by Megan Green
Joey nudges my shoulder, temporarily knocking me off balance. My eyes are forced off the man in front of me as I hurry to correct myself before I end up on my ass. When I finally look at Joey, he’s watching me with a puzzled expression.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah, I—” A small movement out of the corner of my eyes catches my attention. I turn as the man removes the sunglasses from his face. Dark chocolate eyes meet mine, and something inside me melts. Now, I’ve never been the type of girl who melts at the sight of a guy. But I’m definitely feeling gooey at the moment.
The man arches his brow. Whatever I was about to say to Joey flies from my mind. This guy can’t be Isaiah. He just can’t. There’s no way I’ll survive the next few months of him coming out here if this is how I’m going to react. He gives me one last, confused look and turns to Joey.
“Is she… you know…simple, or something?”
Simple? What in the hell does that—Oh no. Oh hell no. Whatever horrific paralysis I’d been experiencing evaporates immediately. I square my shoulders, tilting my head back in order to look him square in the eye.
“Excuse me? Who in the hell says shit like that? What if I was developmentally challenged, huh? How would you feel then? Or do you not care about other people’s feelings? Is that too beneath you?”
I poke him in the chest as I berate him. “Unlike some people, I’ve been working in the hot sun for several hours already this morning and haven’t eaten or had anything to drink. So excuse the hell out of me for being a little “out of it” for a second.”
I have no clue what he’s spent his morning doing. For all I know, he’s spent the last few hours fixing a hole in his sweet old neighbor’s roof. But he’s pissed me off with his dickhead remark, so I honestly couldn’t care less. I shove past him with my shoulder, feeling both his and Joey’s gaze on my back as I make my way toward the house.
I trudge up the porch stairs and fling the door shut behind me. Walking straight into the kitchen off the covered porch, I pour myself a glass of water before chugging it in three long gulps. Okay, maybe there was some truth to the dehydration thing. My mind immediately feels a little less fuzzy, and my breathing slows. Yep, I’m going to chalk that whole episode up to dehydration. Lack of water apparently makes me act like a fool.
The door swings open behind me, and Joey enters. I turn, leaning my lower back against the counter. Through the screen, I can see Isaiah waiting out on the enclosed porch. I’m sure he’s scared to come in here after my little display out there. Good. Maybe that’ll make him think twice before asking such asshole questions. Joey leans against the doorframe, smirking at me.
“Go away,” I say, turning back to look out the window over the sink. A large willow tree stands in the center of the yard, covering the entire space with shade. Two blue Adirondack chairs sit under its draping branches, a small table between them, and the book I’d been reading last night perched on the edge. I must’ve forgotten to bring it inside with me. I don’t get a lot of reading time lately, but I was thoroughly enjoying it yesterday. I make a mental note to run out and grab it soon, before a spring storm can destroy it, and I’m unable to finish it.
I feel the weight of Joey’s presence beside me. “Care to explain what that was all about?” he asks, nodding his head toward the front door.
“Nope.”
He waits for me to continue, but it isn’t going to happen. After several moments of silence, he speaks. “Hey, he didn’t mean anything by it. Can we forget it ever happened? Go back to showing him around?”
I blow out a breath. The last thing I want to do is go back out there and confront the man I made a complete fool of myself in front of, but I suppose I must. I’m a professional, after all. All we need is for word to get around I’m psycho. That’ll shut Joey’s dreams of this place being a sort of therapy center down real quick.
“Fine. Let’s go,” I say with a determined push off the counter. I step out onto the wraparound porch and look at Isaiah. Unease clouds his eyes. He looks as if he’s ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble. I briefly laugh at the absurdity of this large man being intimidated by a tiny woman like me, but it passes quickly when he takes another step back at whatever he reads on my face.
“Look, I’m sorry. You caught me on a bad morning. I’m not usually so…unbalanced?” It comes out as a question because I’m not sure exactly how to describe my behavior from a few moments ago.
Isaiah arcs an eyebrow at me. After another few moments of silence, he extends his hand and finally speaks to me.
“Let’s start over. I’m Isaiah, and I’m not normally such an ass. At least, not right out of the gate,” he smiles, his eyes narrowing into a squint with the curve of his lips. I find myself smiling back without even realizing it. “Well, what do you say? Care to try this whole introduction thing again?” he says when I don’t respond. I realize his hand is still hanging in the air, waiting for me to accept it. I tentatively brush my fingers against his.
“Emma,” my voice cracks on the first syllable, and I clear my throat. “Emma Nicholls. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Isaiah.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” he responds with the same heart stopping smile from a moment ago. Good lord, this man. He’s almost too pretty to look at. And he knows it. I can see it painted across his cocky expression. His snide smile. The way his eyes dance over me. He knows the sort of effect he has on women, and I’m falling right into his trap.
I quickly drop his hand and gesture back inside the house. “Would you like to take a look around? Joey is still in the kitchen so we can start there. Then he and I can show you around the rest of the house and property, see what you think of the place.”
He nods and opens the screen door for me. Joey is sitting at the kitchen table, a glass of the lemonade I made this morning in front of him. I offer some to Isaiah, and the two men down their glasses in a few swallows.
We spend the next hour walking around the house and property. Joey does most of the talking, explaining to Isaiah the different training courses we have set up and the benefits of each. Isaiah nods along with his words, seemingly genuinely interested in what we do. I take that as a good sign. I interject every so often, especially when stories of previous dogs we’ve trained come up. I can’t resist telling my favorites.
“In our last litter, we had a little girl that was the clumsiest puppy ever. Sweet as could be, but no matter how much we tried, she could not grasp the concept of jumping over this bar,” I say as we come to the agility course. “She’d duck under it every time. And once, when we brought her back to try again, she got so confused she grabbed onto the bar and took off running with it. Watching Joey chase down a tiny puppy with a gigantic bar in her mouth was the highlight of that whole month.”
Isaiah laughs as Joey recounts the experience from his point of view. To hear him tell it, poor little Luna was Satan herself, but I know he loved that dog, and after several long, tiring months, she finally got the hang of it. She’s the only dog we’ve trained that hasn’t gone to a wounded veteran. We placed her with a sweet little girl named Katie who suffered from seizures.
The trill of Joey’s phone interrupts him mid-sentence as he tells Isaiah more about the training course. He pulls it from his pocket, glances at the screen, and quickly excuses himself before taking the call. I know it must be important for him to skip out on a tour of the grounds. He looks at me briefly before walking away, and I nod, letting him know I’ll be okay alone with Isaiah for a moment.
I pick up a few words as he stalks off toward the house. I hear the words “veteran” and “PTSD” and know it must be someone Beth referred to us. I turn back to Isaiah, unsure of how to continue. I shift my weight from foot to foot as we stand here in silence. I need to do something soon before this turns awkward.
Inspiration hits me. “Oh! Let’s go see the dogs while we wait,” I say this with far too much excitement, but I’m grateful for the distraction, and the kennels a
re one place I’m one hundred percent in my element. It’ll be good for Isaiah to see I’m not always a bumbling fool.
He follows close behind me as I make my way to the kennels. As I approach, a chorus of tiny puppy barks fill the air, as if they can sense my proximity. I open the door to the kennel and am immediately accosted by five of the cutest little fuzzballs around.
I fall to my knees, eagerly petting each one. Isaiah lingers near the door, a look of apprehension on his face. Jasper discovers Isaiah’s presence first, taking a few tentative steps toward him. He sniffs around Isaiah’s shoes for a moment before gently lifting his front legs and placing his paws against Isaiah’s leg. Isaiah freezes. His entire body locks up, and his eyes dart to mine, a pleading look on his face.
“Jasper, down.” The puppy drops to the ground and scampers back to his brothers and sisters. I push myself off my knees, dusting my hands on my pants to clear the residual fur and dirt. “You okay?” I ask when I see Isaiah still looking doubtingly at the dogs.
He nods. “Not much of a dog person, I’m afraid.”
My mouth falls open. “Well, you might be in the wrong place then, don’t you think? We’re all about dogs here. Dogs and soldiers.”
That came out a bit more harshly than I had intended, but I don’t apologize. He needs to know up front there isn’t much for him to do here other than work with the dogs. So if that’s not something he’s willing to do, this might not be the place for him.
He nods. “I know, and I told Beth that, but she thinks this will be a ‘good experience’ for me. I promised her I’d try it for a week. After that, I’m free to go.”
My eyes narrow. That’s not at all the kind of attitude I like to see in someone who’s going to be working with my dogs. The others might have been skeptical at first. Nobody seems to understand the healing powers of a dog until they see it firsthand. But this… this sounds like he’s already convinced he’ll be leaving at the end of the week. From his words, and from what I know about Beth from Joey, there has to be a reason she sent him here. The guarded expression I can so clearly see in his eyes now as he looks at me surrounded by the dogs only further solidifies my conclusion. Something happened to this man. Something has caused him to close himself off from everyone. Even something as gentle as a dog. And like that, my mind is made up. I’m going to help Isaiah Wright.
I’m going to help him find whatever it is he’s so obviously lost.
“So this is Lucy,” Emma says as she picks up a tiny dog and thrusts it toward me. My arms instinctively move to grab what is being proffered before I can stop them. She shoves the dog into my hands before turning to grab another. I hold it, arms outstretched, at a total loss on what I’m supposed to do now.
The dog’s jaw drops open, almost giving it the appearance of grinning at me as it dangles from my hands. She lets out a tiny little yip as she wiggles. I have to pull her into my body before I lose my grip on her soft fur and drop her. At the contact, she snuggles her head against my neck and gives me a little lick.
“Aww, she likes you,” Emma says as she turns around, holding two more dogs. “This is Max,” she says, bouncing the dog in her right hand gently, “and this is Zoey,” she adds before repeating the motion with the dog in her left. “You’ve already met Jasper,” she says with a nod to the puppy who’s currently tugging on my shoelace. “And this little guy,” she says, putting Max and Zoey down before turning to the fifth dog, “is Loki.” She reaches for him, and the dog scampers back behind a large pile of wood. She falls to her knees and coos to him. “C’mon, buddy. Come here. Come see me.” A tiny paw appears from behind the stack, and the dog peers around it timidly before finally stepping out. She quickly picks him up before he has a chance to dash behind it again.
“He’s a little shy,” she says as she smooths her cheek against the dog’s face.
“Loki?” I ask, quirking an eyebrow at her.
“Yep. He may be tiny and timid now. But I have a feeling we’re going to see great things from this little guy,” she smiles as she kisses the top of his head.
“You realize Loki was the bad guy, right?”
“Pfft,” she waves a hand at me. “I like to think he’s just misunderstood. And besides, Loki is a much cuter name for a dog than Thor. Thor belongs to like a Mastiff or Great Dane or something. Some big, intimidating sort of dog. Not my sweet little buddy here.”
She smothers the dog with kisses again, and it’s clear to me he’s her favorite. He’s the smallest of the five dogs, obviously the runt of the litter. Emma must have a thing for the underdog. I laugh to myself at my incredibly lame joke.
She sets the puppy down, and I take advantage of her open arms to deposit Lucy into them. Emma gives me a quizzical look, but doesn’t say anything before wrangling all five dogs into their kennel. It isn’t until then I notice the older dog laying on a pillow in the back.
“That’s Maggie,” Emma says when she sees where my attention is. “She’s their mother and my pride and joy.” A look of complete happiness spreads across her face as she looks at the mature dog. I don’t think I’ve ever looked at something with that much love in my eyes in my life. Certainly not a living something. I briefly wonder what it must feel like to have that much happiness in your heart over another living creature before I shut down that thought. That’s dangerous territory. And I’m not venturing there in front of this girl I just met.
Joey returns, saving me from Emma’s expectant look as she waits for me to say something about the dogs.
“Sorry about that, man. Good news though. We might be getting another vet out here with us. So it’ll be a little more evenly matched. Four humans, five dogs. I think we may have a shot at winning this war,” he says with a wink to Emma, and she groans.
“You and your dumb battle analogies. They’re puppies, not terrorists.”
“Tell that to Jasper. That dog is going to be the death of me.”
“Always so dramatic,” she laughs.
After that, I make my excuses and say my goodbyes. Joey walks me to my truck, asking what time I’ll be back tomorrow. I almost tell him to forget it, that this isn’t my scene. But then I remember my promise to Beth and her unfair use of Jim to coerce me to come out here. Jim really could use a dog like this. It’s the least I can do for him to put myself out for a week in hopes of convincing them to place one of these dogs with him.
“How about nine?” I ask.
He nods. “That’ll be fine. That gives us some time to get them fed and ready to go. We’ll see you then.” He claps me on the shoulder before heading into the house.
I climb behind the wheel of my truck and turn the ignition. My thoughts race as I execute a three point turn in order to head back down the driveway. What the hell am I going to do with five dogs for the next week? I’ll be lucky if I don’t accidentally kill one of them. Then Emma would definitely think I was the worst person on earth. Though, by the look she gave me when I told her I wasn’t a dog person, I’m pretty sure she already does.
My gaze shifts to my rear view mirror as I make my way off the property. There, leaning against the door to the kennel with her arms crossed firmly in front of her, is Emma. She stares at my truck as it cruises down the gravel. And before she turns and heads inside again, I swear I see the faintest smile cross her lips. A sudden sense of foreboding washes over me. I’m in trouble.
“Sorry, man, but I don’t see the problem here,” Kevin says as he wipes the countertop in front of him. I’ve just finished telling him about my day out at Keen Komrades.
“The problem is, brother, I hate dogs. And people. And most especially, dog people.”
Kevin laughs at my tone when I say the words ‘dog people.’ “So you play with some dogs for a few weeks. What’s the big deal? Maybe it’ll soften that callous heart of yours,” he says, tossing the rag at me. I lift my hand to catch it before it smacks me in the face.
Kevin moves to the other end of the bar to take care of a customer, and I take in
the scene around me. It’s busy tonight, like usual. Kev’s been managing this place for the last four years, since our parents retired and moved to Florida. Our mom loved to cook, and our dad always loved tending bar and being his own boss. Thus, The Wright Taste was founded. They’d started the restaurant-slash-bar in their late twenties, and over the last thirty years, it’s become a staple in our small North Carolina town. Natives know it’s where you’ll find the town’s best pulled pork sandwich. And the tourists love our nautical theme and the fact the patio overlooks the beach. The place is always packed, even on a Monday night like tonight.
Growing up, Kevin always loved spending his free time here. He’d shadow Mom around when he was little, helping out with whatever she’d let him. As he got older, he moved on to bussing tables and eventually on to waiting them. And at night, Dad would teach him his bartending tips and tricks, passing along his coveted recipe for his signature drink, Wright Stuff. To this day, I still don’t know what they put in it. They keep that shit locked up tighter than the Pentagon. So when my parents decided to take an early retirement and head south, Kevin was the obvious choice to take over. I’d never had the passion he had for the place. While he was full of ambition, I was full of hormones. The only dreams I had any interest in chasing were of the female variety.
The military changed all that for me though. I was one of those punk kids who had no clue what to do after high school. I had friends who were enlisting, and it seemed like an honorable profession. And if I’m honest, the main reason I joined was because of the uniform. I’d seen the way girls went crazy over it. I thought it’d be an easy way to get girls into my bed.
What I got though… what I got was a wakeup call. The first few weeks of boot camp were some of the worst days of my life. I thought I was going to die. My drill sergeant was the biggest son of a bitch on Earth. Nothing I did was ever good enough for him. He yelled at me pretty much non-stop for three weeks. I’d never hated the sound of my own name as much as I did in those early days. But I’ve never been so grateful to a person in my life. He whipped my sorry ass into shape. He knocked me flat on my ass and straight up told me what a little shit I was. He taught me respect. He taught me humility. And most importantly, he taught me leadership. It was because of him I found my place in the world. The thing I was most passionate about—being a true leader to my men, earning their trust and respect. Ensuring their safety… until I failed.
