Rescue (Emily and Mason)

by Seiters, Nadene

  By the end of the day, I feel peacefully calm and high all at once from the rush of adoptions. Gail tells me it will be better tomorrow and worse all at the same time. There will be a rush of drop offs between now and tomorrow morning. There always are, and then there will be a rush of adoptions. They will have to keep the new arrivals separated for the week until they’re checked out and approved.

  Through the entire process, a sad sign hangs on Baby’s cage, Not Available for Adoption, Check Back Soon! Emily hovers throughout the dog kennel assisting people. The end of my shift has come, but I hang back to wait for her to finish up her rounds. An hour after closing time she finally says goodbye to Baby and pulls the little puppy out from under her shirt.

  “I don’t know if Laura and Jim are going to be okay with this, would you take it with you for the night?” I hold out my hands and take the puppy from her, wrapping it’s warm and soft body in my t-shirt again. I don’t miss the fact that she doesn’t say her parents won’t be okay with it, but calls to people by name. But I don’t say anything, not yet.

  The ride home with a puppy in my lap is awkward and cumbersome, but I manage it. That night I put it on a thermostat controlled heating pad and groan each time my cellphone alarm goes off, telling me to feed the little bugger. It’s a pig now that it’s been warmed up.

  Chapter Seven

  Emily

  It’s been three entire weeks since I meant Mason, and each day we’ve been eating lunch together. I’ve learned that his little brother takes after him and thinks that school is a complete waste of time. At least, he thought so while he was there. Now that’s he’s working at a place like this, he feels like it was worth it.

  I also learned that Mason adores animals almost as much as I do, but he doesn’t know how to interact with them at fluidly as me. Half the time he’s afraid he’s going to upset a cat by brushing it the wrong way and the other half of the time he’s focusing on me too much to realize that he’s actually doing what he’s supposed to be doing.

  He lives with his father and didn’t mention anything about his mother, so I assume she’s not in the picture. I guess friends ask why not, but I would call us close acquaintances rather than friends. I haven’t told him about my mother or about my father, and the fact that I’m a foster child. Since my slip-up three weeks ago I think he understands I don’t live with my parents, but he hasn’t asked me about it.

  The door to the dog kennel is wide open. My heart climbs into my throat as I approach it, wondering what could be going on. Mason left me a note on the lunch table we usually sit at explaining to me that he had a surprise for me in here. He’s been slowly working his way up the chain with the other dogs, even training some new ones who came in.

  As soon as I come around the corner I feel my shoulders relax and a smile blooms across my face. Mason is crouching down at the entrance to Baby’s pen with her sitting outside of it, her focus and attention solely on him. I can tell by the way she moves gently that she’s relaxed, even though Mason is holding one of her paws in his hand. He’s clipping her toe nails, one by one, and explaining to her how much of a good dog she is for letting him do this.

  Baby’s left ear twitches back to catch the sound of my breathing behind her in the doorway and Mason looks up from his task. He looks a little flustered and quickly finishes off the last toenail, standing and pocketing the clippers.

  “You’re early; I thought it would be another fifteen minutes before you came down.” Baby takes notice of his nerves and stands, but she doesn’t raise her hackles or take a defensive posture. “I guess now is as good as a time as any, Baby and I have been working on this for about a week now after you went home.” My smile falters; I didn’t think he’d even gotten to her cage yet. So all this time it wasn’t just me making her feel relaxed in the evenings, she was waiting for Mason to come by.

  “Oh?” Is all I say, uncrossing my arms and pushing off the doorframe.

  Without another word to me, Mason takes a step back from Baby, and then another. He keeps eye contact with her, and I wonder what it feels like for the dog. I know what it would feel like for me. I would feel like I was the only person in the room amongst millions of others. With one motion of his finger Baby sits down, her ears pinpointed on Mason.

  For a dog like Baby, just learning how to stay in one spot without a verbal command is like a human climbing Mount Everest. What Mason does next almost has me protesting. He takes one of the leashes hanging on the hooks by the door and approaches Baby, putting it over her head and tucking her legs in through the straps of the harness. Mason still hasn’t meant my eyes.

  I watch him lead her to the door to outside and hold my breath, waiting for Baby to lash out or run. Her tail is tucked between her legs, but when Mason opens the door she slinks out behind him. She keeps her torso up against his legs as he moves. As soon as they’re out there for a total of about five seconds, Mason brings her right back in and makes her sit before he praises her. He rubs her ears, her snout, down her neck and back until she’s wriggling all over like a little kid.

  Mason takes off the harness and leads her back to her pen, leaving the door open. She stays inside but right at the opening. There’s a glimmer in Mason’s eyes that has me grinning from ear to ear like the Cheshire cat. As soon as I’m close enough he pulls me into a hug and I stiffen at first, my breath catching. Friends hug, right?

  But friends probably don’t feel like this when they hug each other. I feel like the arms of the universe have encircled me in their light, and the warmth radiating off Mason is like the warmth of the sun. He puts his nose on the top of my head and my legs go soft, my arms like jelly at my sides. When he doesn’t let go for about a minute, I finally wrap my arms around him. Then I lace my hands together at his lower back, letting him hug me.

  I haven’t had anyone touch me since my mother passed. It’s been nine months now since her death. I made it very clear to everyone I meant I didn’t want physical contact. I’m pretty sure I made that clear to Mason, but he seems hell-bent on breaking some of my rules. I can’t say I don’t like it, and when he finally pulls back from me with a serious expression I feel a loss immediately.

  “I’m sorry, I was just so overwhelmed, proud of Baby,” Mason tells me, his hands sliding off my lower back to rest at his side. I can’t say anything for a few seconds and have to clear my throat.

  “I’m proud of her too,” I tell him, turning my attention to the dog. That’s a safe route. The dog is meant to push my buttons and my boundaries. But Baby doesn’t do any of that today. She’s been calm and relaxed for a week now, and I think it might be time for her to start interacting with some of the other dogs here.

  Maybe in another two weeks she can actually go home with someone. When that step is over, she won’t have that ugly sign hanging on her cage anymore. She’ll be meeting young couples or single people who want to take her home. No children, I wouldn’t go as far to say that she can be trusted around them on her own. But for someone who knows about dogs, she’ll be a great companion.

  I bend down to pat her on the head, not having to bend very far. Mason’s stomach grumbles and I realize he probably didn’t eat anything before he came here and his allowance of time for lunch is almost over. “I have to go feed Bilbo,” I tell Mason quickly.

  He reaches out a hand to grasp my upper arm, but releases it as soon as I stop moving away from him. Our eyes meet, and I feel my cheeks flush at the hope in his. “I’ll see you tomorrow at lunch?” He asks, but I know what he’s really trying to determine. He’s trying to see if the hug he gave me was going too far, and I don’t know how to answer him honestly. So I just shrug one shoulder and bolt out the door.

  There’s a turtle that arrived yesterday now in the small animal room and a pair of male rats. I’m hoping I don’t have too much time to get acquainted with them before they have new homes. It’s not that I’m afraid of them or don’t’ like them. It’s the opposite, and I know that spending too much time in a pl
ace without enough attention is detrimental to an animal.

  As I’m pulling Noah out of his tank to clean it, like I do every day, all I can think about is Mason’s hug.

  Mason

  My arms tingle where I touched Emily, and if I close my eyes I can still smell the kiwi shampoo she must use. Someone snaps their fingers in front of my face and I startle, looking at the intruder to my thoughts. Gail rolls her eyes at me and grasps my hand, placing the needle into it. I turn to the hissing, growling cat on the table held by Taylor, and feel a pang of regret.

  There’s no way that Villain is going to let me touch him after he gets his shots today. Why do I have to be the bad guy? I guess all of us are the bad guys though. Taylor’s holding the poor lynx point Siamese down on the table while Gail tries to keep the nasty claws from getting to me and Taylor. I shove the needle in as gently as I can and as quickly as I can, depressing the plunger and pulling back as soon as it’s over.

  Taylor scruffs the cat and puts its thrashing body back into its pen. He’s not really a cat person; I think he just took this job so he could work with some of the good looking women here and the dogs. Maybe I should go find Emily after this and tell her there’s a cat in here that needs some TLC.

  I don’t have time to find Emily after the cat is put away because Taylor gets out another one. The orange tabby is amiable until the man scruffs it by the neck with force and pulls it up into the air as if that’s going to make it feel better about the situation. Gail has a frustrated look on her face as she does this one, giving me a sidelong glance.

  “I’ll hold the next one,” I tell Taylor as he puts away the tabby. Gail won’t meet my gaze after I verbally stand up to the boss, my shoulders squared. Taylor seems relieved that I offered and points at a cage full of kittens.

  “They all need their first shots, good luck.” An adult cat is bad enough. Little kittens that still are a bit wild because they were barn cats are worse. I hold my breath as they all hiss at me from the back of the cage.

  I decide to do it like I did with Baby, dive right in and expect to get bit the first time. I still have a bandage on my thigh from that incident. I’m never going to tell Emily about that, she would be upset about it, and it was something that needed to happen for me and Baby to understand each other. Now I know why she doesn’t want to report every small dog bite. It’s not like Baby lunged at my throat and pinned me to the ground. She was afraid.

  I reach my hand in and grab the first kitten I can, a small gray one with bright blue eyes. The eyes are wide as I gently scruff it and pet the top of its head as I bring it over to the table. Gail puts the needle in quickly without a hitch, and within fifteen minutes, we have seven kittens with their first shots. Taylor looks a little miffed over by the door and eventually slips out, leaving us the list of cats that need shots.

  “Wow, why did he get involved in an animal shelter when he can’t handle a few cats?” I ask Gail quietly, not needing to scruff the next one. He’s so fat I doubt he feels the pinch of the needle on his hind end.

  “I don’t know, but I try to avoid having him come in here at all costs. He’s fine when they’re in an emergency situation, but when it comes to understanding them he lacks in that area. He’s a good man, just rough sometimes.” I’m shocked that Gail adds that last part and wonder if she isn’t blinded a little by his good looks. Then I really think about it. Taylor is a good man, and he is rough around the edges. Maybe that’s why I bristle when he gets around Emily.

  I wouldn’t worry if there was no reason to worry. Perhaps he’s counting down the time until Emily’s eighteenth birthday to ask her out on a date. It’s in another three weeks. I managed to get into his file a few days ago to see exactly how old Mr. Warren is, and he’s not old enough to warrant being called Mr. Taylor Warren. He is only twenty four years old, four years older than me.

  I also took the liberty of looking into Gail’s file, and found that she is thirty one years old. Which means that her boss is younger than her, I wonder if that gets under her skin sometimes? I also wonder how Taylor Warren got the position as head veterinarian here without so much as an ounce of time anywhere else. He must know the person who owns this place, very well.

  Those were the only two people I was really interested in, and I know from the fact that Jesse talks to me almost nonstop when she finds me that she’s twenty two. Her birthday is in three days. If she reminds me one more time, I’m going to get her a muzzle for her birthday. It seems that her efforts at having Taylor notice her have gone unrewarded, leaving her high and dry.

  Gail and I finish up with the last cat and flip up the chart in the manila folder to see who’s next. We’re off to the dog kennel it looks like, and I see Baby’s name on that list. When her eyes reach the name her cheeks puff out with a held breath, and she lets it out slowly, her eyes narrowing.

  “Don’t worry about it, she’s really doing great. I’ll be able to handle it,” I tell Gail, taking the envelope from her. We make our way to the dog room, and I almost roll my eyes when I see Taylor speaking with Emily. He has a hand out as if he’s going to touch her arm, but I can tell by the stiff way she’s holding herself that Emily wouldn’t welcome the touch.

  She meets my eyes and immediately takes the opportunity to remove herself from the situation. If I weren’t fuming right now about the way Taylor tries to gain her attention back by actually putting his hand on her, I’d be ecstatic that she actually looked at me for help. Before I can get fired by intervening with a fist, Gail clears her throat to get Taylor’s attention and make him realize why Emily looked away from him.

  “We’re going to do Baby now. Emily, would you like to help?” The relief on Emily’s face is obvious, but Taylor’s hand doesn’t leave her arm.

  “Emily and I were discussing what to do with Baby. My professional opinion is that she’s ready for a home now, but Emily seems to think that Baby needs a few more weeks.” I would bet a million dollars that’s not what Taylor was trying to get at with Emily, but she won’t meet my eyes now. She takes a step back from the veterinarian and busies herself with opening up Baby’s pen.

  “She’s not ready to go home with someone, not yet.” I nod in agreement with her, looking at Gail for confirmation. The woman just stands there, unsure of what to say. She’s under Taylor Warren in the chain of command, and apparently before I got here it was what he says goes. So when Gail doesn’t say anything against Baby being put up for adoption, Taylor takes that as an acceptance.

  “Regardless of two nonprofessional’s opinions, we’re taking down the sign.” I bristle at his statement, but a warning look from Gail has me keeping my mouth shut tight. When we’re done giving Baby her shot and move on to the next pen, Emily stays with Baby. She looks concerned about the sign being taken down for tomorrow.

  Taylor has long left the scene by the time I arrive back at Baby’s cage, telling Gail I’ll catch up with her shortly. Emily’s face is forlorn as she rubs the German shepherd’s ears, her fingers fumbling along in the fur. I think before I got here she might have been crying.

  “We’ll figure something out,” I tell her softly, leaning my shoulder against the pen frame as I cross my arms over my chest. I have to do something with them to stop from pulling Emily into a hug again. She hasn’t said she’s see me tomorrow at lunch yet.

  “I should just call the owner of this place and let him know that Taylor’s walking around like a bulldog ever since-” Emily cuts herself off quickly, glancing up at me with a worried expression.

  “Ever since what?” I have a feeling I’m not going to like the answer.

  “It’s nothing,” Emily tells me quickly, shrugging one shoulder. I’m about to push the issue, but I remember that Emily doesn’t like to be pushed.

  “Alright, like I said, we’ll figure something out.” I have one thing in mind, it’s drastic, but it’ll have to do if I can get it all together by tomorrow. Right now, Emily has to tend to the puppy back in one of the empty medical exa
m rooms, and I have to find Gail. Just as I’m about to leave, Emily puts a gentle hand on my arm. She looks at me with a flush on her cheeks, but her eyes never waver.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow at lunch,” she tells me, and then she lets me go. I don’t show her how relieved I am of that statement, not wanting to frighten her off. I just nod and leave the room to find my supervisor.

  Chapter Eight

  Emily

  I’m lying in bed, the sunlight hitting my sheets that are over top of my head. I’ve had this dream so many times that I know what to expect when I turn my head to my left, so this time I don’t. Instead, I close my eyes in the dream and focus on breathing in and out, trying to ignore the smell of Gain. I feel someone touch my shoulder hesitantly and try not to cringe at the physical contact.

  “I’m sorry,” I hear her voice whisper all around me, echoing off the walls gently, quietly. It’s strange how our subconscious tells us exactly what we want to hear. I squirm away from the bony hand and will myself to wake up.

  “Emily,” my mother says my name loudly, and then I’m awake. I sit up in bed as straight as a board and inhale deeply as if I’ve been holding my breath for hours. I look down at my shaking hands and feel the wetness on my cheeks beginning to dry.

  It’s not until she says my name again that I realize it wasn’t my mother speaking to me. It was Laura. Her hand is not on my shoulder anymore. It’s shaking as she holds it over her mouth. She looks like she might cry or vomit. I’m not sure. I furrow my brows and wonder what has her riled up.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask her, hoping that it’s not Jim. Her hand slowly lowers, and she tries to catch her breath.

  “You were thrashing and screaming, I couldn’t get you to wake up. Emily, I think you were having a night terror.” I look down at my shaking hands and feel the wetness on my face. It’s on my forehead too, so it’s not just tears. I put a finger to the sweat and try to get my racing heart to calm down.