Sit, Stay, Love (Rescue Me #2)
Chapter 1
Kelsey Sutton had been on more home visits than she could recall. Most had proved to be run-of-the-mill experiences. Others were memorable for one reason or another. Never before had one brought to mind a jungle rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas.
But here it was, mid-September, and this afternoon’s peculiar home visit had the Christmassy tune flowing through her mind.
Four fluttering finches. Or maybe there’d been five in that cage.
It was hard to tell with all the floating tufts of down.
Three squawking macaws. How long will my ears keep ringing like this?
Two unique homeowners. Weird. Let’s face it.
They were weird. And a corgi in a hurry to leave. Poor, sweet little Orzo.
The whole fiasco made Kelsey more committed than ever to finding the precocious little corgi the perfect home. As lead adoption coordinator for the High Grove Animal Shelter, that was her current mission.
As she turned from the house’s brick walkway onto the sidewalk, Kelsey was thankful she’d parked a few blocks away on the car-lined city street.
She needed a minute or two to walk off her did-that-really-just-happen feeling.
Orzo, who was typically a stop-and-sniff sort of fellow, was all too willing to keep up with her brisk pace.
The only looking around he did was the occasional glance up at her, as if to make sure she hadn’t fallen behind.
His unusually serious demeanor made her laugh off her disbelief.
She didn’t have to be a dog whisperer to know the residential Rainforest Café she’d just left wasn’t meant to be Orzo’s forever home.
No amount of cajoling would have called him out from behind her legs.
Hands down, it was Kelsey’s most unique home visit ever.
A dense jungle scene was painted on the far wall of the living room, and two enormous faux trees flanked the sides of it.
Elsewhere, the house was adorned with more bird and jungle pictures, decorations, and furniture than Kelsey’s active imagination could’ve conjured up.
Especially for a house smack-dab in the middle of the United States.
But the over-the-top decorating hadn’t been what bothered the puppy-faced, five-year-old tan-and-white corgi.
What troubled the normally easygoing dog was the incessant, ear-piercing squawking and thunderous flapping of three upset macaws who weren’t at all in agreement with their owners’ desire to bring a dog into their family.
By the time Kelsey had called it a wash and hoisted the terrified corgi into her arms, the air was so chock-full of downy feathers that she felt like she was trapped in a snow globe.
Thank goodness they’d decided to do this home visit.
Kelsey’s shelter prided itself on finding forever homes for the animals they took in.
Potential adopters had to pass an interview, plus reference and background checks.
When they did, home visits weren’t typically required.
These homeowners, two sisters, had passed all three.
In that short time with them, it had become clear the sisters were animal lovers.
However, during their interview, Chance, the shelter’s resident blind cairn terrier, had sniffed something amiss.
He could read people better than any animal or person Kelsey had ever known.
It was unofficial shelter policy to take Chance’s reactions to potential adopters seriously, so this afternoon’s appointment had been made.
In this case, he’d probably been smelling the exotic birds.
“I promise you, Orzo,” Kelsey said as they reached her bright-yellow Corolla and she clicked the remote to unlock the doors. “We’re going to find you the perfect home.”
As soon as she had the back door open wide enough, Orzo made an impressive jump considering his short legs, forgetting that earlier he’d needed a boost.
“I’m going to make sure of it,” she added, leaning in to scratch his back.
She saw a pale-blue tuft of down sticking up from underneath his collar and pulled it free.
“And even though you had a turn last week, you’re coming home with me tonight.
” Orzo’s tail began to wag like a piano metronome set for high speed.
Kelsey’s decision to take a different shelter dog home every night had started by accident a few years ago.
After moving out of her parents’ house and renting an apartment, she was excited to adopt a shelter dog of her own.
But the decision as to which dog had been nearly impossible.
The forty or so dogs in the shelter’s care were each lovable and adoption-worthy.
While trying to narrow her choice down to a few, she started the overnight fostering and realized she was probably doing the greatest good with the quiet night’s sleep and individual attention she offered all the shelter’s dogs in turn.
And after this afternoon’s crazy experience, Orzo deserved to be bumped to the front of the line.
Kelsey shut the back door and sank into the driver’s seat.
Orzo circled a few times, then plopped down with a sigh.
Before turning on the ignition, Kelsey checked her phone.
Megan had texted to see if Kelsey would still be stopping by the Sabrina Raven estate to feed the cat who, along with an entire estate, had been bequeathed to the shelter upon Sabrina Raven’s death eight months ago.
Kelsey replied that she was headed there next.
She was a bit surprised when Megan texted she’d meet her there.
Odd, Kelsey thought. The Raven estate was a twenty-minute drive from the shelter, but close enough to Kelsey’s apartment that she’d taken on the task of feeding the cantankerous cat each morning and evening.
The fact that Megan wanted to meet there on her day off had to mean there was some sort of news.
Wondering if the news might involve the estate itself, Kelsey flipped on the ignition and buckled her seat belt. Whatever it was, it certainly couldn’t be as eventful as her and Orzo’s afternoon had been. After all, what topped a life-size feather-filled snow globe?
* * *
Hands down, it was the weather that Kurt Crawford was most looking forward to on coming home.
There’d been enough times over the last eight years when he’d found it impossible to recall the sensation of a cool breeze against his skin.
Scorching heat had been an all-too-constant companion during his long military service.
After completing his military training as a working dog handler in Texas at the Lackland Air Force Base, he started his enlistment in the army doing customs support on the U.S.
-Mexican border. A couple years later, he was granted a transfer to the marines and found himself committing to multiple tours in Afghanistan and being paired up with new dog after new dog.
Winters had offered a splash of reprieve from the unbearable desert heat.
He’d even been in Kandahar during the one snow they’d had in thirty years.
It was an experience he’d never forget. The snow had been thick and clumpy, yet dry, as if the endless desert sands had had a role in making it.
Most recently, he’d been stationed in Honduras, training Honduran troops’ dogs to detect IEDs. There, the weather went from hot and sticky to hot and incessantly rainy.
With his sixty-pound military-grade duffel hoisted over his shoulder, Kurt dodged through the crowded St. Louis airport and headed outside to passenger pickup.
Fortunately, for a midwestern day in the middle of September—which could’ve seen any temperature extreme—today didn’t disappoint.
As the flight attendant had announced, this afternoon St. Louis was pleasantly cool and partly cloudy.
A light breeze blanketed Kurt’s skin, welcoming him home.
He was tempted to close his eyes and savor it—and would have if it wasn’t for the other passengers milling about.
He suspected that closing his eyes on purpose in a crowd wasn’t something he’d be comfortable doing for a long time.
His edginess in the packed baggage claim area ten minutes ago had been proof enough.
While waiting for his duffel, he kept catching himself scanning the crowds for signs of hidden weapons.
It would take more than a signature on paper and a handshake for him to be able to let down his guard.
In the throngs of people waiting for rides and shuttles, Kurt spotted a working guide dog.
The black Lab, who was old enough for her muzzle to be sprinkled with gray, sat patiently at attention beside an older man with stooped shoulders and Coke-bottle glasses.
As if sensing Kurt’s attention, the dog turned her head and met his gaze.
Her brown eyes were soft and intelligent.
An unexpected calm loosened Kurt’s stiff-from-traveling muscles.
The Lab may not have been trained for combat, but dogs were instinctively good at sensing danger, and this one was decisively calm.
He gave her a wink, and the dog pumped her tail before turning to look longingly at two small kids nearby whose ice-cream cones were getting drippier by the minute.
Things Kurt had once taken for granted stood out starkly.
Ice-cream cones. All-terrain strollers. Bulky SUVs whose sole purpose was to transport children from school to the park to play dates.
Patient service dogs. Well-marked handicapped zones.
Kurt was undeniably stateside. He was home.
His eight-year military career was over.
Less than 150 miles away, in his hometown of Fort Leonard Wood, he had a grandfather and mother he needed to face, and he would. Tomorrow. Maybe even tonight, depending on how hard jet lag kicked in.