by Abby Tyler
He stood up. “Slow down. I can help. Do you want these fellas in their cages?”
“I think they’re okay for the moment. I just need to feed them. I don’t have the amounts written down anywhere, though, so it will have to wait on me. It’s all up here.” She tapped her wet head.
“How about you point me in the direction of some towels so I can dry some of these guys off.”
“Yes. Perfect.” She whirled around and opened a cabinet along the wall. “There’s a bunch of old towels down here.”
She headed for the side door he’d used when he came into the kennel room. The old man had shown him the way. He should ask her about that. The man had said some things that Luke hadn’t quite understood, and he seemed confused. But that could wait. Right now, he needed to dry down some pups.
He pulled a towel off the stack, listening to her retreating footsteps. Then they quickly came back. He looked up from the pug, who was still on his back on the ground.
“Everything okay?”
Her face was flushed underneath the streaks of mud. “I think I forgot to introduce myself,” she said. She held out her hand a second time, realized once again that it was muddy, and withdrew it. “I’m Savannah. These days, I run this animal shelter.”
He grinned. “Nice to meet you, Savannah.”
Her face flushed even more pink, and she hurried off again.
He bent down to clean off the pug’s paws. What had she called him? Luigi? Like Donkey Kong?
“Is that your name?” he asked the dog. “Luigi?”
The pug let out a little yip.
Luke rolled him over to get the rest of him dry. He couldn’t be all pug. He was too big, like a pug face on a boxer body. “That’s not a very manly bark for a dog your size,” he said. “I’m guessing you’re a lover, not a fighter.”
The dogs were pretty well behaved for a pack of mutts, he’d give her that. As he dried off each dog, he checked their tag to learn their names. The kennels had tiny whiteboards affixed to the top with the name of the dog who resided there.
A few resisted both the drying off and the move to a kennel. One was a little dachshund named Ollie. Ollie followed Luke around as he checked all the kennels.
The other was Luigi, who seemed to think he was now owed a lifetime of belly rubs.
In the back corner of the kennel room, a German Shepherd sat upright on a large dog bed like he owned the place. He must be the house dog. Luke kneeled before him. His tag read Sergeant. Fitting.
“Nice to meet you, Sergeant,” he said.
At his name, Sergeant’s long nose lifted, and his warm black eyes met Luke’s.
This was why he did it. Animals were more like humans than people gave them credit for. He could sense Sergeant sizing him up, probably deciding whether or not he was good enough to be around his pack. This was the alpha, no doubt about it. Luke had seen him herding everyone inside and keeping order while Savannah tried to deal with the pug.
“You and I are going to get along just fine,” he assured Sergeant, holding out a fist for the dog to sniff.
The German Shepherd snubbed him and laid his head back down on his paws. All right. Sergeant would need to be convinced. He liked that.
“I don’t trust most anybody either,” he said. “So you and I are the same.”
Sergeant kept an eye on Luke as he stood, taking the place in. There were two puppies under a heat lamp in an enclosed plastic bay. And she’d mentioned cats.
But a whole wall of kennels stood empty, suggesting the shelter used to hold more. He suspected Savannah was maxed out on what she could handle on her own. She needed more help. He was here to give it.
Chapter 3
By the end of the day, Savannah was definitely ready to collapse. She usually felt this way, but today had been extra challenging with the arrival of the storm. The rain meant the dogs were cooped up more than usual. The thunder meant they were more skittish. And there had been extra chores, drying them off and cleaning up the mud. Plus more general interaction, so they wouldn’t simply howl in their kennels all day.
Luke had proven very helpful. He played with the dogs in the narrow aisles between the cages. He’d fed the puppies their afternoon meal. And when the rain stopped, he’d even volunteered to muck out the yard, which couldn’t have been easy with all the mud.
Savannah fed him lunch, just sandwiches and chips, and he had promised to come back the next day.
She sat in the living room recliner with her feet up, an arm crossed over her face. Even though she’d had help today, Luke’s presence had added a more formal element, and she hadn’t been able to relax. Maybe as she got to know him, things would get easier.
The shuffle of Boone’s feet on the hardwood floor made her shift her arm and turn toward the doorway.
Her father entered the room like a man twenty years older than he was. Savannah’s eyes pricked as she watched him slowly navigate the sofa to sit in her mother’s old rocking chair.
“Would you like your recliner?” she asked.
He held up a hand, although Savannah wasn’t quite sure what he meant by it. It could mean no. Or he could be asking her not to speak because it confused him. Or he might just be trying to hide the fact that something else was going on inside his head.
Boone rocked back and forth, humming a little song under his breath. He looked like a farmer in overalls and a long-sleeved flannel shirt. He hadn’t always dressed this way. Those were his father’s clothes. Boone had found a trunk full of them a couple years back and adopted his father’s manners.
He’d grown up on a farm proper, and something in the mixed-up regions of his mind these last few years led him to believe that he ought to dress like one now. Among Savannah’s problems, this wasn’t one that concerned her.
“I’m going to make some spaghetti for dinner,” she said. “You like that.”
Boone didn’t respond, almost as if he hadn’t heard her. His eyes were closed, his long gray eyelashes lying against his ruddy cheeks. He was still well-built and strong, and his capable hands held onto the round end of the rocker arm. But the dementia had its grip on him. There was no going back to the old Boone.
Her father had opened this animal shelter twenty years ago, shortly after Savannah’s mother died. Lena had loved taking in strays, and there had always been a half-dozen dogs and cats around. After the accident, Boone gave up his job as the head custodian at the elementary. With the little bit of money they got from the drunk driver’s insurance company, and a charter with the City of Applebottom, he’d opened the shelter in her name. He needed to stay home with his small daughter, and opening Lena’s Home for Strays helped him honor his wife. It was the only life Savannah had ever known.
She sat a few minutes more, watching her father rock in her mother’s chair, then got up to put the spaghetti on to boil. It was a simple life, and she didn’t resent it.
But the arrival of this new man certainly changed things. Savannah glanced around the shabby kitchen, the linoleum on the floor curling up at the edges. The counters had worn spots, and a few burns here and there from when she was learning to cook and didn’t realize a hot pan couldn’t go directly onto a Formica countertop.
But it was home. She’d been three years old when her mother was lost to her, so there were only impressions that remained, ghostly memories faded by time.
But at odd moments, particularly when Savannah was melancholy as she was now, she sensed her mother’s presence. Sometimes it was the scent of lemon soap that brought her back, the image of Mama standing near the sugar jar, drying her hands. Or in the sunroom, a fleeting glimpse of her sitting at the wicker table in the corner while Savannah played on the floor.
Savannah didn’t question this. Her mother was a part of this house, and a part of her. Sometimes when Boone was particularly poorly, Savannah would enter his room to bring him his morning coffee, and he would call her Lena. She knew she favored her mother. She’d seen the pictures. It was just nature
’s way of keeping her mother close.
Her father’s diagnosis had come about the time Savannah thought she might take off on an adventure of her own. After graduating high school, she worked hard to find a steady flow of volunteers to help her father, which would enable her to leave. Fisher College had added the shelter to their list where veterinary and vet tech candidates could get their work hours completed.
But then little things started to happen. Boone would forget to feed the cats. He’d call the animals by the wrong names.
The volunteers all laughed it off, because who could keep track of all these ever-changing fur babies coming in and out of their lives? They often had forty or fifty at a time.
But Savannah had known. Her father had always taken each of their rescues into his heart.
The money problems came next. Forgotten bills. Un-ordered supplies. A snafu with the volunteers where they didn’t get credit for the work they had done, causing a bit of an uproar at the college. Savannah had tried to smooth all that out, but it was never completely fixed and their shelter got a reputation for not being well run.
The worst day had been when Boone had confused a pretty young volunteer with his dead wife. He came up from behind and wrapped his arms around her, setting off a harassment investigation that severed their relationship with the volunteer program.
Savannah had no choice but to stay, taking Boone to the doctors, relieved that there was a diagnosis to hang his behavior on. She didn’t blame the college for cutting them off. The only volunteers that came after that were families from Applebottom, those who could vouch for Boone and understood what was happening. Savannah reduced the number of animals she would accept, creating a foster network for the others.
She hung onto the minimum required to keep the charter with the town. Without their money, they’d certainly be sunk.
She kept hanging on. On some days, Boone was still Boone. He’d walk into the kitchen and ask about the feed orders or the repairs that needed to be made to the kennels or the fence. His mind would clear.
Then just as quickly he was gone again, his shuffle back, the droop of his shoulders. He seemed to accept her always, for which she was grateful. She could manage.
And now she had help.
Chapter 4
Luke sat on a chair on the porch of the convenience store at T-bone’s RV Park, a cold can of RC Cola in his hand. T-bone sat next to him, his legs kicked out, his heavy biker boots crossed at the ankle. Luke hadn’t been able to think of T-bone as his father yet. It was all pretty new.
Truth be told, he’d considered heading back to Montana. But the old ladies at the pie shop had convinced him to go check out Fisher College, and he found that their program was just as reputable and a good deal cheaper. With T-bone offering him an abandoned camper that he could fix up, his expenses would be virtually nothing. Plus he had a steady stream of mechanic work, and something about the people here had made him feel right at home.
So he’d stayed.
The RV Park was quiet. Early fall was always a dead time, T-bone told him. The few people renting spots were driven inside by the storms from earlier.
Even so, most evenings meant people hanging out on the artificial beach T-bone had constructed on the shore of the lake. They burned fires in the pits and played music.
But not tonight. The temperature had fallen considerably, making hanging out by the water less hospitable. Luke generally liked the noise and the people. But right now, the silence felt right.
T-bone’s voice rumbled in the half dark. “So what did you think of that girl?”
Luke knew who he meant. Savannah. She’d cleaned up right nice while he managed the dogs. He liked how natural she was. The long brown hair, faded jeans, and sweatshirt. “Seems she’s got a lot on her plate.”
T-bone let out a little snort in agreement.
“What’s with the old man who lives there? He didn’t seem well.” Savannah hadn’t even brought him up, and Luke didn’t think he ought to ask on his first day.
“Dementia,” T-bone said.
“Is that her dad? She called him Boone.”
“Yeah. Everybody calls him Boone.”
“She got a mom?”
“Drunk driver killed her when Savannah was three.”
“Oh. Dang.”
T-bone stretched his arms out and clasped his hands behind his head. The chains fastened to his belt jangled as he shifted on the chair. “Boone took the money and opened that shelter. It’s named after her mom.”
“Heckuva thing.”
They fell silent, looking out over the park. Luke had a lot of questions for his father, but he didn’t know how to ask. Why hadn’t he ever found a wife? Had he ever thought about Luke’s mother? Did he plan to stay in Applebottom forever?
But Luke knew the most important things. That T-bone was an honest man. That the community here trusted him. That he owned the RV Park free and clear and was happy to pass it on to Luke if Luke wanted it when the time came. That was too far ahead for Luke to think about.
T-bone hadn’t known Luke’s mother was pregnant, and she’d taken off with some other man anyhow. Even though T-bone seemed stuck in his bachelor ways, Luke felt certain he’d have done his part if he’d known. Only when his mother was near-death from cancer had she given him all the letters to T-bone she’d never sent. That was how Luke had found him.
“You think she’s going to be able to keep that shelter open, what with her dad and all?” Luke asked.
“She’s managed so far.”
The clouds shifted, revealing the full moon over the lake. The water was choppy, the wind still high from the storm. The air smelled clean and cool. Luke hadn’t arrived in time to get back into vet school for the fall, so he had a semester to kill. He hoped the work he was doing at the shelter would help his chances of moving his credits. He was waiting to hear from the advisor about how the transfer might work.
He finished his cola and tossed the can toward the recycle bin in the corner of the porch. “Gonna hit the hay,” he told T-bone.
“You going back there tomorrow?”
“Yeah. There’s a section of fence that the little dogs can squeeze through. Gonna patch that up.”
T-bone nodded. “I’m proud of you, son. You do right by that little girl.”
Savannah was no little girl. But Luke knew what he meant. He’d only been in Applebottom a few weeks. Nobody knew if Luke was a saint or a scoundrel, not even T-bone. And given his lifestyle up till now, the latter was probably a better assessment.
But Savannah was different. He’d met a lot of people with lives as tough as his had been. Most of them had given in to a bleak existence. Luke wasn’t that much better, his vet classes being his only real effort toward an honest living. But Savannah had held onto something most people in bad circumstances gave up on. Optimism. She hadn’t let life beat her down.
She was exactly the sort of person he ought to be around.
Chapter 5
The next morning, Savannah pointed at herself in the mirror and said, “You are trying too hard.”
Boone walked past the open door and paused for a moment. “If you keep talking to yourself, people will think you’re crazy.”
Then he shuffled on.
Savannah doubled over with giggles. Trust Boone to make a smart-aleck response. He must be having a good day. At least as good as they get lately.
She stepped out into the hallway to watch his retreating figure. Yes, there was less shuffle in his step. This day was already turning out to be a good one.
And soon there would be Luke.
She turned back to the mirror. “I have my eye on you,” she said to herself. She’d spent the morning alternating styles between ponytails, braids, hair down, hair half-down. She had to appear like she was just working, but she had to look good, too.
It was maddening.
In the end, she settled on a French braid, a tiny bit of mascara, and Chapstick with just a touch of color.
Probably anything other than covered in mud would be an improvement over yesterday anyway.
When she made it into the kitchen, Boone was sitting at the wobbly breakfast table, holding a butter knife and a fork.
“You making flapjacks today?” he asked.
Savannah’s heart fell a little. Asking for flapjacks meant that Boone wasn’t quite in the here and now after all. Boone’s mother, now long dead, called pancakes flapjacks, but Savannah’s mother never had.
She simply answered, “Absolutely.” She didn’t have time to make any from scratch this morning, but she kept extra pancakes in the freezer so she could quickly heat up a few. She had most things ready to defrost in case Boone asked for them. Sometimes he got agitated if he didn’t get what he asked for. She’d learned the hard way to be prepared.
Within a couple minutes, she had a plate of steaming pancakes topped with butter and syrup ready for him to eat.
“Would you like me to cut those up for you?” she asked.
“Oh no,” he said. “I can do it.”
He began sawing through the stack. It wasn’t going well, but probably he would manage to eat it on his own. Savannah had to walk a fine line here. If he got frustrated, he could blow up in anger. But if she helped him when he didn’t want it, he’d blow up anyway.
Savannah glanced at the clock. Luke had said he would come by around eight. He didn’t have any car work this morning, so he planned to put in a full day at the shelter.
Savannah wanted to send up a little hallelujah that a couple bigger projects were going to get attended to today. Some holes in the fence. Rotating the sacks of kibble to make sure she was using the oldest bags first. The last several deliveries had just been tossed in there willy-nilly, and she knew she needed to get to the ones closer to the bottom.
