Emily looked up from her latest cross-stitch; Brenna had long been accustomed to the fact that Emily could carry on a conversation and handle complex needlework at the same time. "Not everyone feels the same way you do about dogs, Bren."
"No," Brenna agreed, "but anyone who bothers to own a champion quality rare-breed dog usually does."
"Maybe he's not," Emily said, and shrugged. "You know what that woman at the Cardigan club said. Maybe the owners just made up that name for him."
"I need to find out more about the breed, see if I can get someone to look at him," Brenna said. "Maybe send a photo to the club. But I'm betting he is a champion. When you see puppy mill pets day after day, you know when quality walks in." She craned her neck to get a glimpse of Druid through the kitchen to living room archway; he sprawled on his back with his white-and-freckled legs spread-eagled to the four winds. In the background, Sam's footsteps sounded on the wood-plank stairs. "I'm trying to convince him quality is as quality does. Maybe it's worked—he hasn't freaked since the day I saw that man at the spring."
Sam appeared in the narrow doorway behind Emily, flicking the light switch off as he gave Brenna an alert look, the eavesdropper drawn out. "What man? On your property?"
Emily glanced back at her husband, a short man with a beefy build; one look and it was obvious that the girls took after their slim-boned mother. Round in the face, scant of hair—he at least had the sense to crop what remained short instead of going for a comb-over—Sam had a face that spoke his every thought.
Normally Brenna found that reassuring; she always knew where she stood, and half the time Sam was simply emoting his happiness with Emily and life in general. But at the moment he was guarded and halfway to alarmed. Emily took note, stuck her needle into the hoop-stretched needlework, and twisted to look more closely at him. "I thought I'd mentioned that."
"I'd remember it if you had," Sam said. "Because I suspect I know who it was."
"Who?" Brenna asked immediately. Sam owned a local garage, and if there were a male equivalent of beauty salon gossip, he worked in the midst of it.
"Rob Parker. You ought to remember him, Brenna. He's younger than you—you would have been out of high school before he started up—but his family's lived around here for a long time. Used to run with a disrespectful bunch, Toby Ellis and Gary Rawlins, mainly."
Emily, whom he'd met at the community college in business classes and who had grown up on the other side of the city, just shrugged at him. "Must have been before you lured me here to live with you in the great white north."
"She's never forgiven me for putting her in the path of yet more snow," Sam said, giving the statement a grave face as he moved up behind Emily and gave her shoulder a squeeze. North of Monroe City received considerably more lake-effect snow than south of it, no doubt about that.
"It was a significant sin," Brenna said, trying to look stern.
Emily said, affecting much primness, "You could have opened up a garage anywhere."
"The good school district was here," Sam said.
"Foo," Emily sighed. "I can't argue with that."
Sam grinned briefly, then sobered. "But Brenna, seriously. You might not recall; they got into the worst of their trouble about the time your dad took ill. Then Toby joined the army; word is he was nothing but trouble—eventually went AWOL from basic, got himself killed thumbing a ride home—dark night, bad weather, stupid choices. Driver never even saw him. Gary'd started a good construction job, could have gone places—but he quit it right after. No one really understood what came over him. He never worked steady after that—but always had plenty of money, if you catch my drift. And Rob took off, went to Ohio somewhere, spent time in auto assembly."
"He said he'd lost a friend right after the last time he'd been at the spring," Brenna said. "Toby, maybe? And another friend not long ago?"
Sam nodded. "Gary. Couple of months ago. You ought to have seen it in the paper—they followed the story pretty closely for a couple of weeks. Unsolved homicide. He brought it on himself, if you really want to know. Just like Toby. Stupid choices. Good riddance."
"Sam!" Emily said, truly shocked.
Sam shook his head, unrepentant. "I mean it, Em. He was bad news, and he carried it around with him. He might have been lost in Monroe, but this community's too small for someone like him. I'm glad he's not carrying on his smarmy deals anywhere near our girls. And I'm not so happy that Parker came back."
"It's been years," Emily said. "And he hasn't been anywhere near his bad-luck friends. He might not be anything like them."
"Those kind make their own bad luck."
Emily tipped her head to stare at him, evidently no more used than Brenna to hearing such harsh statements from Sam, but he didn't give; he just shook his head once. "See if I'm not right."
"People change," Brenna said cautiously. Though she hadn't. Just the same now as she ever had been, except maybe a little less patient, a little more tired, and a lot more aware of what people did to their dogs in the name of ignorance. Still in her parents' house, the same house she'd been in when Toby died, Gary led his short and seamy life, and Rob had years of life elsewhere. With Dad dead and Mom living with Aunt Ada in Sunset Village, playing bingo, going on bus trips and fancy restaurant trips and tours of the wine country in the southern part of the state.
Russell had married, found a partner and bought out the small flooring company where he'd worked since he was sixteen, and been to the community college along the way.
And Brenna was still waiting to remodel the second floor of the farmhouse into the loft-like master bedroom she'd envisioned when she was thirteen years old.
"Some people do change," Sam said, and she realized he was responding to her comment of moments before. "But this one'll have to prove it by me if he has."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHAPTER 7
PERTH
A Secret Matter
Brenna glanced at the clock as she plunked a hyperactive Westie into the tub and slipped the tub noose around his neck, her fingers automatically adjusting it to fit. Good thing she had extra time for this bath; the dog, a new customer, was actively uncooperative and had a bite or two lurking behind the frenetic look in his eye. He was the last of a long string of morning baths for which she'd stuck Druid in the corner on a towel with a fresh shank bone, jammed foam plugs in her ears to filter out the dryers and the barking dogs, and gone into bathing mode. Bathing mode...zoned out, her body hard at work while her mind wandered off to focus on other things.
Other things, like Rob Parker at her spring—she'd found his footprints the day before—and the fact that although random victims of the dog pack kept showing up, Masera-the-trainer had been right—no one had yet actually seen the dogs. Besides which, dog packs composed of local pets and cast-offs tended to form around a bitch in heat, and to break up afterward. By now, the pack members should have been peeling away, returning home, getting caught, or wandering off on their solitary journey.
More other things, like the argument she'd witnessed in the doorway to the stockroom when she'd gone back to clock in and hang her coat—Masera and Mickey, one of the stockboys. It had been a real argument, too, low and intense and the look in Mickey's eyes surpassing resentment.
What would Masera and Mickey even have to talk about, never mind argue over?
And you'd think Masera would lay off the arguments for a while, considering that he still sported the fading bruises from the last one he'd been in.
She splashed the gentle shower of water against her wrist, checking the temp, and wet down the dog's legs—giving her instant cause for thanks that the zen bathing-state left her reflexes not only unimpeded, but faster than any conscious reaction. Cursing a terrier streak, the Westie snapped for the hand holding the nozzle, falling short only because she snatched a hind leg with the other hand and jerked him back.
Ah-ha. So that's the way it was going to be. No wonder these people had come all the way from the o
ther side of the city for this appointment.
They'd already used up the patience of all the more convenient groomers.
The bellowing treatment wouldn't work for this one; nor would a good shake. Not with the shining intent in his round black eyes, or the instantaneous way he'd reacted to the water. Holding him stretched against the noose so he couldn't whip around and nail her, Brenna fumbled at the shelves behind the retaining wall at the foot of the tub, searching blindly for the muzzles. They came out in a clump, and she shook them until only the medium-small remained.
The dog complained endlessly about the water running around his toes, snapping repeatedly at the only thing he could reach—empty air. Druid, recognizing the threat as different from the mindless noise of the crated dogs, barked sharply in warning. Brenna sighed—a moment ago she couldn't have imagined intensifying the chaos—and stuck the muzzle strap between her front teeth so she could size it up with her one free hand.
That, of course, was when Masera walked in. Masera, who had already made disparaging remarks about her professional techniques. Masera-the-trainer, who didn't think much of the way she handled dogs.
The Westie snarled at him, too.
But though he looked momentarily bemused by the turmoil, Masera didn't react to the sights and sounds before him. He just stood there, waiting for Brenna to sort things out—to snag the dog's face with the muzzle in expert efficiency and tighten it down, to turn the dryers to their lower, quieter settings, and to stand by the tub so the dog didn't act on his signaled intent to attempt some noose-slipping. To lean back against the tub, actually, and cross her arms over her wet smock. She felt the bump of her braid against the back of her thigh—it wasn't doubled today, but hung at full-length—and absently tugged it up to stuff in her back jeans pocket under the smock.
"So that's what you were hiding under all that mud," he said.
Brenna shook her head. "Excuse me?"
"The dog," Masera said, nodding at Druid, who was noticeably uneasy at Masera's entrance.
"Close the door, will you?" Brenna said. "I don't need him to go walkabout, especially if you left the grooming room door open."
"Closed," he said, and stepped into the tub room so that door could swing closed as well. "Nice dog. I'm between dogs now, but I'm thinking of a Cardigan for the next one. Do you show him?"
"Someone seems to have," Brenna said. Unless, of course, they had made it up along with the name, as the Cardi national club suggested.
Masera cocked his head at her, frowning, and she realized suddenly how little sense that had made to someone who didn't know her history with Druid.
"He's a stray," she said, slipping it in between barks. "I found him the night before you saw him in the parking lot. Can't track down his owners."
He glanced at Druid in surprise—Druid's huge and expressive ears tilted back slightly. Wary. Noting that he was being noticed—and then Masera's expression changed to realization. "So when I saw you—"
"I'd had my hands on him for less than twelve hours," Brenna confirmed. "I had no idea he'd behave that way."
"How is he now?"
It seemed like a genuine question, but Brenna didn't quite get it—or his presence here. He didn't seem apologetic or abrasive. More like...questing. So she shrugged in response to his question about Druid, crossing her fingers where he could see and not bothering to vocalize above the renewed spate of barking from the Husky in the bottom crate. The dog that would take the longest to dry, of course—fate decreed that those were the noisiest. When the dog paused for breath and perhaps to see if he'd impressed anyone, she said, "Can I do something for you? I've got to get Mr. Congeniality bathed so I can get that Dobie out of here. Her mom's coming in twenty-five minutes."
"Let me do the Westie," he suggested.
She raised both eyebrows high in astonishment, then laughed, short and loud and not quite truly amused. "A week, I said, Mr. Masera. Not one little Westie."
"You did. But I don't have a week, and I never will. I do have the time to do the Westie, though—and it looks to me like you could use the help." There it was again, that tease of an accent.
"That's the understatement of the year," Brenna muttered, assuming he wouldn't hear it and surprised when he responded.
"Things change this time of year," he said.
"You a fortune teller?"
"You want the help?" He nodded at the Westie.
"Yes," she said, and indicated the smock hanging on the corner of the metal shelves. "There's an extra, if you want it."
He gave it a look—at least it was basic black, and not blinding pink as some of the excessively perky smocks often were—and shook his head. She wasn't surprised; it was cut for a medium woman; on her the sleeves fell short and the hem barely covered her thighs where they hit the table edge, leaving the shorn hair a chance to work its way into her jeans. And while Masera wasn't huge—not the beefy type, but somewhere between that and whipcord, with legs as long as her own—the smock would probably be more annoying than protective.
"Call me Gil," he said. "Or Masera. Mr. Masera is reserved for boy scouts." He rolled up the cuffs on his ubiquitous flannel shirt. Blue today.
Gil. It didn't suit him somehow; she wasn't sure why. And she knew she should tell him to call her Brenna, but when her mouth opened, nothing came out. By the wall, Druid sat wary and watchful, and Brenna suddenly realized that for some reason, she felt exactly the same way. Wary. So instead she reached for the correct squeeze bottle of diluted shampoo, and tipped it at him like a drink. "This is what he needs," she said, stepping out of the way. And then, though she wanted to hover and supervise, she got a grooming noose from the hook by the door and went to the Dobie's crate. Sweet Sara Dobie with her extreme overbite and her worried eyes; Brenna always tried to get her done first. Druid, who had quickly learned the patterns of activity here, already waited by the door.
When she glanced at the tub, she discovered that Masera had removed the muzzle. Of course. "You'll want that," she told him, turning off all the dryers for a moment of respite and easier conversation.
He looked at the muzzle and said, "Does Mickey ever help out back here?"
"Mickey?" she said. "Why would he? He's in stock. If I've talked to him twice, I don't remember the second time. And really. You need the muzzle."
He said mildly, "I don't."
"You know what?" she said, discovering that she just didn't care enough to be angry or annoyed, not with the dogs waiting to be done and Sara shifting nervously by her side. "Yes, you do. Because no matter how good you are, no matter how many dogs you've trained, you're not going to train that one out of biting in the tub and bathe it within the next fifteen minutes. And that's what it's all about in here, you know? Not training them, not civilizing them, not trying to socialize them in the few moments every three months that I might have my hands on them, and not getting bitten. Cleaning them up, making them as comfortable as possible so they can get through another season—that's what it's about. And doing as many as possible in one day, and getting them done when we've told their owners we will. So if you're not going to use that muzzle, tell me now—because I can bathe that dog and have it dry by the time you even get it near a crate. We don't train them. We handle them as best we can without getting hurt. Do you get that now?"
For a moment he looked unaffected; she waited for his gaze to grow lidded and hard. Instead his eyebrows drew together to pinch the high, thin bridge of his nose—just for a moment. Then the expression smoothed and he said, "This is killing you, you know. You care too much."
Her eyes widened; deep inside something twisted, and in that moment she hated him. "What an astonishingly personal thing to say," she told him, her own voice as hard as she'd expected from him. Sara the Doberman gave her hand a nudge with a cold nose and offered a whisper of a whine; she put an absent and soothing hand on the dog's head. "Are you going to put that muzzle back on, or should I put Sara back in the crate and do the bath myself?"
/> "I'll use the muzzle," he said, still mild, and had it back on the dog almost before he'd finished speaking.
She didn't know what to say then—thank you might have been good, but she couldn't bring herself to say it. Not when she didn't entirely understand why he was here in the first place, or why he was making this peace overture when he'd also made it so clear how he felt about groomers. Or how quickly, when he wanted to, he could nail down things she knew better even than to think about. You care too much. "He'll try to slip the noose," she muttered, and flipped the dryers on in quick succession so that if he had anything else to say, maybe he wouldn't.
He didn't.
He bathed the dog, toweled it off, and had it drying in the crate by the time she worked out the bulk of Sara's fine, shedding winter coat—even Dobies hid an amazing amount of insulation on their thin-skinned bodies—filled out the paperwork, and returned to the tub room. She found him tossing used towels into the hamper, and she spent a studious few moments adjusting the dryers on each dog—there were never enough, it seemed, especially not with that Husky in the line-up—and finally couldn't avoid turning to him.
"Thank you," she said, looking at his wet knees instead of his face. "That makes my day easier."
"A little shorter, maybe." He shrugged, and she looked up to see a fleeting smile. "Probably not actually easier." He tossed a final towel into the hamper and headed for the door, where he turned long enough to add, "Though I meant for it to."
And left her thinking about it while the door closed in his wake.
Or not thinking about it. She was, she determined right then, far too busy to think about any of it for the rest of the day. She felt a gentle pressure on her leg and looked down to find Druid sitting up on his haunches, one paw cocked up and the other barely touching her—for her attention or for balance or out of concern, she wasn't sure. But he got a big hug all the same.
And then she went on with her day.
A Feral Darkness Page 8
