She opened the hall closet. No Ginger. “The pregnant one.” “Oh, right.” He couldn’t recall when he’d last seen her. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. Why is she pregnant? I thought you’d spayed them all.”
“I can’t spay them all. Some I have to neuter,” she teased. People confused the two terms all the time. “But to answer your question, I found her that way. With child.” She walked toward the bathroom and looked in. Still no Ginger. “Or puppies, as the case may be. I wasn’t about to terminate them once they were on their way.”
Alain felt he had to point out the obvious. “That just means you’re going to wind up with more unwanted dogs.”
“I’ll find people who want them,” she said with confidence. “People love puppies. Just like everyone loves babies.”
“Yes, but puppies grow up faster.” “By then, they’ve already entrenched themselves in your life and it’s too late to back out.” Retracing her steps, she went off in another direction, searching with no success. Where was that dog? “Ginger,” she called as she walked out of the living room. “This is no time to play hide and seek. Get your little pregnant butt in here. Now.”
Kayla’s voice was growing distant as she made her way to the back of the house. And then he heard her exclaim, “Oh, damn.”
He winced as he sat up straight, one hand pressed against the bandages around his ribs.
“What’s wrong?” he called. “Did you find her?” “Yes.” And then he learned the reason for her dismay. “She’s giving birth.” “But that’s a good thing, right?” After all, Kayla was a vet. Birthing animals was part of what she did, wasn’t it?
She didn’t answer his question; Ginger did. A high-pitched, mournful howl pierced the air. Gritting his teeth, Alain pushed himself up off the sofa. Winchester, who had sunk down near his feet a few minutes ago, instantly popped up, alert and ready to hobble anywhere that the man he’d surrendered his affections to was going.
“Watch your head, dog,” Alain warned. He was thrown off balance as he tried his best not to trip over Winchester or step on him.
As if he understood him, the shepherd obligingly took a step back, out of the way. Coincidence, Alain thought. Steadier now, he followed the sound of the howling. It led him to the kitchen, where he found Ginger scrunched up beneath a rectangular table. She wasn’t alone. Kayla was right beside her.
“Anything I can do to help?” he offered a little uncertainly. “Aren’t dogs supposed to do this by themselves? They’ve been doing it since the beginning of time, long before there were vets to tend to them.”
“So have women,” she countered. “Squatting in the field and giving birth, then going on with whatever farm chore they were doing before they went into labor. But most women do a lot better with help instead of going it alone, don’t you think?”
She wasn’t about to get an argument from him about that, he decided. His brother Georges was a doctor. Still, Alain was hard-pressed to try to visualize the German shepherd taking deep breaths and panting in between pushes—although now that he noticed, she did seem to have the panting down pat.
Trying not to pay attention to the pain radiating from his ribs, he squatted down to be face level with Kayla. “What do you want me to do?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say, “Stay out of the way,” because there was only so much room beneath the table. Besides, if he exerted himself he might wind up making his own condition that much worse. There was no way she would be able to attend to Ginger and help him at the same time.
But one look at Alain’s face told her that he was sincere. Maybe he could save her a few steps, she decided. That seemed harmless enough. “If you could get the basin that’s under the sink for me, rinse it out and fill it with warm water, I would appreciate it.” The second she mentioned the temperature, she remembered. With the power out, the water heater wasn’t working. “Oh, damn, there isn’t any warm water,” she amended. There was only one thing to do. “Well, fill it with cold water—and towels. I need towels,” she told him. Glancing over her shoulder at him, she could see his next question forming. “There are clean kitchen towels in the cabinet right next to the sink.” She pointed in that direction.
Placing a hand on top of the table, Alain drew himself up. It took him a couple of seconds to locate the cabinet she was referring to. When he opened it, he saw that it was stuffed with towels.
“How many?”
“Two, three, whatever you can grab.” It was happening, Kayla thought. The miracle. Ginger was ready to give birth. She didn’t care how common it was or how often it happened before her eyes, it was still a miracle, each and every time. But even miracles needed a helping hand every now and then.
“Hurry,” she told him.
“Hurrying,” Alain assured her.
He grabbed a handful of clean towels from the cabinet and brought them over to Kayla as fast as he was able. There was a large damp spot on the floor beneath the table and he could have sworn he saw something emerging from Ginger’s nether region, accompanied by a low, moaning noise.
He glanced at Kayla for confirmation. “Is that—?” She didn’t wait for him to finish. The puppies were definitely coming. “Yes. Basin. Water.” The words shot out like bullets. Her eyes were riveted on the animal in labor.
By the time he got the basin filled—and avoided colliding with his four-footed, furry shadow—Alain saw that Kayla had a tiny, scrawny, hairless bit of life in her hands. It looked more like a little rat than a puppy.
“That’s what they look like when they’re born?” he asked incredulously.
She could tell by his tone that he found the puppy less than appealing. Pagan.
“Yes,” she said, carefully drying the tiny black puppy. “Beautiful.” When he looked at the newly minted animal, it wasn’t the first descriptive word that occurred to him. Or the second. But Alain had a feeling that was something best kept to himself.
“There’s another one!” he cried, watching a second puppy emerge.
His reaction tickled her. “Where there’s smoke…”
She allowed her voice to trail off as she took possession of the second puppy, also black, and wiped him clean. She set both puppies down beside her.
They continued coming like clockwork, one after the other. Twenty minutes later, there were nine of them.
“Is that it?” he asked her, amazed that so many puppies had come out of a relatively small German shepherd.
“I think so.”
He heard something in her voice. A note of distress he hadn’t heard before. “What is it?”
“This one isn’t breathing.” The last puppy, the tiniest one of the lot, lay still in her hand.
“Isn’t there something you can do?” he asked. It seemed wrong, somehow, to mar this celebration of birth with a death at the same time. Holding the puppy in her hand, its spine resting against her palm, Kayla began to gently massage the tiny chest. Ever so delicately, she blew into the puppy’s nostrils. It was all she could think of. This had never happened to her before. With all the litters she’d delivered, there had never been a stillborn.
She didn’t want there to be one now.
“Here,” Alain offered, “let me try. My hands are bigger.” As if that made a difference. Kayla wanted to ask him what he thought he could do that she couldn’t, but she knew how agonizing the futility of facing death could be. So she handed over the puppy and watched Alain do exactly what she had been doing—but less gently and with more vigor.
“That’s not going to—” She was going to tell him to stop when she saw the slight movement. The puppy’s chest had moved. And again. Stunned, she looked up at Alain. “He’s breathing. The puppy’s breathing.”
Alain grinned. “Yeah, I know. I can feel it in my hand.” He looked down at the small creature in his palm. “Almost lost you there, didn’t we?” He felt a sense of triumph, a rush that he’d never experienced before, even when winning a case in court. There was something pure and unadu
lterated about being part of bringing a life into the world.
Kayla smiled, touched by the way he’d responded to the puppy, and impressed by the way he’d responded to the emergency.
Alain glanced up and saw how she was looking at him. Again he was aware of the crackle of electricity between them. But this time, it felt softer, more intimate.
Rousing herself, Kayla looked down at Ginger and stroked the dog’s head. “You did good, Mama. Now it’s time to feed your babies.” Alain was still on his knees, and he helped her round up the small, wobbly litter. There were nine tiny puppies in need of sustenance, vying for position at a bar where only eight could be seated at any one time.
Holding the puppy he’d saved, and another one against him, Alain raised his eyes toward Kayla. “She’s only got, um, eight…” He was really out of his element here, he thought.
Kayla grinned. “Nothing gets by you, does it?” Rising to her feet, she crossed to another cupboard. When she turned around again, he saw that she had an empty baby bottle in her hand. She filled it with milk from the refrigerator and then crawled back under the table, next to him.
Alain had gently ushered eight of the puppies toward their first meal, and they were doing the rest. She noted that he was still holding the puppy he’d breathed life into. Kayla offered the bottle to him. She would have preferred warming the milk, but this would have to do for now.
“Want to do the honors?” she asked. He glanced at the bottle and then the puppy. It didn’t really look like a good fit; the bottle seemed almost as large as the puppy. The tiny creature was mewling, sounding more like a kitten than a canine.
Taking the bottle, he looked at Kayla. “He’ll drink this?”
“Why don’t you put the nipple near his mouth and see?” she suggested. He had no idea why her innocent words conjured up the image within his head that it did. An image that had far less to do with nourishing a puppy and a great deal more with nourishing something within him. It took him a couple of moments to clear the picture from his mind.
Nodding, he said, “Okay.” The second he brought the nipple to the puppy’s mouth, the newborn began sucking madly, as if starving.
Alain smiled at the way the puppy ate with such gusto. And then he realized something. “His eyes are shut.” Kayla nodded, watching over the other eight even as she kept glancing over her shoulder at Alain and the puppy he was feeding. “That’s how they come, wiggly, hairless and sightless.” She continued to stroke Ginger’s head. “Something only a mother could love,” she added softly.
“And you.”
Her eyes met his. She smiled and something stirred inside of him. “And me,” she agreed.
Outside, the wind howled and the rain lashed at the windows again, as if unleashing round two. Caught up in the miracle of the moment, neither one of them noticed.
“Where are you going?” It was several hours later. Ginger and her brood had been moved over by the fireplace to keep them all warm. Alain had spent most of his time watching over the new mother and her puppies. Winchester had placed himself in close proximity to both man and new mother. Winchester was there, at Alain’s feet. Ginger tolerated him. As for Alain, he was amused by the microdynamics of this small society.
Kayla’s crossing to the front door, a rain slicker draped over her clothes, instantly roused him from this uncomplicated, domestic scene. Was she going out in weather like this?
She fished out the keys to her truck. “I’m going to see about getting Mick to come out and at least take a look at your car, see if it can be salvaged.”
The birthing process and the business of caring for Ginger and the new puppies— especially Nine, which was what he’d called the one he’d saved—seemed so surreal it had knocked out all sense of time. He felt like he was someplace where the minutes just stood still. But the mention of his car brought reality—and his shot-to-hell schedule—back to Alain.
“And if it can’t?” he asked. “Is there a car-rental agency around here?”
She smiled. “You might be able to pay Mick or one of his people to drive you wherever you have to go—once the weather clears up a little.” Alain groaned. That didn’t sound promising. From where he sat, it looked like the kind of weather in which a man with a flowing beard would feel called upon to collect two of everything and push them onto his boat.
“How long do you think that’ll be?” Kayla shook her head as she raised her hood to cover her hair. “Haven’t a clue,” she confessed. “It doesn’t usually rain at all this time of year.” About to walk out, she hesitated, then looked at him over her shoulder. “There’s dry dog food in the garage if you want to bribe any of them. I’m taking Taylor and Ariel, but the rest are staying with you.”
He looked uneasily at the dogs she was leaving behind. There were three besides Winchester and Ginger. Not counting the puppies. He couldn’t help feeling vastly outnumbered.
“You think that’s wise? I’m a stranger to them.” Not after forty-eight hours, she thought. The number struck her. Had it really only been that long? It certainly felt longer.
“The dogs are smart. They can sense things. They know you’re not here to steal the silverware.” She grinned. He still looked somewhat uncertain. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she promised.
“Sure the phones aren’t working?” he called after her. Instead of leaving, Kayla doubled back to the kitchen. Picking up the receiver from the wall unit, she held it toward him without saying a word. Even with the distance between them, he could hear that there was nothing but silence coming from the receiver.
“I’m sure,” she said. Then she smiled at him, resurrecting that same odd tightening inside his gut. As she passed him, she patted his shoulder. Much the way, he noted, that she’d stroked Ginger’s head. “You’ll be fine,” she assured him.
And then she was gone.
He kept checking his watch, wondering if Kayla was all right. Shouldn’t she have gotten back by now? It felt like an eternity since she’d left.
Where was she? As a lawyer, he was worried that something might have happened to her in the storm, and since he’d sent her out, he was liable for her. He could be sued on a number of counts if she—or her estate—were savvy enough to think like lawyers. As a man, he just worried about her welfare and wanted her back, safe and sound. And presiding over her dogs. He didn’t feel too comfortable about the way two of them had begun pacing. Did they know some thing he didn’t?
Or were they just doing that to intimidate him?
He hadn’t a clue. Each time he rose to his feet, whether to look out the window or to get something from the refrigerator, he couldn’t shake the sensation of having five pairs of eyes trained on him. Even the puppies seemed to raise their heads in the direction of the sound he made. Definitely unnerving.
When Kayla finally walked through the door, the five dogs who rushed to her were not the only ones who were happy to see her. Walking across the threshold, she shed her slicker and sent a mini-shower onto the floor as she laughed at the greeting, petting two dogs at a time.
“How were they?” she asked, looking at the puppies.
“They survived my care,” he answered. He noticed that aside from the two dogs Kayla had taken with her, she was alone. “Couldn’t get him to come, I take it?”
Kayla looked at Alain quizzically for a second before she realized who he was asking about. “Oh, you mean Mick. Yes, I got him to come.”
“And he’s where, in your pocket?”
“No, he’s outside, looking over your car.” The rain had subsided a bit, no longer coming down at an all-but-blinding rate.
Alain crossed to her, not bothering to hide his eagerness. What he did hide was that he still felt incredibly achy. “And?” “And he’s outside, looking over your car,” she repeated. Alain lived in a faster-paced world than she did, where everything was done yesterday. She’d sampled that world, and been more than happy to leave it behind when she came back here. “That’s all I know for now
.”
He was pushing, Alain realized. He’d been driven all his adult life, and it wasn’t something he could easily brush off. “Sorry, I’m not usually this antsy.” He didn’t want her thinking of him as another man who lived in the fast lane. Why, he wasn’t sure.
Kayla inclined her head. “This isn’t exactly your typical, run-of-the-mill situation,” she admitted. Crouching, she quickly looked over the puppies, just to satisfy her own concerns. To her delight, they really were fine. These she could find a home for. As she’d told Alain before she left, everyone loved puppies.
Before he could agree with her assessment, he heard the front door opening again. Turning, he saw a tall thin man, with long, dirty-blond hair—currently wet—walk in. The smell of oil and gasoline followed him. Small, intent brown eyes looked him over before the man finally offered his hand.
“Mick Hollister,” he introduced himself. “Pretty fancy car for these parts.” Alain derived his own interpretation from the man’s words. It wasn’t admiration so much as a lack of knowledge in the man’s voice. Disappointment reared. “Then you can’t fix it.”
“Oh, I can fix it, all right,” Mick assured him. “They haven’t invented a machine I can’t fix. But it’s gonna take awhile,” he warned Alain. “Gotta get parts, that kind of stuff. Not something I usually stock.”
Alain could see this stretching out to two, three weeks. And as much as he found himself liking this feisty vet’s company, he needed to get back. “I don’t have awhile.”
Mick nodded, absorbing the information. Keeping his judgments simple. “Then I guess you’ve got a problem.” Alain was nothing if not a problem solver. Maybe not as good as Philippe, but he could hold his own. “How about if I leave the car with you to be fixed, and meanwhile, you drive me to Orange County?” He could see that the other man was not keen on the idea. “I’ll pay you.”
[The Sons of Lily Moreau 03] - Capturing the Millionaire Page 6