Chapter 1 #2
The unassuming redbrick building was decorated with an array of pumpkins, life-size dog and cat scarecrows, straw bales, and spiderwebs. The front parking lot was already a buzz of activity even though the event didn’t officially start for another twenty minutes.
In addition to the activity stations, there was a food booth that sold snacks for people and pets, a silent auction, and a booth where one of the shelter volunteers would be drawing caricature sketches.
The shelter was small enough that it only employed a handful of people, and Tess knew each of them. The parking lot was filled with unfamiliar faces that Tess figured was a combination of volunteers, past adopters, and the public.
Many of the leashed dogs in the parking lot were in costume.
Tess spotted a black lab who’d had an impressively anatomically correct dog skeleton painted onto his coat, a wiener dog in a banana suit, a three-headed dog whose two papier-maché heads matched its real one, and a Lhasa apso Ewok.
Tess’s favorite was a mixed-breed white dog that had been painted so realistically with zebra stripes, she had to do a double take.
With an uncharacteristic burst of energy, Fannie leaped forward, dragging Tess along behind her. It took rebalancing her weight the opposite direction of Fannie’s pull and locking her feet into the ground for Tess to keep Fannie from diving into the throngs.
Kurt chuckled. “Want a hand? I wouldn’t be surprised if she outweighs you.”
“No thanks. I’ve got this.” Tess pulled a treat from her jeans pocket and asked the excited dog to sit at attention.
“I do, however, know which dog I’d like to start with.
” Fannie gobbled up the treat, leaving a wet spot on Tess’s palm.
“So, big girl, what do you say we get some of that energy out in the agility course first?”
“I think that’s a smart idea,” Kelsey agreed. “It’s set up around back, along with the game-scented straw maze. That should tucker her out. You too, by the way. That agility course is also a cardio burst for people.”
As if in understanding, Fannie tugged Tess onward. “Grab a dog, guys, and we’ll see who’s buying lunch later,” Tess called over her shoulder. “And no, I didn’t forget one of you is an ex-marine.”
Then she let Fannie lead her away, but not before hearing a duet of chuckles and agreement following her.
* * *
The penetrating flash from the photographer’s camera made Mason wince. He didn’t need to count back days to the accident to know that the effects of the concussion were lingering.
“A few more will do it.” The photographer, a middle-aged guy who’d recognized him in the crowd and asked for a few quick shots, was barely audible over the din from the crowd gathered at Ballpark Village for the city’s biggest Halloween party.
The woman at Mason’s side, the one whose name he hadn’t paid any attention to, moved closer into him, implying a connection they didn’t share.
This season, Mason’s strongest yet, had left it all but impossible for him to go anywhere without being asked to pose for a picture.
He’d not minded at first, and he didn’t mind it now, but in the days since the accident, he was becoming more conscious of the image each snapshot portrayed.
The woman had approached him after he’d left Thomas for a trip to the bathroom.
She’d been coming on to him, holding nothing back, when the photographer spotted him.
Mason’s left arm was bound in a sling, so she’d drawn in close at his right side.
He closed his hand loosely atop her shoulder, keeping his body straight and not leaning in toward her, advice he’d been given by his publicist to help ward off the party-guy image a dozen or so wild nights this last year had created.
She had her hand pressed flat against his stomach, her pinkie resting above the rim of the wool kilt that was currently itching the hell out of him. She was clad in a leopard-spotted faux-fur bikini, long tail, pointy ears, and all, and had the body to pull it off.
Only Mason wasn’t interested, however clear her signals were.
It was Halloween night, and he was out here working the crowd and signing autographs and locking his smile in place, for one reason only: to keep a promise to a buddy even though it conflicted with a stronger promise he’d made himself.
The season was over and winter was coming. Mason was craving quiet the way he craved water after a strenuous workout. The insanity that the most successful season of his career had brought would taper down. It had been a marathon year, and he was ready for the finish line.
The fame he’d acquired still felt oddly surreal, sort of like the Ford Explorer he’d been in had when it had careered across the highway and tumbled into an embankment.
Maybe there were some things you were never ready for.
Not the things that changed your life in ways you’d never seen coming, and not even the ones your father warned you about.
The photographer snapped another few shots, then Mason stepped back, reclaiming an inadequate bubble of space around him.
Leopard Girl’s smile faltered. “Oh, come on, I can’t let a man who looks this good in a kilt out of my arms without a fight.
How about I buy you a drink and we find a spot in the corner to enjoy it? ”
Mason read what she was saying with her eyes as clearly as he heard what she was saying with her lips. A year ago, he’d have brought her back to his place and let her rock his world. Hell, who was he kidding? A month or two ago even.
“I appreciate the offer. Maybe another time.”
He thanked her again and let the finality seep into his tone. The din of the crowd was starting to hurt his head just like the bright lights were. He’d had enough tonight. The world—lights, sounds, commotion—was still stark, harsh when he overdid it.
Twenty-six nights ago, he’d lain in the ER, disoriented from a concussion and trying to lie still for a CT scan of his left shoulder and collarbone. He’d sworn then and there he was done with the sporadic partying and racy nightlife that had landed him in the back seat of that Explorer.
He scanned the crowds, searching for Thomas.
When Mason had left for the bathroom, they’d been talking to a small group of die-hard Red Birds fans.
Now, Mason found his buddy and teammate encircled by a small crowd of women who seemed more excited by Thomas’s supposedly-worn-by-Arnold-Schwarzenegger Conan the Barbarian costume than his career stats.
Compared to Thomas’s dressed-up loincloth, the green-and-black tartan kilt and black silk vest Mason had been cajoled into wearing wasn’t so bad.
Mason didn’t know where his buddy had gotten them, but Thomas had acquired his share of authentic garb.
He even had an aboriginal headdress that took up a full shelf in one closet and a top hat supposedly worn by a member of Lincoln’s Cabinet.
Mason came up behind Thomas, tapped his shoulder, and offered the very real excuse of a headache as his reason for taking off early. Thomas was disappointed but didn’t press.
All it took was heading outside into the night and feeling the cool air wash over him for Mason’s release to be palpable. He loved the pulse of the city, loved living in his converted warehouse loft so close to the stadium, but lately, he’d felt an unmistakable stirring in his chest to head home.
When he’d left the serene but stiflingly quiet, rolling farmlands of Balltown, Iowa, for college, he’d never imagined experiencing a longing for the solitude he’d lost. Back then, he’d craved city living, replete with all the culture and chaos nearly as much as he’d wanted to be a pro ball player.
He’d been fortunate to have gotten both wishes.
Now, ten years later, he was struck with a wave of nostalgia for the Halloween night he was missing back home. A quieter, simpler Halloween full of people who thought they knew everything there was to know about you, and were largely right.
A glance at the out-of-character Movado watch he’d forgotten to take off showed it was ten thirty.
The only Halloween tradition he’d experienced until he was eighteen would be winding down.
His extended family and a handful of friends always made for his parents’ farm on Halloween night, showing up an hour or so before dark.
If the weather was good like it was here, there’d be a roaring bonfire outside and, at the side of the yard nearest the house, there’d be a few folding tables covered with his mom’s worn linens.
They’d be loaded with all the Halloween regulars, like his aunt’s jack-o’-lantern stuffed peppers, his cousin’s zombie meat loaf, his mom’s pumpkin turkey chili, and his dad’s homemade hard cider from apples harvested on their farm.
Dinner would be long finished, and the assortment of homemade pies would be picked over.
His uncle Ron would be dozing in his reclining folding chair after having enjoyed one too many hard ciders.
His mom and aunts would be wrapping up leftovers while the younger kids and grandkids played the inevitable game of chase after finishing the skeleton hunt his dad set up year after year in the woods beyond the east field.
As Mason walked home, it occurred to him that nothing was keeping him here.
He could head home for a few weeks. The season was over.
He contemplated the logistics—the physical therapy appointments he’d have to move, the follow-up with his surgeon regarding the shattered collarbone that would hopefully be well-healed before spring training rolled around—as he headed away from the stadium and through empty streets toward his loft.
Three blocks from his building, he caught a glimpse of movement down a narrow side street.
Something was down there, just out of reach of the streetlights, watching him in the darkness.
He stopped, his muscles tensing automatically as he scanned the cave-like hole created by the century-old brick warehouses on either side.
He was wearing a kilt and hadn’t tucked anything aside from a single credit card into the leather sporran around his waist. And even had he not been, Halloween night wasn’t the best time to investigate darkened alleys.
But Mason had high hopes of what lingered in the darkness, just out of eyesight.
He strode into the dark toward it, his night vision kicking in as he left the glow of the streetlights.
The moon wasn’t yet out, and the city lights always dimmed the stars. He stopped a hundred feet in, not wanting to scare off the interloper he felt ahead of him in the darkness.
Odds were, it was a homeless person setting up camp for the night. Or tonight, Halloween night, it could also be a couple pranksters having mostly innocent fun.
But it wasn’t. Mason finally spotted the four long, white legs and the white fur under the dog’s chin. The animal was fifty feet away, facing him. The rest of the dog’s body, the parts covered with black fur, was invisible.
Mason sank onto his heels and whistled low and soft. Maybe tonight’s the night.
The dog made a sound that Mason guessed was half yawn, half whine but didn’t move.
“I didn’t bring you anything, boy, but if you’d just let go of that stubborn streak and follow me home, I’d cook you up something great.”
To Mason’s surprise, the dog burst into a trot straight toward him.
Mason waited, holding his breath. The animal stopped as abruptly as he started, leaving a mere fifteen feet between them.
This close, Mason could make out the white patches just above the dog’s eyes in the thick, black fur of his face, giving him an intelligent, inquisitive look.
“It’s not the safest of nights to be a stray dog in the city anyway,” he added into the silence. “What do you say you hang up your hat and call it a day?”
The dog’s tail, black with a white tip, stuck out behind his body, neither relaxed nor stiff. He gave it a single flick in answer, then turned abruptly and trotted down the alley.
Mason stayed in place, watching the spectacular animal retreat until the last visible patch of white, the tip of his tail, disappeared into the night.
“I get it, John Ronald. I get it. You don’t answer to anyone. But if you ever change your mind, you’re definitely the dog for me.”