Chapter 23
Harvey’s place was exactly what Sutton had expected yet somehow worse. The house sagged in on itself like it had given up trying to look decent a decade ago. Rusted fencing leaned at odd angles, and the dirt driveway looked less like a road and more like a suggestion.
Colter slowed the truck. “This is it.”
Sutton felt herself exhale. “Of course it is.”
The moment the engine cut, barking erupted from somewhere behind the shed—high-pitched and frantic—layered over itself in a way that made it impossible to tell where one dog began, and another ended.
The sound punched straight through Sutton’s ribs and settled in her chest like a bowling ball.
This wasn’t the sharp yip of excitement or the demanding bark of a bored animal.
This was panic-laced fear. It was the sound of survival.
Her hand hovered on the door handle, suddenly unsure. She swallowed and tried to steady her breathing, but her pulse skittered anyway.
She’d told herself she was ready for this and that animal rescue was the natural extension of everything she already knew.
Stray kittens pulled from storm drains, fainting goats with dramatic tendencies, a puppy hit by a car but still wagging its tail through the shock.
She’d seen blood, broken bones, and suffering.
Vet tech school hadn’t spared her the ugly parts.
But this felt different. It almost felt like the other side of rescue. The part people softened with donation photos and happy adoption stories. The part that didn’t fit neatly into before-and-after pictures.
Sutton wondered, with a sudden unwelcome clarity, if she could actually handle the truth of it—the neglect, the cruelty, the slow damage done over time by human hands or human indifference. It was one thing to treat injuries. It was another to look straight at the cause.
Her stomach rolled as the barking spiked again, and she pressed her lips together, fighting the urge to turn back, to tell herself she could ease into this kind of work later. But there was no later for dogs who sounded like that—no easing into reality. They needed help and care now.
She opened the door, heart thudding, already knowing that whatever waited behind that shed was going to change her. And deep down, she wasn’t sure she was prepared for what she was about to see.
Colter stopped beside her and lowered his voice. “You okay?”
Sutton forced herself to nod once even though all she wanted to do was vigorously shake her head and ask him to handle it. But Sutton was done relying on others to fix things or save the day. She’d earned her cape through dedication and sacrifice and hard work—not to mention love and care.
She went chin up. “I will be.”
He studied her face like he was looking for cracks she might be hiding. “You don’t have to go in there. You can stay back and I’ll handle it.”
“No. I need to.”
“Sutton—”
“This is part of the job,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Not the part anyone wants, but the part that matters. I can’t cherry-pick the easy cases and call myself useful.”
“I don’t ever want you thinking you have to prove something. Not to me. Not to anyone.”
“I’m not. I just need to know I can do this. That I won’t freeze when it counts.”
He exhaled, a rough sound. “I’ll walk you through it. One step at a time. And if at any point you say stop, you go back to the car and I’ll deal with Harvey. No resentment. No judgment.”
She nodded again, surer now. “I’m ready.”
Colter held her gaze for a beat, then gave a small, grim smile. “Good. For what it’s worth, I’ve been doing this a long time.”
“And?”
“And I never get used to this part. I just learn how to stand in it without breaking.”
They made their way toward the front door and had just reached the stoop when Harvey stepped out onto the porch, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.
The man’s age was ambiguous, landing somewhere between forty and retired.
He looked like he’d been shaped by back roads and bad choices—the kind of man who never quite made it out of the gravel.
His jeans sagged low and stained, work boots cracked and worn thin at the soles, laces mismatched like they’d been scavenged from different lives.
A sweat-rimmed cowboy hat was pulled low, but she could still see his eyes, which darted too quickly, never settling anywhere long enough to suggest honesty. His hands were rough and nicotine-stained, his fingers tapping an unsteady tattoo against his thigh like it was a nervous tic.
“Callahan,” he said, like it was a chore. “You bring cash?”
“You bring puppies?”
Harvey’s gaze slid to Sutton. “Didn’t know this was a group thing.”
“She’s with me,” Colter said, flat.
Harvey snorted. “Well, ain’t that some shit and sunshine.”
“The puppies?” Sutton asked, forcing the emotion from her words.
“Small talk is the Midwestern way.”
“Small talk is a waste of time,” she snapped. “Now the puppies.”
From Sutton's vantage point, she felt it before she saw it—the shift in Colter beside her. His shoulders dropped an inch, not relaxed, exactly, but settled.
When she glanced up, his mouth had tipped into a faint, unmistakable smile, pride warming his eyes.
“This way,” Harvey grumbled with the roughness of someone used to cutting corners and calling it hustle, selling living things like commodities instead of lives.
Trailer-park tough, morally hollow, and deeply unserious about the damage he left behind. Harvey was the kind of man who treated cruelty like a business model and slept just fine afterward.
He led them around the side of the house, past a pile of scrap metal to a collapsed doghouse. The pen sat half-hidden behind it. Six puppies tumbled over each other in the dirt, squeaking and biting at one another’s ears.
“Oh my God,” Sutton breathed, crouching automatically.
“Don’t get too attached,” Harvey said. “I’ve learned they sell better that way.”
Sutton looked up sharply. “How old are they?”
“Five weeks. Maybe six.”
“And the mother?” Colter asked.
Harvey jerked his chin toward the shade of the shed. Sutton followed the motion and her stomach dropped. The mama dog lay curled tight, ribs visible, coat dull, eyes tired but alert. She lifted her head when Sutton approached, tail twitching weakly.
Sutton swallowed. “How many litters has she had?”
Harvey shrugged. “Couple.”
Colter flexed his size at Harvey. “Try again.”
Harvey snuffed out a cigarette on the bottom of his shoe. “What’s it matter?”
“It matters,” Sutton said quietly, kneeling beside the dog. “Her body can’t keep up with this.”
“She’s a dog,” Harvey said. “She does what dogs do.”
“She does what you let her do,” Sutton corrected as she stroked the dog’s head, feeling how thin she was beneath the fur. “She’s exhausted.”
Harvey crossed his arms. “You paying or preaching?”
“Both,” she said with her best mom-voice—the kind saved for the worst of infractions. “You want two hundred per puppy. That’s twelve hundred dollars.”
Harvey rubbed his hands together in a disgusting and greedy manner. “Now we’re talking.”
“We’ll pay it,” Sutton said. “If the mama comes with them.”
“No chance. She’s one hell of a dog. Been with me since before my wife.”
“She’s done and you know it.”
“She’s still breathing, ain’t she?”
“Barely,” Sutton shot back. “You keep breeding her, she’ll die on you. Then you get nothing.”
“Not your problem.”
“It will be,” Sutton said evenly. “When she collapses and you’re stuck with a dead dog that no one’s willing to buy from you, you’ll think of the twelve hundred bucks you passed up.”
“She’s right,” Colter added quietly.
Harvey glanced between them. “You turning soft on me now, Doc?”
“I’ve always been this way,” Colter said. “You just don’t like it.”
“Here’s what happens,” Sutton said. “You take the money. We take the puppies and the mama. She gets fixed and goes to a new home.”
“And I get?”
“One less mouth to feed.”
“And what if I want to keep her?”
Sutton met his gaze without flinching. “Then you’ll keep losing sleep wondering when she’s going to die on you. Wondering if the cops are going to show up because a concerned neighbor called in a tip from some asshole selling dogs to dogfighters.”
Harvey scoffed, but there was hesitation now. “What’s in it for me?”
“Cash today,” Sutton said. “And peace of mind tomorrow.”
Harvey looked down at the dog. She didn’t move or beg; she watched them all with weary, fathomless eyes.
Silence stretched as Harvey turned the cigarette between his lips. The puppies yipped behind them.
Finally, Harvey exhaled sharply. “Damn dog. Fine. Take her but I want cash. All of it.”
Colter nodded. “You’ll get it.”
As Colter counted the bills, Sutton knelt again, looping a leash gently around the mama dog’s neck.
“You’re okay,” she murmured. “We’ve got you.”
The dog stood slowly, shaky but willing, pressing her head briefly into Sutton’s leg.
Harvey watched, unreadable. “You better not bring her back.”
“We won’t,” Colter said but it sounded more like a threat.
They collected all the dogs, putting the puppies in an extra-large crate Colter had brought along. Colter carried it to the truck, while Sutton followed behind, carrying the mama—who was at least twenty pounds underweight.
They loaded the puppies behind Colter and Sutton set Mama on her lap, wrapping her in a thick blanket that Sutton found in the bed of the truck.
“That was amazing,” he said and Sutton glanced over at him.
“Yeah,” she said softly. “We made it work, but you handled the hard parts.”
“No,” he said firmly. “You were the hard part. You talked him down, made sure the mama dog was safe, got the puppies into the truck without a scratch. That’s not nothing.”
“Thanks,” she said, adrenaline pumping through her body and making her hands quiver. Or maybe that was the effect of a man who saw her strength, named it, and didn’t look away.
“I should be the one thanking you. You stayed calm when I was about ready to lose it. You’re steady and decisive. You kept me from yelling at Harvey or breaking his nose.”
"Years of motherhood will do that to you," she said. "Turns out negotiating with a toddler over broccoli is excellent training for negotiating with a man who sells puppies out of a collapsed doghouse. Someone had to keep us both from committing a felony."
“Someone,” he repeated, his gaze lingering. “And that someone was you.”
“I would die first, burn the place to the ground, chain myself to every kennel, bleed if I had to, before that man ever laid eyes on another dog I have the power to protect,” she said.
“I know that feeling. Lately, I’m experiencing it more and more.”