Good Guys Love Dogs

by Inglath Cooper

  The home she and Lena furnished and decorated together with casual, country touches could be called more than comfortable, but someday, Colby hoped to buy them a house big enough to have a room for her books and a bigger bedroom for Lena. She’d hoped that house would be Oak Hill, an old farm outside of town. But it had sold recently, and that hope was no longer a realistic one.

  From the radio on the kitchen counter, a singer twanged an appropriate tune about not dwelling on stuff you couldn’t change. Following her advice, Colby got up and began putting things away, her thoughts turning to Lena. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry these days where her daughter was concerned. She was a thirty-four-year-old woman. A mother. A veterinarian with a thriving practice. And she was losing control of her fifteen-year-old.

  The worst part? She had no idea why.

  In the past several weeks, Lena’s grades dropped from almost straight A’s to nearly all C’s. Lena was smart. Colby knew that wasn’t the problem. Lena had always been a good child. Maybe too good. Colby had been spoiled by that. Her relationship with her daughter had been the most fulfilling aspect of her life for so long that she couldn’t imagine it any other way.

  The difference in Lena seemingly happened overnight, as if aliens had swooped down and stolen her beautiful, fun-loving daughter, replacing her with a surlier version of herself. The kid who lived with her looked just like Lena, sounded like Lena. But she wasn’t Lena.

  More than once, Colby started to drive over to her parents’ house and plead for their advice on how to deal with this new side to her. She’d stopped herself each time. Samuel and Emma Williams had always been there for Lena and her. They’d helped put Colby through college and then vet school, lending a hand when Lena was a baby and Colby had been determined to stay in school. They’d been the best of parents, and she’d called on them far too often. She’d find a way to work this out on her own.

  The phone rang. Tucking her shoulder-length hair behind one ear, she picked it up with a distracted, “Hello.”

  “I know you’re headed out the door, but I’ve got a proposition for you.”

  “Does it involve convincing whoever stole my daughter to bring her back?”

  Phoebe Walker laughed. “Hormones raging, huh?”

  “I don’t know what it is. Isn’t there some kind of pill I can give her until it goes away?” Colby stretched the cord across the kitchen and picked up Lena’s plate of uneaten French toast.

  “You’re the doctor,” Phoebe said. “You ought to know.”

  Colby dumped the toast in the disposal and stuck the plate under the faucet, watching the syrup slide down the sink. “My expertise is in cows. They don’t turn on their mothers.”

  Phoebe chuckled. “If it’s any consolation, I think this is normal.”

  “It’s not,” Colby muttered, swiping at a water spot on her blue cotton shirt, and then wanting to change the subject, “So what’s the proposition?”

  “An invitation, actually. To dinner.”

  Colby tucked the phone under her chin and grabbed a paper towel to dab at her shirt. “What kind of dinner?”

  “The kind where you put on a dress, a spritz or two of perfume and leave your calf-birthing clothes at home in the closet.”

  “You want me to do all that just for you and Frank?” she asked, deliberately misunderstanding.

  “Well—”

  “That’s what I thought. Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Colby—”

  “Don’t Colby me.” She slipped the plate into the dishwasher. “Have you forgotten what I told you the last time you tried to fix me up?”

  “Are you going to hold that against me forever?” Phoebe asked, a whine in her voice.

  “I should. You certainly deserve it.”

  “He wasn’t that bad.”

  “Yeah, if your idea of a hot date is an octopus pickled in Brut.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Colby, you’re too picky!”

  “And you’ve got too much time on your hands.” As Colby’s best friend, Phoebe refused to stay out of her love life, saying she’d known her since the beginning of the world and therefore had a vested interest in her happiness. Personally, Colby thought she should join the garden club or take up knitting, anything to relieve Phoebe’s self-appointed burden of finding Colby a husband.

  No matter how often they went over it, Phoebe just didn’t get it. She refused to believe a woman could be happy living her life without a man—maybe because she happened to be married to one of the last good men on earth. But Colby qualified as walking proof she was wrong. She’d tried the dating scene off and on over the years, thinking Lena needed a father figure. Once in a while, she’d even dated out of a true desire for companionship. But at some point, it stopped seeming worth the trouble. The only men she ever met were either newly divorced and neurotic or looking for a housekeeper instead of a wife.

  She’d long ago decided love rarely turned out to be the way Hollywood depicted it. But then, she’d learned that when she’d been eighteen and too green to know better than to fall for a great-looking guy with a great-looking car who came from a different world than the one she knew.

  “Exactly who are you going to meet,” Phoebe continued, “tromping around in dairy barns in waist-high rubber boots?”

  “The bulls I run into are a lot more interesting than most of the men I know.”

  Phoebe let out an inelegant snort.

  Just then, Lena tromped down the stairs in black military boots, her purple bombshell replaced by a tie-dyed explosion of orange, red and green that made the first outfit look tame by comparison. The streaks of purple hair, in tribute to the discarded ensemble, remained. “It looks as if Lena’s finally decided on the look of the day,” Colby said, lowering her voice. “I’ve got to get going. We’re already late.”

  “Wait! You didn’t answer my question. Dinner this Friday. My house. Be here.”

  “Phoebe—”

  “I promise you won’t regret it.” Phoebe added a hasty goodbye and hung up before Colby could argue further. If she’d had the time, she would have called her back and given her a definite no on the spot, but Lena would be late for school and Colby had an early appointment. Turning down Phoebe’s invitation would have to wait.

  2

  Ten minutes later, Colby parked in front of Jefferson County High School. It sat on a small rise, and built of brick with classic lines, it was the kind of building that would never look outdated. A football stadium—impressive for a town the size of Keeling Creek—sat to the right of it.

  The engine of her old Ford truck shook a bit as she put it into park. Out of habit, she leaned across to give Lena a goodbye kiss on the forehead.

  “Mom!” Lena strained against her door as if Colby had just come after her with a hot branding iron.

  Colby sat back in her seat, her hands resting on the steering wheel. The kiss had been a reflex action, one of those things that seemed impossible to stop when she’d been doing it for so many years. It had only been in the past several weeks that Lena started rebuffing her affection. A lump of emotion lodged in Colby’s throat. She hated to see Lena grow up. If this was how the young made themselves independent from their parents, then she only wished the process over. Watching her daughter pull away from her day by day hurt too much. “Are you coming by the clinic after school?” she asked, keeping her voice light.

  “No. A bunch of us are going to the Dairy Queen.”

  Lena hadn’t come by the office in weeks. Ever since she’d started kindergarten, she hightailed it to the practice as soon as the bell rang, helping out with dog baths and feedings, anything to be around the animals. Now, she seemed to have lost interest. Colby forced herself not to respond, but it hurt, nonetheless. “What time will you be home, then?”

  “The usual.”

  Colby refrained from mentioning that “the usual” recently stretched its boundaries to anywhere between four and six o’clock. “Just be back by dinner.”r />
  A black Mercedes sedan rolled into the spot in front of them, its bumper barely missing the hood of Colby’s truck.

  “Oh, no!” Lena slid down in her seat.

  “What is it?” Colby asked, startled.

  “The new guy. Luke McKinley. Oh, my gosh, he’s so awesome!”

  Not once in fifteen-plus years had Colby ever heard such words from Lena. She’d always been a tomboy. As a child, she’d have chosen playing in the dirt over playing with dolls any day of the week. Not so long ago, boys rated the same level as fish bait. Colby wished they’d stayed there. Nonetheless, she strained her neck for a glimpse of the boy.

  “I gotta go, Mom,” Lena said, reserve creeping into her voice as she slid out of the truck.

  From the back seat, Petey and Lulu barked in protest when Lena forgot to say goodbye.

  Colby glanced at the wounded-looking pair. “So you’ve noticed, too, huh?” She put the truck in gear, stretching for another glimpse of the vehicle in front of her. The boy hadn’t gotten out yet, and she could hardly sit here all day. She wheeled around the Mercedes, watching Lena linger at the door, no doubt waiting for Awesome Luke.

  3

  Colby headed up Main Street toward the clinic, frustrated by the twenty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit. Joe Dooley tooled along in front of her in his farmuse pickup, an old Chevy that had seen its fortieth birthday and then some. A firm believer that laws were laws, Joe kept the needle of his speedometer safely on twenty-four.

  Telling herself to stop fretting and enjoy the early September morning, Colby waved at Ruby Lynch who was sweeping the sidewalk at Thurman’s Hardware. Keeling Creek had become known as one of the few towns that, so far, had been bypassed by the fast-food chains and super shopping stores. Small family-run businesses still flourished, and Colby liked it that way.

  Just past Thurman’s sat Tinker’s Drug and Soda Fountain. Then came the First Bank of Jefferson County. Across the street, Kirk’s Department Store had occupied the same spot for four decades. Next to Cutter’s Grocery sat the Dippety-Do Hair Salon, where she went for a monthly trim and the current dose of gossip that came free of charge with it.

  Ahead, the county courthouse loomed whitewashed and noble. Euell Clemens and Oat Henley, local farmers, stood talking at the door, waving at her as she drove by. In two more blocks she reached the Dairy Queen, where Joe Dooley turned off, no doubt making a pit stop for his morning egg biscuit. Colby waved and sped up a little, only to spot the town maintenance crew up ahead, doing some kind of repair work that brought the traffic to a halt. She glanced at her watch and sighed. Late. About to be later.

  She rolled down her window and waved at Ellis Holbrook, now holding the Stop sign at the front of the line of cars. He stepped back to her truck. “Mornin’, Doc.”

  “Good morning, Ellis. Think this is going to take long?”

  Ellis shook his head and adjusted his Jefferson County High Eagles cap, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Shouldn’t be but a few more minutes. I’d tell you to back up, but you’ve got too many cars behind you now.”

  “I understand,” she said. “How’s Toby?”

  Ellis reached through the window to pet Petey, then turned his attention to Lulu, impatiently waiting her turn. “He’s fine. Nasty cut on his leg, but it seems to be healin’ up real nice.”

  “He’s lucky he didn’t lose it, getting tangled up in that barbed wire.”

  “I wager he’ll steer clear of it from now on. I’d better get back up there. We’ll have you movin’ shortly, Doc.”

  “Thanks, Ellis.” Colby rolled up her window, thumped her thumbs on the steering wheel and flicked on the radio. WKKI announced the First Baptist Church’s plans for a bake sale on Court Street this Saturday and then promised to be right back after a few messages from its sponsors.

  This was Colby’s favorite season, when summer wound down and took the heat with it, leaving cool mornings and warm days in its place. Traditionally, a time of year that she and Lena always enjoyed together, shopping for school clothes and supplies, registering for school and buying textbooks. But this year had been different. Lena merely endured each of those outings, as if she couldn’t wait for them to be over.

  A song came on, as promised, and Colby’s fingers followed the rhythm on the center of the steering wheel while she wondered if she’d somehow taken a wrong turn in her efforts to make up for Lena’s never having had a father. Being a good parent was the most important thing in her life.

  In most ways that counted, she hadn’t let Doug be the stumbling block that he could have been. She’d done exactly what she’d always planned to do. Gotten her college degree and gone to vet school. Opened the first female-owned practice in Keeling Creek. In fact, since Dr. Granger retired two years ago, she had become the only veterinarian in town. All of that in spite of being a single mother at nineteen. All of that in spite of Doug Jamison’s refusal to take any responsibility for the daughter they created together.

  Doug left singe marks on her soul where relationships were concerned. Phoebe didn’t understand that. And Colby gave up trying to make her see that even if she ever met someone worth the effort, she couldn’t put her heart on the chopping block again. She’d had it pulverized once in her life, and once had been quite enough for her.

  4

  Some twenty minutes later, Colby pulled up to the Jefferson County Animal Clinic. She parked the truck in her usual spot and hopped out. Petey and Lulu, used to the routine, waited for her to raise the seat so they could get out. She’d found them three years ago at a gas station in Grayson County where someone apparently dropped them off. Viewing her as their savior, they wanted to go everywhere she went and hated to be left at home.

  She hurried across the full parking lot toward the brick building enclosed by a white rail fence with red-and-white impatiens circling each post. She rushed through the door with Petey and Lulu at her heels, all three of them nearly tripping over Don Juan, who lay stretched out like a welcome mat at the clinic entrance. Don Juan lived there, along with several other pets with problems that made people decide they no longer wanted them. Colby refused to take them to the animal shelter, so they ended up making the clinic their home. She and Lena christened him Don Juan because all the female dogs loved him and trailed him like lovesick señoritas. Even the cats adored him.

  For the past two years, Colby had been trying to raise enough private funds to build a no-kill shelter where pets stayed until someone adopted them. Unfortunately, she still had a long way to go to meet her goal, and, meanwhile, her collection of animal dependents continued to grow. She gave Don Juan a quick rub behind the ears. “We’re going to have to find you another snoozing spot, lover boy.”

  The waiting room overflowed with pets and their people, several of whom offered Colby and her entourage welcoming smiles. The others simply looked annoyed at her tardiness. She didn’t blame them. “Sorry, everybody. I’ll try to make up for lost time here.”

  Luckily, her two assistants, Laura and Ruth-Ann, already had the examining rooms ready, a petrified-looking dachshund in one, a bored-looking Saint Bernard in the other. “We took it as far as we could without you, Dr. Williams,” Laura said, smiling. “I did the fecal for little Slim Jim and Ruth-Ann is in the back cleaning up. George there decided not to go to the bathroom this morning, but when she pressed on his bladder, he changed his mind.”

  “Just another day at the office,” Colby said, shaking her head and smiling. Laura chuckled and handed her the white jacket hanging on the coat rack behind the door.

  One o’clock came and went before she finally got a breather. Her last patient had just left when Stacey Renick walked in with a can of Coke held out in front of her. At twenty, Stacey started working at the clinic after graduating from high school. Customers counted on her smiling face. Colby often wished for the ability to clone her. Stacey’s only character flaw was that, she, too, had the matchmaking bug and constantly reported in on recent “hunk sightings.”
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  “A receptionist’s job is never done,” Stacey said. “Here. You look like you could use this.”

  Colby took the Coke. “Thanks.”

  Petey padded in and plopped down on the floor beside Stacey. Laura and Ruth-Ann had gone to lunch, the place empty except for the two of them and a couple of part-time girls who did grooming.

  “You’ve barely looked up since you got here.” Stacey leaned against the doorjamb, taking a sip of her own Coke.

  “I can’t seem to get Lena out the door these days.”

  “I take it you two are still at odds?”

  Colby ran her thumb across the condensation on the side of the can. “She’s like a different child or something.”

  Stacey shrugged. “Maybe that’s just it. She’s not a child anymore. Is there a guy in the picture?”

  “She did mention someone this morning. Some new boy at school. But that’s the first time she’s said anything. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Kids go through a stage a week at that age,” Stacey said, waving a hand.

  Colby grinned. “I’m surprised you can remember that far back.”

  The doorbell dinged outside the examining room. Stacey stuck her head around the corner and said, “Be right with you.” She turned to Colby then and mouthed a whistle along with a silent “Wow!”

  “What is it?”

  “Major hunk sighting!” Stacey stage-whispered before heading to the front desk. Petey followed, tail wagging. Colby heard her greeting someone in a far more welcoming tone than even good-natured Stacey usually managed.

  Colby put the Coke on the counter behind her and began cleaning up the instruments she’d used earlier.

  “Dr. Williams?”

  She swung around, finding herself face-to-face with the hunk in question. The man nearly filled the doorway in both height and breadth. Dressed in faded jeans, a crisp-looking cotton shirt and leather loafers, he had dark, thick hair with a few flecks of gray at the sides. His eyes, in startling contrast, were blue. And his face. . . .