Chapter 7
DARCY
Once I finished measuring the powder, I added the correct amount of water and then put the lid on the mason jar I’d found in the cabinet. With that finished, I carefully filled the bottles and attached the tiny nipples I’d brought with me earlier.
Amazingly, the puppies seemed to be thriving after sixteen hours in Crow’s care.
Considering what I’d learned about him in that time, that shouldn’t have surprised me.
He had a presence about him that conveyed sheer determination and steadfast tenacity, which was something I appreciated and admired.
I had drifted from one thing to another most of my life with a bright idea here and there that I never saw through to the end.
When our mother was alive, she encouraged us to follow our dreams. She never laughed at a wild notion or harebrained idea.
Hell, she even encouraged them when she had a chance.
Until I was ten, I was allowed to dream of a future that would make me happy and hopefully soothe the restlessness I felt in everyday life.
I had always been high-strung, even as a small child, flitting from one thing to another.
One of my earliest memories was of my mom standing in the doorway of my bedroom, surveying the disaster area I’d created after pulling out toys that interested me and then leaving them scattered around when something else caught my eye.
Mom had diligently tried to teach me how to stick with something, but she also encouraged me to keep searching for whatever would make me happy in life.
Instead of having aspirations to become a doctor or lawyer, which I knew was a horrible idea for someone like me, I dreamed of owning a business where I could make all the rules and didn’t have to answer to anyone.
My sister Tansy had the same goal, and we dreamed of owning a business together.
Mom stoked that fire by helping us set up countless lemonade stands and popsicle stands.
We even had a pumpkin stand once that she stocked with gourds from a local farmer.
We had so much fun with our business endeavors that Tansy and I kept the dream of opening our own business alive even after our mother died.
I picked up Wakko, the puppy with the red collar, and poked at his mouth with the nipple.
I was relieved to see him pull it into his mouth and start drinking voraciously.
That let me know that his strength was already better than it had been just a few hours ago when he could barely lick the end of the dropper.
As he drank, I thought about all the different business ideas my sister and I had come up with that would have led me somewhere very different from standing in a new friend’s kitchen feeding stray puppies.
We’d run through a number of ideas through the years, including opening a boutique.
She and I planned to dress in the latest styles and sell outrageously priced clothing and handbags to our stepmother and her friends as we laughed all the way to the bank.
That idea was short-lived because neither of us wanted to spend any more time with Collette and her friends than absolutely necessary.
So, our business model changed depending on our situation in life.
When I was a freshman in college, I met the man I just knew was my modern-day Prince Charming and changed my entire lifestyle to coincide with his.
Since his way of living revolved around veganism, I convinced Tansy that we should open a juice bar, using only organic and sustainably sourced produce.
My love of cheese and red meat won out in the end, which turned Prince Charming into Prince Nagging Asshole, so we set our sights on opening a coffee shop like the popular one near campus.
That idea stuck around until we realized that there was a coffee shop on almost every corner.
Then, while enjoying a caramel latte at our favorite table made by our favorite barista, I met a starving artist who convinced us that opening an art gallery was a wonderful idea - especially if we promoted it using our last name, guaranteeing that the clientele had more money than sense and would soon line his pockets and make him a household name.
Since Tansy and I didn’t know the first thing about art or even care to learn, and I had no interest in supporting him until he became a household name, that idea fizzled too.
It wasn’t until we got into trouble at a party on campus during our junior year and were required to do community service that we realized our true calling.
Working with animals gave us a kind of peace we’d never had before.
Since we had never been allowed to own a pet, we had never experienced the unconditional love of an animal until we met a horde of them that needed our help.
Tansy took her love of baking in a different direction and started educating herself on animal nutrition and food that could help the cats and dogs at the shelter get healthy.
I focused my efforts on their outward appearance, hoping they would get noticed and then adopted into a loving family after they were bathed and groomed.
Of course, we took our idea to our father, asking for guidance and a substantial amount of money to open a pet boutique that would feature Tansy’s baked goods and my grooming skills.
He barely even listened to the projections and business model we’d worked so hard to develop before he waved his hand dismissively.
He told us that we could fiddle with our lofty ideas using our husbands’ money after we were married someday rather than wasting his.
Our college career had begun as a way to get out from under our father’s thumb but quickly turned into a lifestyle of partying at night while taking business classes during the day.
Luckily, we managed to graduate with enough knowledge to help us keep our planned business afloat.
The next step was just to wait impatiently for the day our trust funds would become available so we could follow our dreams.
Little did we know, our father never intended for us to get our hands on our money.
Thank God our older sister, Clancy, found out just in the nick of time.
With the help of our cousins and Aunt Steph, family that our father and stepmother had forbidden us to keep in contact with after our grandmother’s death, we were able to find a lawyer.
He was able to circumvent our father’s plan to hijack our inheritance, and we were able to get away from Denver.
And now that our money was secure in the hands of a man that we knew we could trust, we were safe to settle down and plan for the future.
Our dreams were finally being realized. With Clancy’s monetary backing, we were able to find a place in Rojo and buy it outright, and then, with her help and instruction, morph it into a gorgeous storefront.
It took more than a month to get the remodel completed, and in the three weeks since we’d opened our doors, we’d learned more about business ownership than college could ever have taught us.
Not once had a professor mentioned the sleepless nights spent worrying about the future, the bone-tired exhaustion from working sixteen-hour days after those sleepless nights, or the pride that came from a new customer mentioning that a friend loved our business and insisted they give us a try.
I knew without a doubt that the woman we called Aunt Steph, our mother’s cousin, and her daughters, Fallon and Sophie, had been instrumental in helping us get our business off the ground.
They seemed to know or have a mutual acquaintance with pretty much everyone in town and had been promoting us every chance they got.
Thankfully, Tansy and I loved what we were doing and worked our asses off to be worthy of such effort, which would hopefully help our business to keep growing.
My therapist was glad I had something to focus on and told me that establishing a business with my sister was helping to change my outlook on life.
She believed my business would get even more successful the longer I worked in Rojo and the more people I met.
She wanted me to build my self-confidence, which would help me realize my self-worth - something my father and stepmother had chipped away at every chance they got.
Once Wakko was finished, I fed Yakko, who ate just as enthusiastically. Dot wasn’t nearly as excited about drinking from the nipple as her brothers had been. I kept trying, though, and after a few minutes, she let nature take over and started suckling like she would if it had been her mother.
“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Crow asked in a voice rough from sleep.
When I looked over my shoulder, I found such a delectable sight that words escaped me right along with my breath.
He was standing in the doorway with one hand gripping the frame above his head while the other scratched his bare stomach just a few inches from the top of the loose basketball shorts that were hanging low on his hips.
I was finally able to suck in a breath but still couldn’t find my voice, so I shrugged in response.
Crow walked across the kitchen and stopped behind me before he peeked at the puppies over my shoulder. His cheek was right next to mine, and I could feel the warmth coming off of his body.
I wanted more than anything to lay Dot next to her brothers and then spin around and attack the man, but I knew that was a horrible idea.
During my most recent session with Emerald, she helped me gain a new perspective and get some insight into my dating life.
I had always tried so hard to mold myself to be what the man I was seeing wanted that it had been easy to lose sight of my hopes and dreams.