Chapter 13 #3
“What?” I asked the guy on the phone after he said something that didn’t make sense, something about an elopement. I glanced at Anara’s engagement ring and asked, “What does that mean?”
I didn’t understand his next statement either so I put the call on speaker for her input. “Your dog is, uh…unfortunately Maverick has gone walkabout and is on, uh, hiatus. From our facility. Temporarily,” he said.
Anara got it right away, despite how many words he’d used to try to hide his meaning. “Maverick ran away?” she asked.
The answer was yes. “Are you kidding?” I demanded. “You’re professionals!”
“He’s a tough dog,” she noted to me and the guy on the phone agreed.
“We were hoping that you might be able to come by early to help us locate him,” the man told me.
My next call was to Callum, who had just landed. I explained what had happened much more clearly than the dog trainer, so he got it right away. “I’ll head over there now,” he said. “Hell.”
When Anara and I finally arrived, she wanted to stay and help, but I sent her home.
“You want to see Demitrious more,” I reminded her and that was absolutely true.
Since she hadn’t wanted to text and drive, I’d been listening to their phone calls for more than an hour and it was lucky that Heidi hadn’t been in the car with us.
Her emesis would have gotten a lot worse.
I hadn’t actually paid much attention because I was so worried about the dog.
After his previous owner had left for Turkmenistan, he had survived on his own for a while before landing at the animal shelter.
But it was a lot colder now than it had been then, and it got dark a whole lot earlier so there was more chance of him having a problem with cars on the roads.
As soon as Anara stopped, I jumped out of my seat and ran into the building, the same place I had dropped off Maverick just this morning and assumed that he would be ok.
They hadn’t found him. “Mr. Frazier and my manager are out on ATVs looking,” the girl at the desk told me. “We didn’t know that he was Callum Frazier’s dog!”
It wasn’t her fault, I reminded myself. Things happened that were beyond our control, which was what I had heard from an ER nurse and an obstetrician when Aunt Simone had passed away. But some things were within our control! Watching Maverick should have been one of them.
“Who let this happen?” I asked her furiously.
“Um, you’re gonna have to talk to my manager.”
He was out on the ATV, though, so I had to wait.
Rather than doing that inside, I went back into the snow, which was forming a blanket on the ground.
I used the flashlight from my phone and walked around, calling his name.
Callum always worried about me getting cold but I usually didn’t notice it much.
I tried not to notice it now, because I had to find Maverick.
It seemed like hours had passed and the snow was much thicker on the steps of the building, when I heard engines in the distance. I heard barking, too.
“Callum? Maverick!” I yelled, and the barking increased. I saw two headlights approaching and there they were, Callum riding and awkwardly gripping a large, wriggling animal.
“No way,” he told Maverick as he turned off the motor and they dismounted. “Don’t pull me. I’m not letting go. Maverick, sit!”
For a dog that had recently escaped from professionals, he behaved extremely well when ordered like that. He plopped right down but continued wiggling his butt and I ran over to hug them both.
“We’re prepared to provide a full refund,” the manager said as I knelt down.
“No shit,” Callum told him and the poor guy looked ready to cry.
“Why did you do this?” I asked the dog. He lunged forward and knocked me back into the snow.
“Hell!” Callum pulled me up and then announced, “We’re going home.
” He told Maverick to come and the dog walked fairly normally on a leash over to the green car.
“This damn thing doesn’t have four-wheel drive,” he said as he used his arm to sweep snow off the back window.
Then he opened the door to let Maverick jump inside.
“I can’t believe that I just spent two hours riding around in the dark to find you,” Callum told him and the dog wagged his tail in happiness.
“I’m sorry,” I said when we also got in. This was my fault for bringing home this uncontrollable animal.
“It’s not your fault. Give me your hands.” He held them, rubbing away the cold for a minute before he said, “Let’s go home.”
We were all quiet on the way, except for Maverick who didn’t like cars and whined a lot. Then he started gagging and threw up something that he must have eaten on his adventure.
“It got worse,” Callum said as he pulled over. He rubbed a hand down his face.
I put the dog into the back seat and did my best to remove the vomit from the cargo area before we continued, now with the windows cracked despite the temperature outside.
After we had parked in our complex’s lot, he brought the dog up to our condo while I tugged out the mat from the way back, one which still had bloodstains from my old cut and now also smelled like death. I almost threw up, too.
Callum was coming to meet me as I walked up the path and we returned home together, exhausted. “Long day,” he commented as he sat in our chair. “Come here.”
First, I needed to wash my hands very, very well and then I did go to join him, settling down and closing my eyes. “That was awful. When I heard that he was missing, and then you had to run over there…”
“He’s also my dog, right? I’m responsible for him just like you are.”
I had a sudden image of Callum in the future, maybe with some gray in his beard and surrounded by Maverick and other small figures. They were children, not more pets, and he would be a good father.
“What are we going to do?”
“About what?” I asked.
“About the dog. If he’s running away from trainers, that’s a real bad sign.”
“He listens to you,” I reminded him. “He always pays attention to what you say.”
“But I’m gone all the damn time,” he reminded me back.
“I’m handling him.”
“Rainey, you’re not. You’re still scared of him,” he said. “When I brought him back, you bent down to hug him, but when he moved? You fell trying to get away.”
“He pushed me!”
“Maybe he nudged you, but you were scared. You were trying to escape.”
“So what? That’s my problem, not his. Do you want to give him away or something?” I demanded. I sat up straight so we could look each other in the eye.
“Most people don’t start out with a dog like this. He could do better with someone with more time and someone else who doesn’t have to jump away in fear,” he told me. “That’s not fair to you. We could find him a good home with someone who loves him and can take good care of him.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I won’t give up on Maverick.”
He put his hand on my cheek, letting it rest there. “Can you explain to me why you want this dog so damn bad? This particular dog? There were a whole lot of them there at the rescue when we went. They probably all have sad stories like his, with owners who sucked.”
“I don’t want to be that kind of owner.”
“Me neither. Don’t avoid my question, ok? Tell me the truth.”
Right, the truth. What was it, again? “I can’t save all the dogs at the rescue place but I could do something for him,” I said.
“He knocked me down at first but it was only because the woman who owned him was an idiot about training and then ran off to Turkmenistan. And there I was, lying on the ground instead of standing up for myself!”
“So, this about you proving something?” Callum asked me. “Like that you’re tough enough to handle this?”
“No. Yes, maybe,” I said. I tilted my head to rest my face against his palm. “I hate the idea that I’m so weak and prey-able.”
“Are you talking about church? I didn’t know that you were religious.”
“No, I mean prey with an E, that I’m able to be preyed on. I hate that,” I answered.
“Why are you prey-able? I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
“That’s what I mean,” I said. “I want to know that I can protect myself. I don’t want to be a horse or a guinea pig, hiding and not showing pain because I have to be careful of predators.”
“You’re kind of losing me here,” he told me. “Horses must be terrible at hiding. They’re so big.”
“Never mind. I’m glad that you want to look out for me, Callum. I appreciate that,” I said. “I’ll think about what to do with Maverick.”
“Because we can’t have him knocking you down. I know you fell on your ass before and got hurt.”
“How did you know that?” I glanced over my shoulder and down at my butt. “Did you see—”
“No, I could tell by how you were walking. I’m not looking there.”
Of course not. I put my head back on his shoulder, sighing. But even now, when I felt pretty sad and pretty sorry about the state of affairs with Maverick, I was still aware of how glad I was to be here. Callum rubbed my back and I was so, so glad.