Chapter 16
chapter sixteen
Caleb
“Sorry, bud,” I say, kneeling down and filling his food bowl.
It’s pouring rain outside and my boots have tracked water all over the indoor room of the kennel.
I set his bowl down in front of him, then instinctively move to Rain’s kennel, but it’s not her kennel anymore.
She’s upstairs in the main house, probably asleep on Max’s bed.
If only all retired working dogs were as easy to adopt out as Rain had been.
I grab a rag and wipe up the water off the floor while Rex scarfs down his food. “That’s exactly why you don’t get much food at one time,” I tell him. “We gotta keep that stomach safe.”
With everything good here, I tell Rex goodnight, flip off the overhead light, and brace myself to run through the rain back to the main house. Maybe one day, with enough donations, I can build a covered walkway between all the buildings.
Once inside, I head past my brothers playing PS5 in the living room, steal a chicken wing from Ethan in the kitchen, and then go upstairs to sulk in peace. Ranger is already asleep in his crate in my room. I keep the crate door open but he loves being in there, especially in the rain.
I may have a ton of stuff going on, and a torrential downpour is happening outside, but I can’t believe she hung up on me.
Charlotte rarely ever calls, and it’s always about business.
The gala, the vendors, all the things. Of course it’s about business—she’s a professional businesswoman who isn't looking for a boyfriend. But damned if it doesn’t make my heart flutter every time I see her name light up my phone.
The SOS symbol appears in the top right corner of the screen.
We’ve lost service, which happens a lot during bad weather.
When I was a cop, I had priority cell service that worked anywhere, any time.
But I’m not a first responder anymore so that privilege is gone.
I can’t call her back, even if I wanted to.
Not sure what I’d say…Sorry? What did I do to warrant getting hung up on?
This will bother me all night. Maybe I should text her.
Or maybe not because it’s late and she’s my professional event planner, not my friend.
“We’re friends.”
She’d said it herself, though.
Dammit that whole conversation was weird.
It felt like there was way more to be said and then it just ended.
A tap on my door alerts me to Ethan walking in.
He sits at the “work from home” desk I set up a few months ago when I realized I’m often working at all hours of the night and it gets cold in the admin building, and sometimes I just want to stay in my sweatpants and work right next to my bed.
“I’ve got news I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he says.
I set my phone down. “Good or bad?”
“It’s good, but you might be…” He wavers his hand. “Annoyed at first.”
I sit straighter, already pre-annoyed for whatever he’s got to say. “What on earth does that mean?”
He rests his forearms on the chair arms. “This is a nice chair. We should get these in the office.”
“Are you stalling or just easily distracted?” I ask my big brother.
He’s only older by two years, but he’s always felt like a wise old man, even when we were kids.
At six years old, he carried my four year old self all the way across the property to the main house when my ankle was broken from jumping out of the oak tree after he told me not to.
Sometimes it feels like he still carries us all, not physically, but by doing the mental work the rest of us don’t think about doing.
“A Houston news station reached out to us,” he says, still admiring the feel of the chair by squishing himself into it and swiveling it around. “So, not like tiny small town news, but one of the big ones.”
“Okay?” We’re three hours outside of Houston, way out in the middle of nowhere, Texas. “What do they want?”
“They want to send a journalist out to learn about Alden Brothers K9.” Thunder booms and the lights go out.
A few seconds later, the generator kicks in, turning everything back on.
Ethan frowns at the window like the bad weather has purposely offended him.
“Anyway, they’re actually more interested in the nonprofit part.
They want to send a journalist out to tour the place, talk to you about it and stuff, and they said they might feature it on the nightly news, but at the very least they’ll do a writeup online about it. ”
“Dude, that’s awesome. Why would I be annoyed about that? We need all the press coverage we can get so we can help more retired working dogs.”
“Because they want to do it on camera.”
“Oh.” My lip curls. Then I shrug, remembering how fun it had been to talk to Charlotte’s camera.
That was probably because of the beautiful woman standing behind it.
Professional news crews have the big TV camera that would be a million times more imposing to talk into.
“I mean, I can do it. I should probably get used to stuff like that if I’m going to make this nonprofit succeed. ”
“For sure, man. You’ll do fine. Just don’t do that nervous eye rub thing you do.”
“What?” My hand touches my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
Ethan smirks. “Just messing with you.”
“For real? Or do I have some ugly nervous habit I don’t know about?”
He shrugs. “Sometimes you reach up and rub your eye when you’re worried about stuff.”
My lips flatten. A sudden urge to rub my eye makes me even more annoyed. Outside, the storm rages on. Maybe I should be a little concerned about it still being muddy by Friday, but the ground should soak it up well as long as the storm ends soon.
“So you’re good with it?” Ethan asks.
“Yeah,” I say with a shrug. I do not rub my eye. “That sounds great. When are they coming out?”
“We need to schedule something. I said you were very busy with the gala planning, but they’d love to come film you working with Rex’s new handler. So they can do a feel-good adoption story.”
“Rex doesn’t have a new handler,” I say. “What about Rain?”
Ethan shakes his head. “Our own brother adopted Rain. That doesn’t count. I thought Rex had some people coming to meet him?”
I sigh. “My buddy Mike didn’t work out. Then I had another couple come meet him but he got aggressive with the woman when she tried to pet him.”
“Damn.”
He doesn’t have to say anything else. We both know the situation.
I took on Rex because I was confident I could find him his forever home, and then replicate that for every retired working dog I could find.
I’ve been so confident from day one, and yet here I am with my very first rescue case not finding his forever home in three months of searching.
“I’ll figure it out,” I say. “I’ve been so busy with dog training clients and prepping for the gala that I just haven’t had enough time to work on getting Rex adopted. Give me another week or two.”
“Sure thing.” Ethan stands.
Ranger lifts his head, notices it’s just Ethan, and then lays back down.
I know the bond a handler has with their K9.
It’s as close as a human can get with an animal, and I can’t even imagine how hard it would be to retire your dog and not be able to keep him.
Rex deserves his perfect retirement home.
I take good care of him here on the farm, and I will take care of any dog who comes my way, but it’s not the same.
Rex deserves to be snoozing in a bedroom of someone he loves and trusts, just like Ranger does in my room every night.
I glance at my phone again. Funny how I didn’t know Charlotte a month ago and now she’s the only person I wish I could talk to. When I’m with her, she makes me feel like everything will work out perfectly. Mostly because she’s a total badass who finds a way to make everything work out perfectly.
What am I going to do when the gala is over and I never see her again?