The Girl of Sand & Fog (34 page)

What? Did I just hear what I think I heard?

Before I can respond, he says, “How’s your
afternoon looking? Do you have time to take off and come see something with
me?”

My afternoon? There is something. I’m sure of
that, but I suddenly can’t remember a single thing.

“What do you have in mind?”

“I want to show you where I’ve been living. What
I’ve been doing. I think you’ll find it interesting.”

Interesting? Why would I find it interesting?

“So do you think you can cut out for a few hours?”
he asks, watching me expectantly.

I focus my gaze on the table, wondering if I
should go, wondering why I debate this, and what the heck I have on my calendar
that I can’t remember. God, this is weird, familiar and distant at once, and I
haven’t a clue what I should do here.

I stare at his hand, so close to mine, on the
table. Whoever thought it would be so uncomfortable
not
to touch a guy?
It doesn’t feel natural this space we hold between us, spiced with the kind of
talk people have who have known each other intimately. What would he do if I
touched him?

His fingers cover mine and he gives me a friendly
squeeze. The feel of him runs through my body with remembered sweetness.

Suddenly, nothing in my life is as important as
spending the afternoon with Bobby, and for the first time in a very long time I
don’t feel like a disjointed collection of uncomfortably fitting parts. I feel
at ease inside myself being with Bobby.

I stop trying to access my mental calendar and
smile up at Bobby. “I’ve got as much time as you need.”

Bobby chuckles and his hand slips back from me.
He rises and tosses some bills on the table. “Just a few hours, Kaley. I’ll
have you back before the end of the day.”

I rise from my chair and think
not if I figure
out fast how not to blow this.

Even sitting with an unwanted distance between us
on the front bench seat of Bobby’s old truck, every part of me is connected and
reacting to him. I want nothing more than to slide closer, to feel him, to
taste him, but instead I sit silently smiling, drinking in the sight of him and
fighting the wind from the open windows as it turns my tamed curls into—what
will surely be before this drive is over—a Chia Pet.

“I can’t believe you still have Bertha,” I say,
studying the aged ’60s Ford dashboard and shaking my head.

Bobby laughs. “She’s a classic, Kaley. I’m never
getting rid of this truck.”

“She’s an old, gas-guzzling heap without air
conditioning.”

Bobby grins in a boyishly charming way. “You’ve
forgotten. We added air conditioning.”

He turns on the small orange windup fan mounted
on the dash. I start to laugh and then the laughter leaves me because I
remember the day we put the fan there and I am painfully aware of how much I’ve
missed him.

I stare out the window. Our journey has taken us
an hour out of the downtown and we’re now heading north on the 101.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask.

“Simi Valley. We’re almost there.”

“I’ve never been to Simi Valley. What’s in Simi?”

His eyes lock on me and I start to tingle. “Me.
That’s what’s in Simi. It’s where I live now. Where my business is.”

For a second I’m hurt. I didn’t know he’d moved
from Pacific Palisades. There was a time I knew every piece, every secret of
him. I never thought he’d leave the coast and now he’s living inland. Why the
change?

“How long ago did you move?”

Bobby’s eyes shift from me. He hits the turn
signal to exit the freeway. “Almost two years, Kaley.”

Why, that was right after we broke up and he
moved out of the beach house. And I never knew he moved away. I study the
streets, fighting back unexpected tears.

“So why Simi?”

“I wanted some land. Some space.”

The farther east we drive the less suburban
everything starts to look. There are now small ranches, horses, and other
livestock mixed with the planned housing tracts. 

“Land? For what?” I ask.

“I’m running a small not-for-profit foundation.
Still in the fledgling stage.”

His answer takes me by surprise. “You are? What
kind of foundation?”

His smile is very satisfied and a touch excited.
“We’re almost there. This is something you’ll understand better if I show you
rather than tell you.”

I take a small measure of hope from Bobby wanting
me to understand this new, unknown element of his life. More than that, it
sounds important to him to share this with me. I was right to take off with him
today on his adventure. It’s right that I’m here. And if I’m lucky, very soon
it will be right between us.

Again I am tempted, so very tempted, to take away
the space between us and kiss him.

He hits the turn signal and turns down a narrow
gravel road. There’s a small sign at a locked gate:
Tiki’s House
. What
the heck is that? Bobby said he was running a foundation.

I bite my lower lip, refraining from grilling
him, and watch as he stops the truck. If the guy prefers to show me, I’ll let
him show me. Memories of us come tumbling back. I should have let him lead more
often. I should have been willing to follow at times.

Bobby opens his door, hops from the truck and
unlocks the chain across the road. He climbs back into the truck. We start to
bounce down the gravel road.

I laugh. “What kind of place are you living in,
Bobby?”

“It’s private. No one to disturb here. It suits
my needs.”

“What needs? And why do you want privacy? Are you
growing medical marijuana? Is that your new business?” I tease.

Bobby laughs and I’m relieved that he takes my
comment as humor and remembers that I’m a tad sarcastic at times. I smile.

“Nothing so glamorous. I already told you that.”

“Well, you’ll certainly have privacy here. Who’d
want to brave the driveway?”

He pretends to give it serious thought. “The
driveway is pretty bad. Do you think that’s why I can never convince a date to
come home with me?”

A date? I definitely didn’t like hearing that
one. I have to force myself to maintain the teasing banter.

I playfully scrunch up my nose. “Maybe it’s your
technique?”

He shakes his head. “No, can’t be that. My
technique got me the hottest girl in Pacific Palisades.”

The way he’s looking at me makes me nearly cry
from the joy of hearing him say that. “And it got a busy independent filmmaker
here today.”

His eyes fix on me intensely. “Maybe my technique
only works with you.”

I sure hope so
, my heart whispers, and
I can’t wait another second to touch him. I unbuckle my seat belt. Every inch
of my flesh comes awake with anticipation. I start to ease into him.

He opens his door and pulls back. “Come on, I
want to show you everything.”

I watch him disappear into the sunlight and a
heavy sigh of disappointment pushes through me. Then I notice my surroundings:
a charming blue-paint, white-trim farm house, velvet lawns, old oak trees, long
rows of tiny structures and….
barking?

I climb from the truck and closed the door. “What
is this place?”

Bobby smiles. “Tiki’s House. My foundation.”

My eyes widen as I try to absorb my surroundings.
“But why is there so much barking? What kind of foundation is this?”

“I rescue dogs. Most of them come to me by way of
illegal dog fighting.”

He gestures to the sign.
Dog Rescue,
Rehabilitation and Sanctuary.

“Dogs?” I don’t know what to make of this. This
is not on the list of what I expected Bobby to show me. “You run a dog rescue
and rehabilitation foundation?”

Amusement dances in Bobby’s gorgeous green eyes.
“You’re the one who told me to be less complacent. To do something meaningful
with my life. To find something I wanted to do. To live my own life instead of
yours. Well, this is it, Kaley. I’m living my own life instead of yours now.
Doing what I love. I’m happy.”

Crap! Was I such a bitch when we were together
that I actually said that? And what is he trying to tell me with that speech?

“I’m glad. I never wanted anything but you to be
happy, Bobby. It looks like we’ve both found something worthwhile to do with
our lives. It’s amazing what you’ve done here.”

He lowers his frame to give a gentle scratch to
the fierce-looking pit bull inside a cage. “Maybe if I’d been more interesting
none of the other stuff would have happened,” he says so softly I almost can’t
hear him.

Other stuff? The lump swells in my throat. How
like Bobby to take responsibility for my stupid mistake.

I stare at the long row of kennels. “How many
dogs do you have here?”

“Fifty. I’m at capacity. The city won’t let me
have any more. Every day new dogs are rescued and there is no place for them to
go.”

I shake my head. “And all these dogs were used
for illegal dog fighting?”

“Except the Chihuahuas. They don’t fight. They’re
used in fight training.”

“I don’t understand. How are they used?”

Bobby straightens up. His eyes are heavy with
that sensitive kindness that drew me to him from the start. “They’re bait dogs.
Without getting too graphic, they are used to see which pits will fight. If the
pit doesn’t kill the bait dog, he’s destroyed and the bait dog is either
destroyed or used again.”

I feel sick, like I’m going to vomit. “That’s awful!”

“It’s an important story, Kaley. Maybe you’d like
to go on a rescue sometime and film.”

Is that why I’m here? He wants me to make a
documentary about the plight of these poor animals?

“Just tell me when and where and I’ll be there,
camera in hand.”

Bobby’s lips curl in a slight smile. “Thanks,
Kaley. I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather have tell their story. Maybe with
you onboard we can make some meaningful change to the law that will prevent
this.”

The law? Did I hear him right? Is Bobby not only a
dog rescuer but a full-fledged activist against animal cruelty? Bobby?

It feels like my head is spinning trying to catch
up to all the changes in Bobby and all the old familiar sensations coursing
through my veins. Everything is new in Bobby’s world. Everything is the same
inside me.

“I didn’t even know you liked dogs. I would have
never imagined that this would become a cause for you. That this is what you’d
pick for your profession.”

“I didn’t pick it, Kaley. It picked me.”

My eyes widen. “Picked you, huh? You’re going to
have to explain that one to me.”

Bobby shrugs and he looks a little uncomfortable
now. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets and starts to guide me down the
aisle between the kennels.

“After we broke up and I moved out, I just wanted
to lie low for a while, think things through. We both made so many mistakes and
you were right about a lot of the things that you said to me. I couldn’t just
live off my folks and do nothing. Or worse, cruise through life as a passenger
in your life. Without you, I realized you were right. I didn’t have any idea
which direction I wanted to go. What I wanted to do. And then one morning I was
up surfing at Rincon and someone tossed something onto the side of the road.
When I went to check it out, I found a dog, Kaley. It was Tiki. Bloody. Half
dead.”

“Oh my God. What kind of person would do that?”

There is fury in his eyes of an intensity I’ve
never seen before. “A jerk who makes money training dogs to fight. Illegal dog
fighting is big business in California.”

I stare in wonder and fascination at the neatly
tended ranch with the blue painted house and white railed front porch, the
lawns, the dog runs, and the long bank of indoor-outdoor kennels.

“So you rescued Tiki and it turned into all
this?”

Bobby shrugs. “I didn’t plan any of this. I was
just taking a poor half-dead dog to the vet. The vet didn’t expect her to
survive and recommended euthanizing her. That even if she recovered she would
probably always be vicious because of the kind of life she lived. It took
months for her to recover. Months for her to be unafraid. And months to learn
to trust me.” There is pride on his face now. “She’s up at the house. I’ll
introduce you before you go.”

I drink it all in before I shift my gaze back to
him. “It’s amazing, Bobby.”

He smiles. “It’s getting there. Everyone says I
have a knack, that I’m a natural at rehabilitating dogs.”

“Everyone? Who’s everyone?”

“The dog rescue community is large and we network
to make sure that as few dogs as possible are left with only the option of
euthanasia. I specialize in pit bulls since most people won’t take them and too
many people just want to exterminate the breed. But others specialize in other
breeds. We share resources, knowledge. Work together to raise public
awareness.”