by Lisa Jackson
Hurrying to her car, Kacey barely noticed. The chill of winter knifed through her coat, and by the time she was behind the steering wheel, she was shivering. Before backing out of a parking space, she cranked the heater to its highest setting and hit the button for her favorite radio station. “Silver Bells,” sung by a country music duo she didn’t recognize, wafted through the speakers while her teeth chattered. Even through her gloves, the steering wheel felt like ice, and the Christmas spirit eluded her.
Despite the sluggish traffic she reached the animal shelter in about fifteen minutes, just about the time the interior of the car had heated to someplace north of frigid.
The door was locked, so she rounded the corner to the attached veterinary clinic. A chorus of yips and barks greeted her as she walked inside the barnlike building, where the smell of urine wasn’t quite masked by the scent of pine cleaner, and a bell mounted over the door tinkled. The canine cacophony came through an open doorway behind the reception area.
A girl, barely out of her teens, stood behind a long counter, where she was tallying the receipts for the day. “Can I help you?” she asked. With kinky brown hair and braces, she put her paperwork aside and her impish face pulled into an expression of confusion. “Are. . are you here to pick up your pet?”
“No, no. I was hoping to see the dogs that are up for adoption.”
“Oh, uh, sure.” The girl glanced at the round clock mounted over the back doorway, a gesture intended to remind Kacey of the late hour. “Sure, uh, all the dogs are in the back. You’ll need to fill out these forms.” She found a packet of papers titled ADOPTION APPLICATION and slid the stapled pages and a pen across the counter, then continued with her work.
As Kacey was filling out the paperwork, a slim woman appeared in the open archway behind the reception area. Her long black hair was clipped at her nape, and her tawny skin and bladed cheekbones hinted at her Native American heritage. Kacey recognized her as the local vet, Jordan Eagle.
“Amber,” she said, bustling into the reception area in her lab coat, “I just got a call from Trace O’Halleran. He’s bringing in his dog, an emergency of some kind, and he should be here within ten minutes.”
O’Halleran was coming here? Ridiculously, Kacey’s heart skipped a stupid beat as Amber, shoulders slumped, sighed and slid another look at the clock. She frowned. “But I have—”
“Please just stay until he gets here. Then I’ll lock up.” The vet was stern, and Amber gave an agonized, acquiescing shrug.
“Fine.”
“Go ahead and finish up the receipts for the day, and you can leave as soon as the injured dog is brought in.” Jordan Eagle’s gaze moved to Kacey and the forms she’d begun completing. “You’re looking to adopt?” Her face softened a tad.
Nodding, Kacey introduced herself, then explained, “I don’t think I’m interested in a puppy, but I would like a medium-sized dog, one that’s housebroken and good with kids and other animals.” For just a second she remembered her fears that someone had been in her house and the reasons she’d decided, despite all her arguments against it, to find a dog. “I’m interested in a dog that seems a little more intimidating than he really is. One that will bark if there’s an intruder, but not attack a neighbor kid on a bike or go out of his head barking at squirrels running along the roof.”
The vet actually smiled. “Oh, you only want the perfect pet.”
“That would be nice. Yeah.”
As she closed the till, Amber rolled her eyes.
If her boss noticed, she ignored the girl’s passive-aggressive attitude. Cocking her head toward the archway behind the desk, Jordan added, “Come on through the back way and let me introduce you to Bonzi.”
Amber immediately perked up. “Oh. . Bonzi! He’s the best!”
“That he is. Buzz me when the O’Halleran dog gets here,” she instructed, then said to Kacey, “This way.” With quick, sharp footsteps she led the way, whisking Kacey through a labyrinth of rooms. “Unfortunately, we’ve got a lot of dogs right now,” the vet said, frowning as she led Kacey past an examination room, then a surgery station and an area with deep sinks where the animals were bathed.
A few cats and dogs who were under the vet’s care watched from their cages as Jordan swept into another hallway to another part of the connected buildings, where the animals for adoption were kept.
At the sound of the door opening, a cacophony of barks and yips echoed to the rafters. “An enthusiastic lot,” the vet said. They walked into a large room with several rows of kennels. “This is where we keep the animals that aren’t being foster-cared,” Jordan explained. “After they’re given a health exam and their vaccinations. This is meant to be a temporary spot. We always try to place all the adoptable animals with foster families before they find their forever home, but right now we’re on overload.” She walked along a short aisle, touching a few wet noses pressed toward her. “I’d adopt them all if I could, but… we do what we can. Here we go. This is Bonzi, breed undetermined, a regular Heinz Fifty-seven though if I had to guess, I’d say, probably boxer, pit bull and, oh, maybe a ridgeback somewhere back in his lineage. He’s about three or four, and docile and sweet, though his bark is pretty scary. Hey, there, Bonz,” she said, opening the cage and snapping a leash on him. “This way.” She patted the dog’s broad head as she snapped on the lead, then walked to another area, an expansive room where the dogs were obviously exercised.
Bonzi’s short coat was the color of warm caramel, and each of his paws was splashed with white to give him the appearance of wearing four white stockings of differing sizes. But it was his eyes that she noticed most. Dark brown and wise and kind.
He stood as tall as her knee.
“This is medium sized?” she asked.
“Well, on the large end of medium,” the vet admitted. “Not quite eighty pounds.”
Despite the fact that he was about forty more pounds of dog than she’d expected, Kacey was smitten. Bonzi was calm and friendly, with a whiplike tail that Kacey was sure could clear a coffee table.
“His owners had to give him up because of a divorce… and now separate apartments with restrictions on pets. It’s a bad situation, and they hated to leave him, but they had no choice. The good news is that he spent the first couple of years of his life with another, smaller dog, two cats, and a little girl. Gentle with all. The family struggled giving him up but just couldn’t keep him.” A bell sounded, Bonzi gave out a deep, sharp bark, and the doctor said, “That’s my patient!”
Trace O’Halleran’s injured dog. Without thinking, Kacey looked toward the door leading to the animal hospital.
“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. Amber will come and put Bonzi back before you leave, and if you want to adopt him, give me a call tomorrow.”
“Oh, I want him,” she said, but Jordan was already gone, her footsteps fading and a door opening and closing behind her. Kacey eyed the “medium-sized” dog and sat down on the cement floor. “Okay, Bonzi. So what’s your story?”
In response the dog yawned, showing a mouthful of huge teeth, then sighing, circled, lay down beside her, and placed his head upon her crossed leg. She scratched his ears, and he sighed through his nose, his wise eyes staring up at her.
Guard dog? She doubted it, though his bark was definitely unsettling, and when she thought of an intruder stalking the halls of her house, she knew she’d feel a lot safer with the dog in her house. Anyway, the decision was already made. With his heavy jaw upon her thigh, Kacey knew she’d be with this almost eighty-pounder for the rest of his life.
CHAPTER 17
The last person Trace O’Halleran expected to emerge from the back rooms of the veterinary clinic where he waited with his boy for the diagnosis on his battered dog was Doctor Acacia Lambert. But there she was, big as life, her eyes as inquisitive as he remembered, her face just as beautiful.
And it pissed him off that he even noticed.
“Hi,” she said, a bit of a smile teasing her
full lips as she let her gaze stray from him to his son. “How’re you, Eli? Taking care of that arm?” She had to have passed the vet on her way out, had to have seen his wounded dog, and her concerned face spoke volumes.
“Sarge is hurt!” Eli blurted, his small face pulled into a knot of worry, just the way it had been since the dog had stumbled into the house, one leg bleeding and slashed to the bone.
“I, uh, saw,” she said softly, “but he’s with Dr. Eagle, and she’s a pretty darned good vet.” She knelt down next to Eli but glanced up at Trace. “What happened?”
“Don’t really know. Looks like Sarge was on the losing end of a fight with God knows what. Maybe a bear or raccoon, even a cougar, I suppose. He was with me when I did the afternoon chores and then went nosing around like he always does. I called for him and waited, went back to the house to relieve the woman who looks after Eli here, and just as I started out to look for him, he came dragging back.” His jaw tightened as he remembered first seeing Sarge limping and bleeding on the snow-packed trail to the back door. He felt like hell for the dog and worse yet for his kid, who was blinking against a tide of unshed tears. Like he was grown up or something. It killed Trace. More than a little. “We called the vet.”
“ ’Cuz he’s hurt real bad.” Eli’s face was red; his lower lip quivering. “He can’t die!”
“Let’s not go there,” Trace said gently.
“Miss Wallis died!”
“I know.” Boy, did he know. It had been one helluva devastating week for all of them.
“But Sarge is a fighter.”
“Dr. Eagle will do her best to fix him up,” Kacey concurred.
“He won’t die, will he?”
She squeezed his good hand. “I don’t know. We have to just wait and see.” Glancing up at Trace, she said, “Why don’t I take Eli over to Dino’s and get him a pizza or something? Then, when you’re done here, you could come over.”
Since Dino’s Italian Pizzeria was just across the street, the doctor’s idea made sense, he supposed. Until they knew the extent of Sarge’s injuries, there was just no reason for Eli to wait and worry. And if it came down to actually having to euthanize the dog, Trace wanted to handle it his own way. Better for Eli not to witness that decision. “I guess that would be okay,” he said, knowing that Eli liked the woman doctor. “What do you think?” he asked his son.
Eli looked up at Kacey, and she took his small hand in her own. “How about we pick out our ice cream even before we order the pizza?”
“Can we eat it first?” Eli asked.
“Well. .” She looked at Trace.
“Knock yourself out. I’ll be right there,” Trace answered, and they headed out the door together.
A blast of wintry air swept into the room, and the tiny bell over the doorjamb jingled, announcing their departure.
Through the front windows Trace watched as Kacey bustled his son across the street. She glanced up and down the snowy street, then over her shoulder, her forehead wrinkling with concern.
About the nearly nonexistent traffic?
Or was there something more in her quick scan of the area?
Don’t borrow trouble. She’s just being cautious, for crying out loud.
What was important was the way she guided his boy gently onto the sidewalk. For a second Trace’s stupid heart twisted as he realized his son’s own mother had never seemed so concerned about Eli’s welfare.
Then again, Leanna hadn’t been a prize as far as mothers went.
Funny, he thought as he watched Kacey open the door to the restaurant, whose modern style was at odds with the overall Western theme of the town. The pizzeria’s storefront was all windows, now decorated for the season with painted snowmen and snowwomen skating, hoisting pizzas on their shoulders across a sea of glass. It was eerie how much Kacey reminded him of Leanna. An odd, almost sinister sensation slithered down his spine and burrowed coldly in his gut at the comparison. Hadn’t there been that same thought with Jocelyn Wallis?
Weird, he told himself, bugged at the turn of his own thoughts as the door to the back room opened and Jordan Eagle, her expression grave, returned to the reception area.
“It’s bad,” he said before she could open her mouth and say one word about Sarge’s condition.
“Well, at least not good.”
“Are we gonna lose him?”
“I don’t think so, but I’m not sure about his leg. The tendons and muscles are pretty mangled.” Her dark, honest gaze held his as she explained that she wanted to do surgery, to mend as much as she could.
“Do what you can,” Trace said. He’d grown up on a farm, seen animals suffer, others die, knew his old man had “put down” more than his share on his own, with his rifle or pistol, depending. Death was just a part of life. Trace accepted it. But he was thankful Sarge was going to pull through. He didn’t want Eli to face losing the dog. Not yet. Not when he’d already been abandoned by his mother and just learned about his teacher’s death.
“Do what you can,” he repeated to the veterinarian.
“It could get expensive.”
His jaw tightened. “Just keep me posted.”
“I will.”
“Thanks.” He squared his hat on his head and made his way out the door.
In his mind’s eye he saw the dog, wrapped in a blanket, usually bright eyes dulled with pain as he lay beneath Eli’s short legs on the floor of the pickup. Damn, he hoped the mutt pulled through. Hands buried in his pockets, Trace jaywalked across the street, then peered through the glass doors of the pizzeria, where a Friday night crowd of patrons sat on benches surrounding long tables littered with half-eaten pizza pies and near-empty pitchers of beer.
Kacey had lifted Eli off his feet so that he could get a better view of the ice cream in the display case. Nearby a couple of grade-school girls in skinny jeans and oversized sweatshirts were discussing the options.
He pushed the door open, and the niggling sensation that something wasn’t quite right followed after him into the noisy restaurant. The air was thick with conversation and the scents of oregano and tomato sauce, warm bread and beer. A bevy of teenagers cleaned tables and waited at the counter, where a man in his seventies, sporting a thick gray mustache, striped shirt, and black pants, barked orders, manned the kegs and wine bottles, and kept an eagle eye on the cash register all at the same time.
As if by a sixth sense, Eli heard the door open. His head jerked up, and he twisted around, spying his father. Sliding out of Kacey’s arms, the boy hit the floor running. “Is Sarge okay?” he asked anxiously, his small face tight with concern.
“So far, so good, but he needs surgery.” Trace swung his son into his arms. “Dr. Eagle is doing her best.”
“You left him.” Tears puddled in his son’s accusing eyes. Embarrassed, Eli tried to swipe them away with the fingers poking out of his blue cast.
“Just for the night. The doc said she’d give us a call tomorrow.”
“But he’ll be okay?”
“As far as I know.”
“Can I see him?” Eli asked as a heavyset girl behind the pickup area spoke into a microphone. Her voice rang through the barnlike building. “Forty-seven. Brown party. Forty-seven.”
“Can I see Sarge?” Eli repeated.
“Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see.”
Eli wanted to argue; Trace saw it in his boy’s eyes, so he tried to derail the endless questions. “What do you say we get dinner?”
“She said I could have ice cream!” Eli swung his casted arm toward Kacey.
“That’s right,” she answered smartly. “And I think you wanted Christmas Cookie Swirl, right?”
“Yeah!”
“Sounds. . interesting,” Trace said.
“Delicious,” Kacey proclaimed. “You just can’t go wrong with Oreo cookies, peppermint flakes, and mint ice cream. Yumm-o!” Her green eyes glinted with humor. “I think I’ll get a double scoop!”
“Me, too!” Eli shimmied from Trace
’s arms and raced back to the barrels of ice cream.
“Thirty-nine,” a girl with a deep voice intoned. “Rosenberg party. Thirty-nine.” An athletic-looking teenager pushed away from a table of friends and headed for the pickup area, her long blond ponytail bouncing behind her.
“How about you?” Kacey asked, looking up at him. “Double scoop? Triple?”
“Uh. . maybe I’ll settle for a beer.”
Her smile widened as they reached the counter near the ice cream barrels. “With your cone, right?”
“How ’bout with a Meat Lovers’ Special?” He hitched his chin toward the overhead menu, beneath which a skinny kid with bad skin, a shaved head, and thick glasses waited, ice cream scoop in hand, for them to order as the two girls in skinny jeans drifted off toward a round table.
Trace said, “I’ll buy.”
She was reading the menu. “Or we could order half a Meat Lovers’ Special and half a Veggie Delite and split the bill.”
“Only if you can eat half a pie yourself.”
“Half a pie and a double scoop,” she assured him.
He felt one corner of his mouth twitch. “Tell ya what. I’ll arm wrestle ya for the bill.”
“Don’t,” Eli warned her. “My dad’s the strongest ever.”
“Is he now?” She was smiling more broadly now. “Well, I guess we’ll see about that.” To Eli she confided, “I’m pretty strong, too.”
“Nah!” Eli shook his head. “Not like my dad!”
“Uh-huh.” She winked. “Only tougher.”
The kid behind the counter was getting antsy. “Can I get you something?”
“We’ll have two double scoops of Christmas Cookie Swirl in. . waffle cones.” She looked at Eli, who was nodding rapidly.
“And sprinkles!”
Kacey chuckled. “And sprinkles.” She cast a glance at Trace. “And?” Her dark eyebrows arched, and he noticed how thick her eyelashes were, how the green of her eyes shifted in the light. “For you?”
