Rescue (Emily and Mason) (7 page)

By the end of the day,  I feel peacefully calm and high all
at once from the rush of adoptions. Gail tells me it will be better tomorrow
and worse all at the same time. There will be a rush of drop offs between now
and tomorrow morning. There always are, and then there will be a rush of
adoptions. They will have to keep the new arrivals separated for the week until
they’re checked out and approved.

Through the entire process, a sad sign hangs on Baby’s cage,
Not Available for Adoption, Check Back Soon!
Emily hovers throughout the
dog kennel assisting people. The end of my shift has come, but I hang back to
wait for her to finish up her rounds. An hour after closing time she finally
says goodbye to Baby and pulls the little puppy out from under her shirt.

“I don’t know if Laura and Jim are going to be okay with
this, would you take it with you for the night?” I hold out my hands and take
the puppy from her, wrapping it’s warm and soft body in my t-shirt again. I
don’t miss the fact that she doesn’t say her parents won’t be okay with it, but
calls to people by name. But I don’t say anything, not yet.

The ride home with a puppy in my lap is awkward and
cumbersome, but I manage it. That night I put it on a thermostat controlled
heating pad and groan each time my cellphone alarm goes off, telling me to feed
the little bugger. It’s a pig now that it’s been warmed up.

Emily

It’s been three entire weeks since I meant Mason, and each
day we’ve been eating lunch together. I’ve learned that his little brother
takes after him and thinks that school is a complete waste of time. At least,
he thought so while he was there. Now that’s he’s working at a place like this,
he feels like it was worth it.

I also learned that Mason adores animals almost as much as I
do, but he doesn’t know how to interact with them at fluidly as me. Half the
time he’s afraid he’s going to upset a cat by brushing it the wrong way and the
other half of the time he’s focusing on me too much to realize that he’s
actually doing what he’s supposed to be doing.

He lives with his father and didn’t mention anything about
his mother, so I assume she’s not in the picture. I guess friends ask why not,
but I would call us close acquaintances rather than friends. I haven’t told him
about my mother or about my father, and the fact that I’m a foster child. Since
my slip-up three weeks ago I think he understands I don’t live with my parents,
but he hasn’t asked me about it.

The door to the dog kennel is wide open. My heart climbs
into my throat as I approach it, wondering what could be going on. Mason left
me a note on the lunch table we usually sit at explaining to me that he had a
surprise for me in here. He’s been slowly working his way up the chain with the
other dogs, even training some new ones who came in.

As soon as I come around the corner I feel my shoulders
relax and a smile blooms across my face. Mason is crouching down at the
entrance to Baby’s pen with her sitting outside of it, her focus and attention
solely on him. I can tell by the way she moves gently that she’s relaxed, even
though Mason is holding one of her paws in his hand. He’s clipping her toe
nails, one by one, and explaining to her how much of a good dog she is for
letting him do this.

Baby’s left ear twitches back to catch the sound of my
breathing behind her in the doorway and Mason looks up from his task. He looks
a little flustered and quickly finishes off the last toenail, standing and
pocketing the clippers.

“You’re early; I thought it would be another fifteen minutes
before you came down.” Baby takes notice of his nerves and stands, but she
doesn’t raise her hackles or take a defensive posture. “I guess now is as good
as a time as any, Baby and I have been working on this for about a week now
after you went home.” My smile falters; I didn’t think he’d even gotten to her
cage yet. So all this time it wasn’t just me making her feel relaxed in the
evenings, she was waiting for Mason to come by.

“Oh?” Is all I say, uncrossing my arms and pushing off the
doorframe.

Without another word to me, Mason takes a step back from
Baby, and then another. He keeps eye contact with her, and I wonder what it
feels like for the dog. I know what it would feel like for me. I would feel
like I was the only person in the room amongst millions of others. With one
motion of his finger Baby sits down, her ears pinpointed on Mason.

For a dog like Baby, just learning how to stay in one spot
without a verbal command is like a human climbing Mount Everest. What Mason
does next almost has me protesting. He takes one of the leashes hanging on the
hooks by the door and approaches Baby, putting it over her head and tucking her
legs in through the straps of the harness. Mason still hasn’t meant my eyes.

I watch him lead her to the door to outside and hold my
breath, waiting for Baby to lash out or run. Her tail is tucked between her
legs, but when Mason opens the door she slinks out behind him. She keeps her
torso up against his legs as he moves. As soon as they’re out there for a total
of about five seconds, Mason brings her right back in and makes her sit before
he praises her. He rubs her ears, her snout, down her neck and back until she’s
wriggling all over like a little kid.

Mason takes off the harness and leads her back to her pen,
leaving the door open. She stays inside but right at the opening. There’s a
glimmer in Mason’s eyes that has me grinning from ear to ear like the Cheshire
cat. As soon as I’m close enough he pulls me into a hug and I stiffen at first,
my breath catching. Friends hug, right?

But friends probably don’t feel like this when they hug each
other. I feel like the arms of the universe have encircled me in their light,
and the warmth radiating off Mason is like the warmth of the sun. He puts his
nose on the top of my head and my legs go soft, my arms like jelly at my sides.
When he doesn’t let go for about a minute, I finally wrap my arms around him. Then
I lace my hands together at his lower back, letting him hug me.

I haven’t had anyone touch me since my mother passed. It’s
been nine months now since her death. I made it very clear to everyone I meant
I didn’t want physical contact. I’m pretty sure I made that clear to Mason, but
he seems hell-bent on breaking some of my rules. I can’t say I don’t like it,
and when he finally pulls back from me with a serious expression I feel a loss
immediately.

“I’m sorry, I was just so overwhelmed, proud of Baby,” Mason
tells me, his hands sliding off my lower back to rest at his side. I can’t say
anything for a few seconds and have to clear my throat.

“I’m proud of her too,” I tell him, turning my attention to
the dog. That’s a safe route. The dog is
meant
to push my buttons and my
boundaries. But Baby doesn’t do any of that today. She’s been calm and relaxed
for a week now, and I think it might be time for her to start interacting with
some of the other dogs here.

Maybe in another two weeks she can actually go home with
someone. When that step is over, she won’t have that ugly sign hanging on her
cage anymore. She’ll be meeting young couples or single people who want to take
her home. No children, I wouldn’t go as far to say that she can be trusted
around them on her own. But for someone who knows about dogs, she’ll be a great
companion.

I bend down to pat her on the head, not having to bend very
far. Mason’s stomach grumbles and I realize he probably didn’t eat anything
before he came here and his allowance of time for lunch is almost over. “I have
to go feed Bilbo,” I tell Mason quickly.

He reaches out a hand to grasp my upper arm, but releases it
as soon as I stop moving away from him. Our eyes meet, and I feel my cheeks
flush at the hope in his. “I’ll see you tomorrow at lunch?” He asks, but I know
what he’s really trying to determine. He’s trying to see if the hug he gave me
was going too far, and I don’t know how to answer him honestly. So I just shrug
one shoulder and bolt out the door.

There’s a turtle that arrived yesterday now in the small
animal room and a pair of male rats. I’m hoping I don’t have too much time to
get acquainted with them before they have new homes. It’s not that I’m afraid
of them or don’t’ like them. It’s the opposite, and I know that spending too
much time in a place without enough attention is detrimental to an animal.

As I’m pulling Noah out of his tank to clean it, like I do
every day, all I can think about is Mason’s hug.

Mason

My arms tingle where I touched Emily, and if I close my eyes
I can still smell the kiwi shampoo she must use. Someone snaps their fingers in
front of my face and I startle, looking at the intruder to my thoughts. Gail
rolls her eyes at me and grasps my hand, placing the needle into it. I turn to
the hissing, growling cat on the table held by Taylor, and feel a pang of
regret.

There’s no way that Villain is going to let me touch him
after he gets his shots today. Why do I have to be the bad guy? I guess all of
us are the bad guys though. Taylor’s holding the poor lynx point Siamese down
on the table while Gail tries to keep the nasty claws from getting to me and
Taylor. I shove the needle in as gently as I can and as quickly as I can,
depressing the plunger and pulling back as soon as it’s over.

Taylor scruffs the cat and puts its thrashing body back into
its pen. He’s not really a cat person; I think he just took this job so he
could work with some of the good looking women here and the dogs. Maybe I
should go find Emily after this and tell her there’s a cat in here that needs
some TLC.

I don’t have time to find Emily after the cat is put away
because Taylor gets out another one. The orange tabby is amiable until the man
scruffs it by the neck with force and pulls it up into the air as if that’s
going to make it feel better about the situation. Gail has a frustrated look on
her face as she does this one, giving me a sidelong glance.

“I’ll hold the next one,” I tell Taylor as he puts away the
tabby. Gail won’t meet my gaze after I verbally stand up to the boss, my
shoulders squared. Taylor seems relieved that I offered and points at a cage
full of kittens.

“They all need their first shots, good luck.” An adult cat
is bad enough. Little kittens that still are a bit wild because they were barn
cats are worse. I hold my breath as they all hiss at me from the back of the
cage.

I decide to do it like I did with Baby, dive right in and
expect to get bit the first time. I still have a bandage on my thigh from that
incident. I’m never going to tell Emily about that, she would be upset about it,
and it was something that needed to happen for me and Baby to understand each
other. Now I know why she doesn’t want to report every small dog bite. It’s not
like Baby lunged at my throat and pinned me to the ground. She was afraid.

I reach my hand in and grab the first kitten I can, a small
gray one with bright blue eyes. The eyes are wide as I gently scruff it and pet
the top of its head as I bring it over to the table. Gail puts the needle in
quickly without a hitch, and within fifteen minutes, we have seven kittens with
their first shots. Taylor looks a little miffed over by the door and eventually
slips out, leaving us the list of cats that need shots.

“Wow, why did he get involved in an animal shelter when he
can’t handle a few cats?” I ask Gail quietly, not needing to scruff the next
one. He’s so fat I doubt he feels the pinch of the needle on his hind end.

“I don’t know, but I try to avoid having him come in here at
all costs. He’s fine when they’re in an emergency situation, but when it comes
to understanding them he lacks in that area. He’s a good man, just rough
sometimes.” I’m shocked that Gail adds that last part and wonder if she isn’t
blinded a little by his good looks. Then I really think about it. Taylor is a good
man, and he is rough around the edges. Maybe that’s why I bristle when he gets
around Emily.

I wouldn’t worry if there was no reason to worry. Perhaps
he’s counting down the time until Emily’s eighteenth birthday to ask her out on
a date. It’s in another three weeks. I managed to get into his file a few days
ago to see exactly how old Mr. Warren is, and he’s not old enough to warrant
being called Mr. Taylor Warren. He is only twenty four years old, four years
older than me.

I also took the liberty of looking into Gail’s file, and
found that she is thirty one years old. Which means that her boss is younger
than her, I wonder if that gets under her skin sometimes? I also wonder how
Taylor Warren got the position as head veterinarian here without so much as an
ounce of time anywhere else. He must know the person who owns this place, very
well.

Those were the only two people I was really interested in,
and I know from the fact that Jesse talks to me almost nonstop when she finds
me that she’s twenty two. Her birthday is in three days. If she reminds me one
more time, I’m going to get her a muzzle for her birthday. It seems that her
efforts at having Taylor notice her have gone unrewarded, leaving her high and
dry.

Gail and I finish up with the last cat and flip up the chart
in the manila folder to see who’s next. We’re off to the dog kennel it looks
like, and I see Baby’s name on that list. When her eyes reach the name her
cheeks puff out with a held breath, and she lets it out slowly, her eyes
narrowing.

“Don’t worry about it, she’s really doing great. I’ll be
able to handle it,” I tell Gail, taking the envelope from her. We make our way
to the dog room, and I almost roll my eyes when I see Taylor speaking with
Emily. He has a hand out as if he’s going to touch her arm, but I can tell by
the stiff way she’s holding herself that Emily wouldn’t welcome the touch.

She meets my eyes and immediately takes the opportunity to
remove herself from the situation. If I weren’t fuming right now about the way
Taylor tries to gain her attention back by actually putting his hand on her,
I’d be ecstatic that she actually looked at me for help. Before I can get fired
by intervening with a fist, Gail clears her throat to get Taylor’s attention
and make him realize
why
Emily looked away from him.

“We’re going to do Baby now. Emily, would you like to help?”
The relief on Emily’s face is obvious, but Taylor’s hand doesn’t leave her arm.

“Emily and I were discussing what to do with Baby. My
professional opinion is that she’s ready for a home now, but Emily seems to
think that Baby needs a few more weeks.” I would bet a million dollars that’s
not what Taylor was trying to get at with Emily, but she won’t meet my eyes
now. She takes a step back from the veterinarian and busies herself with
opening up Baby’s pen.

“She’s not ready to go home with someone, not yet.” I nod in
agreement with her, looking at Gail for confirmation. The woman just stands
there, unsure of what to say. She’s under Taylor Warren in the chain of
command, and apparently before I got here it was what he says goes. So when
Gail doesn’t say anything against Baby being put up for adoption, Taylor takes
that as an acceptance.

“Regardless of two nonprofessional’s opinions, we’re taking
down the sign.” I bristle at his statement, but a warning look from Gail has me
keeping my mouth shut tight. When we’re done giving Baby her shot and move on
to the next pen, Emily stays with Baby. She looks concerned about the sign
being taken down for tomorrow.