by Karis Walsh
She tried to match Leo’s indulgent smile as the goats flung themselves out of the room again like they were in a pinball machine. She was feeling overwhelmed by the day, from waking up in the truck to finding the dog to coming to this place that was overrun with animals. Most of all, to being around Iris who was at once arousing and unlike anyone Casey had ever known. She needed to get out in the field and find some peace and quiet in order to process the day’s events—and those were two things Casey rarely sought on purpose.
“We’ll see you later, Leo,” she said. She led Chert out the door, and once outside he pulled her toward her truck and jumped in as soon as she opened the door, as if he owned her and the vehicle. She got the LIDAR map of the island out of her glove compartment and compared it to a regular road map to find an access point to the fault she wanted to study.
“Ready to go?” she asked her passenger, and he wagged his tail in response.
* * *
By the time Casey was finished with her two jobs, she was exhausted. She had worried about being able to sleep without the distractions of the city, but as she sat on the couch and watched the fire in the fireplace burn itself out, she felt her body relaxing and her mind drifting out of focus.
She’d had a productive day along the fault line, snapping photographs and taking notes as she examined the slight shifts that supported the estimated location of the fault. She had come back to the shelter and labored side by side with Agatha and Leo by the artificial light of the kennels as they shifted panels and repaired damaged wire. She had worked up a sweat trying to keep up with Agatha’s pace and to keep her mind off Iris, who always managed to be fixing a kennel far from Casey’s. She had spent a disconcerting amount of time looking for her, though, and admiring the mouthwatering way she fit in her jeans, the gentle way she interacted with the animals, and the precise way she stitched broken fences back together.
Casey even liked the way Iris laughed at the antics of the goats as they bounded like deer from person to person, chewing on tools and pooping on anything Casey set on the ground.
Casey still wasn’t sure about those goats.
She yawned and stretched, pulling the burgundy throw around her shoulders and leaning against Chert’s sleeping form. The house still smelled good from dinner, and Casey inhaled the lingering scents of lime and cilantro. The chicken had been delicious, and the tastes made her imagine Iris cooking the meal and moving around her kitchen with a confidence Casey didn’t feel. Her rice had been unpleasantly crunchy in the center, but she had eaten every bite of it and the flavorful chicken.
She looked behind her and saw the gray cat peering at her through the slats of the baby gate. Chert had put his nose against the gate when he first got in the bungalow, and the cat had observed him from her bedroom doorway for a few minutes before retreating under the bed again. Chert had lost interest and had returned to Casey’s side.
She sighed and tossed the throw over the back of the couch, heading toward the bedroom with the dog right behind her. She collapsed on the soft bed and pulled the covers over her as Chert settled himself against her legs. She would make it through her time on the islands without any problem as long as she kept herself too busy to think of anything except work and as long as the cat didn’t go into labor.
And as long as she could keep herself from crossing the tiny yard separating her from Iris’s house, her bedroom, and her too-enticing body.
Chapter Eight
Iris was in the kennels before dawn the next morning, having barely slept the night before. She yawned as she scooped a hefty dose of ground coffee into a paper filter and switched on the machine. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since the quake, and Casey’s closeness wasn’t helping. She had tossed and turned, finally giving up and coming to the kennels. There was always work to do here, and she might as well be useful if she wasn’t going to be asleep.
She brought her coffee into the infirmary and set it on the metal table as she gathered bandages and ointment from the cupboards. She let herself into Jack’s run and sat next to his bed, where he lay wagging his tail with a thumping noise against the cushion. She gently took one of his paws and cut the bandage away, inspecting the small cuts before she applied a thick layer of ointment and rebandaged the wounds.
Luckily, he was patient about the procedure since she had to clean and check his paws every day. She was on the third one when she looked up and saw Casey in the doorway, watching her silently.
“You’re up early,” Iris said.
“I couldn’t sleep.” Casey came into the room with Chert close behind. She sat down next to the run and Chert dropped at her side like a shadow. “What happened to these dogs?”
“The earthquake. This one got out of his run and walked over broken glass from the office window.” Iris tilted her head in Gus’s direction. “And he cut himself on a piece of wire that snapped when a branch hit it.”
Iris caught herself before she added an uncalled-for comment about Casey studying their wounds as part of her earthquake research. She was tired and cranky, but she didn’t need to be rude. She saw the sympathy in Casey’s expression and in the careful way she reached through the fence and scratched Gus’s chin.
Iris finished wrapping Jack’s paw and carried her bundle of bandages out of his run, balancing them in one arm as she unlatched Gus’s gate.
Casey stepped over and opened the door for Iris. “Do you need help with him?”
Iris heard the hesitation in Casey’s voice, but Gus’s wounds were difficult to dress with only one person doing the work. “Actually, yes. It’s usually a two-person job, but I was here early and thought I’d get it done before Agatha and Leo get here. I’d appreciate the help, if you really don’t mind.”
Casey followed her into the run and shut the door behind her, keeping Chert from squeezing into the narrow kennel with them. She knelt next to Gus and stroked his head.
“What do I do?”
“Just hold him still. Like this”—Iris gathered Gus close to her, with his head resting in the crook of her elbow—“keeping his head turned. He won’t try to bite me, but he tries to grab the bandages.”
She released him and watched Casey try to mimic her hold. Iris was tempted to physically move Casey’s hands and arms into the right position, but she kept her hands busy rerolling a length of gauze instead. The bandage had a nubbly texture, but the imagined touch of her fingers on Casey’s smooth skin overrode reality, and Iris swore she could feel Casey instead of the rough cotton.
As soon as Casey seemed to have a somewhat comfortable grip on Gus, Iris removed the old bandage and checked the wound. She worked quickly because she wasn’t sure what Casey would do if the dog started to struggle. As it was, she seemed determined not to look anywhere even close to the wound.
“He looks good,” Iris said, hoping to reassure Casey with her words. “The area around the stitches doesn’t show any sign of infection. Pretty soon we’ll be able to take the bandages off and let the wound heal in the open.”
Iris taped the edges of the new bandage and wrapped it securely. “He’ll be wearing one of those humiliating cones before the end of the week. You can let him go now.”
Casey released her hold on Gus and smiled at Iris. “I suppose all the other dogs will laugh at him.”
“Of course. And they’ll post embarrassing pictures on his Facebook page. Thank you for holding him. You did a good job.”
Casey gave a derisive snort as she came out of the run. “Hardly. You’re the one who did the work. I’m not used to all of this. Taking care of animals, I mean. Or people either, I guess.”
Iris put her supplies away and washed her hands. “You’re doing great. You seem to be a natural at it.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but I am having more fun than I expected. I even enjoy doing the manual labor of fixing the kennels.”
“You can have that part of it,” Iris said with a distracted smile. She was still thinking about Casey’s admission t
hat she didn’t have much experience taking care of anyone but herself. Her type of existence was far removed from Iris’s, whose entire life seemed to be spent caring for other creatures and people. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like not to be accountable to anyone or anything. There would be more freedom, and Iris purposefully kept her thoughts away from all the trips and hobbies she’d be able to pursue if she were as unencumbered as Casey. Not worth the trade. That life would be too sterile for her.
Casey was in the middle of explaining something to her when Iris finally brought her attention back to the present.
“Wait…what?”
“I said I have an idea about the kennels,” Casey said. “I think we can rearrange them so you won’t have to replace as many panels. The runs will be a little smaller—”
“No,” Iris said with a snap in her voice. “The dogs need as much room as we can give them.”
“The runs will be a little smaller,” Casey repeated herself, “but only a few inches at most. I know they need space, but you could save hundreds of dollars if you can still use most of the panels.”
They glared at each other in silence for a few seconds. Iris had been feeling more generous toward Casey after watching her with the dogs and seeing how much she was helping out, but her attempts to take over and change the shelter were out of line. Casey was right. She wasn’t used to taking care of animals, and she had no idea what it would mean for Iris to rearrange her entire kennel. Especially now, after the earthquake.
“You don’t understand how difficult it is to shift the dogs around. They need consistency, and anything we do to disrupt their routine causes stress. We’re better off repairing everything we can and replacing what’s necessary.”
“Do they really need a routine, or do you?” Casey asked.
Iris raised her eyebrows. Casey might not realize how much her words were a trigger for Iris, but Iris heard an implied insult in her question. “I can adapt if I need to,” she said. She gave Jack a pat as she walked by his run. Chert and Casey got to their feet at the same time.
“Let’s start over,” Casey said with a sigh that sounded as resigned to their constant bickering as Iris felt. “If you have a piece of paper, I can show you what I was thinking.”
Iris silently got a notepad and pencil out of a drawer, and then watched as Casey sketched out a plan for the kennels. Even while Iris was thinking about how much work it would be to disrupt dogs and reorganize her carefully orchestrated setup, she couldn’t keep from imagining where each dog would be most comfortable in the new arrangement. If she agreed to it, that is.
She leaned her elbow on the table and pointed at one of the clusters of kennels Casey had drawn. “We have a few dogs that seem to feel more secure if they have several dogs close to them. We can’t really give them a sense of being in a pack when the runs are side by side, but we could with them arranged in these clusters, if we move these runs over here…”
Casey erased part of her sketch and redrew the runs using Iris’s suggestion. “Like that?” she asked.
Iris picked up the drawing and studied it carefully, picturing it in three-dimensional space. It could work.
“I’m sorry I’m so quick to get angry,” she said, putting the paper on the table again and forcing herself to meet Casey’s calm gray gaze.
“You’re under a lot of stress,” Casey said. She touched Iris briefly on the shoulder. “We both are, and it makes tempers short. I’m sorry, too. You know more about dogs and running a kennel than I do—”
“But you came up with a solution that might work.” Iris tapped the drawing with one finger as she stepped away in what she hoped was a casual manner. She couldn’t deny that Casey had a powerful effect on her. Right now, it was being expressed as irritation, but she was certain she could find other outlets for the buildup of energy she felt when she was near Casey. Still, rearranging the kennels was one thing, but changing the pattern of her life was something else entirely. She’d start small. “We can try this with the runs along the back wall since a couple of them are empty.”
“Great,” Casey said. “I’ll get the tools we need, if you move the dogs.”
Iris nodded and left the infirmary, dropping off her mug of now-cooled coffee in the office and grabbing some leashes. She quickly transferred the two dogs to the empty runs next to Jack and Gus, leaving the four dogs happily chewing on rawhide bones as she went to help Casey.
They started to dismantle the runs in silence, and Casey was the first to break it.
“You’re lucky to live in such a beautiful place,” she said. “It seems like I find another gorgeous view around every corner.”
Iris was holding a panel steady while Casey stood on a ladder and unscrewed it from the metal post. She cleared her throat before she could speak. She wasn’t about to admit that the view she had just been admiring was Casey herself.
“Yes, the islands are lovely. I try not to take this place for granted, but I can’t always find time to get out and explore.” She shifted so she wasn’t staring directly at Casey’s backside. If she was going to be expected to string words together into sentences, she couldn’t have such an enticing distraction right in front of her. “You’re the lucky one, because your job lets you travel a lot.”
Casey glanced down at her and shrugged. “I don’t really do much fieldwork anymore, so this is a treat.” She shook her head with a frown. “I don’t mean the earthquake was a treat, I meant—”
Iris patted her on the calf, ignoring the urge to rest her hand against the strong muscles she felt there. “I know. I’m sorry I make you watch every word you say.”
Casey nodded and turned her attention back to the panel while she talked. “When I got my first job after grad school, I ended up in a position that does more data interpretation than fieldwork, but I miss seeing things before they get reduced to black-and-white data. I enjoy what I do, and I believe it’s important work, but I was glad when my new boss asked me to come out here and observe firsthand.”
Casey tugged the panel free and came down the ladder to move it to the next side of the run. She grinned at Iris before she climbed again. “I took a year off between college and graduate school to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. My dad and grandparents weren’t happy that I wasn’t hurrying through my degree, but I convinced them I was doing field research for a scholarly article.”
“Did you get published?” Iris asked.
“Nah. I have tons of notes, but they’re mostly numbers. Types of rocks I found, how many miles I walked, that sort of thing. Lots of lists.”
“You did the whole trail at once? How long did it take?” Iris wouldn’t have been able to desert her parents for an extended length of time, and once she was in school and then at the shelter, she’d had too many responsibilities to leave. The sort of freedom Casey had was alien to her. Something to be desired, but not something she would sacrifice her present life to have.
“It took me a little over four months,” Casey said. She leaned her elbows on the ladder and looked lost in memories for a moment. “I kind of hurried through it, to be honest. It’s the kind of trip that invites introspection, and I don’t think I’m very good at that. I pushed myself pretty hard, but it was worth doing.”
“I’ve always wanted to walk the trail. What an amazing accomplishment.” Iris could imagine Casey striding over mountains like they were nothing more than bumps in the road. She couldn’t picture herself anywhere along the trail no matter how hard she tried. Maybe it would be a place with too much room for thought, where she would be too inclined to be reflective. Casey wanted to avoid it, and Iris might get lost in it.
Casey hopped off the ladder and laid her fingers on Iris’s cheek, turning her face so Iris had to look at her. “Lots of people hike it in sections. Not everyone can take four or five months away from home, but most can manage a couple weeks at a time. It’s worth seeing.”
Somehow, when Casey touched her, a mental image of herself standing on a rid
ge and looking over a pine-filled valley flashed through Iris’s mind. Casey made the idea of walking the trail in segments sound possible, while Iris seemed conditioned to think everything was impossible. She rested her hand over Casey’s for a moment, and then they both dropped the contact as if on cue.
Casey turned away and propped the panel against the wall, and Iris had a few seconds to compose herself. She had felt the expected electricity in Casey’s touch, but she hadn’t tried to fight it this time. She was accustomed to not having dreams, but Casey didn’t seem to think any were out of reach.
Was Casey good for her, or was Iris setting herself up for disappointment if the hopes stirring inside her didn’t come true?
“You’ll have to give me some of your lists if I go,” Iris said, keeping the mood lighthearted. “So I’ll know where to go and what to pack.”
Casey laughed. “Whatever you do, don’t take a geologist’s advice on what to bring. Most hikers start out on the trail with too much stuff, and gradually get rid of the excess. I started out light, and collected rocks along the way. By the time I reached the Canadian border, my pack weighed a ton and my pockets were full.”
“I don’t think rock collecting will be a problem for me,” Iris said with a grin. “I’ll just keep a few with me, in case I need to scare off a rattlesnake.”
“Good idea,” Casey said. “Although, I have a feeling you’d collect wild animals like I collected rocks.”
“You’re probably right,” Iris said, pulling one of the loose panels into its new position. “Then I’ll need to have you come back to the islands and build me more kennels.”
“You’ve got a deal,” Casey said with a wink.
Iris smiled, accepting her words in the teasing way they were meant, even though her heart beat a little faster at the thought.
Chapter Nine