Chapter 13
Thirteen
Everyone talks about finding the one that makes their heart skip a beat. Personally, I’m not looking to develop a heart problem.
—Constance to Odin
Odin
“Can I get you anything else?”
I shook my head, not bothering to reply.
My head hurt today.
Which sucked because I had a shit ton of work to do on the computer, and that was bound to make it worse.
“All right, let me know if you need anything else.” She left without any more small talk, thank God.
I was drinking what was left of my coffee in Hopps when I happened to look up at a sudden movement.
My coffee cup was halfway to my face when a dog ran full tilt across the pavement in front of Hopps at something just out of sight of the windows I was sitting in front of.
Setting my coffee down, I got up and walked toward the door and opened it just in time to hear someone screaming.
“Get off!” a woman screeched. “No! Baby, run!”
Baby, run.
When I stepped foot outside of Hopps, I saw a flash of pink, and then a little girl was running right at me.
I spotted the red hair and knew instantly who it was.
I swept her up into my arms, yanked the door open to Hopps, and boomed, “Need some help!”
A woman at the table right inside the door took Wendy from my arms, and I was back outside and running toward the chaos.
The first things I saw were the pink sprinkled donuts that were on the ground scattered like confetti. The snarling was the next thing to catch my attention. It sounded vicious and unhinged.
There were several people surrounding the dog now, as well as someone on the ground in black jeans and a black long-sleeved tee.
I scanned everyone, looking for Constance, knowing that she was right in the thick of this.
What I didn’t expect was to not find her in the throng of people trying to help.
Where was she?
I logically should’ve known that the woman getting attacked was Constance, yet it was still a shock when the woman’s red hair spilled free of the beanie that she had it under. It was her thrashing about as she tried and failed to get the dog off of her boot that caused her hair to spill free.
The crowd was trying to get the dog off Constance, but the dog was relentless, not responding to pain or stimuli at all.
Without thinking much of it, I knocked several people out of the way and did the only thing I could think of doing to stop the attack. I wrapped my arms around the dog’s throat and got him into a chokehold.
I squeezed hard as my eyes met the terrified ones of my so-called “enemy.”
An enemy that was looking like more of a friend as each day passed.
My so-called enemy’s attitude toward me had thawed over the last couple of days.
She’d been nicer…sort of.
But the look of terror in her eyes as the dog bit down on her boot and viciously yanked it side to side had me seeing a side of her I’d never seen before.
The dog’s movements slowed as I held the chokehold, using all of my strength to stay on the dog that was thrashing about.
Finally, the dog let go, and Constance scrambled backward.
Someone yanked her up and dragged her away, leaving me to hold on to the dog even longer.
“I got it,” I heard Boone call out.
It was then that I realized that the dog had stopped struggling.
He was lying limp in my arms.
“Shit,” I said as I stood up, letting the dog flop to the ground.
I was happy to see that the damn thing was still breathing, though.
It wouldn’t do to have killed the thing in such a public way.
No matter if the dog was attacking a woman or not, there would still be those people out there who thought that it was animal cruelty.
Boone, who’d come out of seemingly nowhere, quickly picked the dog’s head up and wrapped his muzzle in some tape.
He was picking him up and carting him off moments later, right to the back of his truck that had a cage in it for some reason.
He deposited the dog and shut the gate, turning back to me with a look of horror on his face.
“You didn’t kill the dog, did you?”
I looked toward a woman who’d been standing off to the side with a latte in her hand.
“If he didn’t, Boone will euthanize it when he gets to the—”
Someone’s shocked cry interrupted Hopps’s explanation. “That dog was only misunderstood!”
I ignored the conversation and walked toward where Constance was sitting on a chair outside of Hopps.
She was shaking, her face was pale, but she looked otherwise okay.
“You okay?” I asked as I stalked toward her.
She nodded, eyes wide and terrified. “I wore boots.”
She showed me her boots.
“Good,” I said. “Why are you dressed like that? Hiking?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I stopped to get Wendy some donuts since we were already late. I figured…why not? And then that dog came out of nowhere!”
“That’s the missing dog from the teen boy who hung himself.”
I looked sideways to where Hopps had come to stand beside us. But it wasn’t Hopps that’d spoken, but Thumper, the prospect that’d been eating breakfast before he headed on shift with another club brother, Koen.
Koen owned a construction business in town, and Thumper had been working with him since Koen’s work had exploded.
“What?” I asked. “How do you know?”
Thumper pulled out his phone and swiped a few times.
He showed me a photo. “My mom’s friends with this kid’s mom. That dog.” He pointed toward the back of Boone’s truck. “Is the same one. Been missing for four days.”
“Great.” I scrubbed at my face, then dropped down to my haunches and said, “Lose the boot. Let’s make sure that your foot is good.”
She took the boot off just as Wendy came out the door and headed straight for her mother.
At least, I thought she was headed toward her mother.
She got close but had veered toward me instead at the last second.
She threw her arms around my neck and squeezed. “My donuts are on the ground.”
I looked at Constance and widened my eyes.
Awkwardly, I patted Wendy’s back as Constance’s face went soft.
“We’ll get you some new ones,” I said. “But I need to check your mom’s foot. She’s been a constant drain on my resources lately.”
Constance scoffed.
“First puking in my bushes. Then getting bitten by a dog in front of me.”
“Coco is a handful.”
I couldn’t stop myself from laughing then.
Wendy reluctantly let go, and I was able to check out “Coco’s” foot.
“It looks okay.” I swept my thumb over some bruising. “No broken skin, thankfully.”
“Thank goodness Grandma made us put on clothes for the snow!” Wendy declared.
I helped her put her sock back on, and she put her own boot back on.
While she was doing that, I said, “I’ll run her over to the donut shop.”
Constance looked relieved as I caught Wendy’s hand and led her past the scattered remains of her original breakfast.
She looked at the cherry-iced donuts longingly as she said, “Those were the last ones.”
I squeezed her hand. “I think they might ice some more for us, don’t you think?”
Wendy looked hopeful as I led her into the shop.
The shopkeeper was the same woman who’d complained earlier about the dog and my “harshness.”
Great.
“Do you have any more cherry iced?” I asked.
“They got the last ones,” she apologized.
Even though she didn’t look very apologetic.
In fact, she looked like a bitch.
“Could you make some?” I asked.
“I…”
“We can.” Another woman came out of the back. “Is her mom okay?”
I nodded. “Just shaken. Luckily, she was wearing boots.”
“Thank goodness,” she replied, looking sad for a moment as she looked down at Wendy. “I’ll go run back here and make you some. You said cherry iced?”
Wendy nodded excitedly. “Yes!”
The simple joys in life.
I wish everything could be erased for me by some cherry-iced donuts.
“How many do you want?” the original lady asked sulkily.
“Do you remember their original order?” I asked.
The woman snorted.
I looked down at the little girl. “Do you remember what y’all got?”
She tapped her lips with one tiny finger. “No, but one of everything should do.”
I barked out a laugh, surprised and happy to see that she was bouncing back okay.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
The door banged open, and our donuts were waiting for us, already boxed. “I added a few more in here for you, on top of what she originally ordered.”
I blew out a relieved breath. “Thank you. How much do I owe you for them?”
She waved the words away with a sweep of her gloved hands. “Nothing. I’m just glad that she’s all right. That was pretty scary.”
“It was.” I thanked her. “Have a good one.”
When we got outside, Wendy clung to me like glue.
“Where did that dog come from anyway?” Wendy asked, looking around warily.
I reached for her hand and tugged her closer, just in case.
I had no clue where the dog came from, or why it’d gone after her specifically.
Maybe it was because she had food?
I didn’t know.
What I did know was I didn’t like how I felt seeing her in danger. I also didn’t like how it felt to hold Wendy’s hand.
It was doing stupid, weird things to my chest that I didn’t appreciate.