Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Mark
“S o, what’s the objective here, Mark?” Jack asked as he looked around us with his hands on his hips. “What are you looking for?”
I checked out the occupants of each cage as we passed them.
“Naomi’s brother runs this practice. He bought the extra land and set up a pet rescue sanctuary after he took over.”
“I can see that,” he said dryly.
When Jeremy had bought the practice from the vet who was years past retirement, he’d decided to build the rescue near it. I think it’d started as an idea for cats and dogs, but it’d become so much more than that. From what I’d heard, the only thing he wasn’t prepared to deal with were venomous animals unless they were sick or injured.
“Anyway, when I told him what I was looking for, he said he’d just had a litter of pups abandoned near the lake. They’ve passed all their health checks and have their vaccinations, so we should be good to go.”
“And what exactly constitutes as good to go?”
Stopping near the cage with the number Jeremy had told me to go to, I waited for him to stop staring at a cute but huge Doberman, who was watching him back.
“Layla’s always wanted a dog but decided to get the cat—thinking she was doing a good thing because she knew she’d never let it breed—and then regretted it.”
“It was a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. If my daughter had ignored her gut instinct, the likelihood of someone buying it just to breed it was high. People like things that are unusual, and if they’re cute at the same time, they go nuts for them. Others see how much money it brings in, and boom, it all explodes, regardless of health issues and complications. At least the little guy was loved from the second she held him.”
My thoughts exactly.
“Exactly. So, I was talking to Jeremy about what she wanted and the fact she had a Continental Giant rabbit that’s used to animals of different sizes and species, and he told me about this litter.”
From where he was standing, Jack couldn’t see what I was currently looking at—another of Layla's dreams.
“And what is it that she wanted, because when she was little, she wanted a dragon, and I tried my hardest to find the closest thing I could.”
The closest thing had been a Labrador puppy with a set of wings from a Halloween costume on him. She’d loved the little guy and called him Mordor, and I still remember how hard she cried when he died from cancer when she was sixteen.
“Layla loves German Shepherds, but she loved Mordor. She always said her ideal dog would be a Sheprador or a Labherd.”
He looked at me like I was nuts. “A what?”
I chuckled, not wanting to be too loud in case I scared the wriggling bodies jumping on each other in front of me. “Exactly what my response was. Her explanation was ‘a love child of a Labrador and Shepherd.’”
He moved forward until he was standing next to me and sighed when he saw the puppies. “Of course she did. How do you know that’s what these are?”
“Jeremy tested them, and that’s what their DNA says.”
“Shit,” he mumbled under his breath.
“Afraid you’re going to want one, too?” I teased.
“Something like that.”
“Hey, guys,” Jeremy greeted as he joined us in front of the cage. “Y’all ready to meet some puppies?”
Before I could shake his hand or even say yes, Jack had nudged me out of the way and was pointing expectantly at the cage door. “Yeah, great to see you. Now open it.”
Jeremy didn’t take offense, he just grinned and did as requested.
“You’ll have to excuse him. Jack didn’t know why I’d brought him here until just before you arrived.”
I looked pointedly down at the man already lying on the ground with the puppies climbing all over him, looking happier than I’d ever seen him.
Jeremy’s lips twitched. “He’s got puppy fever. Man, he’s so like his dad, isn’t he?”
“Initially, you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise, but once he gets past the slight amount of reserve and shyness, that’s when the full force of his crazy hits you.”
“I heard that.” Jack started laughing at a puppy who was attacking his face.
“I think you’ll be adopting out a couple of these today, man. It looks like love at first sight.”
Jack rolled onto his side and tried to gather all of the wriggling bodies closer to him. “They’re all mine.”
Seven puppies…?
“Sorry, I’m taking one of those off your hands. Plus, think about what Colette would say if she had six puppies tripping her up or attacking her ankles.”
He didn’t even flinch at the thought. Instead, in a baby voice, he cooed at them, “I’ll see her on the weekends, won’t I? Yes, I will. Oh, yes, I will.”
I felt my upper lip curl as one of them licked his face and then moved to clean its crotch. Ack!
“They’re labeled male and female in case you had a preference,” Jeremy told me as he bent down to pick one up that’d walked away from the others to where we were still standing at the entrance. “Do you know what Layla wants?”
She’d never said a preference, so I went with mine. “One that’s not crazy, doesn’t even show an ounce of being slightly tonto, and who behaves. The gender is dependent on those qualities.”
Tiny paws landed on my shoulder, and I turned around to see a little cream-colored puppy face only inches away from my own. “Meet Zeus, he’s the one that fits that brief.”
The puppy’s head tilted slightly as his tongue fell out the side of his mouth. “Are you sure? That tongue thing doesn’t seem normal to me.”
Jeremy didn’t say anything, but Zeus had an opinion of his own. With a low whine, he tilted his head down and then looked up at me, giving me the saddest eyes I’d ever seen.
“Oh, shit.”
“Got you, did he?” Jeremy guessed correctly, just as the puppy scrambled out of his arms and into mine.
Okay, so I’d held my hands out to him, prompting him to do it, but I swear he was begging me to do it.
“Can I take them home today?” Jack called from the cage.
“Sure can. We know your home, your lifestyles, and everything we need, so we won’t do the home checks on you guys. All you have to do is fill out the appropriate paperwork, and that’s about it.”
Jack scrambled to his feet and was out the door and making his way toward where the office was before I could say anything.
“Colette’s going to lose her shit when he gets home,” I sighed as I waited for Jeremy to close the door to the cage.
“Yup.”
The crash and thud told me Layla had managed to get out of bed while I watched a movie downstairs.
When we'd gotten home, Zeus had sniffed his new home and had made friends with the rabbit, Skippy. I’d been a bit wary of them meeting, but Jeremy had said to do it slowly and not to leave them alone, and now we were past the first hurdle. I wasn’t stupid enough to think it was all okay between them, but I was a bit more hopeful about it than I’d been on the way back.
Because the rabbit had the whole of the pantry to himself as his safe space, I made sure Zeus didn’t go near it and put up a kiddy fence in front of it for the time being. I had to figure if my parents had brought a strange kid home and let him in my room and my bed, I’d have been pissed, too. It just made sense.
With the divider in place, I’d let him explore and sat down while I waited for the alarm on my phone to beep to remind me to give Layla the next dose of meds. She’d woken up before that could happen.
Making my way up the stairs, I stopped when I saw her lying on the floor in her bedroom, with Zeus excitedly crawling all over her.
Once he was on her chest, she smiled delightedly up at him as he stood watching her, his tail wagging like crazy.
“I don’t care who you belong to,” she croaked, “I’m not giving you back.”
Zeus pounced and bumped his nose against hers with a yap.
“A boop snoot? Did we just become best friends?” He did it again. “We did? Okay, let’s have a nap, best friend.”
Then, like she wasn’t lying on the wooden floor, she rolled onto her side, taking Zeus with her, and closed her eyes.
I crouched down beside her and carefully tucked a chunk of hair behind her ear, so it didn’t tickle her nose. “Uh, baby, why don’t I take you to the bathroom and then tuck you back into bed? You can’t sleep on the floor.”
Her eyes were glassy and bloodshot when she opened them, making the blue seem brighter than usual. “I found a puppy, Mark.”
“I see that. He can stay in here with you once you get back into bed.”
When she nodded and just closed her eyes again, I gently picked her up and took her through to the bathroom off her bedroom.
“I’m not going while you’re in here,” she muttered, leaning weakly on the sink. “What if I pee-toot?”
“I think we all do that,” I chuckled, helping her over to the toilet. “Shout me when you’re finished.”
When five minutes had passed, and I hadn’t heard her call out, I poked my head around the door and found her sitting on the toilet, her panties around her feet, fast asleep. With access to her back in his paws, Zeus came skidding across the tiles and stopped in front of her, letting out a high-pitched yap that woke her up.
“He’s my pee-pee assistance puppy,” she sighed happily, then narrowed her eyes on me. “You will not watch me pee or go to the bathroom, Mark Montgomery. There are boundaries that shall not be crossed in this marriage, and that’s one of them.”
I shot her a grin and saluted as I turned to leave, only remembering the dog when I got to the door. “Zeus.”
“Leave the puppy, he’s mine.”
On that order, I shut the door and went back to my spot next to it. Almost immediately, I heard a dramatic sigh of relief, and then she started singing the Three Best Friends song from The Hangover .
I was listening to her wash her hands while she explained to Zeus about not going near the toilet in case he drowned when my phone vibrated with a text from Jack.
Jack: Houston, we have a problem.
Me: Too many dogs?
What Jeremy hadn’t known was that three of the other puppies had already been applied for just that morning while he was working on an emergency, so Jack had only managed to adopt the other three.
Jack: I told her it would have been six at the beginning, but she didn’t consider it good news.
Me: I did warn you.
Jack: How does Layla like Zeus?
Me: She’s singing to him and talking to him about not going into the bathroom on his own in case he drowns in the toilet.
Jack: Shit, gotta hide. If I send you ‘911,' open the back door and don’t tell anyone you saw me. Ever!
Smiling, I put my phone back in my pocket just as Layla opened the door and staggered in the direction of her bed. I only just managed to catch her when her legs gave out before she got to it.
“Here you go, let me settle you back into bed.” Laying her down, I pulled the sheet up around her.
Eyes half-mast and drowsy, she smiled up at me. “Can I have the blanket, too, please?”
“Not until your fever drops a bit more, pretty girl, sorry.” I felt like the biggest ass in the world denying her when she was ill, but it was best for her to get her temperature down again.
Not that I need have worried about anything because she sighed and rolled over, then promptly fell asleep.
Hearing a whine, I noticed Zeus standing on his hind legs, trying to get to Layla. I tried to think through all the information I knew about dogs to decide if it was a good idea to let him up when she was this sick, but I was drawing a blank.
Don’t get me wrong, we’d had them when we were kids, but back then, my parents were the ones who set the rules and looked after them, so very little had stuck in my mind aside from the basics.
I’d made sure the guy had his vaccinations, I’d made sure he’d been wormed, and he’d already had a bath at the sanctuary in a flea and tick shampoo, but I’d still bought him that stuff that you put between their shoulder blades to stop them getting them, too. I’d also bought him food and water bowls, a cool mat to put them on, treats, good food with nutrition aimed at his age range, toys, a harness and a collar, and also one of those extendable leads.
Outside of that, though, I didn’t have a freaking clue what I was meant to do about putting him on her bed.
Deciding it’d be okay so long as I was there, I picked him up and let him walk around Layla while I got into bed on the other side, sliding in behind her.
“Don’t get too used to this, buddy. Layla might not want you up on the bed again.”
When he sat down and looked at me like I was nuts, I wondered if maybe I should have a nap. I’d hardly slept the last two nights because I was so worried about her, and apparently it was making me hallucinate about canine facial expressions.
“How about this—you might fall off and break a leg, and then she’ll cry all day and be sad?”
This time, he whined and curled up in front of her, making sure his back was pressed against Layla’s abdomen. Wrapping my arm around her waist and putting my hand on top of his head, I closed my eyes and fell asleep almost instantly.
Three hours later…
I’d received the 911 text from Jack and had let him in the back of Layla’s house, but I’d already told him I wasn’t going to lie if anyone asked me where he was. Then again, they’d probably figure it out once they asked Hurst and Linda if he was at theirs. Where else could he sneak off to? His sons would test the limits of his sanity within five minutes, and Colette knew that, so there was only Layla’s house.
While he had a nap on the couch, I made her my mom’s chicken and rice soup recipe, and Zeus provided me with some entertainment.
He was roughly three months old and was all ears and feet, but Jeremy had said carrots were good for him, so I’d put one on the ground for him, assuming he’d eat it. It never occurred to me to chop it up or just give him a slice, and later on, once I figured that out, I’d be relieved that he never ate the whole thing. However, at this moment, he was hitting it, biting it, pouncing on it, and just enjoying the hell out of life.
What he didn’t do was yap or bark, almost like he knew Jack and Layla needed some sleep.
The couch Jack was lying on wasn’t that far away from the entrance to the kitchen, so I could hear his soft snores perfectly. They were vastly different from Dad’s, who sounded like a pissed off grizzly at night and could be heard through walls.
That’s why, when I heard a high-pitched, almost whining mosquito-like noise that went on for a while, I automatically looked down at Zeus, expecting to see him begging. Instead, he was looking toward the living room with his ears in the air, his head tilting from side to side as he listened.
A sudden loud, brisk snort-like snore followed and was cut off with a “What? Who said that?” and it all made sense.
The noise had been what me and my brothers had referred to as kids as a mosquito fart.
“Do you want some soup, Jack?” When I didn’t get a response, I decided to send out my new buddy. “Zeus, go and check if Grandpa wants soup.”
The little guy looked at me like I was nuts. Maybe it was because of what we’d just heard—Jack farting himself awake—or perhaps it was because I called him Grandpa? Who knew.
Putting the lid on the pot, I gave in and did it myself.
“Jack, do you want some soup?”
He turned his head and looked at me through tired eyes. “What kind is it?”
“Mom’s chicken and rice.”
Jack sat up and swung his feet around. “Oh, I love that soup. Do you make it as good as she does?”
I told a little lie. “Absolutely.”
I’d never made it before, but who’s to say it wasn’t as good as Mom’s?
He yawned and got to his feet.
“Did the little guy crap in the house?” he asked, waving his hand in front of his face.
This time, instead of lying, I just sent him a small smile and went up to check on Layla.
Only three weeks ago, I’d been desperately trying to figure out how to get her to talk to me, and I was in deep shit for outing our marital status to her family. So much had happened in that time, and now I’d gotten her a dog, had helped her dad out after he’d pissed her mom off, and I was looking after her while she was sick.
It was her twenty-seventh birthday tomorrow, and although I had to work during the day, I’d planned to surprise her with a candlelight picnic in the backyard at the house. Unfortunately, due to bodily fluids, an ongoing police investigation, and the fact she was sick, that wouldn’t be possible, but I was hopeful Zeus would help me start making the day special for her.
Although, if Colette ever caught up with Jack, we might need to move to a hotel or something after this house became a crime scene, too.