The Dog Who Came for Christmas

by Sue Pethick

  Travis took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair, remembering the homey chaos at Renee’s.

  “What about Max?”

  Savannah seemed perplexed.

  “Won’t Hugh be taking him when he moves out?”

  Travis shook his head.

  “He can’t—not if he chooses the group home he’s visiting this week. There’s not enough room there for a dog Max’s size; plus, they already have a therapy dog.”

  “Then I’m afraid we’d have to find him another home,” she said. “I’m sorry, too, because Max seems like a good dog, but I just couldn’t have an animal that size around my baby. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  He turned away and Savannah took his hand.

  “It’d be okay, though, we could find him a nice home somewhere else.” Her face brightened. “We could give him to one of the kids in your program. Maybe Renee’s son would like him.”

  Travis shook his head. He wasn’t ready to forgive and forget that easily.

  “All right,” she said. “I understand. But what about one of the other families? The Bartons would love to have a dog. Or the Patels. I heard they lost a dog a few months ago.”

  “How do you know their kids are in the program?”

  Savannah paused.

  “I don’t know. I suppose you told me.”

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t.”

  “Of course you did. You must have.”

  “Savannah, I don’t know who the families in the program are. Hank Fielding told me that he and Debbie Crowder were the only ones who did.”

  “Well, someone told me,” she said. “Does it matter?”

  Travis pulled back, trying to remember what Debbie had said to him at the banquet. Something about Savannah coming by her office the week before—the day Hank said she was typing up the list of names. What had Renee said to him before he’d left?

  “Give Savannah a message for me. Tell her I quit. Tell her she won.”

  He withdrew his hand from Savannah’s and stood up, overwhelmed by a growing sense of horror and disbelief.

  “It was you, wasn’t it? You called those parents and told them you were Renee.”

  Savannah took a sharp breath, looking for all the world like she was ready to defend herself, then let it out slowly and gave him a frank stare.

  “What if I did?” she said. “You know that Renee is wrong for you; she was just wasting your time.”

  Travis turned away, his eyes searching for something solid, something familiar that he could hold onto to ward off the sense of unreality that had engulfed him. What Savannah had done—what she was still doing—wasn’t just odd, it was barely even sane. Without knowing it, he’d become the prize in a competition she’d invented between herself and Renee Richardson. He’d thought they were old friends, but Savannah didn’t even see him as human.

  “Get out,” he said.

  Savannah walked over and put her arms around him, pressing herself against his back.

  “Oh, come on, baby,” she said. “Now we can get married like we should have years ago. Don’t you see? We were meant to be together.”

  He reached down and pried her fingers from around his waist.

  “I told you to get out.”

  * * *

  It took another ten minutes before Travis could get Savannah out of the house. By the time he did, there were broken champagne flutes on the floor, an overturned Jack Daniels bottle emptying its contents on the bar, and a scratch on Travis’s face that had barely missed his left eye. As her car peeled out of the driveway, he leaned his forehead against the front door feeling shaken and miserable. As bad as the whole episode had been, he thought, at least it was over. There’d be no more sly winks, no “accidental” meetings, no offers of dinner at her place. What had been said and done in the last few minutes could never be undone. Any future they might have had together was gone.

  Max was cowering under the breakfast table, the place he’d run to as soon as Savannah started screaming. Travis went in and tried to coax him out with a treat, but the poor guy wouldn’t budge.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  He looked toward the front door.

  “I’m sorry for a lot of things right now.”

  Travis reached up, gingerly patting the sticky trail of blood above his left eye, and winced. First things first, he thought, as he walked into the bathroom and took out the first aid kit. When that was done, he grabbed a mop, dustpan, and broom from the hall closet and walked back out to the living room to see what he could do about the mess. As he stood in the doorway, Travis shook his head. The place looked—and smelled—like the scene of a bar fight.

  Twenty minutes later, the glass had been picked up, the furniture righted, and most of the alcohol blotted from the floor and bar top. As Travis took the bagged-up glass and paper towels out to the garage, he saw his phone lying on the floor behind the bar where it had been kicked during the scuffle. He reached down and picked it up. He should give Renee a call, he thought. He owed her an apology.

  But there was something else, too, that he wanted to talk to her about. If Hugh decided to move into the group home, he’d be leaving his dog behind, and if Travis had learned anything over the last few weeks it was that Max was miserable being left at the house alone. He’d been trained to help people, and if no one there needed his help, he’d keep running away until he found someone who did. Unless Travis wanted to confine Max to a kennel for the rest of his life, he’d have to find someone who needed him. He hoped Renee would agree that Kieran should be that person.

  The sound of a car coming up the driveway caught his attention and Travis felt his heart begin to race. If this was Savannah coming back for another round, he thought, he was going to call 911 and let someone else sort her out. Instead, when he peered out the front window, he saw a white SUV pull up to the house, the blue light bar on its roof flashing.

  “It’s the sheriff,” Travis said, puzzled.

  For a moment, he thought Savannah might have reported their fight to the authorities. Then a black Toyota Tundra pulled in behind the police cruiser and Travis scowled.

  “What the hell is Trey Daniels doing here?”

  He went to the front door and waited for the men outside to ring the bell. He needed a minute to collect his thoughts and had no intention of standing there like a welcoming committee, even if it was the mayor and a sheriff’s deputy he was waiting on. As he stood there, listening to the footsteps coming up the walk, he felt a gust of hot breath and wiry whiskers on his hand. A curious Max had shuffled over to see what was going on.

  “It’s okay,” Travis whispered, patting the dog’s head. “If she says I started it, I’ll be happy to set them straight.”

  At last, the doorbell chimes rang, and he reached for the doorknob, prepared to defend himself against whatever complaint Savannah Hays had leveled against him. Instead, Travis was surprised to find a boy of about twelve standing on his doorstep, his beefy build and heavy-lidded glower a scaled-down version of the man standing behind him.

  “That’s him!” the boy said, pointing an accusing finger at Max. “That’s the dog!”

  “What?” Travis looked at the sheriff’s deputy. “What’s he talking about?”

  The man licked his lips, glancing briefly at Trey Daniels before answering.

  “Cody here says your dog attacked him while he was near the woods yesterday.”

  “Are you sure it was my dog?”

  “Of course it was,” Trey said. “How many ugly mutts like yours are in this town?”

  Travis kept his temper in check; blustering was just second nature to Trey Daniels. Besides, the man was obviously worried about his son. In his shoes, he might have done the same thing. Nevertheless, he thought, returning his attention to Cody, the boy seemed to be unharmed. Whatever had prompted this accusation, it could hardly have been called an attack. He glanced over at Max, who seemed cowed by the boy�
�s appearance.

  “I’m sorry if Max frightened you,” he said. “But he’s really very gentle.”

  “Gentle, my ass!” Trey thundered. “Look at the size of him! If Cody hadn’t gotten away, your dog might have killed him.”

  Travis looked at the boy on his doorstep, his brow beetled, his chin thrust forward defiantly, and wondered at his demeanor. Why, if Max had attacked him, did he seem indifferent when the dog was standing only a few feet away?

  “That must have been scary,” he said. “I’m curious, though. How did you get away?”

  Cody glanced up at his dad.

  “I ran real fast.”

  Travis looked at the sheriff, hoping that he, too, could see the hole in the story’s logic. He might not know the whole truth of the matter, but he did know that running from an aggressive dog would only have made the situation worse.

  “You mean he didn’t chase you?”

  Cody hesitated.

  “He might have. I don’t remember.”

  Trey put a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “Are you calling my son a liar?”

  “Not at all,” Travis said. “I’m just trying to find out what happened.”

  “I told you what happened. Your dog went after my boy for no good reason. That makes him a danger to the community and I want him locked up.”

  Travis was about to tell Trey to butt out when the sheriff’s deputy cleared his throat.

  “Was the dog here at home yesterday?”

  Travis hesitated, then shook his head.

  “Max had been missing since Sunday. I only got him back a few hours ago.”

  The man nodded.

  “Then I’m afraid I’m going to have to take him in for observation,” he said.

  “What? Why?”

  “We can’t have dangerous animals running loose,” the man said. “And it’s obvious that you can’t keep him contained.”

  “Wait a minute,” Travis said. “When you got here, Cody said the dog attacked him. Now, Trey says the boy ran away. How can Max be considered dangerous if he didn’t hurt anyone?”

  “It doesn’t change the fact that the dog acted in a threatening manner, which makes him a potentially dangerous animal, and since you can’t seem to keep him on your property, I have no choice but to take him to the pound until this problem can be sorted out.”

  Travis hesitated a moment longer before nodding silently. He didn’t believe for a second that Max had attacked Trey’s boy, but neither could he swear that the dog had been in his yard at the time. The sheriff’s deputy was right. Unless and until he could find out where Max had been, there was nothing to do but put him where he couldn’t escape.

  “He doesn’t have a collar,” he said weakly.

  “Doesn’t matter,” the deputy said. “I have one with me.”

  He drew a collar from his pocket, stepped forward, and fastened it around Max’s neck. As the sheriff’s deputy led Max back to his cruiser, the gravity of the situation hit Travis full force. If he couldn’t find out where the dog had been, how would he be able to prove that he hadn’t done what Cody had accused him of? Max was such a gentle animal that it didn’t seem possible he’d actually attack someone. Unless, of course, the boy had done something to provoke him.

  Trey Daniels watched as a forlorn-looking Max jumped into the cruiser, and the sheriff’s deputy slammed the hatchback shut.

  “If I had my way,” he muttered, “that dog would be put down today.”

  As the two of them drove off, Travis went back inside, bereft. His parents were dead, Hugh was gone, and now Max had been taken away. He couldn’t remember when he’d felt so alone.

  He looked down, surprised to find that the phone was still in his hand, and dialed Renee’s number. With luck, he would find a friendly voice on the other end.

  CHAPTER 32

  Back at Renee’s, things had finally settled down. Lilly’s tantrum had cooled, and Grace had decided that Kieran’s temporary banishment was punishment enough for not letting her have Max’s collar. Dylan and McKenna were holed up behind closed bedroom doors; a new bottle of wine was keeping Megan pleasantly soused; and Jack and Renee were busy trimming the tree. Wendell, however, was still fuming.

  He went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It might be only two thirty, he thought, but lasagna took a long time to prepare, and he needed something to do with his hands while he decided what to do about Diehl.

  Who in the hell did that character think he was? Not only had the man snatched his dog away without acknowledging that they’d fed, boarded, and doctored it for almost three days, he hadn’t even thanked them for rescuing it from a goddamned snare! And if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d said something to Renee that had left her in tears, violating the promise Wendell had made after his no-good son-in-law had abandoned her: No one made his little girl cry and got away with it.

  As he set his Dutch oven on the stove, Wendell imagined what he would say to Travis Diehl, if he ever got the chance. The man was a worthless SOB who didn’t deserve the love of a beautiful, caring, hardworking woman like Renee, and if he ever showed his face there again, he’d . . . Well, what would he do?

  From the looks of him, Diehl could probably handle himself, and it had been a long time since Wendell had been in a fistfight. No matter, he thought, if Diehl showed up he’d call the cops and tell them that the man had threatened him. Imagine, threatening an old man in his own home! Why, if Wendell owned a gun, he could probably shoot the SOB himself and get away with it. He smiled and started chopping an onion.

  Yep, that’d teach him.

  He hadn’t noticed that Renee’s phone was on the kitchen counter until it started to ring, but when Wendell glanced over and saw who the caller was, it seemed like nothing short of divine intervention. He put the knife down and snatched it up.

  “Hello?”

  Given the circumstances, Wendell thought he sounded surprisingly calm.

  “Oh, hello,” the man said. “This is Travis Diehl. May I please speak with Renee?”

  Wendell took a step back and peered into the living room. Megan was humming a Christmas carol, and Renee was helping Jack put the star on top of the tree. No one seemed to have heard the phone.

  “I’m sorry. Renee is busy at the moment.”

  There was a pause, then Diehl said:

  “Would you mind asking her to call me when she’s free?”

  “Yes, I do mind.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I said yes, I do mind. In fact, I suggest you stay away from my daughter from now on, if you know what’s good for you.”

  There was another protracted pause while Wendell quietly seethed, hoping Diehl would try and defend himself so he could deliver the coup de grâce.

  “I suppose I’m not very popular over there at the moment,” he said. “And I can’t say I blame you.”

  Wendell added the chopped onion to the meat in the pot and stirred it in. If this guy thought he was going to earn any Brownie points for that comment, he was nuts.

  “Mmm-hmm. Well, now that you’ve got your dog back, maybe you can just crawl back under whatever rock you slithered out from this morning and leave us the hell alone.”

  “I know it probably doesn’t matter to you, but I was wrong and I’m sorry.”

  The onions were making Wendell’s eyes water, which irritated him almost as much as the man’s apology. After all, it wasn’t just Renee who was suffering.

  “My grandson loved that dog, you know. He cried his eyes out after you left.”

  “I know how he feels. It’s pretty lonely around here without him.”

  Wendell frowned.

  “You mean you let him run away again?”

  “No. Apparently, Max attacked the mayor’s son yesterday, and the sheriff’s deputy took him to the pound. I was going to tell Renee when she called me back.”

  Wendell could almost feel his blood pressure rising. No wonder this horse’s ass hadn’t than
ked them for taking care of his dog—he hadn’t even bothered to ask how long they’d been tending to him! No, all Diehl had wanted was to come over and accuse his daughter of something she’d had nothing to do with.

  “Well that just proves what kind of a goddamned idiot you are, Diehl. That dog was here yesterday, weak as a kitten. Something you would have known if you hadn’t come charging in like some goddamned avenging angel. Why don’t you do us both a favor, pal? Don’t call this number again.”

  * * *

  Deputy Judd Freeman didn’t usually allow complainants to accompany him when he took a suspect into custody. No matter if the crime was horrific or the accused caught dead to rights, the law was the law and every man—or dog—deserved a fair hearing before sentence was pronounced. In the present case, however, Judd didn’t feel he’d had much choice. First, because Sheriff Waters was visiting out-of-town relatives and had left instructions that he was not to be disturbed for anything less than the direst emergency, and second because the complainant was Bolingbroke’s mayor. That didn’t mean, however, that Deputy Freeman was happy about it.

  As he pulled his cruiser into the animal shelter’s parking lot, he glanced in his rearview mirror hoping that Mayor Daniels would drive on by and keep driving ’til he got home. Instead, the black Tundra with the steel grille guard and matching headache rack pulled in beside him and discharged its occupants. Judd could understand why Trey was anxious to see the dog that had threatened his son locked up, but having the two of them along while he collected the animal had complicated what should have been a simple transaction. The sooner he got the dog inside, the better it would be for everyone.

  Judd stepped out of the cruiser and headed up the walkway to the front entrance. Betty Lange, the lady who ran the shelter, had told him she’d come over and prepare a kennel for Travis’s dog, but to please buzz her on the intercom when he got there as she didn’t want to leave the front door unlocked in case there were rapists in the area. Judd thought her concerns were unfounded, but didn’t say so as it would be just his luck if something did happen. The last thing he wanted to do was call the boss on Christmas Eve.