The Unexpected Shelter

by Abby Tyler

  “You’re a thousand miles away,” Franny said.

  “Just thinking of the afternoon and evening ahead,” Savannah said. “I’m sorry I was ignoring you.”

  “I wasn’t saying anything important.”

  Savannah pulled up to the side of the house. “Sure is going to be quieter with only six dogs, especially since two of them are just tiny pups,” she said.

  Franny hopped down and opened the back door to let out the dogs. They hadn’t bothered to crate them. “I expect you’ll get more before too long. It always seems to happen.”

  “Thank you for your help.”

  “Love doing it. Have a good evening, though I ‘spect you will with Luke coming.” Franny gave her a wink and headed to her car.

  Savannah walked the dogs around to the back yard to let them run. When she entered the kennel room through the back, the puppies were sleeping, so she passed on to the house to check on Boone.

  He still sat in the same spot in front of the television.

  “Hey Boone,” she said. “You hungry?”

  He shook his head for no. There was a cup on the side table by his chair and an empty plate with a smear of red sauce.

  Looks like Flo had already fed Boone. Savannah picked up the plate and headed to the kitchen. Sure enough, a note on the table said there was lasagna she could heat up for her own dinner. And Boone seemed in good spirits today.

  Savannah was glad for that. She set the cup and plate in the sink and headed to the cat room. She’d get them fed and do a quick litter box sweep, and maybe she could even sit down for a little bit before the evening chores.

  She’d lain on the sofa for what seemed like only a moment when headlights pierced the front window. She startled awake, confused.

  Boone still watched TV in the half dark.

  She paused for a moment, thinking. Had she fed the cats? Yes. Litter box, yes. Puppies, yes. But the dogs were probably still in the back. She needed to bring them in and feed them. She was halfway through her checklist when someone rapped on the door.

  It was Luke.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t make it back to the Square. It’s been a heck of a day.”

  “Mine, too,” she said and stepped aside to let him in.

  “I feel really bad that I put you out so late.”

  “It’s fine.” She smoothed her hair back, rumpled and sweaty from her nap. She probably looked a fright.

  If Luke was tired or strung out from his day, it definitely didn’t show. He wore cowboy boots and jeans that fit exactly the way denim should.

  “I was just about to heat up some lasagna,” she said. “Have you had dinner?”

  “I haven’t,” he said. “I wanted to get right over here since I was so late.”

  “My aunt made it,” she said. “I’ll fix you some.”

  “Can I help with anything out back?”

  “I need to feed the dogs,” she said. “But I doubt they’ll starve.”

  “How about I give them their evening meal while you heat up the lasagna?”

  Having help was the most amazing thing. Savannah could already feel her shoulders relaxing. “That sounds nice.”

  When Luke had passed through to the kennel room, Savannah poked her head into the living room. “Boone? You hungry yet?”

  He waved his arms at her in the way she knew meant he was annoyed that she was interrupting his program. She would check with him again when it was over.

  Flo had left more than just a lasagna. There was a nice salad and a fresh pitcher of sweet tea. That woman was a godsend.

  When she moved the lasagna tray out, one section already having been removed for Boone, she spotted a hunk of lemon cake. Savannah wanted to swoon. Dessert, too.

  She surveyed the shabby kitchen and wondered if it would be too unexpected to light some candles instead of the glaring overhead light. She dug around in a back cabinet and found two candlesticks with white tapers that still had a lot of life left in them. She set them on the table.

  But as she sliced the lasagna and arranged salad in bowls, she decided against it. Luke was here to pick up his dog, not have a surprise romantic dinner.

  She would stick the lasagna in the microwave, then put the candles away before he noticed.

  But Luke came back in, a tiny Rottweiler puppy in each hand. “They are awake and hungry,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if it was feeding time or not.”

  Savannah glanced at the table. The candles! Too late now.

  “Just like a baby, interrupting a meal,” she said with a shaky laugh.

  “I’m happy to do it,” he said.

  “Let me heat up their milk,” she said. “We can knock this out before we eat.”

  “Tom and Jerry and I will just wait here,” he said, holding a puppy up on each side of his face. He looked so sweet and adorable, that Savannah felt her blood rush to her head

  She hurried to the back to heat up the formula. Hopefully Luke would assume they always had candles on the table. A romantic dinner wasn’t in the cards anyway. She just had too much to do.

  Luke sat at Savannah’s table, both of the squirming puppies in his lap. They were cute little things, their tiny yips barely registering.

  The one with the cast on its leg tried to crawl up his chest.

  “Hold on there a minute, partner,” he said. “We’re fetching you your dinner.”

  Luke didn’t know how Savannah did it. Manage the dogs, plus the cats. Adoption days. Random visitors trying to drop off animals they found. And her dad. Plus the normal everyday stuff of having a house.

  She boggled his mind.

  Jerry wiggled perilously close to the end of Luke’s knee, and he picked him up. “Watch where you’re going, little buddy. I don’t need you taking a nosedive on my watch.”

  The microwave beeped, and the smell of pasta and tomato sauce filled the kitchen. He hadn’t expected to get dinner out of the deal. That meant extra time with Savannah. He glanced at the table. Just two plates set out.

  A pair of silver candlesticks sat in the middle of the table. He liked that she took the time to add a little detail to make dinner nice.

  Luke lifted the puppies and stood up. There had to be matches around here somewhere.

  He circled the kitchen, lightly jiggling the puppies. They stopped yelping and looked around with him, curious about the room.

  “Spotted the matches yet? Little box, about the size of your heads.”

  They had a gas stove, and it looked a little long in the tooth. His mama had a gas stove, and they had to light the burners by hand. It always stressed him out, that moment when she lit the gas and the blue flame flickered to life. He always thought she would get burned. But she didn’t.

  “Aha,” he said, spotting a box of matches half hidden beneath an oven mitt. “Success.”

  He tucked both puppies against his belly with one arm and picked up the box of matches. He headed back over to the table.

  “Don’t be squirming off there,” he said to them, striking a match on the side of the box. It flared into life, and either the sight of the flame, or the smell, caught both of the dogs’ attention. He lit the candles, noting that they smoked a little before catching fire. They hadn’t been burned in a while. Interesting.

  He waved the match out and set it on top of the box.

  He shifted the puppies back to his lap. “Good work, chaps. Mission accomplished.”

  Savannah entered the kitchen again, a small slender bottle of milk in each hand.

  “You lit the candles,” she said.

  “I thought it was a right nice idea.”

  She looked at him, then the candles, then the matches. “You’re very resourceful.”

  “Always had to be.”

  She set the bottles on the table and reached out for the puppy with the cast. “Come here, Tom. Time for dinner.”

  Savannah tilted the bottle into Tom’s mouth. He sucked and chewed on it, gulping the milk.

  “We’re coming to t
he end of the hand feeding. They’re getting big.”

  Luke picked up the bottle. The moment he brought it close to the pup in his lap, the little hound snapped his mouth around the end. “Somebody’s hungry,” Luke said to him.

  Savannah stood with Tom and walked over to the microwave. She shifted the pup and the bottle to one hand and pulled the tray of lasagna out with the other. She was obviously used to multitasking.

  She brought the tray over to the table and set it down. “The salads are already in bowls.”

  “Nice,” he said. His puppy had already halfway downed his milk. Savannah had been right. They would finish these in no time. “Do we need to take them for a little walk after this?”

  “No, they will totally conk out at this hour.”

  “All the kennel dogs are in their spots with their food, including Luigi.”

  “You have everything you need for him? I could send you with some dog food, and a water bowl and a leash if you need one.”

  “Actually, Delilah stopped by the RV Park with all that on her way home. Right nice of her.”

  “She likes to give a little gift to all the people who adopt dogs.”

  Tom finished his bottle first. His eyes were closed. Savannah stood up. “I’ll go ahead and put them down so I can finish up the dinner.”

  Luke’s little pup was looking droopy as well. He set the bottle on the table. Savannah had told him how she’d come across the abandoned pups. They were lucky.

  Savannah returned. “How’s Jerry doing?”

  “Almost out. I’ll take him on back.”

  When the puppy was all snug next to his sibling, Luke shut the bay and went back to the kitchen.

  “I wasn’t sure if I should dim the overhead lights,” Savannah said. “You lit the candles, but it might be a little dark for a dinner.”

  “Let me wash my hands and, sure, why not make this a right proper Saturday night?”

  Savannah laughed nervously. He wondered what she normally did on weekends. All her days had to be more or less the same. You couldn’t sleep in when there were animals to be fed.

  Luke spent most of his free time out at the RV Park, usually helping one camper or another who hadn’t planned for nighttime, either their electricity not set up correctly, or a light bulb burned out leaving them in the dark.

  But the beach by the water was nice. And most nights, at least a few locals would head over and light fires in the pits that were buried in the sand.

  Maybe he should ask Savannah if she wanted to go over there one weekend. In fact, he was pretty sure that’s exactly what he wanted to do.

  He dried his hands on the towel next to the sink and glanced around for the light switch. “Is this it over here?” he asked, his hand by the main door.

  “That’ll work,” she said.

  When the lights went down, his eyes had to adjust to the low flicker of the candles. It was darker than he anticipated.

  “I’ll have to remember this for when I cook something that isn’t as pretty as this,” Savannah said, carving out a slice of lasagna for Luke’s plate.

  He settled in the chair. “Your dad not eating with us?”

  “Flo fed him a while ago, and he didn’t want to be disturbed from a show. I’ll check on him again in a bit.”

  “I don’t think I’ve met anybody named Flo.”

  “Boone’s sister. She’s a waitress over at Annabelle’s Café.”

  “I’ve probably seen her, then.” Luke stabbed his lasagna and cut off the corner. He was looking forward to this. T-bone didn’t make anything for dinner that didn’t come off a hibachi grill. “She got kids?”

  “Flo used to be married, but they split up something like ten years ago. Their only son died when he was seven. Heart defect.”

  “That’s tough. Any grandparents? Cousins on your mom’s side?”

  “No, Boone is pretty up there, having met my mom late in life. Both his parents had passed on before I was born. I don’t know much about Mom’s family other than she ran away when she was sixteen.”

  Luke had done the same. Tough families were everywhere. He swallowed a bite. “This is really good.”

  “Flo is a great cook. Sometimes when Annabelle is short kitchen staff, she’ll help out.”

  “We need to get her and T-bone together,” Luke said. “Then I will eat like a king.”

  Savannah laughed. “I’m not sure there’s very many men in this world who could handle being around Flo for more than an hour. I love her, but she’s a tough one.”

  “And here I thought Gertrude was the only surly bird in town.”

  “Oh, there’s quite a few. You’ll get to know them all.”

  They ate in companionable silence for a while, then Luke asked, “You sad to see those dogs go?”

  “No, it’s good when they get a home. It was a good day.”

  “Do you often get rid of that many dogs at once?”

  “No. Delilah had just been collecting families who were interested. So we sort of knew at least three would go today.”

  “Will more come pretty quick?”

  “Hard to say. If I don’t get any strays or drop-ins this week, I’ll call over to a couple other shelters who might be overflowing and see who I can take off their hands.”

  “So you guys talk to each other.”

  “Of course. And some of the rescues and foster groups too.”

  Luke scraped the last bit of lasagna off his plate. “Sure seems like you could take a lot more animals. There’s plenty of kennels.”

  “I could. But I just can’t handle it with Boone. We used to have a lot of volunteers. When we were at full capacity, there were thirty dogs and twenty cats and usually two or three volunteers every day.”

  “When did it fall off?”

  Savannah turned a tomato around in her salad bowl. “About two years ago, when Boone took a real step down in his dementia. Up till then, we could laugh about it, fake it a little bit, and I could smooth things over. But after that, it just didn’t work to have a lot of strangers coming in and out of the house.”

  She kept her eyes downcast, and Luke figured there was more to the story. Maybe more than T-bone knew. Maybe more than anybody knew.

  “I really admire how you run this place. It’s a lot for anybody to handle.”

  A cough from the other room made her turn her head toward the door. Luke realized that even if he wanted Savannah to come sit by a fire pit with him, she might not be able to get free.

  “So Boone can’t be left alone now?”

  “He can for short periods. I just don’t risk it for long. We’re a little isolated on this land. If we were in town and had close neighbors to check on him, it’d be different.”

  “You ever think of selling and moving into town?”

  “I don’t think I’m ready to give up the shelter. Not yet. My dad made it for my mother. As long as he still has good days where he knows what we’re doing, I feel like I should keep it.”

  “But after that?” Luke prodded.

  “I don’t know. I love running the shelter. I do. I just can’t seem to have a life while I’m doing it.”

  Luke sat back in his chair. The candlelight flickered on Savannah’s face. She had to be one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen. But she seemed worn out, an old soul. And Luke decided right then and there that he was going to find a way to put a little youth back into Savannah Perkins, whether she liked it or not.

  Chapter 8

  Luke found little time the following week to act on his decision to help Savannah make her life easier.

  Two new dogs arrived at the shelter on Tuesday, one of them a Doberman who had been abused and proved terribly aggressive.

  Sergeant didn’t take too kindly to the newcomer, and he set all the dogs on edge with his regular admonishment of the Doberman. The new arrival had to be segregated from the other dogs for playtime, and Savannah worked with him as best she could.

  As the two of them stood in the main
part of the yard, watching the Doberman in the smaller section, snarling and barking through the chain-link fence at the other dogs, Luke asked, “How often do you get dogs like this one?”

  “Pretty often. Sometimes, like with this guy, they’ve been harmed.” She shook her head.

  “How do you know?”

  “He’s got scars on his hindquarters,” Savannah said. “Doc Black found them.”

  “I’d like to get my hands on the jerks who treated him so badly.” Luke gripped the chilly bar of the fence. How could people do that to animals? “Where did he come from?”

  Savannah reached in her pocket and tossed a large treat bone into the Doberman’s yard. “He attacked the chickens owned by Mrs. Humphries.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “She’s a secretary up at the elementary school. She’s not what you would call a sweet old lady.” Savannah gave him a wan smile. “The way he behaved alarmed her, so she called the sheriff.”

  “I guess Applebottom doesn’t have a dog catcher or animal control?”

  Savannah shook her head. “We’re the closest thing to that here. And everyone knows that with Boone and the way things are, I can’t always just stop and go fetch a dog.”

  “Maybe if some of those calls come through, I can do it.”

  “Maybe.”

  They watched the Doberman lie in a patch of grass with the bone. Now that he was no longer jumping and snarling, he looked like anybody’s pet, sleek and black and happily gnawing on a treat.

  “He doesn’t look like he’s been hungry,” Luke said.

  “I think he got quite a few of the chickens around town.”

  “He must be smart, then. Which means trainable.”

  “I’ll give it a shot.”

  Luke took a step back from the fence. “There’s another food delivery coming today. I’m going to go move aside the older sacks of feed so that we can establish a good rotation.”

  Savannah turned to him. “You’ve only been here a week, and already I don’t know how I’d run this place without you”