Identity of the Heart (A Hidden Hearts Novel Book 1)

by Mary Crawford

  The enormity of the challenge ahead of me hits me as I unlock my front gate. My cute little Jeep convertible is parked in the driveway. It’s a daunting reminder that I am far over my head. After my Chevy Chevelle died in the middle of the interstate, Tristan and Rogue surprised me for my birthday and got me a vehicle. Neither of them thought that it was extraordinary to buy someone a car for their birthday — which at that was bizarre, especially since Rogue used to object every time Tristan spent any money on her, but I guess having an engagement ring on your finger changes everything. Still, it’s hard to be cynical when I’m the beneficiary of their generosity. I look down at Hope. Her wounds are still seeping and even if they weren’t, I’m not sure she has the agility to climb all the way up into my vehicle because I’m not sure how much she hurts right now. Even if I can get her into the Jeep, I’m not sure where I would take her.

  I look up animal hospitals on my phone and only one facility is open this early on a Sunday but it’s several miles away. I cross my fingers and hope that I can get her into my vehicle. Hope seems to sense my nerves. She rests her head against my thigh and lets out a big sigh. I reached down to pet her and am once again horrified by the duct tape on her muzzle. I decide that I can’t wait any longer and I tie Hope to my roll cage while I run into the house to get my car keys.

  Fortunately for me, the concept of a car ride does not seem foreign to Hope. She hops right in to my Jeep and asserts herself as my copilot as she happily sticks her head out the window. I guess it’s a good thing that my vehicle is dog friendly. I reach over to pet Hope and I’m dismayed when my hand encounters a fresh trickle of blood. I know that my grandpa preaches that all sin is forgivable, but I sometimes wonder if they should be. Right now I’m not feeling like I should leave the vengeance to the Lord, if you know what I mean.

  “MITCH, I THINK YOU ought to come see what just pulled into the parking lot,” Stuart yells across the warehouse where we keep all the extra bedding.

  Something in his tone warns me that he’s up to something, so I ask, “Are you asking me to evaluate something with two legs or four?”

  “Well, buddy I think that might be the question of the day,” Stuart quips. Then he turns serious as he says, “For the moment though, I think the one with four legs needs the most urgent attention, and if the one with two legs is responsible for the condition of the one with four legs, then you can kiss the one with two legs goodbye.”

  I’ve worked with dogs long enough, it only takes me a matter of seconds to size up the situation and when I do, my rage kicks in to high gear. Before I can fully engage my brain, I take off into a dead sprint and run toward the sport utility vehicle.

  “Ugh! That’s not what I meant!” Stuart calls after me. “What is it about these dogs that makes you lose your ever loving mind?” he says as he jogs behind me.

  When I reach the Jeep, I’m so anxious to reach the dog that I practically rip the hinges off the door. I want to kick my own butt. I know better. I could’ve just completely freaked out the dog.

  The woman occupant of the car shrieks in surprise at my abrupt intrusion. I hear a strange huffing noise and a growl unlike any I’ve heard. Like a shape shifter from the movies, the shepherd mix which had been casually looking out the window moments before is now fiercely standing over her and challenging me to take one step closer.

  “Call your dog off!” I command as I freeze in place not wanting to agitate the dog any further. Every indication of that dog’s body language shows that if I make one false move, I could be spending the night at the hospital being treated for severe dog bites. That certainly is not my idea of fun. I’ve done it before; I just don’t want to do it today. As we have our silent stare down, I take the opportunity to study the dog’s predicament a little more closely. What I see makes me angrier by the second.

  “Listen, it looks like your dog might have some issues with aggression, but that’s not the way you take care of it. Haven’t you ever heard of obedience training? I ought to call the police and have you arrested on the spot,” I threaten.

  As the volume of my voice increases with each word, the body language of the German Shepherd grows more tense. From behind me, I hear Stuart caution, “Buddy, don’t you think you ought to at least hear her side of the story?”

  “Well, the dog can’t exactly tell me her side of the story, so the interview would be rather skewed, do you think?” I say rather sarcastically.

  The color starts to come back into the woman’s face as she turns to talk to Stuart, “I guess I’ll talk to you since you seem to be the only person inclined to listen to me. You’re welcome to call the police on me if you want to. I don’t really have anything to hide. I came here because I thought you all might want to help. Maybe I was wrong. If you aren’t going to treat her any better than you’re treating me, I guess I’ll just keep driving until I find somebody that does.”

  Stuart starts to apologize, “I’m sorry, ma’am—”

  I’m not ready to give up quite that easily; there’s something about this that isn’t quite right. “You’re going to have a hard time going anywhere else since your dog isn’t trained well enough to get off your lap so that you can reach your steering wheel,” I observe.

  The woman gathers her stunning red hair in a ponytail and twists it before tying her hair in one big knot at the base of her neck. She rubs her shoulder as if it’s sore. She mutters to herself, “Oh for God’s sake — it’s too early for this kind of garbage.” She blows a puff of air out the side of her mouth and removes her aviator sunglasses.

  As far as I’m concerned, she should never wear those shades again. I know that this is Florida, and the shades probably have some good UVA protection and all that, but they are really doing humanity a disservice by hiding her face. As soon as I see her, I almost forget why I’m so furious with her — that is — until she speaks.

  “I’d be happy to call this dog off, except I don’t really even know her real name or why she’s doing this. My only guess is because you scared the bee-jeebies out of me and she didn’t care for your tone. In case you’d bothered to ask, I could’ve told you that I brought Hope here to be rescued.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t know her name —” I accuse.

  “Are you always this rude, or am I getting some bizarre two-for-one special today?” she asks with a deep scowl.

  “Don’t mind my friend here, somebody took the prize out of the bottom of his Lucky Charms box this morning,” Stuart says with a wink. “Why don’t you explain to us how you came to find out Hope’s name?” he suggests.

  “Well, first of all, I have real doubts about whether that’s her real name or not. As far as I know, she’s only had that moniker for less than a two hours. I gave it to her because she looked so gosh-darn-hopeful that something good was going to happen in her life for a change.”

  “How did you end up with her?” I press. “She looks mighty comfortable with you and pretty protective.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know about that. I was just minding my own business feeding hummingbirds in my backyard at about five o’clock this morning when I thought I recognized a car which has been causing some problems in our neighborhood. After it left, I thought I heard some weird noises. I went to investigate. I didn’t have any shoes on so I had to go back to the house. By that time, I lost complete track of her and it took me a bit to find her. I couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t crying like a normal dog.”

  “That was a really dangerous situation. You should’ve called in professionals,” I lecture. “She could have been really sick or something. You never know.”

  “What good would it have done me to call in the professionals? You would’ve just threatened to call the police on me again,” she replies pointedly.

  I feel my face grow hot. She’s right; I did jump to every wrong conclusion I possibly could have. “How did you get her to trust you so quickly?” I ask, unable to contain my curiosity.

  She just rolls her eyes at
me as she asks Stuart, “Did he forget to eat his Lucky Charms too? It seems to me that he might be lacking in some brain food or maybe it’s because he’s eaten too many Lucky Charms over the course of his lifetime and they’ve caused permanent damage.”

  Stuart just chuckles and shrugs. So much for being my ex-college roommate and former best friend.

  The little spitfire looks at me and says, “I’m going to go over this one more time with you. Maybe, after that you can actually focus on treating Hope. Are you ready? This is not my dog. Before about two hours ago, I had never seen her. I know nothing about her. I found her this way under someone’s hedge. I walked her to my car using my student ID as a leash. She is incredibly mellow in the car. She seems to like the name Hope — as much as a dog can like a name. She doesn’t particularly care for grey cars or loud stereos. That’s the grand total of everything I know about this dog. Oh wait… I know something else… Someone treated this dog like crap and they deserve to have the absolute shit beat out of them. Someone should tape their mouth shut so they can’t scream and set their ass on fire. Of course, that’s only my personal opinion.”

  She gently rubs Hope’s ears and murmurs, “I know you were trying to protect me, baby, but I need you to get out of my personal space because you’re squishing me. So, out please.”

  Hope briefly lays her head on the woman’s shoulder as if to apologize and then goes back to the passenger seat as if nothing happened.

  The women looks up at me and says, “Well, I guess I know one more thing —”

  “Yeah? What’s that?” I ask.

  “She responds to the command out,” she answers with a cheeky smirk.

  I can’t help but answer with a smile of my own as I say, “I think you’re probably correct. It’ll be interesting to see if she knows anything else. Let’s take her inside to an exam room and see if we can figure out what else is going on with her. Can you and I start over? I’m sorry I jumped to all sorts of incorrect assumptions. I’ve just become a little jaded I guess. I’m used to people giving me all sorts of excuses and not enough truth.”

  A sad faraway look comes crosses her face as she says, “True. Very true.”

  I extend my hand for her to shake as I introduce myself properly as I should have done from the start, “Hi, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Mitch Campbell. I don’t usually work here, but they sometimes have me volunteer when they are short staffed. I am here so often, they forget that I’m not actually on the payroll.”

  I watch in fascination as a blush creeps up from her neck all the way to her hairline. I didn’t think I said anything all that controversial. Suddenly she stammers, “Mitch, if I almost started to explain to you how small the universe is right now, you would never believe it — even in a million years.”

  Stuart and I look at each other and then back at the mystery woman. For the first time today, she looks more than a little nervous. The playful bravado that was there just a few minutes ago seems to have completely vanished. To be honest, her reaction is freaking me out just a little. Now, I’m beginning to wonder of my first reaction to the situation was more accurate than my second. When this all started to unfold, I figured she had something to hide. Now, I wonder if I was spot on. Her body language is suddenly very closed off and quite frankly she looks mildly embarrassed.

  “What in the world are you talking about?” I demand feeling defensive again.

  “Well, let me put it this way — of all the ways I anticipated meeting you, this definitely wasn’t one of them. I thought that I would get the chance to get all dressed up looking fierce, like a million dollars — not in my most disgusting Sunday morning I’m-down-to-my-last-pair-but-that’s-okay-because-no-one’s-going-to-see me-today wardrobe.”

  “Who are you? And why do you think that we would meet — like ever —?”I ask warily.

  “I don’t know that you would even recognize my name, you interacted mostly with my roommate. However, our mutual friends have been trying to persuade us to get together for more than a couple of years now. I guess maybe fate decided to take a hand.” She extends her hand to me and says, “These aren’t the circumstances in which I’d hoped to meet, but my name is Jessica Lynn Walker. You probably know me better as Ivy Montclaire’s former roommate.”

  To all the people who have

  overcome seemingly insurmountable

  fear and accomplished the impossible.

  To all those standing in the wings who help

  make those dreams possible.

  Leaving the stifling environment of the rental car, I stand and stretch. Give me a crowded subway any day—at least I don’t have to drive. Still, as I look around at the tall pine trees surrounding me, I spot a field of wilting sunflowers. I can’t believe it’s fall and everything isn’t buried in snow and concrete. As I take a deep breath of crisp clean autumn air, I decide Oregon isn’t completely without charm. I’m not sure I’d want to live here, but it’s a nice place to visit.

  I peek into the darkness of the big red barn and yell to my sister, “Heather, I don’t understand why you had to move to the middle of nowhere. I mean, Oregon is nice and all, but you can get perfectly good greenery at a florist which doesn’t have bugs. Do I even want to know what all this dirt is doing to your shoes?”

  I’m immediately accosted by a spider-web. I love Charlotte’s Web as much as the next girl, but come on…farm life is not really the utopia I was led to believe as a child. I still can’t wrap my brain around the fact my somewhat over-the-top stylish big sister has chosen this quiet, rural life. Last I knew, she pretty much hated the whole animal kingdom. Okay to be fair, she didn’t really hate them; she was just so scared of them she wanted them to live on another planet.

  I take one more step and start to slip on some hay. Pardon the pun, but that’s just about the very last straw I can take. I steady myself and yell deeper into the barn, “This was all Tyler’s idea, wasn’t it? Of course it was. He’s a guy. That explains it all right there. All men are imbecilic, moronic, downright evil creatures. I don’t know why you had to go and marry yourself one. For God’s sake the man isn’t even here. He just had to go play G.I. Joe over in the desert.”

  “Are you finished?” a deep, gravelly male voice asks, causing me to jump about a mile in the air.

  “Who the hell are you?” I pull the pepper-spray out of my purse and I just about drop the stupid thing. My hands are sweaty and shaking with shock. No one ever gets the drop on me. I’ve got multiple obscure MMA titles to prove it. I take a defensive stand, aiming the pepper spray at the guy’s eyes.

  “I advise you to stand down,” he says with an icy calmness that sends a chill up my spine.

  Well, hell. This isn’t how the script is supposed to go. He’s supposed to be cowering in the corner, crying for his mommy.

  “Suppose I don’t?” I dare as I display an insane amount of bravado. My sensei would have me scrubbing down mats for a month if he could watch this bizarre little exchange.

  “Look, lady. Please don’t ask me to answer that because you really don’t want to hear my honest answer anymore than I want to tell you. It’s not even eleven o’clock in the morning and it’s already been a hell of a day. I’ve had one horse go down with an infected hoof and the other with colic. With all due respect, I don’t think you really want me to touch you. Trust me, if I were to touch you right now, you would be offended in every sense of the word.”

  “Oh, so you’re the stable hand?” I search around for my sister, taking a good long look at him. He’s very handsome in a rugged-surviving-the-wilderness-oops-did--misplace-my-razor kind of way. I generally prefer my guys a bit neater. Still, my eyes are drawn to his impeccably defined shoulders and forearms.

  He just smiles mysteriously and shrugs. “Sometimes.” He’s watching me openly ogle him. Yet, unlike most guys, he doesn’t flex or preen. For some reason his quiet confidence ticks me off.

  I narrow my eyes suspiciously. “Wait, does my sister even know you’re here
?”

  This time, he doesn’t even bother to hide his smirk. “I imagine so, since I manage to cook breakfast for her three or four times a week.”

  “You’re kidding me. Heather’s always been on the flighty side, but I never figured her for a cheater.”

  “Lady, you seem to have a universally lousy opinion of everybody. If that’s the way you treat somebody you love, I’d hate to see how you treat your enemies,” he remarks, shaking his head.

  I draw in a deep breath as he hits a little too close to home.

  He continues to explain, “It just so happens your sister is the adorable wife of my commanding officer. I am his tenant at his request because I got sprung early. Do you have issues with me stepping up to take care of Heather while he’s gone? If so, that’s too damn bad. You can take your faulty assumptions and go climb back on a tin whirly bird and go back home for all I care. It’s no skin off my nose.”

  “Pardon me if I don’t believe your macho asshole-ishness. My sister hasn’t said one word about you. It’s not like Heather to miss an opportunity to wax poetically about a cute guy.” I gasp and cover my mouth with my hands as I realize what I’ve just clumsily admitted out loud.

  The stranger just wipes his hands on the back of his jeans and gives me an indulgent look of pity. “Well, considering your sister is one of the happiest newlyweds I’ve ever seen— especially given the fact she never sees her husband— I doubt she much cares about my level of handsomeness. Quite frankly, if she knew she was going to face these accusations by innuendo from you; that in itself, would explain why she hasn’t been forthcoming.”