by Amy Vastine
“My grandpa was a vet, the veterinarian kind. He had his own practice. I grew up helping him out after school and on weekends. He would board dogs, too. It was my job to take care of them. I loved it. It was all I wanted to do for a long time. Me and dogs… We just fit.”
Jessie peered at him questioningly. “Why don’t you have a dog now?”
He stirred his tea, the spoon clinking against the inside of his mug. “I did. I had a dog—Zoe. She was my partner, but she, uh… She died.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “In combat?”
“Yes.”
There was so much compassion in her deep brown eyes Ryder had to look away. This was exactly the kind of intimacy he’d intended to stay away from.
She must have sensed his discomfort because she changed the subject. “You were raised by your grandparents?”
“I was. Grandpa died when I was eighteen. And I lost Grandma almost a year ago while I was still overseas. She had cancer and I didn’t get back in time. I, uh, I couldn’t get back.”
A furrow appeared between her brows. “The military wouldn’t let you?”
He swallowed and looked over at her. “Not exactly. I was… It was my fault.”
And that was the crux of the problem. It hadn’t been his fault, his rational brain knew that. He’d been recovering from his injuries in a hospital in Germany at the same time that Dell had been lying in a coma in the very same hospital. He couldn’t get home.
Zoe was gone. Grandma was gone, along with the only home and family he’d ever known. Dell had a wife and a child. Why couldn’t it have been him instead? Guilt and grief sometimes overwhelmed him to the point where he could barely move. All of which he’d come here to somehow get a grip on. And how could he do that if he let another person, another dog, slip into his heart?
He couldn’t risk it and yet he found himself asking, “What do you know about Fife’s background?”
She winced. “Not much. I happened to be at a shelter in Glacier City looking for a foster candidate when she was brought in with a bunch of other dogs. They’d been confiscated from this crazy commune place where the guy in charge had stationed dogs all the way around the perimeter. Fifty-two dogs chained up one after another. Pitiful. Someone would come and feed and water them every few days, but basically they were living on their own. Fife wouldn’t let anyone touch her. She does this high-pitched howl…” Her voice trailed off.
“Like a fife?”
Her eyes met his and held, but she didn’t really seem surprised that he knew the sound this small flute made. “Yes. The shelter was overwhelmed and the vet in charge wanted to put her down. So I offered to take her. Somehow I managed to get her into my car, and here we are.”
Ryder had to admit he would have done the same. He had learned from watching his grandfather that even the most seemingly hopeless of cases deserved a chance. Sympathy and a desire to help warred with his trepidation. They were talking about an innocent dog. What choice did he have?
CHAPTER THREE
Ryder came through the fence that circled her house and kept the dogs from wandering. Jessie never let them out beyond the fence alone. There was too much danger; bears, wolves, even a moose could stomp a dog to death. She liked how commanding his presence was. Strong, and clearly in control yet he had this gentleness about him that made her wonder how it would feel to be wrapped in those muscled arms. Safe, she decided.
Too bad that could never happen. If anyone knew the heartbreak that could come with getting involved with a military man it was her, especially a troubled one. Jessie had finally come to terms with her own loss, yet sometimes she still wrangled with the role she had played in Craig’s condition, in not being able to prevent her fiancé’s death.
Colfax and Pia greeted him. Colfax was a grayish brown husky lab mix and Pia appeared to be the offspring of some unidentifiable mutant breed of wire-haired wolf. They were the only two permanent, canine members of the Madigan family. One was large, the other huge. Both were friendly dogs with sweet dispositions and no bad habits. Fine examples both, for wayward foster dogs to follow.
“You didn’t mention that you did pony rescue, too,” Ryder joked and then buried his face in Pia’s neck. It didn’t take much effort, her head reached to his chest. “She is a beauty. Irish wolfhound?”
Jessie grinned. Everyone who knew anything about dogs took a guess at Pia’s heritage. Ryder’s theory mirrored her own. “That’s exactly what I think. She’s certainly as sweet as a wolfhound.”
Colfax sat patiently waiting his turn. Ryder turned toward him. “What about you, husky boy? You need some love, too, huh?”
Colfax answered with some enthusiastic tail-wagging. Ryder complimented his good looks and excellent behavior as he gave him a thorough scratching.
Jessie felt herself melt. Nothing got to her quite like a man sweet-talking a dog. Especially one as big and tough and imposing as Ryder. Pia nudged her way in again and nearly knocked them both over. Ryder laughed.
“This is what I want for Fife,” Jessie said with a chuckle of her own.
“Where is she?” he finally asked.
Jessie pointed next to a tree where Fife now stood watching them warily.
If the sight of Ryder charming her two dogs had made her weak in the knees, watching him work his magic on Fife seemed to liquefy her entire body. He sank to his knees near her, murmuring the whole time. He didn’t touch her. Until the dog moved forward and rested her head on his lap. He sat with her a long time, talking quietly and stroking her thick fur. Jessie had to work hard to stifle her tears when she watched him place a kiss on the top of Fife’s filthy head.
He looked up at her then, a furrow creasing his brow. “I think there’s something else going on here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think she feels well. When I touch her here,” Ryder paused to point to an area under her chin, “she flinches. And when I compare it to the other side…” He curled his hands around her neck. “…it feels swollen.”
Jessie felt her stomach fall. “What do you think it is?”
He gestured at her. “Come here. Let me show you.”
* * *
Jessie knelt beside them. Ryder guided her hands to the right place. Concentration knitted her brow and after a moment her espresso-colored eyes latched onto his. Something like excitement danced in their depths and he felt a stir of it himself. The reaction surprised him. It had been so long since he’d felt…anything, besides the numbing sadness that had taken over his life.
“I can feel it,” she whispered. “Definitely swollen. What are you thinking?”
Ryder shook his head. “Not sure. Probably infection of some kind. Her skin feels warm, too. I don’t feel a wound, but it could be a puncture, or an infected sliver? What do you have for first aid supplies?”
“Pretty much everything. What do you need?”
Ryder told her.
“Let’s go in,” she said and took off for the house. She’d managed to produce all the supplies by the time he’d led Fife inside.
“This is quite the setup you have here,” he said, studying the space.
“Thank you,” she said and explained that she’d had the large room added on specifically for dog rehabilitation. There were dog beds, food and water bowls in one corner, and leashes, harnesses and collars of various sizes and colors hanging on a series of hooks by the door. Squeaky toys and balls were scattered around the space. A dog door led into a large courtyard, half of which was covered.
Ryder headed to the corner that contained a state of the art dog washing station complete with dryer. “This is what we need.”
“You’re going to give her a bath?”
“Yep. I’m hoping we’ll be able to see what’s under all that fur a little better. And if there is some kind of wound, I would like to get her cleaned up before we work on her.”
An hour later, Jessie was pretty sure Ryder was a miracle worker. Fife had been bathed and
dried with a minimal amount of fuss. He’d shaved the fur from the area of concern and confirmed that she definitely had something lodged under the skin beneath her jaw.
He rummaged around in Jessie’s supplies and removed some antiseptic, cotton rounds, a scalpel, and a pair of tweezers. She handed him a head-mounted magnifier, which he slipped on. He spoke softly and caressed Fife for a few minutes, getting her settled. Jessie marveled at how calm the dog seemed. Her eyes were wide, belying some anxiety, but her trust in Ryder was clearly greater than her fear.
Jessie could see the infected area, the skin swollen and red. He made a small incision with the scalpel and yellowish pus begin to ooze out. His hand was steady as he gently probed with a pair of tweezers.
“Got it,” he whispered and pulled away the tweezers.
Jessie produced a length of gauze and Ryder dropped the object onto the pad.
“Is that a pellet?”
“Yes. A .117 caliber pellet,” Ryder answered, his jaw clenched so tight he could barely get the words out. He continued his ministrations, thoroughly cleaning and then applying anti-bacterial cream to the area.
Jessie felt sick to her stomach. Someone had shot this beautiful dog. The cruelty she encountered in her animal rescue efforts would never cease to get to her. “How long has it been in there?”
“Hard to say. Probably happened within days of your getting her. Luckily, she can’t reach the spot to chew it. She may try to scratch it when it starts to heal, but we’ll deal with that when we have to. She’ll need antibiotics for a couple weeks, but she’s going to be fine.”
After finishing up, they let Fife go. They stood together and watched her for a few moments. Jessie thought her anxiety had already lessened. She and Ryder sat at opposite ends of the blanket-covered sofa. Fife circled on a therapeutic dog bed lying at Ryder’s feet, settling in for a nap with her nose pressed against his leg. A surge of warm relief filled Jessie’s chest, and looking at Ryder she could tell he felt it, too. Tears welled in her eyes as embarrassment heated her cheeks.
“Thank you,” she said, swiping at a tear. “I’m feeling like you showing up here when you did was meant to be.”
Jessie wondered about the uneasy expression on his face. There was no doubt in her mind that Ryder was suffering, too. She understood his pain better than a person ever should. In spite of what she’d told him about valuing his privacy, something had happened here between them today. She knew in her heart that she could help him. Fife could help.
Her pulse leapt when he reached out a hand and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I don’t know about that, but I’m glad I could lend a hand.”
* * *
Ryder removed his hand, conscious of the fact he’d broken his own rule of maintaining distance. “What about you?” he asked, turning the subject around to her.
“What about me?”
“What are you doing living here on this tiny lake in Alaska?”
She smiled. “I was born here.”
“In Rankins?”
“No. I was born in a tiny village way up north outside of Barrow. My mom is Native Alaskan and my dad is a fisherman. They still live there. I wanted a milder climate.”
“Have you by chance heard of a place called southern California?”
Ryder liked the way her laugh made her eyes dance.
“I love Alaska. I could never live anywhere else. I traveled some after college…with my fiancé. I never found anywhere that I liked more. Then I started doing dog rescue, which would be more difficult up in Barrow, with the harsher weather and the few hours of daylight in the winter.”
“What happened?” The question popped out before he could stop it.
“What do you mean?”
“The word fiancé implies marriage?”
“Oh…” Her gaze shifted away from his and then back again. The pain in her expression made his heart hurt even as it reminded him a bit of his own. “Yes it does, I guess. But I wasn’t. He died.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, thinking she seemed so alive to have gone through an experience like that.
“We all experience loss in our lives at some point. But that doesn’t make it any easier, does it? We wonder what we could have said or done differently. It can make it especially difficult to move on.”
He wasn’t sure how to respond and he sensed she understood when she followed it up with a question, “Do you have plans for Thanksgiving dinner next week?”
Thanksgiving? Tag had invited him to his family’s bash, but Ryder couldn’t bear the thought of going. He wanted to be grateful. He did. But…
“I’m going to sit it out this year.”
Her eyes widened with surprise. “What? Why?”
“I can’t imagine having Thanksgiving dinner without my grandma or my friends back home.” He always spent Thanksgiving with Dell. That included Brianna and Grandma if he and Dell were stateside. When they were deployed Brianna would still spend the holiday with Grandma.
“I understand…” she answered slowly. “So I’m going to say this fast before I change my mind. I believe the best way to get over grief is to face it head on. I don’t know what happened to you exactly, but I can see your pain. And in spite of whatever is going on inside your head, whatever sadness or regret or guilt you’re feeling, you do deserve to be happy.”
All he could do was stare at her.
“So, if you change your mind you can come over to Wendell and Evie’s. Evie and I cook dinner for everyone who…” she trailed off and then added, “…for anyone who doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Thank you,” he said. But the part of him that wanted to accept the invitation didn’t stand a chance against the part that warned him it wouldn’t be a good idea. His guilt, his bone-deep sorrow would not allow him to be grateful for anything. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
* * *
Ryder should have known that things were going too well, that life in Rankins was too good to be true. He’d been spending some time at Jessie’s every day helping her with Fife. She was already a different dog and it was all he could do not to bring her home with him. He held on to the knowledge that he was making a positive difference in someone’s life. It also felt amazing to spend time with Jessie.
He was getting ready to head to town for lunch with Tag when the knock sounded on his door. A knock? He froze, waiting for the accompanying sound of the door opening and one of his neighbors calling out his name. When that didn’t happen, a sinking feeling edged in to replace the anticipation.
He walked over and opened the door and instantly realized he’d had that sinking feeling for a good reason.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jessie thought that Fife seemed almost as anxious as Colfax and Pia to be out for a walk today. The fact that they were headed in Ryder’s direction might have a little something to do with her eagerness. And who was she kidding? It had plenty to do with hers, too. She couldn’t wait for Ryder to see their brave girl trotting along beside her buddies.
She’d just emerged from the copse of trees that abutted his property when she saw the unfamiliar car pull into his drive. She stopped as two men in uniform emerged from the vehicle. Dread flooded through her as her heart, speaking from experience, told her this wasn’t good.
* * *
“Hey, buddy.” Cody Braxton reached out a hand for Ryder to shake. Reece Travers did the same. Two of his friends and former teammates.
“Jeez, man. It’s good to see you,” Reece said. But his face was twisted with pain and what looked like concern.
“You, too,” Ryder somehow managed to squeeze the words out of lungs that were so tightly constricted in his chest he could barely draw a breath.
“I’m so sorry it’s under these circumstances,” Cody went on. “I wish…”
“Say it, Cody. Just say it.”
Cody nodded, his face a solemn mask. “Dell died yesterday. Ryder, please believe me when I tell you that no one blames you for what happened. We c
ould have all died if you hadn’t taken those guys out. Not just Dell.”
But Ryder knew that wasn’t all true. Brianna blamed him. She’d told him so in no uncertain words. “You promised me you’d keep him safe, Ryder. You lied. You lied to me. Dell is gone and now our daughter doesn’t have a father. And it’s your fault.” That’s when she had pushed him out of Dell’s room and told him not to come back.
Cody handed him an envelope. ‘Ryder Shelton’ was scrawled across the front in an unfamiliar hand.
* * *
Jessie had no idea how long she stared at Ryder’s cabin trying to decide what to do. She assumed from what she’d seen, from Ryder’s body language and that of the soldiers, that the news they brought hadn’t been good. Fife tugged on her leash and pranced impatiently.
All three dogs seemed disappointed when they turned and headed back home. She stoked the fire and sat down on the sofa in front of the large picture window overlooking the lake, which also provided a view of Ryder’s cabin.
A couple hours later she saw the men depart. She couldn’t decide what to do. Should she go to Ryder now or give him more time to absorb whatever information the men had delivered?
As darkness fell, she slipped into her coat, leashed the dogs, and headed to Ryder’s cabin. Her pulse pounded wildly as she climbed the steps and walked to his door. Inhaling a deep steadying breath, she reached down to turn the knob. Locked. The sign she’d been dreading. Calm down, Jessie, she reminded herself. Ryder isn’t Craig.
Beside her Fife whined, sniffing between the door and the jamb.
“I know, Fife. I want to see him, too,” she whispered.
As they made their way home again, she noticed Fife kept looking back. She didn’t know what to do. Not for the dog or the man. She didn’t know Ryder well enough to know how far she should push. What she did have was a source of information only a few miles away and her own experience to draw from.
From her place, she texted Ryder and waited. He didn’t respond. Not that she expected him to. She picked her phone up again and dialed Tag.