The woman leaned in. “Anne . . . ?”
The door got opened in a flash and a strong pair of arms shot around her. “Oh, my God, I haven’t seen you forever.”
Anne closed her eyes and tried to keep her voice level. “I know, right?”
Debbie Fazio pushed her back. “How are you. And I mean that really. Not socially.”
“I’m okay. How’s Sal?”
“He’s good. He’s Sal, you know the drill. Working overtime at the 508.”
Sal Fazio was a veteran firefighter, a good man, and almost at retirement. He and Debbie had three kids, and Anne had been seeing the family at department functions for years.
“So you got a dog?” Debbie said. “After you . . .”
As the woman tripped over words and avoided looking at the prosthesis, Anne wanted to hug her again and tell her it was all right to feel awkward. Instead, she nodded. “Yes, I got a dog. I mean, I found him on the streets yesterday and the vets couldn’t keep him and I’ve decided to— I’m babbling. I just, can I have him?”
“So he didn’t have an owner?”
“He was feral.”
“What vet did he come from?” Debbie motioned for her to come in. Then she relocked the front door and indicated for Anne to follow her. “Oh—wait, we have a delivery coming in. It’s being processed.”
They went behind the registration desk and entered a concrete kennel area that stretched out behind the administration section of the facility. Anne looked at the first couple of dogs, and then found that she had to focus on the bald floor or she got teary. It helped that everything was clean, and the animals perky, but all she could think about was how they had come to be here. And what would happen if they didn’t get chosen.
“Hey, Bobby, where did those three dogs come in this morning?”
Anne glanced up at a young guy dressed in a green janitor’s uniform. He had dreadlocks and a calm smile. “I brought ’em in and they’re in B down at the end.”
“Great. Thanks.” Debbie hung a left and opened the door to another kennel run. “We have four different buildings.”
“I don’t— I gotta be honest, I don’t know how you do this job.”
“We save so many. I love to see the families come in with the kids. It’s not always easy, but we do good work—we ease suffering, stop cruelty, and give joy every day. You have to focus on the happy if you’re going to keep going, you know?”
“Ah, yes . . . yes, I do.”
Debbie started down another run. “Okay, here we are. Down here.”
At the far end of the sixty or so kennels, Debbie stopped. “One of these three?”
The first two dogs were the wrong size, so she turned to the last and—
The gray mix was all the way back in the kennel again, his tail tucked in tight, his head hanging low, his eyes unfocused. But then he looked up and seemed surprised.
Anne went over and lowered herself onto her knees. Curling her fingers through the chain links, she checked his carefully sutured wounds and measured the swelling of that ear. “Hi.”
That tail wagged, just at the tip. And then the animal shuffled over slowly and sniffed at her fingers. Licked at her.
“Looks like he knows who his mom is,” Debbie said.
? ? ?
“Okay.” Anne glanced across at her passenger seat. “Here’s the plan, Soot.”
As the light ahead turned red, she hit the brakes. “We’re going to go up the back stairs and I need you to keep a low profile. You can hang out behind my desk in my office and I’ll take you out on the regular. Debbie told me the guy who picked you up said you are not a biter, and I’m going to ask you to keep that up.”
Looking in the rearview, she thanked Sal’s wife in her head again for all the things that filled the back seat. The woman had lent her a collapsible crate that was big enough for Soot to be comfortable in, and provided a stack of old but clean towels, as well as a bowl for water. There was also a halter and leash, and Soot was sporting a plain red nylon collar with his brand-new license and rabies-vaccine tags on it.
“So what do you think? We good?”
Soot’s caramel eyes looked around, checking out the passing cars and the shops as they went along. He was calm, and she told herself he somehow knew that he was safe with her. Whether that was true, she had no idea.
When she pulled into the parking lot of the Fire and Safety building, she went around back. She was ten minutes late already, but she was going to add to that insult. Soot was patient as she put his halter on, and he let her lift him out of the seat and down onto the pavement.
He wasn’t necessarily big, but he was dense even though he was thin.
“Okay, let’s go potty.” What the hell was she doing? “Come on, let’s go onto the grass.”
Soot didn’t move, which made sense. Because he didn’t friggin’ speak English. What he did do, however, was follow her when she walked onto the mowed strip of faded lawn. He didn’t seem to like the halter and he shook his head a lot, as if either his ear was bothering him or he hated the leash.
But he did squat and pee.
Anne felt triumph like she had won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Sneaking him into the building and up to her office with the towels, the crate and the bowl was a thing, though. They used the rear stairs—slowly, because Soot was tentative about it all—and then she was trying to rush him down the carpeted hall of her floor, passing enough open doors to make her feel like she was on a Broadway stage. But they made it.
Closing them in, she quickly set up the crate behind her L-shaped desk and padded the base with all those towels. As her hands lingered on the soft bed of towels, she thought of all the animals that had come into contact with the terry cloths of various colors. She prayed all of them had found homes like Soot had, even as she knew that wasn’t the case.
When things were set up, she eased back on her heels. Soot was watching her in that way he did, his big, exhausted eyes on her. “Come in here, boy. This is where you have to be.”
When he didn’t move, she reached in and patted the towels. “Come on.”
Nope. No go.
Another Fiber One did the trick. She got the bar out of her purse, fed him a little, and put the rest on the nest she’d made.
Soot walked in, ate slowly . . . and curled into a ball facing out at her. As she stared at him, she had an absurd worry that he might not like her over time. Saviors were one thing. Friends? That was a choice—
Abruptly, her conversation with Danny from the night before barged in and took over—as it had been doing since pretty much the second she’d stepped back from his almost-kiss and beat feet out his front door.
It had been a while since she’d watched the sunrise. Not since the rehab hospital. But, yup, this morning’s had been peach and pink and magnificent.
“You’re going to be okay in there. And I’ll take you with me if I leave.”
He laid his head down and just stared at her.
As she went to close the crate door, she stopped and took off the jacket that matched her slacks. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a knockoff she’d gotten at TJ Maxx when she’d had to find at least one week’s worth of office clothes at a dead run. But it smelled like her, and maybe that would help them bond? Or something?
“God, what am I doing,” she muttered as she wadded it up and put in the crate. “I’ve never even had a house plant—”
The knock on her door was sharp, and she quickly stood up. Tucking in her blouse, she smoothed her hair and tried to look professional. Damn it, she should have put on that lip gloss.
“Yes?”
Don Marshall stuck his head in and muttered, “I didn’t know it was Bring Your Dog to Work Day.”
chapter
17
Moose was fucking late. Of course.
As Danny stopped his truck in front of a dilapidated old house with a Jumanji yard, he yanked the parking break and made sure the gear shift was in first before he canned the engine. Getting out, he rubbed his wet hair and jacked up his work pants.