think that we would meet — like ever —?”I ask warily.

  “I don’t know that you would even recognize my name, you interacted mostly with my roommate. However, our mutual friends have been trying to persuade us to get together for more than a couple of years now. I guess maybe fate decided to take a hand.” She extends her hand to me and says, “These aren’t the circumstances in which I’d hoped to meet, but my name is Jessica Lynn Walker. You probably know me better as Ivy Montclaire’s former roommate.”

  If You Knew Me (and other silent musings) is a novella that will be presented in an anti-bullying anthology which will be released this fall. I am extremely honored to be part of this project and I hope that my readers will support more endeavors like this.

  For the friends who see us

  as we really are

  and who we hope to be.

  The ones who are by our side as

  we fight against those who see

  only ugliness in the world

  and those who try to

  make us feel small.

  We breathe easier because of your presence in our lives.

  LOOKING AROUND CAUTIOUSLY, I CAN’T help but be a little disappointed. This is nothing like I expected it to be. I guess maybe I had built it up in my head to be some magical place — unlike anything I’d ever been to or experienced before. Aside from the fact it’s overwhelmingly loud, this high school is just like the School for the Deaf I’ve attended since Preschool; girls still shriek, hug each other like it’s an Olympic sport, wear too much makeup, smell like they’ve bathed in perfume and laugh like every joke is the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. The only difference is, with my implants, I can now hear all of this chaos. My parents were super protective and didn’t want me to leave that safe world. So, this is the first time I’ve been able to venture out of the safety of the deaf community. Honestly, I’m not really sure whether to be scared or excited.

  My grades are top-notch. They always have been. I pay meticulous attention to that. I don’t want anyone judging my worth by my inability to hear. Honestly, it’s a sore spot for me. I’ve always hated it when people call me retarded because of nerve damage. It was so stupid too — when I was a kid, my dad was rear-ended by some idiot and nobody knew I was severely injured because everything was on the surface. It wasn’t until I stopped responding to people that they figured out there was a problem. My parents are worried I’m not going to be able to compete on the “big kids’ stage.” I think they forgot that I started solving algebra problems in the second grade because I was bored.

  I am a little nervous about being able to fit in here. I don’t really have any friends. There is a guy who transferred from the School for the Deaf just a couple years ago, but I think he’s a senior. He probably won’t want anything to do with me because I’m a freshman. In that sense I’m going to be a fish out of water. Girls are weird that way. They judge you by the friends you hang out with, and since I don’t really have any, I think I’m going to be at a disadvantage. My plan of attack is to just pretend to be as normal as humanly possible.

  It was weird trying to guess what people would be wearing today. I usually don’t think about it much. I usually wear whatever I want to. My mom wants me to dress like a little mini-business-person because she says that projects an image of success to my teachers and everyone around me. I’m more prone to wear yoga pants or a bodysuit with a big old sweater over it, but whatever.

  I’m still fighting with my combination lock on my locker when something catches my eye. There is a very large mob of people coming my way and they don’t seem to see me. I start to sign, “Hey! Watch where you’re going.” About four beats too late, I remember that I need to use my voice.

  A guy so tall he probably plays on the basketball team, sneers at me as he comments to his friends in a singsong voice, “Look, Elijah, they found you another retard to play with at recess.”

  Another kid pipes up, “Yeah, Defuct-o-matic, maybe you should get together with this one and make a bunch of little freaks.”

  Crap. I haven’t even been here ten minutes yet and they’re already calling me names. Why did I think this was such a good idea again?

  At first, it’s not even clear who they’re talking about. The scene is so jumbled and chaotic, I’m having trouble figuring out what’s going on. There are so many people in the hallway that I’m completely smashed up against my locker, trying to stuff my backpack behind me so that doesn’t get stolen.

  Suddenly, I hear a booming voice from down the hall. It’s so loud, I probably could’ve heard it without implants. “Is there a problem here?”

  “No, Mr. King… no problem… just going to class.” The tall kid responds as he scurries away.

  The man looks at me and asks, “Ms. Anderson, problem?”

  Oh just fab, he already knows my name too — so much for being invisible.

  “No, Sir — I mean yes,” I stammer. “I can’t seem to get this stupid combination lock to work.”

  “Why don’t you work on it for a few more minutes and if you still can’t get it to
work, I’ll have the janitorial crew give you a hand — just stop by the office. Tell them Vice-Principal King gave you permission to be in the hall.”

  “Yes, Sir,” I mumble.

  He looks at his watch and hits his forehead as he says, “I’m sorry, Sadie, I can’t believe I forgot the conference call with the school board. I have to run.”

  I’m standing by my locker pondering the last few minutes in complete shock and trying to decide how I’m going to explain to my parents that the vice principal of the school is already on a first name basis with me when I haven’t even been to class yet.

  I notice that the crowd of people has dispersed, leaving a pale, shaky young man who is currently so busy trying to stem the trickle of blood from his nose that he doesn’t even notice my presence. Geez, what do I do now? Should I get the principal? He didn't even seem to notice the guy, but he said he was going to be in a meeting so I don't know if he can help me. Maybe the guy doesn't want me to call a teacher anyway. Since I haven’t been able to unload the truck load of stuff that my mom stuffed in my backpack this morning, I’m able to retrieve the box of Kleenex my mom insisted that I bring to keep in my locker. My mom still thinks that I need to do an annual school supply run as if I am a first grader picking out my first set of jumbo crayons.