Rescue Me

by Catherine Mann

  She blinked back tears. She didn’t have the luxury of time to indulge in a pity party right now. The yard was filling fast with more cops, another team from Animal Control and the head of the rescue she volunteered with—Second Chance Ranch.

  Her friends. Her new family of sorts, especially since she’d so royally messed up her chance at a real family.

  She and Ted hadn’t planned on having children until she finished college. She’d thought she had plenty of time to get over her “little problem” with drugs. Except she’d accidentally gotten pregnant and couldn’t avoid her demons any longer. Her addiction threatened the well-being of the life growing inside her. She’d thought confessing to her doctor, then to her husband, had been the toughest days of her life.

  Not even close. The worst day had come later. When she’d miscarried her baby while in rehab. There was a grief in that she would never get over.

  Never.

  Ted hadn’t been able to get over it, either. He blamed her for the death of their baby, and she couldn’t disagree with him. It was her fault, and she had to live with that. The only way she could stay sane—stay alive—was to spend the rest of her days trying to make amends. She didn’t expect forgiveness. She just wanted peace.

  Mary Hannah sagged back against the icy slick wall of the cabin. The cold against her was nowhere near as intense as the chill inside her.

  Not all junkies looked like the skeletal woman sitting in the police cruiser.

  Some of them wore pretty paisley to cover ugly secrets.

  Two

  That injection made my head spin like a Wheel of Fortune.

  —FEMALE BOXER, FOUR YEARS OLD, BROWN/BLACK CONFISCATE #8

  AJ CAME FROM a family of cops. It was in his blood.

  He tore off his surgical mask and tossed it in a hazardous-waste bag set up outside the cabin, the routine familiar, similar to countless other days on the job in Atlanta. His dad had risen to the rank of police commissioner and had been proud of AJ’s speedy promotion to detective.

  Papa Parker hadn’t been too thrilled over AJ pulling himself off the fast track to move. Not that there’d been any choice. After his last undercover sting, he’d been on a crash-and-burn path of reckless behavior, shit for brains. His cousin Wyatt had somehow seen it in his eyes at a family reunion and mentioned the opening in his small-town force along with a great rental cabin next door to the Second Chance Ranch Rescue. The offer had come a day after AJ had almost gotten his partner killed. He wasn’t cut out for the big-city crime scene anymore, and his old man would just have to live with that.

  AJ reached for his surgical mask only to remember he’d already tossed it. He may have made it through this bust with everybody in one piece, but he was rattled. He never should have let Mary Hannah get away with running around outside, much less entering the house to save his ass.

  He eyed the Animal Control van loaded with crates. Mama lay inside with her head on her paws, ears plastered back against her head in fear. She’d been given a tranquilizer, but her eyes were still so wide with terror the white showed in a whale-ish look that made him want to crouch down in front and talk softly to her.

  Promise her . . . what? That everything would be okay? Because that was a lie. He didn’t know what would happen to her.

  The thought twisted his gut so hard he didn’t notice his cousin approaching until Wyatt clapped him on the back.

  “Poor Boxer Mama,” Wyatt drawled, the laid-back soul of the family. “Mary Hannah said the dog looks newly weaned. Puppies have probably already been sold.”

  “The truck looks like it was driven today, no snow on the hood. Maybe they were dropped off earlier and we still have a chance of tracking them down.”

  Wyatt pulled his keys from his coat pocket. “Maybe the news coverage will help.”

  AJ glanced at the woman under arrest in the back of the cop car. She wore a gray wool coat over a sweat suit. Her lank blond hair hung down her shoulders. Years of drug use showed in the dark circles under her eyes and her pocked, acned skin. She could have been twenty-five or fifty. Meth gave a person a timeless look—and not in a good way.

  With luck, the meth woman would cut a deal.

  AJ looked back at his cousin. “Has she confessed to anything yet?”

  “She says it’s her boyfriend’s cabin, and she was just here to pick up the poodle and schnauzer puppies to take to their new homes. The male poodle and schnauzer were found in the back of the covered pickup, huddled together to stay warm. According to our suspect”—Wyatt flipped open his notepad—“Evelyn Lucas, the litters on the property are all Christmas presents due to be dropped off today.”

  “Then there are going to be a lot of disappointed families, because those pups can’t go anywhere.” He knew the drill by heart after past busts, a couple of them four times the size of this one. “The dogs are contaminated with the fumes from the meth cooker. They need a good wash-down straightaway. And of course there are Boxer Mama’s missing puppies. God, I hope each family bathed them before letting their kids cuddle up to sleep with the new pup.”

  Wyatt shuddered. “Once we get back to the station, I’ll make it a number one priority to get Ms. Lucas to give up the names of the buyers.” He tugged his stocking cap over his red-tipped ears. “The place will be searched more thoroughly once we get a team with suits in. If they find contact names, I’ll pass them along to Animal Control.”

  Doubtful that there were any records. And likely cash-only transactions. He braced his hands on his thighs and hung his head. “Some way to spend the holidays.”

  Wyatt swept off his stocking hat and finger-combed a hand through his graying hair. “Hey, once we finish our report at the station, you should come with me to Lacey’s for Christmas Eve dinner. I know she invited you for the big Christmas Day meal, too. But you’re welcome at both. Mary Hannah will be there.”

  Of course she would.

  AJ cricked his neck from side to side, searching for the best way to duck out. Wyatt dated the quirky owner of the Second Chance Ranch Rescue—Lacey McDaniel. The two of them led the effort to set him up with Mary Hannah like they were all in high school, for crying out loud, trying to match up their friends for double dates to the movies. He wouldn’t have expected Wyatt to become such a romantic sap, but he didn’t intend to exchange locker-room stories with Wyatt about the one-nighter with Mary Hannah and how she’d bolted before sunrise.

  “I appreciate the offer,” he said again, “but I’ll be beat by the time I get home tonight. And I have holiday plans of my own for tomorrow.”

  “What plans?” Wyatt raised an eyebrow. “A microwaved dinner and a beer in front of the television?”

  “My Christmas holiday. My traditions. My business. But thanks all the same.” He glanced over at the van with Mama in her crate, her eyelids starting to slide down as the drugs kicked into high gear. “I’m going fishing.”

  “Seriously?” Wyatt snorted. “You’re the worst fisherman I’ve ever met.”

  “Thanks.” AJ winced but couldn’t deny it. Not that it mattered. He didn’t fish for food or sport. He hung out there with the line in the water, no bait on the hook, just searching for peace.

  “Promise you’ll think about the offer, okay? Lacey put a ham in the oven before she headed over here for tonight. And she’s got a turkey in the smoker for tomorrow. Friends and volunteers from the rescue are bringing side dishes. She needs our support over the holidays. Even though it’s been two years since her husband died in Iraq . . .”

  “I’ll try,” AJ offered, guilt already stinging because he wanted to help his cousin, but he also knew he would be a big wet blanket. Better to stay away.

  “Good. And hey, with her daughter and son-in-law coming to town, plus all those volunteers, the crowd will be large enough for you to stay quietly grouchy if you want.”

  Wyatt was ten years older and alway
s had been in charge of looking after his younger cousin AJ. Apparently some things hadn’t changed, and as much as AJ wanted to haul his own ass out of this dark pit he’d fallen into, it wasn’t happening.

  His cousin clapped him on the shoulder again. “I’ll see you at the station later?”

  “Yeah, as soon as I finish up here. I need to double-check all the Animal Control documentation.”

  So he could stay and watch over Mary Hannah even if he didn’t plan to push for a second one-night stand.

  Idiot.

  “Later, cousin.” Waving, Wyatt slid into the front seat of the cruiser and flipped on the lights, sending flashes streaking across the pine trees in the late afternoon as he took Ms. Lucas away.

  It had been a long day of grueling work. He was sweating under his winter gear.

  He’d accompanied other Animal Control contingents back in Georgia since dogfighting and drug trafficking often went hand in hand, but he’d never been on an operation that included a volunteer animal rescue, too, like Second Chance Ranch.

  Mary Hannah had certainly pulled her weight today, loading filthy dogs and puppies into crates. That surprised him. Up to now he’d been so focused on reconciling that wild night with “Francesca Vale” with the image of prim Mary Hannah Gallo, who shut him down cold. Granted, he hadn’t been himself that night, either, morose as hell after too long spent undercover and all too willing to indulge in a distraction.

  But the woman he’d come to know over the past five months had her life in alphabetical order. So he’d been surprised today to see her be so hands-on in the rescue operation. She’d just yanked on two pairs of latex gloves and a surgical mask before wading right in, cuddling the terrified creatures matted with their own feces. She’d even already agreed to go with Animal Control to the county shelter to help intake the animals.

  AJ peeled off his own gloves and tossed them into the industrial-sized waste bag on his way to one of the vans, which happened to be where Mary Hannah was working.

  He stopped just behind her, catching a hint of peppermint that stayed on her. Breath mints? Or shampoo? The question tugged at him like some great puzzle he had to solve.

  “Hey,” he called out softly, his hands twitching with the urge to rest on her shoulders. “I didn’t get to thank you in there for saving my ass.”

  She jolted, just a slight twitch of her head, then her shoulders braced as she went back to the task at hand. Her eyes were so damn sad as she labeled the crate with the groggy boxer.

  “No thanks needed.” She knuckle-nudged her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “We were both doing our part to handle the situation.”

  Suddenly he didn’t want to pile into the van yet with everyone else around them. He wanted more time to figure out this third dimension of a woman he hadn’t come close to understanding in the five months since they’d crossed paths. Then maybe she would stop haunting his dreams. Naked. “How do you know so much about animal rescue as a volunteer?”

  “I may be a volunteer, but I’ve gone through additional training.” She tucked the paperwork into a waterproof sleeve.

  He wasn’t letting her brush him off so easily. Not this time. “But it’s not like you’re on the payroll with this group. You’re under no obligation to work holidays.”

  She glanced over her shoulder, her brown eyes still shimmering with that sadness, her hand falling to rest on the crate protectively. “Most of the other volunteers have families. I don’t have anywhere else to be, so I offered to assist.”

  Just like him. Other than a cousin. “So you don’t have plans for Christmas—”

  Her eyes went wide with panic. “Speaking of Christmas, I need to finish up. Have a great one.”

  What the hell? Had she feared he would ask her over for a microwavable turkey dinner and a visit with Francesca?

  Her snow boots punched through the icy layer on her way to the van where Second Chance Ranch Rescue director Lacey McDaniel jotted notes on a clipboard while an angry schnauzer charged the crate door. The reality of how badly things could have gone today hit him hard for the first time. An image of Mary Hannah wrangling that freaked-out boxer chilled the sweat on his skin.

  He couldn’t just walk away, not until he knew she was tucked in back home with visions of sugarplums dancing in her head. The sooner he wrapped this case up at the shelter and the station, the better. It would take a full afternoon of Christmas fishing to erase the memory of this day—and dreams of that one night five months ago.

  * * *

  THANK GOD THE shelter had a private shower, because Mary Hannah’s nerves were shot.

  She held the sprayer over her head. Exhausted. But relieved.

  The male boxer was in the clinic in critical condition. All the other dogs had been cleaned, processed and settled in kennel runs faster than she would have predicted, thanks to the unexpected help from AJ. She’d done her best to keep him at arm’s length since she’d realized her stupidly impulsive one-night stand lived next door to the Second Chance Ranch—next door to her since she rented the loft apartment over the barn. Sometimes she wondered if they should talk about that night, blame it on the two drinks, except they hadn’t been drunk.

  And she couldn’t bear to think about what drove her to seek comfort. Or how much he enticed her to go back for more.

  She cranked the water hotter, hoping to chase away the chill in her heart that seemed to go deeper today because of that mama boxer and her missing babies. Showering in the shelter’s dog washroom wasn’t optimum. But it was private with a locked door that would give her a few minutes to collect herself.

  The patter of the shower water hitting tile muffled the distant barking mixed with the low melody of Christmas tunes—ironically “Silent Night.” This place was anything but quiet.

  She’d bagged her clothes to be tossed—including her favorite parka and boots. Maybe they could have been cleaned, but there was no way she could wear them again. Each piece would serve as a reminder of the meth smell. She’d even eaten a whole tin of breath mints—homeopathic, all-natural for stress—trying to get the scent and taste out of her system.

  Water streamed off her. Suds swirled down the drain. She’d scrubbed and scrubbed until her skin was almost raw. Still the smell lingered, reminding her of how easily she could be tempted to numb herself with drugs again.

  Or sex.

  Except her one attempt at that hadn’t gone as planned. God, what were the odds she would have her one epic fling with a narcotics detective? The last kind of man who could forgive or understand her past. She needed to remember that and chalk up today’s weakness to holiday sentimentality.

  She shut off the water and squeezed the excess moisture from her hair. Her life consisted of one day at a time, staying clean, keeping her world in order and making atonement through her volunteer work at the Second Chance Ranch.

  That place had a peace about it that had saved her, a peace she knew these poor animals needed. Once legalities were cleared up, these animals could be transferred to there—if they passed their temperament tests. She just prayed they would stay healthy here in the meantime with all the airborne viruses of so many animals in close quarters.

  One day at a time, she reminded herself.

  Get through the holidays, then she could focus on these animals and the upcoming My Furry Valentine Mutt Makeover competition. A group of animal-lover bigwigs from Nashville were sponsoring the shelter challenge, led by country-music legend Billy Brock. Trainers and foster families from across Tennessee and Kentucky would pair up with rescue dogs for six weeks to train, culminating in a Valentine’s festival with music and a parade of the canine contestants. Then a big debut on Valentine’s Day for love-match adoptions and a hundred-thousand-dollar grand prize to go to the winning shelter.

  The perfect opportunity for Second Chance as well as the animals.

  Some had call
ed her a workaholic for volunteering all her free time, but she preferred to stay busy. She wasn’t interested in partying. Her rescue friends kept her social calendar packed with plenty of events and camaraderie.

  She had a full life, damn it.

  So why was she so nervous about leaving this shower room and running into AJ again? She’d managed to keep her distance for five months. She could manage today.

  Mary Hannah grabbed a couple of towels to dry off, the terry cloth bristly from so many washings with bleach. She tugged on the sweat suit with the shelter logo, and her gym shoes. She’d washed her glasses—five times. She finger-combed her hair. With no more reason to delay, she stepped out of the small washroom and into the corridor.

  Where AJ waited. For her.

  There was no mistaking the intensity of his piercing blue eyes. He leaned back against a wall beside shelves full of towels and blankets, garland strung along the edge. A big inflatable dog filled a corner of the lobby, the glowing decoration donated by a local ad agency, complete with a contribution box wrapped like a package.

  AJ, all intense and brooding, looked so innocuous up next to that goofy blow-up dog with a wagging tail. And his sweat suit sure fit his leanly muscled body. The shelter logo stretched across his broad shoulders, his black hair wet and spiking. The fresh-washed scent of him was as enticing as any cologne.

  “You’re still here.” She picked the hem of her sweatshirt self-consciously, her hair hanging in a thick, wet clump over one shoulder. “Is something wrong?”

  He waited until a male kennel tech walked past pushing a bucket and mop, then met her eyes again. “I wanted to make sure you’re okay. And? Are you?”

  She might as well be honest on that point at least. “I’m still a little shaken by what we saw at the cabin. The drugs as well as the horrible condition of the animals. I’ve never participated in a seizure with these sorts of legal ramifications.”