by Brenda Novak
The shower curtain he’d pulled down had been washed and was neatly folded on the back of the toilet. He must’ve bent the rod, since it was gone.
Making a mental note to see about fixing what he’d broken—so he wouldn’t leave her any worse off than he’d found her—he headed out. But the place suddenly seemed too quiet. He glanced toward the kitchen to see why he couldn’t hear Callie doing dishes anymore and spotted her through the doorway.
It looked as if she was clutching the edge of the table so she wouldn’t topple over.
The creak of the floor must’ve given away his approach. She straightened and turned. “You’re still here?”
He ignored the question. “Are you okay?”
“Of course!” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “I just...ate too much and...it gave me a cramp.”
Not entirely convinced, he waited to see if she’d venture another explanation. What she’d said so far didn’t quite match what he saw in her face. But when she left it at that, he could only accept her response. He couldn’t see why she’d have any reason to lie, but he also couldn’t see how whatever pain she felt could be related to too much food. From what he could remember, she hadn’t eaten anything.
* * *
Rifle woke Callie for the second night in a row. Nerves jangled, she thought her dog was still reacting to Levi’s presence. She’d been in bed for over an hour, although it was only ten o’clock. She’d barely drifted off. Maybe Levi couldn’t sleep and had gotten up to work on his bike. There was a light in the barn if he chose to use it.
But she couldn’t imagine he felt good enough to do that. And she couldn’t understand why Levi’s moving around would bother Rifle. So far, she’d limited contact between man and dog. The way Levi watched Rifle, as though he might have to defend himself at a moment’s notice, confirmed that he was now, if he hadn’t been before, leery of such a powerful animal. She had, however, introduced them, so that if they did come into contact there wouldn’t be any problems. Once Rifle realized that she welcomed Levi’s presence, he did, too. He’d even wagged his tail and tried to lick Levi’s hand when Levi came in for dinner.
So what was going on?
Throwing off the covers, she got out of bed and dragged her pellet gun into the living room. She couldn’t completely ignore Kyle’s warnings. Levi, or anyone else, could be capable of far worse than she’d ever want to believe. He certainly wouldn’t be the first person to turn on someone who’d merely been trying to help.
But it wasn’t Levi who’d set the dog off.
Headlights bore down on the front of the house, and the engine of a truck continued to rumble as a door opened and shut. Although it was late for Godfrey to be out, Callie guessed he’d stopped by to tell her what he’d discovered on the pit bulls. She’d left him a message earlier, detailing what she’d found at the rental, so she’d been expecting him to get back to her with an update.
She almost opened the door, but then whoever approached called out to someone else. “Get your lazy ass out of the truck and come up here.”
That voice definitely didn’t belong to Godfrey....
The passenger door opened and slammed as Callie stood at the front window. Because of the glare, she couldn’t make out who’d come to visit. It wasn’t as if she had the benefit of streetlights. Out here, there was no lighting at all, except the moon and stars, and tonight the moon wasn’t more than a thin silver smile.
The first man knocked as his companion joined him on the front stoop.
Gripping the pellet gun, Callie moved to the peephole and peered out. As she’d already surmised, she had two male visitors, neither of whom she recognized. “Who is it?”
“Denny Seamans and Powell Barney,” came the answer.
“Who?” she muttered to Rifle. She’d never heard of a Denny or a Powell. “It’s a little late to be out visiting,” she called above Rifle’s resounding bark.
“We’re not out visiting.”
“Then what can I do for you?”
“You can explain why the hell that old guy Godfrey Blume showed up at the vet’s today and had my dogs taken away by animal control.”
Denny and Powell were the Gruper renters.
Lowering the pellet rifle, Callie unlocked and opened the door.
The men were very obviously bodybuilders. About five feet nine inches, they had shaved heads to go with an overabundance of muscle and looked like twins, despite the differences in their facial features and last names.
“In case Godfrey didn’t already explain,” Callie began, “your dogs attacked a man who was pushing his motorcycle past—”
The first guy exploded before she could finish. “That’s bullshit!”
Callie didn’t know if it was Denny or Powell until he gestured at his companion.
“Tell her, Powell. Tell her Sauron and Spike would never do that.”
“They wouldn’t.” Powell shook his head as if it was a foregone conclusion. “I’ve been around those dogs a whole year. They’ve never caused any problems.”
Sauron’s name suggested he’d be capable of anything. The only other place Callie had heard that name before was in The Lord of the Rings. Sauron was the villain, which she suspected Denny knew. But she didn’t comment on that. He had the right to call his dog anything he wanted. Besides, the size of these men made her nervous. So did their attitudes.
She gripped her gun tighter, in case she had to raise it. She doubted a pellet would do much against the armor of all that beefcake—especially because she’d be lucky to squeeze the trigger once before the man who didn’t get shot took the gun away—but she figured it was better than nothing. “Then you need to tell that to the authorities. You have no reason to be standing on my doorstep.”
“According to Godfrey Blume, we do. You’re the one who’s saying otherwise. Seems your word is gold in this town.”
She couldn’t help reacting to his sarcasm. “Because they know I wouldn’t lie.”
“That’s why we’re here. It’s you we have to convince. You need to stop what you started, or I’m going to lose my dogs.”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t change what they did. No one wins in these situations, least of all the animals. But I saw the results of what happened. You can’t tell me they didn’t attack.”
“It isn’t what you think!” Denny argued. “It’s not like they went after that drifter without reason. He tried to sleep in our garage. That’s trespassing. And my dogs just did what any guard dog would.”
Levi had to find somewhere to sleep at night. Given his situation and the late hour, their story might’ve been plausible. Except the police found his bike on the side of the road, halfway in the ditch, right where Levi said he’d dropped it. And when she’d been at the Gruper rental earlier, she’d seen no blood in the garage—only on the driveway leading to the back porch, suggesting the incident had occurred off-site, and then the dogs had trotted home.
“That’s not true,” she said.
The way she’d challenged his explanation didn’t sit well with Denny, who came off as the more aggressive of the two. “How the hell would you know?” His face, with its wide nose, jutted forward. “You weren’t there.”
These men didn’t act at all concerned that their dogs had mangled someone. All they cared about was the possibility of their own loss.
“I was at your place this morning,” she said. “I saw the bloody paw prints, Mr. Seamans. They weren’t in the garage.”
Denny’s eyes narrowed to a razor-sharp point. “You went on to my property?”
“I knocked first. You didn’t answer.”
“That doesn’t give you permission to snoop around!”
Rifle growled when Denny raised his voice, but Denny seemed too angry to care. Maybe he trusted her to hold the dog off. “Because of you, they’re going to put down two innocent pit bulls!”
“Because of me?” Callie echoed. “You mean because you allowed your dogs to injure someone!”
; “I didn’t even know it was happening!”
“They’re still your responsibility. A child couldn’t have survived that attack. You didn’t see the number of stitches it took to repair what your ‘innocent’ Sauron and Spike did!”
“The stupid bastard they bit shouldn’t have trespassed on the property!”
Callie feared Levi would hear them. She didn’t want him to come out, didn’t want this to get out of hand, so she lowered her voice. “He didn’t trespass.”
“You don’t know that!” Powell shouted, despite her attempt to get him to speak quietly. “You don’t know anything! You’re just some small-town bitch who’s sticking her nose in something that’s got nothing to do with her.”
The barn door slid open with a resounding bang. At that point, Callie knew Levi would be joining them. It was too late to hope he’d stay out of it.
“Time for you to go,” he announced to the Gruper renters.
Because he wasn’t within reach of Denny’s headlights or the dim circle thrown by her porch light, Callie could only make out his shape, but it was enough to tell her he was striding purposely toward them.
Denny and Powell swung around. “Who the hell are you?” Denny asked.
Powell grabbed Denny’s arm as Levi stepped into the light. “That’s got to be the guy. Why else would he be in the barn so late? He tried sleeping in our garage last night, didn’t he?”
In deference to the cooler temperatures once the sun went down, Levi was wearing a thermal shirt with his jeans. He must’ve gotten it from his pack because Callie hadn’t seen it before. She liked it on him, but she wasn’t too encouraged by how lean it made him look in comparison to the two bruisers on her porch.
With Denny and Powell distracted by the interruption, Callie raised her gun. She was afraid she might have to head off a fight. But she hesitated to speak up too soon, didn’t want a show of force to cause this situation to escalate if there was still a chance of avoiding it.
“Calm down,” she warned Rifle who, taking his lead from Levi’s appearance, was growling at Denny and Powell.
Levi came close—close enough for Callie to see
the fury in his eyes. Together with the anger chiseled in the hollows of his cheeks, the firm set of his jaw and the thinness of his lips, he looked dangerous despite the fact that he weighed a lot less than the two Gruper renters.
“I don’t want any trouble.” She had to lower her gun to grab hold of her dog. She wished she could toss her weapon to Levi. Maybe it only shot pellets, but she couldn’t imagine him taking on two men without some kind of defense, especially these men. He had too many stitches, for starters.
To her dismay, he didn’t allow her the chance to give him the gun. He answered her, but he didn’t even look over.
“There won’t be trouble, provided these two get back in their truck and drive away.”
Denny seemed so surprised that this “vagrant” would stand up to him he didn’t react immediately. He glanced at Powell as if confirming that this was just the invitation they’d been waiting for, and Powell seemed to interpret that as a signal to take charge.
“Look, if you want to get your ass kicked, we’ll be happy to take care of it,” he said.
“Is that what you came here for?” Levi responded. “A fight?”
“A fight?” Powell laughed out loud. “I’m talking about teaching you a lesson, loser, about trespassing on other people’s property. Because it looks to me like Sauron and Spike didn’t do half what they should have.”
The porch railing creaked under his weight as he swung his body over it, but before Callie could even process the threat and let go of Rifle, Powell was lying in the dirt. It all happened so fast she couldn’t tell how Levi had accomplished such a feat. It’d looked as if he’d landed only one punch, but the big guy wasn’t getting up.
Denny, who’d started down the steps, was now backing away from Levi instead of heading toward him. “What’s wrong with you, man? Are you crazy?”
“I’m sure there are psychologists out there who would say I am,” Levi replied.
“Now I know what happened to my dogs, why they got the worst of it.”
He had no idea what his dogs had done. Levi’s clothing covered the stitches, but Callie kept her mouth shut because Levi was already talking.
“Your dogs attacked me, and I did what I had to in order to survive.”
Powell was coming around. “What the hell...what’d he hit me with?” He blinked, shaking his head.
“Just get up,” Denny told him. “Get up right now.”
Powell managed to find his feet, but he staggered before he could begin making his way to the truck. Denny waited for him, then hurried around to the driver’s side.
“This isn’t finished,” he called back to Levi as he climbed in. “I hope you know that. I won’t let some piece-of-shit drifter destroy my dogs. And you’ll pay for what you just did to my friend, too.”
“You want more, we could finish it right here,” Levi said, but he sounded more tired than threatening. Maybe that was because he knew Denny wouldn’t take him up on the offer.
The door slamming shut was his only answer. Then Denny threw the truck in Reverse, swung around and charged down Callie’s driveway.
As his tires churned up the dust, Callie gaped at Levi, who was shaking the pain from his hand. “Did you break it?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“Would you know if you had?”
“I’m pretty sure I would. I’ve broken it before.”
Rifle whined and sat down, letting Callie know there was no need to continue restraining him. She sighed as she straightened, feeling weaker than ever now that the excitement was over. “What’d you do to him?”
He stared after their red taillights. “You saw it.”
“But it happened so fast.”
“Just because a guy can lift weights doesn’t mean he can fight,” Levi said with a shrug.
“Where did you learn to fight?” She put the pellet gun aside. “In the military?”
“There’s no need for martial arts when you have a lethal weapon.”
She thought of Kyle and how rude he’d been earlier—and was glad he hadn’t pushed Levi too far. “You had to learn somewhere.”
He didn’t explain. “If you want me to leave instead of painting the barn, I’ll understand.”
“There’s no need for you to leave. They were the ones who got out of line, not you.”
“But as long as I’m here, they could come back.”
“They could come back, anyway. And it looks like I’ll be safer if you stay,” she added with a grin. “I doubt my pellet gun could’ve done what you just did.”
“Rifle could’ve handled them.”
She watched her dog lick Levi’s injured hand and wag his tail as if he’d just found a new hero. “I’d prefer he not have to.”
A dark spot was growing on Levi’s sleeve. “You’ve torn out some of your stitches.”
He glanced down. “It’ll be okay.”
“We can’t leave it like that.” She waved him forward. “Come on in.”
She applied a couple of butterfly Band-Aids to act in place of the torn stitches. Then she changed the dressing and got a blanket out of the linen closet.
“What are you doing?” he asked when she made a bed on the couch.
She was providing them with a little insurance that Denny and Powell wouldn’t be able to jump him while he was sleeping. “I think it’s better if you stay inside tonight.”
“You don’t have to worry about me.”
“I won’t if you’ll do me this favor,” she said.
* * *
It was late when Levi woke up. He could tell by the color of light streaming through the windows. The exhaustion of the past few days had caught up with him, but where was Callie? Was she still in bed?
He lay without moving, enjoying the peace and qui
et while listening for her. At first, he heard nothing. But after several minutes, she whistled to her dog outside.
Yawning, he scratched his head, then winced at the pain caused by such a small action. Thanks to the miles he’d had to push his bike, the dogfight, the stitches, the lack of sleep and the confrontation with the two bodybuilders, he was banged up. Every muscle was sore. But it wasn’t the first time he’d ever woken up like this. When he’d lived at home, feeling as if he’d been hit by a truck had been a common occurrence.
Pain is weakness leaving the body.
How often had his father said that? And how many times had he made Levi prove it?
Unwilling to think of Leo and all his talk about becoming the best, he sat up and waited for his head to stop pounding before getting to his feet.
When he finally walked outside, Rifle came racing toward him. Levi couldn’t help tensing at the dog’s approach, but he’d lived with the threat of physical danger his whole life—if not in the ring, then at home, with a father whose hair-trigger temper could explode for almost no reason. Levi wasn’t about to let one incident with dogs make him cower in fear, especially because he’d always been a dog lover. After his mother took off with his sister, it was his dog who’d given him enough love to get him through the next ten years.
Fortunately, Rifle merely barked a hello. Then he circled, acting eager to lead the way to his master.
Levi motioned for the dog to start off. “Fine. Go.”
With another bark, Rifle loped toward the barn, but he didn’t stop at the entrance. He trotted through the middle and out the other side to where Callie was lying on the ground with a camera.
“You’re taking pictures of dirt?” Levi asked as he approached her.
Lowering her camera, she looked up at him. She was wearing a pair of khaki shorts and a white T-shirt top, which was no longer clean, due to all that scooting around. “See? I’ve found an anthill!”
The excitement in her voice surprised him. “An anthill.”
