Chapter 4 ADAM
Chapter four
ADAM
Find the dog. Get to Wes’s early dinner. Finish my bags to hit the road tomorrow. That’s the plan.
“Co, Co, Co,” I mutter, aware I sound like Santa in need of a doctor.
Trust Mrs. Clark to convince me that chihuahuas respond to chicken calls. Apparently, it’s the exact pitch for “come here, you’re safe” in tiny dog language. Eight years of school (including vet school) and not once did anyone teach me to cluck at small breeds. Go figure.
The thermometer on my phone reads twelve degrees.
Cold enough to worry about a four-pound dog with more attitude than body mass.
LoverBoy’s probably burning through his glucose reserves trying to stay warm in this weather.
Hypothermia in small breeds happens fast—one minute they’re shivering, the next they’re drowsy and fading.
“LoverBoy, you pain in my ass.” I sweep my flashlight across the shoulder, following paw prints barely bigger than quarters. “You couldn’t wait until tomorrow to make your grand escape? When I’m officially off-duty?”
“You’re doing wonderful, Adam dear,” Mrs. Clark’s voice crackles through my phone. The same woman who’s been dropping off “found” animals at my clinic since I was the gangly kid cleaning cages during summer breaks. The one who brought me homemade cookies after my first scary surgery.
I exhale, watching my breath cloud and dissolve. Last month, I signed away the clinic I built from scratch. Six years of convincing farmers to bring in animals. Of renovating that old paper mill into a place with proper surgical lights and recovery kennels. Of midnight calving emergencies.
And today was my last day before moving.
Dr. Chen had practically bounced as she signed the final papers, her wife already measuring for new blinds in my—her—office. “We’re keeping the name,” she’d said. “Pine Creek Animal Hospital has a good reputation.”
My signature is fresh on the Soundside Community College contract too.
The teaching position I’ve been circling for years, always finding the perfect excuse.
Can’t leave during parvo season. Can’t leave during calving season.
Can’t leave during whatever convenient season kept me rooted here while classmates built research careers and wrote textbooks.
Dad hadn’t even looked surprised when I told him.
He nodded like he’d been expecting it, like he’d been waiting for me to finally admit I wanted more than being Pine Creek’s animal savior.
“About time,” he’d said, bourbon in hand.
“Your mother’s already planning which cruise to drag me on when you’re not here for her to fuss over. ”
So much for being irreplaceable.
My phone buzzes with a reminder: “New Hires SCC Orientation – January 4th.” The teaching program needs someone with rural experience.
Someone who knows what it’s like when the nearest emergency clinic is an hour away and you’ve got a Great Dane with bloat on your table.
Someone who can train techs to handle what’s coming through those doors when the nearest vet is too far away.
And the vet office I’m reopening part-time in Sandwich Bay is the perfect place to continue training those vet techs.
I’ll get there tomorrow if I drive straight through Pine Creek to Massachusetts, start cleaning the day after.
Set up the small apartment above the clinic. Reopen after the holidays.
It gives me plenty of time to get settled. Plus, I have a business association meeting to attend and an invitation to the Daniel Weber’s Inn for a dinner with colleagues from the Cape.
It’s exactly what I’ve wanted. So why does my chest tighten every time I look at the calendar? Why did I spend this morning memorizing the feel of familiar kennels and cabinets like I’m never coming back?
Because you’re not. That’s how leaving works.
A brown blur finally catches in my flashlight beam. LoverBoy, Christmas sweater dusted with snow, stares at me with that unique mix of defiance and terror only tiny dogs can master. I lower myself, moving the way I approach all flight risks - slow, deliberate, nothing sudden.
Before I can reach LoverBoy, headlights cut through the darkness. The tiny dog runs again. Fast.
Fuck.
Then he freezes, caught in the beam like the world’s smallest deer.
“LoverBoy, don’t move,” I whisper, as if he’ll understand me better than Mrs. Clark’s chicken calls.
The driver spots him too late. They wrench the wheel. Amateur move on this stretch. The locals know better. I watch the tires lose their grip, the back end swinging out in that familiar, sickening slide.
The car fishtails, scraping to a stop against the shoulder with the distinct sound of metal meeting frozen earth. Not a T-bone into a tree, but enough to shake someone up.
“Something’s come up,” I tell Mrs. Clark. “I’ll call you back.” I can still hear her saying what she always says, “You’re a good boy, Adam. Always helping everyone.”
Before I can rush toward the car, the driver’s door opens a crack. Steps out of the car, scoops something up. Slams shut again. At least they’re okay.
“Hello?” I call out. But whoever is in the car can’t hear me with the wind.
My phone screen glows with my brother’s texts from an hour ago:
Kellan
Dude, are you seriously ditching Wes's birthday AGAIN? It's the third year in a row.
I’ll reply as soon as I get Loverboy. I might even make it for the end of it.
My brother adds,
Kellan
You do know this was more than a birthday party, right?
Fuck. I suspected it could be a surprise party. For me leaving. But, also didn’t want to assume. I’m the one who organizes parties, postpones events because my work comes first but makes sure everyone else can still party.
I scan the road with my flashlight, looking for any sign of LoverBoy. No movement in the ditches. Either he's hiding somewhere in the underbrush, or the driver did scoop him up.
Time slows as I approach the car, each boot crunching through ice. Still doing that chicken co, co, co sound in case LoverBoy is nearby. My pace is cautious, steady. The same one I use approaching injured animals. Don’t startle them. Don’t make sudden movements.
My phone vibrates against my hip. And my watch shows Mom’s latest message:
Mom
Your dad's new nurse practitioner is arriving today. Staying at your B&B. Please be kind.
Kind is my fucking middle name.
She and Dad taught me well.
“Everyone deserves another chance,” he'd say, hiring the receptionist with the DUI or the nurse with the anxiety disorder. I used to think it was noble. Now I wonder if it was his way of staying necessary.
Another text buzzes through:
Mom
She's smart. Just saying.
In Mom-speak, that translates to: “marry her before New Year’s.” Mom’s matchmaking. Even one day before I leave. As subtle as a bull in heat. Better than Mayor Clark cornering me after the sale went public, “You sure about this, son? Some decisions you can’t take back.”
As if I haven’t thought about this every day for the past year. As if signing those papers wasn’t the hardest and easiest thing I’ve ever done.
I take a steadying breath. Priorities.
Check the driver. Find the dog. Make it to Rosie’s in time for Wes to forgive me. Again.
There’s always someone to help. A dog. A neighbor. A last-minute favor. I used to think it made me dependable. Lately, I’m not sure what it makes me anymore.
Silence stretches between us, until I hear a muffled sound—something between a gasp and a curse.
Shuffling. The distinct jingle of dog tags.
“Shit. Crap. Fuck.”
I expect some flustered tourist, maybe an out-of-towner trying to text and drive.
Not someone who knows how to say shit, crap, fuck like it’s punctuation.
“I’m going to murder Claire,” she continues.
And my stomach takes a polar plunge without my fucking permission.
Worse than the time my brother dared me into Lake Erie in January.
Icy. Sudden. Breath stolen.
That voice. I’d know it anywhere.
It’s embedded in me like the exact pressure needed to check a nervous puppy’s heartbeat without spooking him. Like antiseptic and fresh hay in the clinic. Like every Christmas song the radio has been playing since Thanksgiving.
No. No way.
The window rolls down an inch.
Brown eyes. Firewood brown. Whiskey ember warm.
One arched brow. That expression.
It can’t be.
Not her.
Not now.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
The shock eases, but the cold doesn’t. It hooks in deep and won’t let go. Seven years disintegrating in an instant.
EveNoName123.
In Pine Creek.
In my town.
On my road.
What the fuck?