by J. L. Salter
He chuckled briefly. "No, not anymore. I mean, originally it was, but I got it changed."
Part of me was mad, but a tiny voice whispered, "This is a good thing," so I decided to listen. "Explain."
"Judge Gunther initially sentenced me to twelve hours helping with a voter registration effort at the mall."
"You gave up cushy service like that? Just so you could be at this shelter?" Incredible. "You must be nuts about animals."
Ryan looked into my face closely. "Not to be at the shelter, Kris. It's not about animals." He gulped slightly. "I wanted to get closer to you." Ryan looked worried that he'd said too much, or said it too soon.
It might have been too much too soon, but it was still delicious to hear. "That's, uh, that's…"
"Weird?"
"Incredible." I paused. "I mean, wow. You could've kept your cushy sentence and just asked me out."
"Would you have accepted?"
I had to think. "Honestly? Probably not. I'd gotten my panties in a wad because you didn't show up for court, and I thought you were getting preferential treatment, which, it turns out, you were, but since you turned it down, I guess that makes it okay." I was babbling. Slow down, Kristen.
Edwards the Plump drove up and rolled out of his long sedan.
"I'm going to want to hear more later about why you got your assignment switched." I waggled my forefinger.
Ryan caught my finger between two of his own. It wasn't actually enough pressure to clamp-on, but I liked the feel of it. Tingles along the back of my neck screamed, "More contact". Well, my tingles would have to wait. We had a community to serve. Besides, Edwards had just landed.
But our portly taskmaster was ready to depart soon after he'd waddled in and looked around. He peered through the rear window at the compound and seemed satisfied to see any animals at all, though not evidently intent on any specifics.
"Your twelve hours is up at, uh, five, I guess," Edwards spoke without looking at either of us. "But I can't get back out here 'til about five-thirty. So one of you has to stay. You pick." He indicated me, "…since I put you in charge."
I stole a glance at Ryan and extended the tip of my tongue.
Edwards departed in a hustle of motion, his short legs churning much faster than those of a man of average height.
I waited until our proctor was definitely gone. "Okay, before we were so rudely interrupted, you were explaining why you got the judge to send you here." I figured that was a satisfactory prompt.
Ryan gave me a blank look, which he held for nine full seconds before his grin broke loose. "I already told you."
He hadn't actually said very much beyond a vague hint that he was drawn to me. "So what made you want to see, uh, more of me?"
Another grin, larger. "Well, I'd already seen quite a bit… you know, with that costume."
I hate it when I blush.
Ryan watched my face for a moment. "But I liked the way you handled yourself. You didn't take any business from that policeman."
I wondered if that was all.
Thankfully, after a deep breath, he continued. "Plus, you're pretty, smart, and funny."
Warm words. "Funny? How so?"
"All that stuff pretending you wouldn't touch a key just because a spider was on it. That was a riot. I knew you were doing that just to get me to open your door. But it was comical the way you played it."
I hadn't been playing at all — spiders really freaked me. But I figured he could keep that illusion for the moment. "Well, I'm glad my humor attracted you."
"Uh, plus smart."
I tried to look scholarly as I nodded.
"And pretty."
Ahh. That's the word I'd wanted to hear again. Not sure why I craved that adjective, but I did. And my face flushed once more.
"Even pretty when you change colors."
I whacked his arm. It was the least punishment for pointing out my blush. "That's nice to hear. Thanks." I realized he hadn't shaved that morning when I pecked him on his stubbled cheek.
Then I saw a bit of color rise into his face.
Chapter Twenty-One
We each got to our mundane shelter duties and time passed quickly. About three o'clock Ryan entered the outer office and suggested we take a joint break. He had some root beers on ice in his truck.
"Oh, yeah." I had completely dropped all my own frostiness, so a chilled beverage would be just perfect.
Ryan was out and back in before I knew it. He handed over a root beer in a long-neck bottle, with a label I'd never seen. "Premium stuff. From Louisiana."
"So, is that where you're from?" Nice segue, Kristen.
He shook his head.
"You don't say a lot about yourself, do you?" If he just shook his head this time, I'd have to kick him.
"Nope."
Okay, dead end. Again.
Ryan gave me a long look. "Can I ask you a question?"
I thought maybe if I answered his query it might loosen up his own disclosure. "Uh, depends on the question, Ryan."
"That first night we were together in the armory. Were you mad at me for some reason?"
I didn't reply right away.
"I mean, it's not like I was expecting a medal or anything, but I did help you out. But you seemed, uh, ticked off the whole time." He paused. "Did I offend you somehow?"
My eyes filled. "No, I wasn't angry at you, Ryan." I dabbed my tears with a knuckle. "I truly did appreciate your help — all of it. I was mad at somebody else, from several years ago." But that wasn't the entire truth. "And I was still mad at myself."
Ryan just said, "Hmm." He could have been upset that I'd used him as a convenient punching bag for my pent-up whatever, but he just said, "Hmm." Twice.
I sniffled noisily and reached for a tissue beside the desk where I sat. After a few more sips of root beer, I settled down. "Okay. I've answered you. Now will you explain something for me?"
"Dead bodies again?"
"No, and I'm sorry about that. It was just a stupid rumor going around…"
He gazed evenly for a long time. "It really was fence posts, you know."
I started to ask why he had poles in his truck bed, but all of a sudden I didn't care. It wasn't any of my business anyway, and I believed him. Progress!
Ryan still waited for my new question.
"I burned up my computer trying to figure out Pyewacket from that note. Why'd you write down the name of an enchanted cat? And, while we're extracting confessions, tell me when you put that note on my windshield."
He chuckled. "After I dropped you off that night — you remember, the spider, the key, that moment I thought I might kiss you…"
"So you were going to kiss me?"
"I was looking for some indication that you'd welcome it, or at least not kick me in the groin." His hands moved quickly over that area and I wondered if he was even aware of it.
I remembered I'd been considerably less than receptive that night. "I was cold, it was late. That bustier was killing me."
"Yeah, I remember that costume. You looked hot."
Three words every woman wants to hear, but not only in past tense. I thought I might blush, but didn't. "Go back to the note. So, after you dropped me off, after all we'd been through with the cop and everything, you drove back out to the armory and wrote me a note? With a single word?"
He nodded. "I didn't have your phone number then."
"But why the cat's name?"
When Ryan laughed, his steel gray eyes brightened so intensely they seemed to emit light beams. "I didn't know it was the cat." Another chuckle. "I thought that was the witch's name."
"You thought Pyewacket was Kim Novak's name in the film?" I wanted to slug him, but I settled for another light whack on his arm. "I can't tell you how much time I wasted trying to decipher that stupid cat's significance." I tried to strike him again but he dodged. "So, now that I know you wrote the wrong name, tell me what you were trying to communicate."
Ryan leaned forward and touch
ed the side of my face with lightly callused fingertips. "That you reminded me of Kim Novak in that movie — all beautiful and mysterious."
And hot. You forgot "hot". I'd never been called mysterious before. I liked it a lot. "What about since that night? I haven't worn any more witch suits and likely never will. Do you still think I'm…?"
"Mysterious and beautiful? Yeah."
I thought his face moved toward me ever-so-slightly, but it could have been me leaning forward instead. For a nearly giddy moment, I thought we might kiss. The longing in Ryan's eyes made them look like escorts for a kiss. I was definitely ready.
But we didn't. Again!
We were so close. At least I thought we were. I had a moment of panic where I wondered if my root beer breath was so foul that Ryan might pass out.
No. He was quite alert and seemed coiled to spring at me in a hot embrace. But he didn't.
Unnerving. I'd have to check the rulebook about that later. Right then, I knew I had two choices: I could jump him there in the animal shelter office or discreetly settle back in my chair and pretend our faces had never been that proximate.
From the look in his eyes, it seemed he faced similar choices.
We both retreated.
"Teetering toad-frogs" was what my Uncle Jasper used to say when circumstances defied all predictability.
"Did you say something?" Ryan's broad shoulders were fully against his own chair back.
"Uh, no. Why?" I was fully back in my own seat.
"Something about frogs?"
I just shook my head. We were that close.
****
I spent most of the next ninety minutes thinking about the kiss we'd almost had.
We were both in and out of the compound all afternoon. The clipboard listed lots of outside work besides watering and feeding. One of the largest projects was scrubbing down the immense concrete floor with plentiful water and a stiff bristled push broom.
Ryan stood in the doorway from the compound. It was about four-thirty and he looked exhausted.
I was too.
He started to enter the office area, but stopped in his tracks as if he'd seen a coiled snake.
"What?" My eyebrows arched dramatically.
"Check your shoes." He pointed to a line of faint brown smudges on the floor.
It didn't take a veterinarian to comprehend someone had tracked in animal feces, but why did Ryan have such an accusatory tone? "I've been inside most of the afternoon. Must be your tracks." Actually, I'd just come in after making a head count of the animals in each bank of cages. It wasn't one of the clipboard duties, but I liked things to be properly enumerated.
Ryan shrugged heavily and checked the bottoms of his work Wellingtons. His movements were classic. In turn, he swung up each foot, clutched his jeans cuff, peered onto his sole, and placed it back solidly on the floor. "Clean as a new hammer."
His metaphor puzzled me, but the meaning was clear; I was the accused poop tracker. Ryan stared at my sneakers expectantly.
It would probably take years of analysis to uncover why I occasionally did things the hard way, even when the easier method would obviously be much better. I could've and should've just cocked each knee, made a quick examination, and been done with it. But something about being inferentially accused of feces tracking rankled me. A self-inspection would not be sufficient — I felt I had to prove my innocence to the plaintiff.
"If you're so convinced I'm the culprit, you find it…" Then I raised my right foot in what I assumed would be the athletic but graceful motion of a Vegas showgirl. Well, as the replay highlights would unfortunately show, my attempt had neither poise nor agility. In such very snug jeans, my kick more resembled a harried mailwoman shooing a pesky dog. My leg never reached anywhere near the one-hundred-thirty degrees of a showgirl and I couldn't swear I'd even achieved a forty-five degree arc. Furthermore, I hadn't made such a kicking move since I used to play backyard football with my little brother.
The result of too much attitude and too little dexterity? I lost my balance! Yep. Right there in the outer office, near the door to the hallway — I began toppling over.
Ryan was slow to respond since he still searched my moving sneaker's sole for dog mess, but soon he realized I was falling.
In one of Ellen's manuscripts, I would have fallen right into the handsome pirate's strong arms. But in real life? I pitched horribly to the left and rear and barely caught myself by slapping my hand to the wall. The heel of my palm smacked the middle control panel for the compound's cage doors. Yep. Directly on the large green button marked, "Release All".
At first, I was relieved I hadn't crashed to the floor and cracked my skull, but one nano-tic later, I realized what I'd done. "Oh, no!"
Despite the fact that no more thought was given to the poop tracking crime, I was glad the record showed that my shoes were never caught with any actual evidence.
Chapter Twenty-Two
If anyone had told me that liberated dogs could move so fast or bark that loudly, I would have scoffed. And thank goodness I'd activated only one of the three panels — the middle board which opened all the doors for the bank of cages holding the small and medium dogs. We never would have gotten all the large dogs back — especially Thirteen.
And the bank of cat cages? Fuhgeddaboutit. A catnip-soaked pied piper couldn't herd cats.
By that point Ryan's arms were steadying me. "What happened?" But his expression was considerably less than comfort. "What did you do?"
Accusatory again. Just like a man. "I lost my balance!" I hurried to the steel door's window and scanned the outside compound.
Ryan was right beside me. "You've opened all the cages!"
Just like a man to exaggerate, too. As I had established in my recent count, there were only twenty doors in that particular bank of cages and three of them weren't even occupied.
"We'd better get those mutts rounded back up before Edwards pops in." Ryan headed for the heavy door.
I'm glad he said "we" because if he'd acted like I was going to deal with this chaos by myself, I'd probably have used the stun-dart gun on him.
Ryan looked at me. No trace of a smile. It was worry, but also something else. Couldn't pin it down and didn't have time to think more about it then. Probably part of his long story. "You ready?" He took a deep breath and reached for the knob.
"Shouldn't we get some ropes or something?"
"Ropes?" He acted like he'd never heard of that noun.
"You know, to lasso the animals." It sounded silly even to me. Nobody says "lasso" anymore.
Then he shook his head, though only briefly. "You can't lasso a moving critter unless you've practiced a lot. I've practiced plenty and I'm no good."
No doubt that was also part of Ryan's long story which he'd never revealed. It would have to wait, though. Right then we had seventeen dogs to corral by whatever means.
"So what do you propose? Those long sticks with loops on the ends?" I wished I knew the proper name for them but I wasn't a wrangler.
Ryan shook his head. "Let's save that for our final option. You have to corner a critter to use one of those snag poles." He pointed to the middle panel. "Hit that other button and close those doors. Let's see if we can use some other persuasion."
I pressed the middle panel's red button indicating "Contain All" as Ryan opened the steel door and hurried out to the compound.
"Hey, we already got one back in a cage." He pointed to a shaggy collie mix. "Or he never left."
Cool. Only sixteen to go. I grabbed a broom and hustled toward the sound of cannons… er, barking dogs.
Difficult to imagine how much chaos sixteen medium-to-small dogs could cause in just those few minutes. They'd already sprayed urine on nearly every vertical surface and deposited numerous greasy piles of fresh fecal matter. Considering everything which had already been cleaned out of their cages, I would've expected their innards to be completely empty.
One dog was practice-humping another — or
maybe it was a display of dominance. Whatever. In any case, they were sufficiently distracted that Ryan grabbed the confused canine on top while I clutched the obviously alarmed mutt being mounted. Two more down and fourteen to go.
My broom frightened three more into the single cage Ryan had quickly opened and then shut again. I'm sure none of them belonged in B-Nine, but we could sort out their IDs and locations later. Six down and eleven to go.
The mixed breeds were easiest to corral and some of those cowered in corners where Ryan could ease closer as the threat of my broom froze them. Over a period of about ten minutes, that process accounted for a total of five more, which left six escapees on the loose.
Three of those eventually surrendered to the smell of leftovers I retrieved from Edwards' office fridge. I hoped he hadn't planned to eat those cold beef burritos for Monday's lunch.
Of the three canines left free, all were small in size but large in temperament. None appeared full-blooded, but I thought I recognized parts of a Yorkie, a Bichon, and a Shih Tzu. All were yappy, loud, aggressive, and fast as greased piglets on roller skates.
Every time we'd get close to one, it would yap even louder, lurch, scoot and jump… and slip right through our fingers.
While Ryan tried to charm those final three, I went back into the office to look for a net. I thought of bringing the tranquilizer gun with me, but I figured those dart doses were for cougars and small bears rather than little yappies. Never found a net, but there was a collapsed army-style cot in the corner of the outer office. Adjacent was a folded blanket and small pillow. I swiped the blanket and headed back out to the compound.
"What are you going to do, smother them?" Ryan must have been trying for comedy, but his effort fell flat.
In truth, smothering at least one would have been cool with me by that point. I was tired of chasing those little mongrels and totally ready to go home. I was also sufficiently hungry that even the refrigerated burrito residue on my fingers had begun to smell appetizing. It was already five o'clock and Edwards would surely appear soon. "I figured the blanket could substitute for a net and ought to be heavy enough to trap these little yappers 'til we can grab 'em."