“My lips are sealed.”
“Just slow down.”
“I promise.”
What a doll, Rachel thought when she pulled back onto the highway and carefully watched her speed. Why couldn’t she fall for a man like him?
The next day was Thursday, and Louise had booked a series of in-clinic small-animal appointments. Rachel saw two wormy cats and a wormy dog, had Jimmy dip two dogs to rid them of fleas, diagnosed a case of ear mites in an angry tom cat, and scratched her head over a pet gopher snake that had quit eating.
“I don’t know, Bobby,” she told the young owner. “I’ll have to study up on this one. Have you seen him eat anything strange lately?”
“Strange?”
“Something he’s not used to eating.”
Bobby shrugged. “I don’t guess.”
Rachel let out a low hum and studied the file Louise had given her. “You’re, uh, not still feeding him oatmeal, are you?”
“Ma’am?”
“Dr. Ray made a note the last time you brought Gopher in. It says you’d been feeding him oatmeal.”
Bobby swallowed and blinked up at her. “It does?”
“I’ll bet he told you not to do that, didn’t he?”
The boy swallowed again. “Uh, maybe.”
“Have you eaten any live mice lately?”
His eyes bugged out. “Yuck. Not me.”
“Why not?”
“Yuck!”
“It’s not exactly people food, is it?”
Bobby shook his head hard.
“Well, oatmeal is not snake food. It makes him sick.” It constipated the heck out of the poor snake was what it did. But according to Dr. Ray’s notes, the, uh, situation would pass on its own.
“If I promise not to feed him oatmeal again—”
“Or any other people food—”
“Can I take him home with me?”
“I think Gopher would prefer that to staying here, don’t you?”
“Thanks, Dr. Wilder.”
By the time Louise saw Bobby and his mother and Gopher out the door it was noon.
Louise circled the counter and stood before the front window to watch their last client of the morning leave. “No more appointments until three,” she told Rachel. “How’s the snake?”
“Overfed and constipated,” Rachel muttered. “You could have warned me.”
Louise chuckled.
Jimmy came out of the back room with his backpack slung over one shoulder. The seventeen-year-old fancied himself a writer. The backpack, Rachel knew, was crammed with spiral notebooks, yellow legal pads, pens, pencils, a battered copy of Roget’s Thesaurus, and an even more battered copy of Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. And, to hear his mother tell it, a change of clothes and the kitchen sink.
“I’ve finished mopping in the kennel,” he told Rachel. “Anything else I need to do?”
“Did you clean up after the mess of flea-dipping?”
“Yep.”
“I guess that’s it, then. Got a hot date tonight?” At seventeen, Jimmy also fancied himself a ladies’ man.
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Don’t I always?”
Louise shook her head. “I’m glad my daughters are too old and my granddaughters too young. You behave yourself, young man.”
Jimmy grinned. “Don’t I always?”
With that he pulled open the door. But instead of walking out, he stopped and stared. His grin slipped. “Hey, that looks like…naw, it can’t be.”
“Who?” Rachel joined him, and so did Louise.
“Oh, my God.” Louise gripped Rachel’s arm so tight that her fingernails nearly broke the skin. “It’s Harry.”
Rachel frowned at the poor, battered dog stumbling and limping down the drive from the highway. The animal looked as though it had been dragged for miles over rugged ground. “It can’t be.” Harry had been in the plane with Dr. Ray and David. David never went anywhere without that dog. The poor fellow had been killed in the crash with them.
With a death grip still on Rachel’s arm, Louise shoved past Jimmy and barreled out the door, dragging Rachel in her wake. “It’s him, I tell you.”
Jimmy, who also fancied himself a photographer, reached into his backpack for his camera, already seeing his photo credit and byline on the front page of the Wyatt County Gazette.
“Dad, look,” Cody called. “It’s a dog.” In the corral, Grady drew his mare to a halt and followed Cody’s line of sight. He frowned. A stray dog. Unless things had changed a great deal while he’d been away, they didn’t get many strays at Standing Elk. Everybody in three counties knew that Dr. Ray Lewis lived here. And if they knew that, they knew that Dr. Lewis would deliver a stinging lecture on the responsibility of pet ownership to anyone he caught dumping their unwanted animals out along the highway.
This dog had something wrong with it. It staggered and limped badly. Its head hung low, and it appeared to be covered in dried mud. Maybe even blood.
And Cody was heading toward it.
“Cody.” With visions of fangs and foaming mouths and rabid dogs dancing through his mind, Grady dismounted and vaulted over the corral fence. “Cody! Stay back,” he cautioned, putting himself between Cody and the strange dog.
“No, Dad, look! It’s Harry!”
Ah, hell, Grady thought. “Cody, you know it can’t be, son.”
“But it is!” Cody jumped up and down and would have taken off up the gravel road toward the pitiful-looking creature if Grady hadn’t grabbed the back of his shirt as he darted around him. “Harry! C’mere, boy! Dad, let go. I know it’s Harry.”
Grady eyed the dog carefully and pulled Cody back.
When his dad and David had come to visit him and Cody in California, they had brought David’s dog with them, because David refused to go anywhere without him, so both Grady and Cody were familiar with the dog. And this one did sort of resemble him. That might be all black hair under the dirt and whatever else covered it. That might be one white ear that gave the dog his distinctive, inquisitive look. But the dog had been in the plane with his dad and David on that fateful day. This couldn’t be.…
“Here, Harry, come here, boy!” Cody clapped and called and whistled, and the dog stumbled closer. Nothing more than hair and bones, poor fellow. Its tail tried to wag. “See, Dad? See? It’s him!”
They never found the dog, Joe had told him. They figured he had crawled off into the brush somewhere to die.
They never found the dog.
This poor dog was in such bad shape, Grady didn’t see how he’d even made it down the drive from the road, much less from however far he’d come. But he whined so pitifully as he came near that Grady found himself holding out his hand for a halfhearted lick.
Those eyes. God, what a mix of pain and happiness.
The dog collapsed at Grady’s feet.
Grady had been focused so intently on the dog and Cody that he hadn’t paid attention to the trio approaching from the clinic until Rachel rushed forward and knelt in the gravel beside the dog.
“Harry. Oh, God, it is you, you poor thing. There, there, everything’s going to be all right. You’re home now, sweetheart.”
“See, Dad? I told ya.”
“I’ll be d—” Remembering who he was talking to, Grady swallowed the swear word. “Well, I’ll be.”
Cody knelt on the dog’s other side and looked like he was dying to reach out and pet him.
“Not yet, Cody,” Rachel cautioned. “Let me see how badly he’s hurt first. You don’t want to touch some place that’s sore and cause him more pain.”
Grady watched as Rachel checked the dog over. The animal’s face and feet were a mass of cuts and torn flesh, partially healed but still swollen and bloody. There was a long gash down his back right next to his spine, and what looked like a huge bite mark on one hip. Harry must have been to hell and back, more than once.
“How bad is he?” Grady asked Rachel.
“He’s a walking miracl
e just for being here,” she said softly. “But he’s got infection in a dozen wounds or more, some of them pretty bad, most of them needing sutures. He’s picked up enough parasites to choke an elephant. He’s dehydrated, half-starved. I’d guess he’s lost nearly a third of his weight. But the worst appears to be his right front leg.”
“Is it broken?” Louise asked.
“Uh-huh,” Rachel murmured. “And the shoulder is dislocated.” She looked up at Jimmy, who hovered nearby, snapping pictures. “Stow that camera and go get the surgery ready.”
Louise turned to go with Jimmy. “I’ll go cancel this afternoon’s appointments.”
Rachel bit her lip. “I wish we had a stretcher.”
Grady stepped forward and held out his arms. “Will I do?”
Rachel looked up at him as though she’d forgotten he was there. Doubt darkened her eyes.
Grady understood her misgivings. First, the poor fellow was hurting, and being picked up and carried in someone’s arms would not be comfortable for him. And second, Harry was a fair-sized dog, his head reaching the middle of her thigh.
Grady knelt at the dog’s back and, as gently as possible, slipped his arms beneath him, never mind the skin being scraped off the backs of his hands by the gravel beneath. “You said it yourself, Rach, he’s lost a lot of weight.”
Harry seemed to know that Grady wasn’t hurting him intentionally. He whined once, but didn’t struggle.
The four of them headed for the clinic—Rachel, Grady, Cody, and the dog who had miraculously found his way home.
For a minute, just a short span of time, Grady could have sworn he felt his brother at his side, urging him on.
Chapter Seven
It took hours to clean Harry up and put him back together. Jimmy stayed and helped Rachel and didn’t care that his hot date might end up having to cool her heels.
Joe came looking for Grady and was astounded to learn about David’s dog being alive and making it all the way home from the crash site. He rushed back to the house, and a few minutes later Alma came, with a jug of iced tea and a sack full of sandwiches.
Grady tried to get Cody to go back outside and play—even volunteered to go with him. But Cody was having none of it. Uncle David’s dog was in that room behind that closed door, and Cody wasn’t budging until he knew Harry was going to be all right. Not that he didn’t trust his dad or Louise or Alma, but he wanted to hear it straight from Dr. Rachel. Nothing less would do.
Finally, rolling her shoulders to relieve an ache, Rachel emerged from the surgery, her face etched with lines of fatigue. Grady felt the strongest urge to go to her and hold her, rub those tired shoulders.
She wouldn’t welcome his touch, so he’d just better get that idea right out of his head. That was what he told himself.
Cody jumped up from his chair. “Is Harry okay?”
Rachel smiled and brushed her hand across Cody’s head. “He’s still asleep right now, but I think he’s going to be fine. It will take him some time to recover. He won’t be able to go out and play for a few days yet, and when he does, he’s going to be hobbling on three legs because one of them is in a cast. He’ll need lots of rest, and lots of love.”
Cody looked up at her, then at Grady. “Would it be all right if I loved him, Dad? Do you think he’d mind?”
God, what a good heart this kid had. “I don’t think he’d mind at all, pard. In fact, it seems to me that Harry’s your dog now.”
Cody’s eyes widened. “No foolin’?”
“No foolin’.”
“You don’t think Uncle David would mind?”
“I know he wouldn’t. In fact, remember me telling you about a will, and how Grandad put in his will that he wanted you to have his ball cap and fishing tackle?”
“And the picture books.”
“That’s right. The photo albums,” Grady said. “Your Uncle David had a will, too, and in it he said that if anything happened to him, he wanted you to have Harry.”
If possible, Cody’s eyes got bigger. “Golly. Really?”
“Uh-huh. That means you have to take care of him now. You have to feed him and make sure he always has clean water.”
“And if he rolls in the manure, like he did when Uncle David brought him to see us that time, I have to give him a bath?”
“That’s right. Do you think you can do all of that? It’s a big responsibility, taking care of a dog.”
“I can do it, Dad. Honest I can.”
“I know you can, pard.” Grady stood and stretched the kinks out of his back. “And now that we know he’s going to be all right, we better get back to our chores.”
“But, Dad,” Cody protested. “I can’t leave. I got reponsibilities here.”
“Responsibilities,” Grady corrected automatically.
“Yeah. I gotta look after Harry. He’ll need me when he wakes up.”
“He’s not going to wake up for quite a while,” Grady said. “Isn’t that right, Rachel?”
“That’s right.” Rachel gave Cody a sober look. “He’ll probably sleep clear through to tomorrow, seeing as he was so exhausted.”
Over Cody’s head, Grady mouthed a silent thank you to Rachel. He had visions of Cody wanting to spend the night curled up beside Harry in the cage Rachel had surely put him in after the surgery. He could envision it, because he’d done it himself once, when his own dog had been bitten by a rattler. He hadn’t been much older than Cody at the time.
“So,” Rachel continued, “you’ve got plenty of time to get your chores done, eat supper, and get a good night’s sleep before Harry will be ready for you to visit him.”
He could kiss that woman.
The thought startled him. Not because he’d had it. It was just an expression, after all. But because of the way the flippant notion softened and settled deep inside him. Making him think he really wanted to kiss her. Kiss her for real.
Speaking of real, you better get that way, pal. She doesn’t want anything to do with you, and the feeling is mutual. Remember?
The trouble was, he suddenly found it hard to remember.
Jimmy got his photo credits and his byline. His pictures and article about the dog who survived a plane crash and, although severely injured, traveled more than a hundred miles home, made the front page of the next edition of the Wyatt County Gazette. Jimmy wasn’t even too crushed when he realized that Harry, and not him, had become the talk of the town.
July Fourth dawned clear and warm. In Hope Springs anticipation filled the air, along with the clop of horses’ hooves on pavement, the discordant notes of the high-school marching band tuning up, the shouts and laughter coming from the gathering crowd along Main as well as from the parade participants gathering at the north end of town, around the corner at the feed store.
Band members sweated under their wool uniforms. Majorettes twirled, dropped, retrieved, and tossed their batons in the air. Miss Wyatt County and Miss Hope Springs were trying to see who could smile the widest, and they practiced their queenly waves as well as how to throw candy to the crowd without jostling their crowns. Horses stomped, snorted and fidgeted, as did their riders.
Every convertible in the county—all four of them—had been called into service and waxed to a mirror sheen, the better to show off the beauty queens, the mayor, and Bob Hodges, the state representative for the area. From their perches atop the back seats those dignitaries could wave, throw candy to the kids, and be seen well enough to get their pictures in the paper.
At the back of the line of parade participants the volunteer fire department lined up the hay wagon they would drive behind a six-mule team. Jefferson Polanski was giving his prized mules, on loan for the occasion, a last-minute grooming while they dozed in their traces.
Rachel looked around and smiled with pride. God, she loved this town, this county. She’d missed it terribly during the past seven years when she’d been away at school. But she was home now, and glad of it. This, she knew, was where she belonged. In Wyatt
County among her friends and family.
If this was the year that Grady was to have ridden at her side as her husband, she refused to dwell on it. Refused to acknowledge the sudden blurring of her vision at the thought. She kept her smile firmly in place.
As she looked around at her family now, her smiled widened. They were an impressive bunch, the Wilders, even if she did say so herself. Especially when they were all dressed in jeans and matching red-white-and-blue shirts, white straw cowboy hats, and mounted on their favorite horses.
It was fun to watch the look on Belinda’s face. This would be the woman’s first year to ride with them, her first Independence Day as a Wilder. The first small-town parade she’d witnessed, let alone participated in.
Rachel nudged her horse closer to her sister-in-law’s. “What do you think?”
“Think?” Belinda laughed. “I’m supposed to be able to think? The boys were up at four o’clock, insisting it was time to get ready. They’re so excited, I keep expecting them to tear off down the street at a mad gallop.”
Rachel pursed her lips to hold back a grin. “And of course, you’re not excited at all.”
“Who, me?” She gave an innocent blink with eyes that twinkled. “Okay, I admit it. This is fun.”
“Yeah. After we—”
The shrill of a nearby whistle cut her off. It was time for the parade to begin.
The band, proudly sporting the Hope Springs High School banner, led the way. They got to go first so they wouldn’t have to march through what the horses would leave on the pavement as they passed.
Rachel had bribed Ralph Sumner, the parade organizer, to let the Flying Ace entry—namely, the entire family plus the hands—follow the band. This way she would have time after they reached the other end of Main to race back via Pine Street and ride in the clinic’s parade entry. The clinic’s SUV would be pulling a decked-out trailer, as usual, but in the press of a busy week Rachel had neglected to get the details from Louise. The woman had merely told her to get her buns back to the trailer before it pulled out on Main near the end of the parade line.
The band turned the corner now and lined up on Main. Marching in place, they cut loose with a rousing rendition of “The Stars and Stripes Forever” and headed out.
The Price of Honor Page 11