For Keeps

by Rachel Lacey

  Noah smiled proudly, and tears glistened in Merry’s eyes. “Sweetie, that was amazing.”

  T.J. wrapped an arm around his small shoulders and squeezed. “Way to go, kiddo.”

  Because he understood what maybe no one else in the room other than Merry did. One, Amber, unlike the other dogs, hadn’t known the command ahead of time, and two, it was pretty epic to see Noah communicating in front of this group of people.

  Merry met his gaze across the room and smiled, her eyes still misty. She was so damn pretty, and not even all that girly-girl today in a yellow top, jean shorts, and sneakers, her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. He hadn’t let himself get close enough today to see if she still smelled like fresh berries.

  It was in his best interest not to know what she smelled like or anything else about her, other than her ability to run this camp.

  “You guys were busy while I was outside,” she said. “I’m impressed.”

  Parker stomped his foot. “What about me? I thought I got to work with Ralph.”

  Jules held out his leash with her ever-present smile. “You can have him. I want my pretty Salsa back anyway.”

  “Thank you, Jules,” Merry said. Olivia brought Salsa over to the girl and stood with them, helping to keep the puppy in line while Jules practiced the command with her.

  “Sit,” Parker said, and Ralph sat. The boy smiled, some of the tension leaking from his small shoulders.

  T.J. felt his own shoulders relax a hair. Perhaps they’d survive the first day, after all.

  “Uh oh.” Jules’s voice broke in on his thoughts.

  He turned to see that Chip had tugged his leash free from the stall door Merry had tied him to and was humping Salsa for all the world to see.

  * * *

  Merry wiped sweat from her brow and kept her chin up under T.J.’s scrutinizing stare. She’d survived her first day of summer camp.

  Barely.

  “I think today went pretty well, all things considered,” she said. The kids had been picked up a few minutes ago, and Olivia followed them out, needing to get ready for her shift at the café.

  Merry was eager to follow her lead.

  “There are a few things that need improvement,” he said. “Those puppies are a problem.”

  She looked down at the troublemakers, uncharacteristically calm at her feet after their eventful morning. “I’ll spend some extra time with them at home to work on their manners, and Olivia and I will stay close to Jules and Parker when they’re working with them.”

  “And the other problem?”

  Merry’s cheeks heated. She could strangle Chip for humping Salsa in front of those kids. “He’s starting to reach that age. I’m really sorry about that.”

  “Why hasn’t he been neutered?”

  Because I can’t afford it. “He will be, very soon.”

  “See that he is. I don’t want to have to explain to the kids’ parents why they’re learning about the birds and the bees at my summer camp.”

  “Right. No. It won’t happen again, I promise.” Merry hurried toward her CR-V with the dogs at her heels. She had to do better tomorrow. She had to get the rest of her donation.

  Triangle Boxer Rescue’s financial future depended on it.

  She loaded the dogs into the backseat and cranked the engine, blasting the AC toward her overheated canines. They panted gratefully, tongues hanging from the sides of their mouths.

  “You are in so much trouble,” she told Chip.

  He leaned forward to slurp her cheek.

  “I mean it.”

  He kissed her again.

  She backed up, risking a glance out the window to see that T.J. had walked over to the pasture to check on his horses. She wished she could see him ride again, that beautiful harmony of man and beast.

  Stupidly, she wished she could ride with him. It had always been her forbidden dream. When she was little, she’d wanted to ride a horse so badly, yet she’d never dared ask. Her daddy would have put them into debt to pay for riding lessons if she’d asked. He’d have done anything for her, but money management wasn’t really his thing.

  Apparently not hers, either.

  Shaking it off, she pulled out of the driveway and headed for home. A much-needed shower, a Diet Coke, and a sandwich, then she was off to work what remained of her shift.

  Thankfully, tomorrow began her days off, because she was dead tired, physically and emotionally. This summer camp was both more rewarding, and more taxing, than she’d planned.

  Already, she felt invested in the kids. The look of pride on Noah’s face when he’d gotten Amber to sit. Sweet Jules, her face lit with joy every time she looked at Salsa. Merry wanted—needed—to see them all succeed by the end of camp. She’d do anything and everything she could to make sure that happened.

  Lunch and a shower revived her. She lingered just long enough to make an appointment for Chip to be neutered on Friday. Luckily, she was able to get him in at a low-cost clinic she used for a lot of her fosters. One problem solved.

  She left the exhausted dogs sleeping in the kitchen and hustled to the hospital in time to work the second half of her shift. She caught up with Debra, who had covered the morning for her. Together, they checked in on each small patient.

  In Baby Jayden’s room, Merry found an unfamiliar woman in a hospital gown cradling the infant in her arms. Her long hair had been pulled back in a disheveled ponytail, which draped over her shoulder. Something silver protruded from beneath the baby’s swaddle, connected to the arm of the wheelchair.

  A handcuff.

  Merry’s back stiffened. Her eyes darted to the policeman against the back wall.

  The woman looked up at Merry with red-rimmed eyes. “Hi, I’m Crystal. I’m Jayden’s mom.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Merry lay the baby in his bassinet and busied herself checking his vitals to keep from staring at the woman in the wheelchair.

  His mother.

  The junkie who’d done this to him.

  “His last score was an eleven,” Debra said. She tapped the latest readouts into his electronic record while Merry checked his IV port.

  Jayden twisted his face up and screamed, a high-pitched shriek that tore her heart fiber by fiber until it was nothing but a pulpy mess in her chest. Then his entire body grew rigid, his fists clenched against his chest.

  “Shhh, baby,” Merry murmured to him as she connected a fresh bag of IV fluids to the catheter in his right hand. She stroked his cheek, then reswaddled him and carried him back to Crystal.

  “Is he going to be okay?” Crystal asked. She held Jayden against her chest, rocking him as best she could while handcuffed to the wheelchair.

  “It’s too soon to know if there will be any long-term damage,” Merry said.

  Crystal lowered her head. She held the baby closer, rocking and shushing, but nothing stopped his screaming.

  Nothing ever did.

  Debra walked to the door. “I’ll have the aide come in and help you.”

  Crystal looked up, her pale cheeks streaked with tears. “I didn’t mean for this to happen, you know.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t.” Merry noticed for the first time how young she was. Behind the rough-and-tough exterior, the girl probably wasn’t much over eighteen. Not that youth gave her an excuse for her poor choices, but still Merry felt a twinge of sympathy for the girl shackled to the chair.

  “I was in a really bad situation.” Crystal ducked her head. “I used to keep myself numb. I didn’t know I was pregnant. If I’d known…”

  Merry took a step backward. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. Jessie will be right in to help get him settled.”

  Jayden’s screams crawled beneath her skin and scratched at her nerves. She couldn’t seem to draw enough air to fill her lungs.

  “Can’t you help me?” Crystal asked, still rocking him as he shrieked, red-faced and stiff in her arms.

  “No,” Merry said. “I can’t.”


  And she bolted into the hall.

  * * *

  “Merry?”

  She jumped, and her head smacked into a bridle hook. Jayden’s screams still echoed in her head, raising goose bumps down her arms.

  T.J. peered at her through a golden haze, and she tumbled right into the dirt at his feet.

  “Hey, you okay?” His big, strong hands were on her arms, lifting her off the barn’s earthen floor.

  She shivered involuntarily as the last remnants of the nightmare slithered back into the darker recesses of her brain. Jayden’s screams haunted her, day and night.

  “Totally fine,” she said, pulling free. The warmth of his fingers lingered on her arms, chasing away the last of the chill. “I just dozed off for a minute, and you startled me.”

  She reached down to brush dirt off her legs. Hopefully it was all dirt. Her nose wrinkled. Way to make a great impression on the hot guy who semi-hates you. Just roll around in the dirt at his feet. That’ll impress him.

  “Long night at the hospital?”

  She nodded, not eager to rehash any of it. “It’s been a long week, but I’m off for the next four days, so I’ll bounce back.”

  He surveyed her, his lips compressed in a frown. “You look a little pale.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I am not. I’m just tired.”

  She turned on her heel and walked away, trying to maintain some shred of dignity. She’d left the dogs in an empty stall while she waited for T.J., which is how she’d ended up falling asleep and wallowing on the barn floor.

  She probably had hay sticking out of her ponytail.

  “Today went pretty well,” he said behind her, his voice so low, so smooth, that it rubbed some of the friction out of her nerves.

  “Yeah.” She let her shoulders droop, releasing the tension in them. Her second day at camp hadn’t gone badly at all. The dogs had mostly behaved. The kids practiced leash walking with Olivia while Merry spent one-on-one time with each of them.

  She opened the stall door and clipped leashes onto her dogs, keeping her back to T.J. “How’s it going with Amber, has she caused any trouble?”

  “No.” He sounded closer now, close enough that his voice sent a whole new kind of shiver over her skin, the kind that left her hot, not cold. “She’s been perfectly behaved.”

  “And you’re being nice to her, right?” She said it jokingly as she turned toward him. Chip and Salsa ran forward to bounce against his legs, while Ralph stood beside her, wagging happily.

  T.J. scowled at her, hands shoved into the front pockets of his Wranglers. “Jesus, Merry, I’m not a monster.”

  She threw her hands up. “I was kidding. But really, how does she seem when Noah’s not around? Is she coming out of her shell at all?”

  He looked down at his boots. “Well, she does have this little stuffed porcupine she likes to sleep with. And a duck.”

  Merry slapped a hand over her mouth. She had not sent toys over with Amber. T.J. had bought her stuffed animals to sleep with? “That’s… that’s adorable.”

  He scuffed his boot in the dirt. “Noah practically bought out the pet store when we went. That dog has more toys than she knows what to do with.”

  She grinned at him. “You big softie.”

  He grunted.

  “Oh, it’s okay. I won’t tell.” She breezed past him and out of the barn.

  That night, she dreamed of Amber, snuggled up with her porcupine and her duck by T.J.’s bed, which was a massive improvement over Jayden’s haunting screams.

  * * *

  T.J. stepped from the shower and wrapped himself in a towel. It was just past midnight, and he was dead on his feet. The afternoon and evening had been one emergency call after another. He’d finally gotten home twenty minutes ago, smelling like a cow’s ass, too dirty even to eat before a shower.

  Amber lay on the bath mat, waiting for him. She’d carried the porcupine in with her, and the duck. As he watched, she nuzzled the yellow stuffed animal, then licked it, like a mother dog grooming a puppy.

  He shook his head and walked into the bedroom, where he shrugged into a clean pair of Wranglers and a worn T-shirt. Amber followed with the porcupine in her mouth. She set it in her dog bed, then went back for the duck.

  He sat on the bed and watched her for a moment. “Are you a momma?”

  She looked up at him and thumped her tail against the bed.

  He slid down and crouched beside her. He lifted her right front leg to inspect her teats. Yep, she’d nursed a litter. Probably more than one.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  His stomach was so empty it had started to devour itself, leaving him with a dull ache in his belly. He led the way downstairs. The soft shuffle of Amber’s paws followed behind him.

  He pulled a slab of roast beef from the fridge, cut a thick wedge, and slapped it between two slices of bread with a big squirt of mustard. He couldn’t hold in the groan of appreciation as he took the first bite.

  Amber curled up on the linoleum nearby, too polite even to beg.

  “I really don’t like mutts, you know,” he told her.

  She stared, her solemn expression betrayed by the steady thump of her tail against the floor.

  “I don’t know a thing about you. You could have been raised by wolves for all I know. You could be part coyote.”

  She rested her head on her front paws with a sigh.

  “Well, fine, but only if you promise not to tell Merry.” He dropped a chunk of roast beef into her bowl.

  With a happy swish of her tail, Amber gobbled it up, then came to lay by his feet again.

  T.J. stuffed himself on roast beef, then walked her outside. Just before one a.m., he stripped to his boxers and collapsed in bed, bone tired and dead to the world.

  Sometime later, he jolted awake. A crack of thunder shook his bedroom, drowning out the howl of wind and the steady drumming of rain against the roof. He rolled over and stuffed an arm under the pillow.

  North Carolina had some wild summer thunderstorms. He watched as a bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, followed by the resounding boom of thunder. His horses would have taken cover in their outdoor shelter, safe from the storm.

  He’d always been awed by the power of the storm, the way it could light up the night and shake his house on its very foundation. Alas, tonight not even the majesty of Mother Nature could keep him awake. Desperately tired, he let his eyes drift shut. Sleep always came quickly for him, and he felt himself start to slide into its embrace.

  A scuffling sound came from under the bed.

  Instantly, he was awake. Alert. He heard it again, a scuffle, then a bump. What the hell? Something was under the bed.

  Had a squirrel come in through the attic? Mice?

  He peered over the edge of the bed, saw the empty dog bed, and groaned. Amber. He’d forgotten all about her. See, this was why dogs didn’t come inside. Made them sissies afraid of a damn thunderstorm.

  He swung out of bed and peered beneath it. Sure enough, there was an Amber-sized lump. “Hey, Amber. Come here, girl. Nothing to be afraid of, just a thunderstorm.”

  Lightning lit the room, revealing Amber huddled beneath the bed. T.J. reached his hand toward her. How the hell did you comfort a frightened dog? Merry would know.

  He dropped to his stomach against the cool floorboards and reached for her. The next lightning bolt revealed two shiny rows of teeth gleaming back at him.

  “Jesus Christ!” He yanked his hand back so fast he banged his head against the side of the bed. “Fuck.”

  The damn dog was snarling at him! Good-for-nothing mutt. T.J. rubbed at his temple as he glared at her from a safer distance. That’s it, she was going back to Merry’s house in the morning.

  Amber scooted backward and watched him.

  Why was her mouth open? Surely she wasn’t still trying to bite him. He reached up and flipped on the lamp on his bedside table, then winced against the sudden onslaught of light. Beneath the bed, Amber panted as if
it were a hundred degrees in his bedroom.

  Slimy strands of drool dangled from her jowls, her eyes so wide he could see the whites all the way around. She hadn’t snarled at him at all. She was just terrified of the storm.

  Well, damn. “Come on, Amber. Buck up, woman. It’s just a storm.”

  Amber stared back, her eyes glazed with terror.

  “Being homeless must have been loads of fun for you, huh?” Exhausted, he sat on the floor and talked at her until the storm passed. Finally, she slunk toward him and climbed back into her bed.

  T.J. collapsed against his pillow. He didn’t even feel his eyes close before the alarm started beeping. Warm sunlight filled the room, stabbing into his weary eyes. Groaning, he rolled over. Beside the bed, Amber lay curled around her faux puppies.

  It was hard to hate a dog who cuddled with stuffed animals.

  T.J. swung out of bed. He visited the bathroom, then ambled downstairs to take her out. He’d never had a pet in the house before, was unaccustomed to having an animal underfoot.

  It wasn’t altogether unpleasant, although he certainly hoped he didn’t have to talk her through any more thunderstorms. Still, he’d be glad when camp ended and Amber went on to whatever home Merry had planned for her. He wasn’t sure how that worked, but she was a nice enough dog. Surely someone would want her.

  A knock sounded at the front door. He glanced at the clock. It was ten past eight, a half hour earlier than the camp staff usually arrived. The kids didn’t come until nine. And none of them regularly came up to the house before camp.

  Amber slunk behind T.J. and tucked her tail between her legs. Some guard dog she was.

  He strode to the front door and opened it without checking the peephole.

  Merry stood there, dressed in a purple tank top and teal shorts, with several loose curls framing her face. The sight of her was like a dose of caffeine to his sleep-deprived brain.

  “Hey,” she said, looking uncharacteristically mellow. “Is it okay if I come in for a minute?”

  He stepped back and opened the door wide. “Sure. Everything okay? Where are your dogs?”

  “They’re in the car with the AC running. Wasn’t sure you’d want Chip and Salsa running loose in here.”