A Conard County Homecoming

by Rachel Lee

It didn’t take him long to find Cadell Marcus and his rather sketchy page about dog obedience training, with a brief mention of his work with police dogs. The guy didn’t seem into tooting his own horn. Or maybe around here, he didn’t need to. Zane hadn’t been gone so long that he didn’t remember that everyone knew everyone else around here. They must be telling some interesting stories about him now.

  He picked up his phone and dialed Marcus. He expected to get voice mail, given the guy’s webpage said he was also a sheriff’s deputy, so he was surprised when the man himself answered.

  “Hi, Deputy, this is Zane McLaren. Do you know Ashley Granger?”

  “Sure thing. A friend of my wife’s. At least so far as any woman who keeps her head buried in a computer can have friends, which is the story of life with my wife. And I know who you are. What’s up?”

  “Ashley said you were looking for help to train a service dog for Mikey... I’m sorry, I don’t know his last name.”

  “There’s only one Mikey I’d be thinking about. Mikey Landau. Yeah, I’d like to help him with a dog, but I’m kinda limited in my knowledge. I mean, I can practically train a dog to stand on his head and whistle ‘Dixie,’ but I need to know what’s useful. You have a service dog?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Well, I’d love to see it in action. Do you want to come out here? Ashley can show you the way and it would give me more of an idea right now than watching your dog in the house.”

  “I can do that,” Zane answered. “I’m hoping to meet Mikey soon, too, because it would be good to talk to him about what he wants and needs.”

  “Tell you what,” Cadell Marcus said. “Get Ashley to set it up and we can all meet with Mikey and you and your dog. Seeing your dog in action might help Mikey make his wish list.”

  Well, that sounded like a real freaking party, Zane thought as he hung up. Hadn’t he vowed not to do this again?

  But then he thought of that little boy and told himself to man up. He might be able to help a kid.

  Chapter Five

  Early on Sunday morning, with Zane at the wheel of his van, Ashley guided him toward Cadell Marcus’s ranch. Other than a few brief words in passing, they hadn’t spoken since Friday except when Ashley finally managed to pull everything together with Mikey Landau and his mother, Marian.

  Ashley was a little disturbed by how often she thought of Zane, by how often she felt an urge to run next door. Well, maybe today would satisfy the urge and it would leave her alone. He certainly hadn’t reached out to her in any way.

  “I hope I can talk to this kid,” he said as they turned onto a rough county road. “I told you my social skills aren’t what they used to be. You’ve experienced it.”

  She looked toward him. “I think you’ll find Mikey easy to talk to. You have a little bit in common to begin with, and he’s just a kid. He’ll probably bubble with questions and all you’ll have to do is answer them.”

  “So he can still breathe on his own?”

  “Yes, thank God.”

  “That’s good.”

  Silence fell again. Nell had ceded her front bucket seat to Ashley without any hesitation. Now she stuck her head forward and sniffed. Instinctively, Ashley started to reach up to pet her, then caught herself. Not without permission.

  But almost at once, Zane pulled over onto the dirt shoulder and turned off the car. “Sorry,” he said.

  Nell had pushed forward between the seats, and Zane gripped her fur while she sniffed him then licked his face.

  Ashley wondered if she should get out of the car to give Nell more room to do whatever it was she did for Zane, but the dog didn’t seem needlessly worried. She licked Zane’s face several times, and then a shuddering sigh escaped him.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  All of sudden, Ashley was very glad she hadn’t tried to get out of the van. She would have hated for Zane to think she was afraid. “Stress?” she finally asked.

  “Maybe. I think I told you, I don’t always know the triggers. But this wasn’t bad. It barely started before it was over.” He rubbed Nell a few more times then started the van again. “It’s all gotten a lot better because of Nell. She catches me as soon as it starts. I don’t know what this kid is experiencing, but it would be great if he could have a dog like Nell.”

  Ashley had no doubt of that. Her hands knotted a bit in her lap. Zane was getting to her. His loneliness, the problems he had to live with. She wished with all her might that she knew how to make life better for him. A man with just a dog didn’t seem like a whole lot for anyone.

  “You know,” he said suddenly, “this was exactly the kind of thing I intended to avoid when I came here.”

  Her stomach fluttered uncomfortably. “Meaning?” She hoped he wasn’t referring to her.

  “Getting involved. I’m not good for people.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t say that.” Anger sparked in her. “You need to give other people a chance to decide that for themselves. Anyway, it’s kind of you to agree to help Mikey if you can, and after that you can go home and pull the door in after you.”

  He didn’t respond immediately, but finally he gave a quiet laugh. “Firebrand.”

  Well, she had been a little out of line, but she wasn’t prepared to take it back. The man clearly had some very generous impulses, to judge first by his check for the wheelchair and now by this. Yeah, he was having a rough time, but that didn’t mean he was bad in any way.

  “Think I’m drowning in self-pity?” he asked abruptly.

  “I don’t know. I don’t see enough of you to know. I gather you’re dealing with some heavy emotional baggage—hardly surprising given your past—but you’re also the same guy who dismissed his paralysis as a challenge. That doesn’t sound like self-pity. But really, I don’t know what made you think you couldn’t have a friend or two.”

  Another silence ensued. They were nearing the turn onto Cadell’s drive when he spoke again.

  “My neighbors.”

  “What about your neighbors?”

  “They got me evicted. I was crazy. I had rages. I annoyed them and frightened them when I wasn’t quiet. I scared them when I emerged from a bad spell and went out to the store looking like a mountain man. And that was just part of the list. They were scared I could get violent. Harm them.”

  “Did you ever?”

  “No.”

  “Never threatened?”

  He glanced at her. “No. Not until I realized I had a week to get out unless I wanted police help to do it. Then I was tempted to say something. Instead I spent most of the week packing while being yanked back from the edge by Nell.”

  Shock filled her, followed by an anger so strong she barely recognized it as her own emotion. She’d been angry about a lot of things in her life, but few things made her this mad: child abuse when she caught it was the only thing that sent her over the top. Then she felt her heart start to break.

  Now this. “What did you do after?” she asked quietly, pointing him to the left turn. The sign by the road made it pretty clear they had arrived. He braked and turned carefully onto the gravel.

  “Got a motel room by the week and decided to move back here as soon as I could get the place ready enough. If I upset folks around here, they might be able to get me committed, but they can’t evict me.”

  “No one here is going to do that to you.”

  “How can you guarantee it?”

  “Because I know a lot of vets who’d come racing to your side.”

  He shook his head a little. “Where I was before? I was near the VA hospital. My support group. By the time they showed up, it was too late.”

  It was her turn to shake her head as they bumped down the drive toward the house. God, this was almost too awful to think about. “I bet you didn’t call any o
f them, either.”

  He surprised her with a dry response. “Now what could have given you that idea?”

  She might have laughed at his self-deprecating humor, except she was still too mad. She couldn’t believe his neighbors had treated him that way. Surely, they must have known his situation? Everything inside her roiled as she thought of that ugliness, all of it directed at a man who had suffered in the service of his country.

  “They had kids,” he said as he parked next to Cadell’s official vehicle. “Of course they didn’t want me there.”

  He’d said sad things to her before, but this one made her chest tighten and her eyes burn. It was amazing that after that he’d even be willing to meet Mikey. That he cared enough to try to help someone else’s kid.

  She shot him a sidelong look as he began to unbuckle himself and decided that Zane McLaren was one heck of a stand-up guy. Better than he even knew himself.

  She wished there was some way she could get him to see that.

  All of a sudden he froze. “Are those ostriches?”

  All the tension fled from the van, and at last Ashley felt it was safe to laugh. “Yes. For real. Cadell inherited them. He was thinking about getting rid of them, but his new bride won’t let him. They love her.”

  “Someday I want to hear that story.”

  “Well, he kind of had a love-hate relationship with them at first. They can be nasty, I guess.”

  Then she saw Cadell come around the side of the house from his backyard kennels. “There’s Cadell,” she said and climbed out to give Zane enough room to pivot his seat and get into his wheelchair.

  Cadell greeted her warmly with a one-armed hug, then turned his attention to Zane, who was by now lowering himself to the ground with his lift. Nell hopped out beside him, and when he’d rolled onto the ground, she hit a switch and everything folded and closed back up.

  “Now that’s a well-trained dog,” Cadell remarked, watching Nell trot alongside Zane as he wheeled toward them.

  “Very,” Zane said, extending his hand. “Zane McLaren.”

  “Cadell Marcus. Is the ground too rough for you to come around back?”

  “No problem. I’ll enjoy the workout.”

  Cadell smiled. “I want to hear all about this dog of yours.”

  “Nell.”

  “Hi, Nell,” Cadell said. The dog’s tail wagged in acknowledgment. “Mikey and his mom should be here in half an hour. That’ll give me some time to pick your brain.”

  “Just so long as you understand I didn’t train her. I’m enjoying the fruits of it, but it owes to other people.”

  Cadell nodded. “That’s okay. Once I see what she can do, I can get another smart dog to do it. And maybe add on some things that Mikey will need.”

  The two men were making their way around the side of the house now. Ashley followed, listening, sensing the birth of a bond between them.

  “He’ll need more and different things than me,” Zane said. “I’ve still got useful arms.”

  “Yeah,” Cadell answered. “I get it. And I’ll tell you a secret.”

  Zane tipped his head upward as they reached the edge of the kennels and a fenced and wired corral. “What’s that?”

  “Today, if you’ll let me, I’m going to ask Nell to teach a few things to another dog.”

  Zane stopped wheeling. “Nell? Teach?”

  “Trust me, she can. And she’ll be proud of it. Plus, Mikey will enjoy seeing it. If you’d ever worked on a ranch with a bunch of herding dogs, you’d know how well they can teach each other.”

  “I’m looking forward to seeing this,” Zane replied. “I know how smart Nell is, but I never thought of her as a teacher. Or maybe she’s been teaching me.” He glanced around to Ashley. “No offense to you, Teach.”

  Ashley laughed. “None taken.”

  Cadell guided them to a bench beside the corral where Ashley could sit. Nell perched immediately between her and Zane.

  Cadell spoke. “In my work with police dogs, we tend to stick to German shepherds and Belgian Malinois, but in my readings it seems Labs often make the best service dogs. You know anything about that?”

  “Not exactly. Most of the ones I’ve seen have been retrievers or Labs like Nell here, but I’ve seen a few other kinds, smaller dogs. I guess it depends on what they’re needed for. Big dogs are good for doing a lot of tasks that a short dog couldn’t manage. For example, I met a woman whose dog warns her she’s about to have a seizure. She had a small dog, a mixed breed, but he was perfect for her. That’s all he had to do. Alert her.”

  “But Nell does a lot more, obviously.”

  Zane stroked her head. “A lot more. When I drop something, she picks it up for me. She can bring me items from the cupboards or pantry, at least from the lower levels. She lets people in the house and closes the door after them. I’ve had her bring me the phone a few times. The list goes on. The thing is, Cadell, I try to do as much as I can for myself. It would be awfully easy to become lazy and let the dog do it all, but it wouldn’t be fair to either of us. Mikey’s going to need a lot more than I do.”

  “Obviously.” Cadell was looking thoughtful.

  “If I wanted,” Zane continued, “she could bring me clothes from my dresser. She’s brought me beverages from the fridge. Cleaned up after me. But most of all I need her to help me keep stable.”

  Cadell nodded. “Well, we’ll just have to see what Mikey needs when he gets here. I’m sure his mom will have some ideas. Is it all right if I take Nell into the corral with another dog?”

  “Sure. Nell, go with the man.”

  Ashley watched in amazement as Nell glanced at Zane then walked away with Cadell. Soon she was in the corral, and another dog was joining her. A short-coated golden Lab ran around playfully while Nell sat and watched as if indulging a young child.

  “Nell runs around, doesn’t she?” Cadell called.

  “When I tell her it’s okay.”

  “All right then. Let’s see if I can get her to make Joey here sit.”

  To Ashley that looked like an almost impossible thing at the moment. Joey was on a personal romp.

  But then Cadell spoke. “Nell, sit. Joey, sit.”

  Nell sat; Joey kept running. “Joey, sit,” Cadell said.

  There had to be a better way, Ashley thought. Didn’t most trainers use treats? She thought she remembered watching someone teach their dog to sit by repeating the word and raising a treat before the dog’s nose so that the dog sat down automatically to get it.

  But not Cadell. Once again, “Joey, sit.”

  Apparently that sent some kind of message to Nell. She took off after the miscreant. Bit by bit she rounded him up until he was in the middle of the corral and looking a bit confused. Then Nell sat and woofed.

  Joey looked at her and started to move away. Nell lowered her head and woofed again. Then, to Ashley’s absolute amazement, Joey imitated Nell and sat.

  “And there it is,” called Cadell.

  “What just happened?” Ashley asked. “I don’t get it.”

  “Dogs have their own language,” Cadell said. “Nell let Joey know she was the boss when she chased him, then she cemented it. Joey will now, within reason, do what Nell shows him how to do.”

  With that Cadell approached the fence and looked at Zane. “Can you come out here from time to time to help?”

  Zane visibly hesitated. “Just with Joey?”

  “Man, I’ve got a dozen people who need service dogs. But if that’s all you got time for, I’d be happy with it. Nell can teach the basics fast, then I take over and the dog will start accepting the commands from me. Dogs train quickly, but they learn faster from each other. So, whenever you can.”

  “I’ll help,” Zane said. “Some, anyway.”

  “G
reat. I’ll give Nell back to you now.” He opened the gate, and when Zane called, Nell came dashing to his side, leaving a slightly confused Joey behind.

  When Joey stood up, Cadell said, “Joey, sit.” Amazingly, the dog did. Cadell grinned. “Way to go.” Then he walked over and patted the dog. “Okay, guy, you can run now.”

  Joey looked up quizzically, but with a little push from Cadell, he started bounding around again, working off puppyish energy.

  Cadell closed the gate and rejoined them. “Now, maybe we’ve got a little something to show Mikey when he gets here.”

  Which seemed to be now, Ashley thought, hearing what sounded like a car door slamming.

  “You guys wait here,” Cadell said, trotting out to the front.

  Zane looked at Ashley. “I wouldn’t have believed that if I hadn’t seen it.”

  “I wouldn’t, either,” Ashley admitted.

  Zane surprised her, reaching across Nell to take her hand. “Thanks for talking me into this.” This time the smile reached his eyes.

  “I didn’t talk all that hard. This was your decision.” But his hand holding hers felt so good. His touch was warm and strong without being uncomfortable. She turned her hand over and tightened her grip on him, just a little, to let him know his touch was welcome, but she was nearly overcome by the worst urge to just lean into him and find out what he smelled like, what he felt like, how his arms around her would make her feel.

  How awful it would be to do that to him. That man was paraplegic. It would be the worst tease of all time to let him know about her steadily growing sexual interest in him. She dismayed herself. But she didn’t let go of his hand.

  Soon she heard Mikey’s excited voice. “Ostriches! Real live ostriches! I heard about them but I didn’t believe in them!”

  A smile stretched Ashley’s cheeks, and when she glanced at Zane she saw he was smiling, too. The boy’s excitement was contagious.

  “I want to see more,” he said.

  “After the dogs,” Cadell answered. “But you still can’t get close. They might peck you.”

  Twisting on the bench, Ashley saw Cadell pushing Mikey’s wheelchair over the rugged ground while Marian walked beside them. She looked delighted at the outing, almost as delighted as her son.