Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
All week the rain had come down in sheets.
Halloween and trick-or-treating had been a very soggy affair. Kids dashed up walkways while parents stood on the sidewalks with umbrellas. Lacey loved Halloween and the costumes. She didn’t want kids of her own, but she enjoyed other people’s in short bursts. Handing out fistfuls of candy because Leo and Gavin were at a party was one of those times.
She’d been publicly “dating” Sam for a week. It was hard to tell, though. Either her expectations were too high or Sam couldn’t remember that he was supposed to be obsessed with her because she’d seen him once on Thursday when he’d brought her lunch and dinner when she had a late class. Lacey had a text sitting unsent that demanded he take her out on a date for the spectacle of it. She didn’t know if she’d send it. Because “dating” Sam was confusing for her body. When he’d touched her at the Boo-wery, or kissed her neck, shoulders, or cheek, her body had lit up like one of those strongman games at the fair. In a way, it was almost better he’d kept his distance all week.
The sun finally came out Saturday afternoon as Lacey was leaving the Crane Hotel. After three hours teaching Victorian era dances with Gavin, she was ready for a shower, baggy sweatpants, and to edit her text to Sam. She needed a date with him for the PDA. Maybe something where he’d need to touch her a lot. Did Crane Cove have pottery classes? Could she convince him to reenact Ghost with her?
Lacey took out her phone and deleted the original message she’d written for Sam and replaced it with a shorter one.
Lacey
You. Me. Date. Soon. In public.
Very eloquent and persuasive.
Her service was spotty, but she hit send anyway. Sam would get it eventually.
Could she give him the three dollars in her bank account to kiss her neck again? The phantom brush of his lips haunted her. Her nipples tightened and her skin flushed whenever she thought of it.
Leo was at the restaurant. Gavin claimed he was going grocery shopping, so if she hurried, she had at least half an hour of alone time at the house to break out her vibrator.
Maybe she’d think more clearly after an orgasm or three.
Lacey dropped her bag and phone into her passenger seat, resisting the temptation to check and see if Sam had texted her back yet.
It was a short drive back into town, which was good because she was getting close to the point where her gas light would turn on. She’d stretched her budget to the limit this paycheck. Eventually she’d claw her way out of the debt hole she’d dug for herself, but it felt like it would never end. And right on cue, feeling sorry for herself when it came to money made her miss and curse her mom in equal measures.
Lacey squinted. The sun reflecting off the water on the road made it hard to see, and she groped in her bag for her sunglasses. Did she even have her sunglasses?
They were in the drop-down glasses holder in her car, where they were supposed to be. It never failed that the one time she was responsible, she forgot where she put something. The relief when she put them on was instant. They didn’t totally solve the problem, but her eyes relaxed.
Down the road, an animal was trotting on the shoulder, headed towards town. From a distance, it looked like a coyote. But as Lacey got closer, she realized it wasn’t a coyote, but a muddy dog. And in her rearview mirror, it looked like a tired dog. She pulled over and parked her car on the shoulder.
Crane Cove didn’t get a lot of traffic, but it was a busy weekend with the ball and people driving down the coast. People took the road too fast, and she’d feel awful if someone hit the dog because she hadn’t stopped to check if it had a person nearby.
Lacey didn’t see anyone walking down on the beach, or in the tall grass.
“Hello!” she shouted. There was no response but the dull roar of the ocean tide.
The dog hadn’t changed its pace. It kept walking down the side of the road until it reached her car, then it stood by her back passenger side door like it expected to be let in.
“I don’t pick up hitchhikers,” Lacey told it, cautiously reaching down to check for a collar. There wasn’t one. Just wet, sandy, bur-covered golden fur. The dog sat at her feet and leaned against her legs, looking up at her with soulful brown eyes. “Even really cute hitchhikers.”
A soft whine broke her resolve.
“Okay, fine. I can give you a ride into town.”
The dog hopped up into her backseat as soon as she opened the door, and circled twice before making itself a bed out of her discarded clothes. Everything was going to smell like wet dog.
“You’re lucky you’re cute,” she told the dog as she reentered the road.
What was she supposed to do with a lost dog? Lacey didn’t remember exactly where the nearest animal shelter was, but she knew it wasn’t in Crane Cove. She sure as shit wasn’t going to start knocking on doors asking, “Is this your dog?” on repeat.
Maybe a veterinarian? Were they even open on Saturdays?
The parking lot of Crane Cove Veterinary Hospital was empty except for a single dark green truck near the entrance.
“Please be open,” Lacey prayed, parking next to the truck.
The door was locked. But if there was a vehicle, there had to be someone inside, right?
She pounded on the door until her hands hurt. Finally, she saw a tall blond man in a red sweatshirt and black scrub pants emerge from the back.
“We’re closed,” he said through the glass door, pointing to the vinyl hours.
“It’s an emergency,” Lacey pleaded.
He sighed and unlocked the door. “What kind of an emergency?”
“I found a dog on the side of the road. It doesn’t have a collar. Do you have any way to see if it belongs to anyone?”
“Bring the dog inside. I could check for a microchip,” he offered. “But no one has called in the last few days to check for a missing dog.”
“Thank you,” Lacey said, rushing back to her car and opening the back door.
The dog cowered, trying to make itself as small as possible while whining.
“It’s okay,” Lacey soothed, patting her thighs enthusiastically. “We’re going to find your family.”
The dog wiggled, torn between its melancholy act and wanting to match Lacey’s faux excitement.
“Come on,” Lacey encouraged, patting her thighs again, which only got her more excited cowering wiggles.
The door on the opposite side opened, and the tall man from behind the door scooped the dog out like it was nothing. To be fair, it couldn’t have weighed more than thirty pounds, but Lacey felt like she would’ve struggled a little.
“Come on, precious,” the man cooed, and the dog licked his chin. “Nice to meet you too.”
The man’s name was Chris McMahon, and once she heard his last name, all of his tall, broad, blondness made a lot of sense. He was the second oldest boy in the McMahon brood and a veterinarian. Educated, employed, and gorgeous. Where had he been when Lacey had moved into town? Maybe she could’ve avoided Mitch if Dr. Chris, DVM, had been presented as an option.
But then Sam wouldn’t be kissing your neck, the wicked, devious, excessively horny part of her brain reminded her.
Chris had put a temporary lead on the dog, but it didn’t seem to matter since the dog was glued to Lacey’s side. She picked burs out of the dog’s fur while they waited for the vet to come back with the microchip scanner.
“This won’t hurt,” Chris promised the dog, like he was talking to a child who was concerned about getting a shot.
Lacey didn’t know what she’d been expecting—bright lights and an alarm bell like winning a Vegas jackpot?—but the entire process was over in seconds. Chris held the scanner over the back of the dog’s neck, then took the scanner over to one of the computers. He typed for a few seconds, waited, then frowned.
“So good news and bad news,” he began. “Good news, this dog has been a patient of ours before. Bad news, her owner died about a month ago.”
Lacey’s stomach and heart dropped like synchronized divers. “What?”
“Her name is Daisy. She’s five. Her previous owner was a woman named Gertie Black who passed last month. My mom helped serve food after the funeral.” Chris blushed a little at the overshare. “Gertie wasn’t great at getting her to regular vet appointments, so she’s due for some shots, flea and tick medicine, dewormer.”
All Lacey heard was the sound of a cash register with every item Chris listed off. Was she financially responsible for a dog she’d found on the side of the road? Even if she could afford to keep Daisy, Leo was allergic to dogs.
“What’s going to happen to her? I can’t keep her. One of my roommates is allergic.” Lacey scratched Daisy behind the ear. “Do you think Gertie’s family is looking for her?”
Chris frowned. “I don’t think so. Gertie’s kids live in California. And no one’s reported her missing to our office.” He picked up the black office phone. “I’ll call the shelter and see if they can take her.”
“You can’t take her?” Lacey’s heart squeezed at the thought of sweet Daisy alone in a kennel cage, strange dogs around her barking all hours of the day and night.
“I already have four dogs,” Chris said with the phone pressed against his ear. “If I bring home another one, my mom will kill me—Yeah, hi. This is Dr. Chris McMahon from Crane Cove Veterinary Hospital. I’ve got a dog that was just brought in…”
Lacey stopped listening. She sat cross-legged on the floor in front of Daisy, and the dog immediately laid down in her lap. Poor girl had been abandoned. She’d lost her mom and then had been let outside to fend for herself. Tears pricked Lacey’s eyes. She knew exactly how Daisy felt.
“I’ll talk to her and call you back. Thanks, Tricia.” Chris hung up the phone. “So, more bad news. The nearest shelter is at capacity. Their director said they might have space for her on Monday after any weekend adoptions, but they said we could either find a foster in town or start calling some of the other shelters. What do you want to do?”
“Can I call someone?”
Calling Sam from the vet’s office felt like calling from jail for bail money. What if he didn’t have service? What if he did have service but didn’t pick up? What if he said no?
She went straight to voicemail after two rings. Of course he hadn’t picked up. It was an unknown number.
“Um, Sam, it’s Lacey. Can you call me back at this number, please?”
Less than a minute later the phone rang. Chris answered, even though Lacey was almost positive it was Sam.
“Crane Cove Veterinary Hos—yeah, she’s right here.” He handed her the phone.
“Hi, Sam,” Lacey said, stroking the soft fur between Daisy’s eyes. The dog had her head on Lacey’s lap.
“Are you okay?” he half asked, half demanded. “You sound like you’ve been crying. Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” she promised, though her resolve not to cry in front of the vet almost waivered. “I need a really, really big favor.”
“What kind of really big favor?” he asked, his voice calmer now.
“I found a dog on the side of the road. She was abandoned. I can’t take her because Leo’s allergic.” The lump in her throat returned with a vengeance. “No one can take her, Sam.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the call .
“You want me to take a dog?”
“Just for the weekend,” Lacey promised, “until the shelter potentially has space on Monday. Or until I can put gas in my car to take her to a”—she swallowed hard—“shelter further away.”
Another long pause, followed by a sigh. “I’ll be there soon.”