The Unexpected Shelter

by Abby Tyler

  “Sorry,” he said. “Good morning, Savannah.”

  They stood there, just looking at each other, until Luigi tugged on the leash to go out with his friends. Luke released his harness and he took off.

  “I can take Nero out,” he said.

  “Okay.” She passed him the Doberman’s leash.

  So that had felt awkward. What did it mean?

  Savannah checked on the puppies, who were moving around in their little bay. Tom stretched out his newly freed leg. He wasn’t limping, and Savannah knew he was completely on the mend.

  “Almost time to move you guys to the kennels,” she said. She probably could have already done it, but she liked having them in their special spot. She wished they would be babies forever, but soon she’d have to adopt them out.

  Luke came back in. “Brisk out there this morning,” he said, rubbing his hands together.

  “I thought it might be. The house was sort of cold.”

  She turned away from the puppies, and this time her breath caught at how Luke was looking at her. Okay, so he definitely hadn’t changed since Saturday.

  She wanted to ask so what do we do now? But she couldn’t make her voice work.

  “So,” Luke began, then trailed off.

  “I know,” she said.

  Luke reached out and lightly grasped her hand. “This feels different, doesn’t it?”

  “A little.”

  “Are we okay? I mean, I still love coming out here and volunteering. I don’t see how any of that should change.”

  Savannah certainly hoped not. If the cost of the kiss was to lose Luke’s help, that was a big price.

  But maybe it was worth it. She hadn’t felt so hopeful in a long time. So normal, like a regular girl finding a regular guy.

  “I guess we can treat the daytime as work hours, like there’s a boss looking over our shoulders and we can’t get away with anything.”

  “I can live with that,” he said.

  “I really need to go finish up with Boone. If you could bring in a bag of feed, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Anything for you.” He lifted the hand he still held and brushed her knuckles across his lips.

  Oh, man. Despite what she had just said about work hours, it was really obvious that things were going to be very different around the animal shelter.

  Luke walked the Doberman around the small yard, practicing basic commands to see if he could get a handle on the dog. They needed to get him in adoptable shape, and he was still pretty wild.

  As he circled the yard with the dog, he kept watching for Savannah. They were both trying to act as normal as possible, but it wasn’t working. Every time they got within ten feet of each other, Luke wanted nothing more than to draw her into his arms. The fact that they were alone almost all the time didn’t help matters. Volunteering at the shelter had become the sweetest form of torture.

  At the end of the day, he called in the dogs to give them their final feed. Savannah hadn’t asked him to dinner that night, and he didn’t want to assume. Truth be told, he didn’t know how to behave about anything.

  Boone hadn’t eaten lunch with them, preferring to watch one of his television programs. Luke assumed he was no longer under the impression that he and Savannah were married. At least he hoped not. Even though he knew that Savannah’s father had dementia, and Boone’s understanding of the world went in and out, Luke didn’t like fooling the old man, even for a moment.

  He had just filled the final bowl when Savannah returned from her litter duty in the cat room. “Are you staying for dinner?” she asked.

  Luke stood, trying to read the right answer in Savannah’s expression. She was maddeningly neutral.

  “Should I? How’s Boone?”

  “Oh, the usual. He had a good moment this morning, but then he lost it. I need to go to the grocery store, but I’m sure I can put together something. There’s always sandwiches.”

  Luke would eat rocks if that meant he got to spend more time with Savannah. “Can I help? I could run into town and pick something up. Maybe I could grab a pizza.”

  “Pizza!” Savannah said. “I don’t remember the last time I got a pizza. No one will deliver way out here and I can’t easily run into town to grab one.”

  “Then it’s settled. I’ll call it in and then run out and fetch it.”

  Luke sent a message to T-bone saying he would be out at the shelter for dinner and sailed into town.

  Applebottom didn’t have any major pizza chains, but Louisa James made pizza out of her house, and anybody in Applebottom knew that you could call her and order one between the hours of five and nine.

  He rolled up to Louisa’s house and gave two beeps of his horn, like she asked people to do.

  Louisa stepped out with a large box. Her riotous black hair flew every direction, and she held it down with one hand.

  “T-bone normally orders something with more meat,” Louisa said, passing the box and accepting his cash.

  “This one’s all mine,” he said.

  “Funny,” Louisa said. “It’s a lot of pizza for one man.”

  She was trying to wheedle a little information out of him, like most of the people of Applebottom. Louisa was funny, though, tenacious and energetic. He knew that she had cared for her mother in the little house on the south side of town for years. Some folks worried that life was passing her by. She’d just turned forty, which he only knew because he’d been at Annabelle’s Café with T-bone when they brought out a slice of pie with a candle and sang.

  She’d been sitting by herself, although the whole restaurant had joined in and once everyone figured it out, she’d had plenty of company.

  Probably gossip was one of the only ways she really got to know what was going on. In a lot of ways, her situation was much like Savannah’s.

  “I worked up an appetite,” Luke said. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “Tell Savannah I said hello and that two pieces have tomatoes cut the way Boone likes.”

  Luke shook his head as he headed to the shelter. Gossip by pizza toppings. Only in Applebottom.

  By the time Luke made it back to the shelter, Boone was sitting at the table, and Savannah had lit the candles again. It had become a little joke between them, how to turn any night into something fancy. She’d conjured up some salad to go with it, and already had a fresh pitcher of sweet tea. That girl was a wonder.

  Savannah doled out slices, and they ate in silence. Luke had been a hard worker most of his life, and certainly, nothing tasted better than a meal after a long day’s haul.

  Boone kept his eye on both of them as he chewed his pizza. Finally, he said, “So did y’all already do your honeymoon?”

  So he did remember. Luke shifted his gaze to Savannah, curious as to what she would say.

  “No, Boone.” She bit her lip. “Luke and I aren’t married. I went to Anna’s wedding.”

  Boone nodded for a moment, as if he understood. Then he said, “I didn’t get to walk you down the aisle.”

  Savannah’s eyes glistened. “You will when it’s time,” she said. “I promise.”

  Boone set down a slice, his eyebrows drawn together. “I don’t understand what’s happening. Why am I so confused?”

  Savannah got up from her chair and walked around to put her arm around her father. “It’s all right, Boone. We’re here.”

  Now it was the old man who had tears dripping from his eyes. “I can’t tell you how happy I am that you found a man. I need to know my little girl is taken care of.” He petted her head awkwardly, as if she were a small child. Her hair began to fall out of the ponytail, but she still stood there, holding onto Boone.

  He looked at Luke. “You have to promise me to take care of my little girl. She’s all I’ve got.”

  Luke’s stomach felt heavy. But he knew the right thing to say. “I will, sir. I will.”

  Savannah continued to hold onto Boone’s shoulders, but he suddenly sat up straight. “Girl, why ar
e you hanging on me? Go over there and finish up. We have work to do after lunch.”

  His voice was stern, a tone that Luke had never heard.

  Savannah immediately stood up and headed over to her chair.

  He didn’t know how Savannah did this from day to day.

  The conversation moved wildly from subject to subject, led by Boone. The price of gas. Episodes of Gunsmoke. When to rotate the tires on a Chevy they didn’t own anymore.

  Eventually, he shuffled to the living room to watch TV, and Savannah braced her elbows on the table, her head in her hands.

  “I didn’t lie,” Luke said. “I will be here.”

  But when Savannah turned her head to look at him, looking more like a lost child than a young woman, he wondered if even he could be enough.

  Chapter 14

  The next two weeks were as idyllic as Savannah felt her life could be. A couple of dogs came and a couple of others went. The puppies moved into a normal kennel, and Savannah reluctantly added their picture to the online network of animals needing homes.

  She and Luke made out, a lot. Despite what she had said about work hours being work, literally the minute the last feeding was over and they decided whether Luke would stay for dinner or not, they were locked together around the back corner of the house, in the feed shed, and anywhere else they wouldn’t be seen by the occasional volunteers or Boone.

  But she should have known these easy days couldn’t last. About two weeks after the wedding, Luke had just left to have dinner with T-bone at the RV Park when the dogs went crazy in the backyard. She looked up from where she was working with Nero.

  For a moment she thought maybe Luke was coming back, but then she spotted the uniform on the man by the back gate. What was this about?

  She hurried toward the fence. It wasn’t her friend Jeremy, but Officer Stone.

  Officer Stone had the air of a man who always dreaded dealing with the negative side of the world, even though he encountered it often. He’d been an officer for as long as Savannah could remember, although he’d been a deputy like Jeremy up until a few years back.

  He was handsome, and some of the middle-aged ladies in Applebottom were known for calling him out whenever they heard the slightest noise just to take a gander at him. Savannah was pretty sure he didn’t pay them mind. He seemed too stern to get his head turned.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  Officer Stone aimed his thumb back at the road. “I passed a truck on the way out here. I guess that was Luke Southard?”

  “Probably. He just left. He was volunteering, of course. He does every day.”

  Savannah wasn’t sure why she felt the need to emphasize that he’d been out here to help her. But something in Officer Stone’s expression filled her with concern.

  “Have you seen much of Billy Ray Baxter since he got back in town?”

  Savannah’s stomach clenched. What was that boy up to now?

  “Sure,” Savannah said. “We were both in Anna Bond’s wedding a few weeks back.”

  Officer Stone sniffed. “He been out here?”

  “A couple times. He let me know he was back in town a month ago. He wanted to escort me to the wedding.”

  “Did he? Escort you, that is?”

  “No.” Now she was going to have to bring up that fake date to an officer. “I went with Luke.”

  “That’s what I’ve been hearing,” Officer Stone said. He leaned on the fence. They were still standing on opposite sides. At least the dogs had calmed down, other than Nero, who continued to bark from his small yard.

  “Is there a problem?” Savannah asked, although she really wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “Somebody poured paint all over Billy Ray’s Camaro,” Officer Stone said. “Did a lot of damage.”

  Oh, no. That was bad.

  “And you think Luke might’ve done it?” Savannah didn’t believe it for a minute, but these other people probably didn’t know him as well as she did.

  “I don’t know about that,” Officer Stone said. “Generally speaking, when somebody accuses somebody of something in the same breath as saying it happened, there’s bound to be more to the story.”

  “Luke’s not really the sort of guy to do something crazy,” Savannah said. “He’s been volunteering out here for nearly two months.”

  “He and Billy Ray have any fallouts?”

  Savannah remembered the fight that Billy Ray had attempted.

  “Billy Ray didn’t much like it that I went to the wedding with Luke. But that’s Billy Ray’s problem, not Luke’s.”

  Officer Stone nodded. “I get your meaning. Seems more like Billy Ray would’ve done something crazy, not Luke.”

  “Exactly.” Savannah let out a breath. “But I’m sure Luke was heading to the RV Park if you want to catch him there.”

  Officer Stone stared down at all the dogs. “I’ve been meaning to fetch me a new dog. Are all these up for grabs?”

  “They are. I do have a Doberman that we’re training that might be a good fit for you, though.”

  “Hmmm,” he said. “Let me take a look.”

  The two of them headed back to greet Nero, and Savannah wondered if she should try to warn Luke about the situation before Officer Stone could get out there.

  The officer looked over the dog, who thankfully obeyed all the commands Savannah gave him. “I want to think about this one,” he said. “You let me know if anybody else comes for him.”

  “I will,” she said.

  He gave her a curt smile. “Don’t you fret about Luke. I don’t buy Billy Ray’s story at all. But somebody damaged his car, and I’ve got to figure out who it was.”

  “I understand,” Savannah said. “Thank you.”

  When he left, it took everything in Savannah’s control not to start yelling at the walls. Billy Ray probably had a thousand people he’d ticked off. Luke had no reason to do anything to that Camaro.

  She sent a quick text to Luke to let him know that Officer Stone was headed that way and what happened. Luke thanked her for the heads up, and then went silent, no doubt because Officer Stone had arrived.

  Savannah felt sure they would get this straightened out, but there was one thing she knew for sure. Luke was being kind to Applebottom, but Applebottom was not necessarily being kind to him.

  Well, this evening was going from bad to worse.

  Officer Stone had just left after asking him a bunch of questions about Billy Ray the troublemaker, who was blaming Luke for pouring paint on his Camaro.

  The officer hadn’t seemed too concerned about it yet, but Luke knew that all it took was them not finding somebody else before they came circling around back to him.

  T-bone stood at one of the grills at the RV Park and flipped a steak over, the fat sizzling over the coals.

  “Don’t tell me you’re worked up over Officer Stone coming out here. Nobody thinks you did it.”

  “No, it’s not that.”

  “Then what else? Everything okay with Savannah?”

  “She’s all right. It’s the vet school.”

  “They’re not going to take you?”

  “They will, but not the way I’d like. I stand to lose most everything I’ve done.”

  Fisher College said they could only align a paltry semester of the two years he’d finished in Montana with their curriculum, meaning that he was down something like twenty grand in schooling if he stayed here to finish his work.

  They suggested that he become a veterinarian tech instead, since they couldn’t offer the animal science and vet school combination he’d been in up north. He’d need a four-year degree, and then apply to vet school.

  He thought about all the blood, sweat, and tears that went into those tuition fees. The hours of volunteering and acquiring experience hours.

  Poof. Up in smoke.

  He hadn’t realized how unusual his old vet school program had been.

  No, Applebottom wasn’t working out well at all, and Billy Ray was
just the bitter icing on a moldy cake.

  T-bone forked the steak and slid it onto a plate. “Medium rare. All yours.”

  Luke stood up from his chair and accepted his dinner.

  T-bone dropped a second steak on a plate and settled in his chair. The wooden rocker creaked under his weight, a familiar sound to Luke now. They often had dinner out on the porch of the convenience store.

  “You remember that conversation we had back with the town lawyer when you first came?” T-bone asked.

  Luke shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Micah was in a bad place with his girl, Lorelei. And I told him that if he had the chance to make clear how he felt, he should. Because sometimes, time runs out.”

  Luke set down his fork. “How did you feel about my mother? We never have talked about her.”

  T-bone stared off at the cold, dark lake.

  “I didn’t know her very long. Maybe six months. We didn’t live here. We were farther south, in Georgia. She was a brooding type, your mom.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “It suited me. I was a little dark myself.”

  “So why did she leave? She never would tell me, only that she tried to write you letters, but never sent him.”

  “I think it had to do with you. She was lighter at the end, just before she left. She laughed more. But I didn’t change.”

  T-bone turned the plate around on his lap, as if he was looking for the best position for his next cut. But he didn’t pick up his knife or fork.

  “So she left because she was happy?” Luke asked.

  “I think maybe, yes. I think it scared her. When you live the life of darkness, you figure out how to cope. It’s when the light comes in that you realize how much you have to lose.”

  He looked over at Luke, and his black eyes glittered from the lights strung around the porch. “I’m not saying our situation is anything like yours. But Savannah has had her head down for two years. She’s scarcely been able to see the color of the sky. But you’ve been a big help to her. And I think maybe she’s seen a little bit of what normal life can be. That creates expectations. You could let each other down. That’s scary for both of you.”