by A. Gorman
The next time I left, I made sure he’d never find us again. We zigzagged all over Southern Carolina before deciding on moving two states over and settling in Fairhope. That was six years ago, and I hadn’t been interested in letting a man get close to me since. Before Jake Tucker came home, that was.
I lean against the railing of the shelter’s training ring. Until Olivia bought this property it was used as a horse ranch; now it’s the perfect place to train and house the dogs she rescues from death row.
Spencer plays in the small puppy pen off to one side of the ring. He giggles as those furry little monsters climb all over him and lick and slobber and mouth his hands, face, and boots. Olivia comes out from the house and I hand her the double-shot mocha with low-fat whip that I promised her for making my week with this here little visit.
“How you doing, Spence?”
He laughs again and calls out a greeting to Olivia, but one of the pups sticks its long, pink tongue in Spencer’s face, and he giggles and tackles the dog.
“He okay?” She tilts her chin toward Spencer.
“Yeah, we both got a bit teary when we came in, but he’ll be alright. We sure are going to miss her, though,” I say. Spencer picks up the puppy and holds it up in the air, zooming it around as if it’s an airplane while he hums the Superman theme song. “Careful, baby, they’re little and what do we do with things that are smaller than us?”
“We protect them,” he replies, setting the dog on his chest and rubbing its silky ears between his thumbs and forefingers.
“That’s right, so you be gentle, and you be their protector. Okay?”
“Yes, Mamma.” He glances down at the wriggling ball of fur and whispers his secrets to the puppy.
I turn my attention back to Olivia. “We held our own little memorial for Lady down by Mobile Bay yesterday. We’ve both been moping ever since.”
“That mean old bastard Williams. If he’d let you have a pet—”
“Mamma,” Spence says, sitting up as an array of furry bodies go sprawling. “Aunt Olivia cussed.”
“I know, honey.” I give my friend a pointed look.
“Speaking of service dogs . . .” Olivia trails off, and I follow her gaze across the yard. Jake Tucker and his dog approach us.
“What is he doing here?”
“Who, Jake?” Olivia says, as if she doesn’t know. “Well, I asked him to help out with the puppies. Plus, Nuke’s comin’ in for a little more training. Can’t have him disobeying orders, now can we?”
My mouth falls open. “How did you know about that?”
“Honey, there ain’t a thing that happens in this town that everyone and their dog don’t know about by the end of the day.” Olivia pushes off of the fence and walks toward him. “Jake, nice to see you again,” she purrs, and raises a brow at me before turning to Nuke. She sooks him up appropriately and he wags his tail. “Eloise and Percy are just finishing up inside, and then we’ll get started. Why don’t you two talk amongst yourselves a little while I go and help them out?”
“Olivia,” I protest, but she just chuckles, tying up her rich chestnut locks as she walks across the yard to the big old brick building.
“Hi,” Jake says, holding up his hand, which has a camouflage lead wrapped around it. “He’s on the leash.”
I smile sheepishly. “I may have overreacted a little bit that day.”
“It’s okay. You were just lookin’ out for your boy.”
I give a half-hearted nod. “I may have also been embarrassed about puking on you the day before.”
“Ah. Well, I could lie and tell you it’s fine, but it was pretty gross.”
I stare at him, my mouth agape. Did he seriously just say that? I mean, obviously it was gross, but still, could he make me feel any worse?
Jake chuckles, one corner of his mouth quirking up in a half grin. “I’m teasin’ you, Elle. Besides, I’d say we’re even after I ran outta your salon screaming like a little girl, wouldn’t you?”
Elle? Where did that come from? My whole life no one has ever called me Elle, but I like the way it sounds in his deep, husky drawl. Like a dram of whiskey on a cold winter night, warm and rough as it goes down. I swallow hard as I think about Jake Tucker going down, and I have to drop my gaze so he won’t see the come-and-do-ridiculously-naughty-things-to-me look that I give him.
“Well, you didn’t exactly scream. You were more like a ninja, disarming me faster than I could blink and tossing my cut-throat razor like a throwing star before vanishing into thin air,” I say, shrugging.
“I’m sorry I hurt you.” He swallows hard and glances at my wrists before turning away.
“You wanna just start over?” I ask. “Hi, I’m Ellie Mason. I’m a single mom, and hairdresser. I drink too much coffee, run my car into poor unsuspecting footbridges, and puke all over nice men. I don’t do close shaves anymore though on account of some trouble I had a week back with a highly trained ninja.”
He chuckles darkly. “Okay, let’s see. Jake Tucker, ex-Marine, PTSD survivor, single—surprising right? I’m a sucker for hot blondes who puke all over me after I pull them from burning vehicles. I also like long walks on the beach where I tackle unsuspecting women to the ground to save them from rogue fireworks, and I singlehandedly took out a cut-throat razor last week with my stealth moves.”
“For your information, that vehicle wasn’t burning.” I laugh.
“No it wasn’t. I may have a tendency to over exaggerate in order to make myself look better.” He grins and clears his throat. “You haven’t been at the beach lately.”
“Not really. We went a few days ago, but we haven’t made it out since.” I lower my voice so my son won’t hear. “Spencer’s friend, Lady, died.”
“Olivia’s Lady?”
“Yeah. My landlord won’t let us have an assistance dog, so we’d come and work with Lady here at the shelter. He’s been a little torn up ever since. More meltdowns, more attitude, and over things that never used to bother him before.”
Jake studies Spencer, who’s so caught up in the puppies he hasn’t even seen Jake yet. I can tell the Marine’s trying to work out what’s wrong with him, but he’s too polite to ask.
“Spencer has Autism and SPD,” I blurt out. A part of me hates having to explain my son’s diagnosis. It’s not that I’m ashamed, and I know as the parent of an ASD child that I should be willing to answer questions in the hopes of removing the awful stigma associated with Autism, but sometimes you can talk until you’re blue in the face and it won’t change people’s prejudice. My son is not diseased, it’s not catching, and we’re not looking for a miracle cure or a way to change him. We just need to find a way to work with him. We need to sort out a way to make all of those beautiful puzzle pieces inside his brain fit together.
“What’s SPD?” Jake says quietly.
“Sensory Processing Disorder,” I say. “It’s like a neurological traffic jam. His wires get a little crossed sometimes and he can’t process loud noises, or touch, tags on clothing, or scratchy material—even certain foods cause him distress. Most ASD kids sit somewhere on the scale with Sensory Processing Disorder, but for Spence it can be really debilitating. I’ve been saving up to buy him some of those electronic ear muffs. The good ones that they use in the police force and the military. They still let you hear but they block out any loud noise that gets too close.”
“The fireworks.” Jake nods as if he understands and something in me, some terrible tension I’ve been holding onto for the last few minutes just dissolves. It can be difficult to explain Spencer’s condition to people at the best of times, so having someone take it all in without asking questions like Are you sure that’s his diagnosis and not just him being an eight-year-old brat? is refreshing. “He doesn’t like to be touched either?”
“Either?” I ask.
Did I give the impression that I don’t like to be touched? I may be an exhausted thirty-year-old single mother, but I ain’t dead.
Just li
ke that, Jake’s face shuts down.
Oh.
He runs a hand over his beard and glances back at the shelter, like he’s dying for some kind of interruption. “PTSD, remember?”
“Right.” I nod, “And you don’t like to be touched?”
“No,” he says abruptly.
Well damn. There goes every fantasy I’ve ever had starring this man, and trust me, there have been a lot. Jake shifts his weight from foot to foot. Nuke butts his head against Jake’s thigh, and he ruffles the dog’s fur.
“You ever talk about it?”
“No.” His tone is sharp, too sharp, and it stings, but I understand a thing or two about people pushing you to open up when you’re not ready, so I leave him be. For now.
Olivia, Eloise, and Percy emerge from the shelter carrying dog leads and what looks to be a giant bag of treats.
“Alrighty then, gather round, you two,” Olivia says, heading straight for the puppy pen with her no-nonsense face on. “These pups are nine weeks old. Training for these guys should have started two weeks ago but the Beasleys ummed and ahhed so long over their decision to sell or hand them over to me that it’s put us a couple weeks behind. Now we only have a week with them before I have to ship them off to the center in Mobile to their foster homes, so we’re gonna train them hard.”
She leans over and picks up one of the pups. “Do not be fooled by these little faces, people. These dogs will make suckers out of you all, and we need firm commands and rewards when they do something right. Spencer, you go ahead and pick your pup; he’s going to be your responsibility in this ring every day for a week.”
Spence looks to me for clarification. Normally, putting him on the spot like this in front of an audience would send him into meltdown, but it seems his decision is already made for him because he nods at the puppy that was falling asleep in his lap and says, “This one, I want this one.”
“Good choice, son.” Olivia hands him a green lead and he clips it onto the puppy’s matching collar.
We all take turns choosing a dog and fixing a lead to its collar, and Olivia talks us through some basic training. Jake’s pup keeps getting distracted, nipping at Nuke’s heels so the big black dog that Olivia tells me is a German Shephard—and not a wolf like I’d previously thought—gets to sit this one out.
The rest of us work in five-minute rounds of training and play, and then a half hour later we’re done for the day. We each take off our pup’s lead and carry them back to the kennels where they’re fed and put to bed in a big puppy pile. Spence and I watch their eyes close after an exhausting day. I know how they feel.
I leave my son outside their kennel as I go in search of Olivia, who’s inside cleaning up the mess from the dog’s dinnertime. Percy left five minutes ago and Jake is helping Eloise with the puppy pen and a few other bits and pieces that need carrying back to the main building.
“You need any more help?” I ask Olivia.
“Nope, we’re right as rain.”
“Alright then, Spence and I are going to head off.” I let out a tired sigh, feeling the weight of this week hit me all at once. “Assuming I can tear him away from the kennel without a meltdown, that is.”
“He did well today.”
“Yes, he did, thank you.”
“For what, hon?” She sets the last of the wet food dishes on the sink and turns to face me.
“You know what.”
“For being the bestest best friend that ever there lived?”
I laugh. “For that and for accepting us both. For treating Spence the way a blood relative would.” I roll my eyes. “Well, not my blood of course, because they’re a bunch of assholes, but you know what I mean.”
“Honey, we may not be related by blood, but the two of you are more family to me than any living relative I have left. I adore you both. Now get outta here; I got a Marine to train.”
I cock my head in confusion. “You’re really going to put him through more training tonight?”
“Hell yes I am. I can’t have my dogs out there jumping up on people and giving my program a bad name. That boy might have a rough exterior, but he’s nothing but gooey goodness inside—you can see it in his eyes. And he’s spoiling that pooch.”
“You can? See it in his eyes I mean?” The only thing I ever got from staring in Jake Tucker’s eyes was damp panties. I’d wager there was nothing soft about that man. Not after the way he gripped my wrist the other day at the salon. But I hadn’t told Olivia about that. I wasn’t sure why, when I’d told her everything else. I guess I just didn’t want her to blame him.
“Oh, Ellie, you’ve been out of the game for far too long.”
“Okay Cupid, I’m out of here before you force me to become part of this training.”
She grins, flashing her perfect white teeth at me, her blue eyes twinkling with delight. “Now there’s an idea.”
“Goodnight, Olivia,” I say, and close the door firmly behind me.
When I reach the kennels, Spencer isn’t there. My heart beats a little faster, because he has a tendency to wander off. Stupid. I shouldn’t have left him alone but I thought he’d stay put what with the pups being there for him to watch. I call his name as I walk through the kennels and back to the main building for the shelter. I head around the side, hoping that maybe he went out to the car to wait for me but when I get to the small lot, he’s nowhere to be found.
“Spencer?” I shout, setting off a whole pound’s worth of pups baying and barking at the noise.
“What’s wrong?” Olivia says, as she comes tearing out of the building.
I rake my hand through my hair. “Spencer’s gone walkabout again.”
“Shoot.”
“I should have thought . . . I just . . . he was watching the puppies, so I came inside.”
“It’s okay, honey,” she says, rubbing her hands up and down my arms. “We’ll find him. He can’t have gone far.”
I just look at my friend, because we both know that’s not true. It’s not unusual for ASD kids to just up and vanish, and Spencer wanders off at the best of times. The last time he did it here, we found him thirty minutes later walking up Main Street half way to Montrose.
Jake comes out of the main building, followed by a smug Eloise. He takes one look at me and his whole body goes ramrod straight. His gaze scans the scene around us. “Elle, what’s wrong?”
“Spencer’s missing.” I try to keep the panic from my voice, but I fail miserably.
“You three check the property,” Olivia says. “I’m going to jump in the car and drive down the laneway, see if I can’t find him there.”
I nod.
“Don’t worry, well find him,” Jake says, and heads past the kennels toward Olivia’s house farther back on the property while I run toward the training ring. He isn’t there. I rack my brain, trying to figure out where he could have gone before I remember that Olivia sometimes sneaks him cookies when he comes to visit. I take off for the house imagining all the terrible things I might find when I get there, but Jake Tucker standing on my best friend’s porch and telling me to hush as I approach isn’t one of them.
“Did you find him?” I demand, wondering why he isn’t talking to me. I take the porch steps two at a time, and all the breath leaves me in a rush when I see my son and Jake’s dog, passed out on the loveseat with a half-eaten jar of snickerdoodles between them.
“Olivia’s going to kill me for this.”
My heart thunders, and I press my palm to it and take several deep breaths, realizing how unfit I am and how close I was to a heart attack. This boy will be the death of me.
“You?” I say breathlessly. “I’m the one who’ll have to spend all day baking tomorrow to replace the ones they ate.”
“Search and rescue get some of those too right?”
I nod and smile affectionately. “I’m thinking they get a lot more than just snickerdoodles.”
Good Lord. Did I just say that?
“You like divinity? I’m
terrible at making it. I can’t ever get my sugar the right temperature, but Punta Clara Kitchen makes the best. I’ll pick ya up some.”
Jake just laughs.
What in the world is wrong with me? I can’t stop my mouth from moving. I just keep puking words all over this man. At least it’s not actual puke, because I already did that.
“I better get him home,” I say, just praying for some sort of miracle in order to get me to shut up.
I wake Spence and chastise him for running off. Nuke wakes too, but Jake don’t even need to speak to him to let him know he’s in trouble—he jumps off the couch and hangs his head in shame. I clean up the mess they made as best I can, returning Olivia’s cookie jar to her cupboard inside and righting the chair Spence left sitting in the middle of the kitchen.
“Spencer Mason, you march your butt up that hill to the car right now,” I command and he and Nuke turn tail and plod on ahead of us. Jake and I don’t say a word as we walk along the path to the shelter. Me, because I’m afraid if I open my mouth again I won’t stop babbling, and him? Well, I guess he’s the silent type.
When we near the shelter I realize something important that I forgot to do in between having a heart attack and embarrassing myself, yet again, in front of the hot Marine. “Oh, shoot. I forgot to call Olivia. She’ll be past Montrose and half way to Daphne by now.”
I didn’t bring my phone. I rarely keep it on me. Most days I don’t even switch it on because I can’t afford the calls. I only carry it with me if we’re going out of town on long trips, which we almost never do, so I usher Spence inside to call Olivia’s cell from the shelter’s front desk. I am not losing sight of this boy again tonight.
After I hang up on Olivia, we walk outside. I almost stop dead in my tracks when I notice Jake and Eloise standing in the lot beside my car. Jake has his back to me but Eloise is so wrapped up in him she hasn’t even noticed they’re no longer alone.
“Thank goodness you were here,” Eloise says in her sugary voice that puts my teeth on edge on a good day. She twirls a strand of glossy dark hair around her finger. “I can’t count the amount of times that silly boy has run off and we’ve all had to waste time looking for him.”