Wild Iris Ridge (Hope's Crossing) (13 page)

“Ew!” Faith wrinkled her face while her brother looked thrilled at the possibility.

The sound came again, faint but distinct.

“What if it
is
a baby?” Faith pressed. “What if somebody accidentally threw it away? We can’t just leave it there!”

“It’s not a baby.”

“How do you know if you don’t look?” she said with uncharacteristic mulishness.

“I bet it’s an alien, like E.T.,” Carter said. “I bet he fell in, but he doesn’t have hands, only tentacles, so he can’t open the lid and now he’s stuck.”

“We have shopping to do,” Brendan said.

“Just take a look, Dad. Please? I don’t want to leave a baby in there.”

“It’s not a baby,” he repeated, but with a sigh, he headed to the garbage bin and held open the metal cover. He peered inside. To Lucy’s surprise, Crystal walked up next to him to look in, as well.

“Oh. Oh, my gosh. Do you see that?” her sister exclaimed.

“I see it,” he said grimly, flipping the lid of the container all the way open.

“What is it?” Lucy asked. She couldn’t resist joining them just as Brendan lifted out a box that looked as if it had once contained oranges.

“Is it a rat?” Faith asked. Though she was the one who started the whole thing, now she looked too apprehensive to even peer into the box.

“No,” Crystal answered. “Puppies.”

Brendan reached into the box and pulled out two little handfuls. They were black with brown markings, perhaps the size of a grapefruit with big dark eyes and shaggy faces. The only difference she could see was that one had more brown on the face, while the other was predominantly black with bigger brown markings on the body.

“Somebody threw away two puppies?” Faith exclaimed, looking as if her belief in all humanity had just been destroyed.

“It looks as if there were three. One, uh, didn’t make it.”

“Oh,” Faith whispered sadly. She reached for one of the puppies before Brendan could stop her—or before Lucy could warn her about fleas or any other manner of stray animal-borne ickies.

Crystal reached for the other one in Brendan’s hand. “Oh, the poor little things. I can’t believe somebody threw these cute guys away. How sad! Why didn’t they take them to a shelter or something?”

This soft, gooey creature was her sister, who had flipped her nothing but sarcasm and attitude for the past forty-eight hours?

“Who knows?” Brendan answered. “People can be jackasses. Maybe they figured since the one died, the others weren’t far behind.”

“They’re not brand-new, are they?”

“No. They look a few weeks old. Their eyes are open, anyway.”

Lucy knew less about dogs than she did about fifteen-year-old girls. At least she had once been one of the latter. The closest she came to a dog was the adorably ugly but much-beloved French bulldog Annabelle had had, François. The dog hadn’t done much, just trotted along on his short, stubby little legs as he followed Annabelle everywhere.

François had been fifteen, ancient in dog years, when he died just a few months before Annabelle. That had seemed a blessing to her, that they went close together.

“Does Hope’s Crossing have an animal shelter?” Lucy asked.

Brendan nodded. “It was built a few years ago. Lee Peterson runs it. I’ll give him a call, see if he can take a couple of young puppies or if he knows anybody who would foster them until they’re old enough to be adopted.”

“Why couldn’t we foster them?” Crystal exclaimed.

Oh, no. Just what she needed, another element of stress in her life.

“Crystal,” she began, but her sister held up the puppy that just filled both of her hands.

“They’re so gorgeous. Look at this face! They’re just babies. They need love and attention, not a shelter somewhere where they’re crammed in with a bunch of other dogs.”

Again, she couldn’t quite believe this was the same surly teenager she had endured for two days.

“You’re only going to be here a few weeks, remember?”

“We could take care of them for those few weeks, just until the shelter can find a more permanent place. It won’t be hard. We can keep them in the utility room off the kitchen. I’ll feed them and everything. Please, Luce. I’ve always wanted a dog, but Dad would never let us get one.”

That, more than anything, made her waver. How many times had she begged her parents for a dog or a cat or even a gerbil? Robert insisted their lives were too busy for the mess and the responsibility—which, now that she thought of it, was basically a metaphor for her father’s entire approach to parenting.

Lucy had always liked animals. She had a few friends with dogs in Seattle and would even sometimes borrow one for a few hours, just to take a walk with it or throw a ball into the Sound for it to retrieve.

She had never taken the step into ownership because of her sixteen-hour workdays. Right now, however, she had nothing but time.

“I suppose we could give one of them a home for a few weeks. I think two would be more than we can handle.”

“We could take the other one!” Faith looked as if this idea was the answer to her prayers.

Brendan, on the other hand, didn’t look nearly as thrilled. “Oh, honey,” he began, but Carter cut him off.

“A dog! A dog! We’re getting a dog!” He started wiggling his hips back and forth like a celebratory end zone dance.

“Hey!” he called to a woman pushing a shopping cart past them. “Hey, guess what? We’re getting a dog.”

The woman turned with a smile, and Lucy realized it was Mary Ella McKnight, her favorite English teacher, whom Genevieve told her had recently married the town’s wealthiest resident, Harry Lange.

“Are you?” Mary Ella said, pausing.

“We just found these dogs in the trash,” Faith said. “Somebody threw them away. Isn’t that the saddest thing you ever heard?”

“Tragic,” she agreed, smoothing a hand over Faith’s blond hair. The sweet girl just brought out the urge to nurture in people, Lucy thought. “So you’re taking one home?”

“Temporarily,” Brendan said quickly. “I guess. Just until we can find a permanent home for him.”

Mary Ella looked at the little puppy in Faith’s arms, where Carter was now leaning over and tickling him under the chin.

“Good luck with that,” she said with a commiserating sort of look.

“Just look at him! He is such a cutie,” Crystal said, cuddling the dog under her chin.

“Ours is cute, too,” Carter said.

Faith cradled the puppy in her arms. “They’re both adorable. The cutest puppies
ever
.”

“First order of business will be the vet to have them checked out and to pick up a couple flea collars,” Lucy said. “Any chance there’s an animal clinic open this late?”

Brendan, she saw, had the expression of someone trapped in a situation spiraling out of his control. “No idea,” he answered. “Let me text Dylan and Drew. Both of them have dogs and would have a better handle on the vet situation in town than I do.”

He pulled out his phone and sent a quick message, which was answered about twenty seconds later. As he read the screen, his mouth twisted into a smile that left her a little achy and, okay, jealous.

She wanted a big, boisterous, helpful family that could make her smile under otherwise stressful circumstances—not to mention that she was suddenly discovering she wanted to be the one who could make Brendan find a little enjoyment in life again.

“What’s funny?” she asked.

He looked up from his phone. “Nothing, really. It’s just that Dylan answered right away. He sent me the vet’s phone number and everything. Since he was injured in Afghanistan, he hates texting—it’s the one-hand thing—but he dearly loves his dog. He must have Tucker’s vet on speed dial.”

Brendan phoned the number and she listened in on his half of the conversation as the children cooed over the puppies. When he hung up, he confirmed everything she had surmised by her eavesdropping.

“That was the Monte Vista Veterinary Clinic. It’s off the highway down by Silver Sage Meadow. They’re only officially open for another half hour, but the receptionist said they could stay a little late to take a look at the puppies, since it’s an emergency.”

He gazed at his children and the puppy Faith held, clear reluctance in his expression.

“Do you want me to take both puppies?” Lucy asked, her voice low. “Despite what I said earlier, we can probably handle it. Crystal would love having both to take care of. Who knew a puppy would be the breakthrough I’ve been looking for with her, right? And it would get you off the hook. One puppy can’t make much more mess than two and they might be better off together.”

“It’s tempting. Believe me. Our lives are hectic enough without throwing in the complication of a puppy.”

The puppy licked Carter’s face, and the boy giggled, his face turned toward father with an expression of sheer joy.

Brendan sighed. “But how can I break my kids’ hearts now?”

Emotions welled up in her chest—not only because of the sheer adorableness of a cute little boy getting the love from a puppy saved in the nick of time from a grim fate, but because of Brendan. He clearly didn’t want a dog, and she could totally sympathize. But he was a wonderful father, willing to take on a challenge that would only bring more chaos into his world in order to provide a little bit of happiness to his children.

How was she supposed to guard her heart against a man like that?

She would
not
let herself fall for him, Lucy told herself sternly. The last time she had let her emotions rule the day over logic and reason—when she started weaving ridiculous dreams about
him
after only one kiss—she had been left raw and heartbroken for months.

“We’ll meet you there, then,” she answered. “I guess our groceries will have to wait.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

B
RENDAN
PULLED
INTO
the parking lot of the veterinary clinic to the sounds of a squeaking puppy and two squealing children.

When, exactly, was his life ever going to return to some semblance of normal? he wondered as he parked his SUV and helped the children out of the backseat.

Since the moment Lucy Drake came back to Hope’s Crossing, nothing seemed the same.

Lucy parked beside him as he was unhooking Carter’s straps. Her younger sister climbed out holding the puppy.

“Guess what?” Carter told her with delight. “Our puppy peed in the backseat!”

Lucy winced. “Sorry,” she muttered to him.

“Makes me glad for leather seats. We got most of it with paper towels and I should be able to scrub down the rest.”

They walked into the clinic, and only after he was inside and spotted the woman standing behind the counter did he realize how awkward this could be. He should have asked Dylan or the receptionist he spoke with on the phone the name of the veterinarian.

Dr. Elizabeth Lynde was a very nice woman in her early thirties who had recently moved to Hope’s Crossing to start a veterinary practice.

Their paths had crossed the summer before at a barbecue one of his firefighter buddies had dragged him to and she had later called him up to ask him out on a date to go to the movies with her.

After his initial shock and, yes, panic, he had quietly thanked her for the invitation but told her he wasn’t quite ready to date yet. When he was, she would be the first one he called.

In retrospect, he should have just gone out with her. She was a nice woman and he enjoyed her company, but the whole dating thing still seemed so strange.

Of course, that didn’t seem to stop him from kissing Lucy until he couldn’t think straight.

He tried to push that mistake of a kiss out of his mind, which wasn’t exactly easy when she stood next to him smelling of vanilla and strawberries and looking lovely in jeans and a white tailored blouse that now had dog hair on it.

He never did get the chance to ask Elizabeth out. Last he heard, she was dating an accountant at the ski resort.

“Hey, Brendan. My assistant told me you called. How are you?” She leaned in and air kissed his cheek.

“Great. Thank you.”

He suddenly wished again he had been able to generate a little more interest toward her. The Hope’s Crossing dating pool wasn’t exactly a deep one and Elizabeth was one of the best swimmers in there. She was attractive, smart, obviously good with animals and small children, and she had her own business. What more was he looking for, for crying out loud?

Why couldn’t she stir his blood like a certain green-eyed brunette he could name? It would be far less uncomfortable, all the way around.

“Elizabeth, this is our neighbor Lucy Drake and her sister, Crystal. They’re living in Iris House.”

“Oh, I love that place.”

“That seems to be the general sentiment,” Lucy said with a smile.

“Did you know the previous owner? I was lucky enough to be invited to one of her Christmas parties shortly after I moved to Hope’s Crossing and absolutely fell in love with the house and with her.”

For just a moment, Lucy’s expression turned stark with grief before she quickly contained it. He was struck again by her fragile beauty, so at odds with her take-no-prisoners personality. “Yes. She was my great-aunt.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry for your loss. She seemed to be a fascinating woman. Someone I would have liked to know better.”

“Thank you.”

Elizabeth turned back to the situation at hand. “So I understand you all found a couple of abandoned puppies.”

“Somebody threw them away.” Faith still couldn’t seem to comprehend the magnitude of the crime.

“That’s terrible. How lucky that you discovered them, before it was too late.”

“Yes. Wasn’t it?” Brendan said. He did his best to keep the dryness out of his tone. He
was
glad they found the puppies in time to save them. He just didn’t particularly want to take one home.

“Why don’t you all come on back to our exam room and we’ll take a look at them.”

When they were all squeezed into the small room that looked as modern and comfortable as his own doctor’s office, Elizabeth set both puppies in an open-topped crate that had been set up on the exam table to contain them.

“They look like they’re a mix of some kind of small terrier and a miniature poodle, with maybe some Chihuahua thrown in somewhere. Because of the Chihuahua element, I wouldn’t call them a true Yorkie Poo—if there’s such a thing, since it’s a boutique breed. I can tell you, they’re going to be small, really cute and probably very smart.”

One of the puppies yipped as if in agreement.

“They appear to be about three to four weeks old,” she went on. “Not quite ready to be completely weaned but in a better place than they might have been a week or two ago. They seem to be fairly healthy.”

“What about fleas?” Lucy asked.

“I can’t see any. I can give you some shampoo for that, though.” She looked at both of them. “Are you keeping the dogs?”

“Temporarily,” he and Lucy said at the exact same moment. At their perfectly synchronized answer that sounded as if they had rehearsed, Lucy met his gaze with an amused look, a little dimple flitting in her cheek before it disappeared.

How had he never noticed that there before?

“This is strictly a foster-care situation,” Lucy said. “Just for a few weeks.”

“How kind of you,” Elizabeth said. “I can get in touch with the people at the animal shelter and see if they know of anybody who might be interested in adopting them. Mixed-breed dogs can be pretty hard to place sometimes, but these guys are pretty cute and they’ll be small. Maybe seven, eight pounds, max. They should find permanent homes pretty easily when word gets out.”

Faith made a little sound of distress that made his heart sink. Like it or not, he had a feeling he had just made a lifetime commitment.

He wanted the hassle and headache of a puppy about as much as he wanted a raging case of appendicitis, but prying the dog out of his children’s hearts was likely to prove impossible.

Again, how had his life gone so completely crazy? Kissing a woman he had no business even looking at one minute, taking in an abandoned puppy the next. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what kind of mistake he would make next.

“What would you suggest we feed them?” Lucy asked.

“Canine milk replacement is used in cases like this when the puppies are too young to be completely transitioned to puppy chow. I can get you some. You’ll have to feed them about every two hours and burp them, too.”

“Just like a baby,” Crystal said.

“Very much like it. The good news is, they’ll probably be ready to start the weaning process in a week or so and we can start switching them to regular puppy chow. I’ll print out some instructions for you on how to do that and a few other guidelines for raising very young puppies. Puppies this age who don’t have a mother around will need you to teach them proper behavior. For instance, if they nip at you, you need to make a whining sound and stop playing with them for a while. That teaches them not to bite.”

Yeah, that was going to happen. He could just see what the guys at the fire station would say if they heard him whining because of a little puppy nip.

He glanced over at Lucy and saw she looked completely overwhelmed.

It was one more thread of connection between the two of them, and he wasn’t sure he liked it very much.

“Do you think they would be better off together?” Lucy asked.

“I really don’t think it’s a problem if you split them up, but you’re going to want to get them together often for playdates. I can’t stress the importance of that socialization factor.”

“We see each other all the time,” Faith assured her. “Lucy is kind of our aunt.”

“Kind of?” Dr. Lynde asked. Brendan could see she was looking curiously between her and Lucy, trying to figure out their relationship. He could feel himself flush a little.

“Their mother was my cousin and dear friend,” she answered, not looking in his direction.

“Ah.”

“I guess that makes me kind of your aunt, too, since Lucy is my sister,” Crystal said. For a troubled teenager, she seemed delighted at the idea of acquiring an instant niece and nephew. “You can call me Aunt Crystal if you want.”

“Okay, Aunt Crystal.” Faith giggled, obviously fascinated by this wild-looking creature with the piercings and tight clothes. Great. Another thing he needed.

“While you all work out those details, I’m going to print out a couple of puppy guides and some website references and find a couple cases of formula for you. When you run out, you can find them at the pet store or we can order more for you.”

“Thank you for your help,” Lucy said. “You’ve really been wonderful.”

“Glad to help. If it’s okay with you, I would like to take a couple of pictures of these little darlings and send them to Riley McKnight at the police station so he can start looking into leads about where they came from. Whoever left them in that Dumpster could be facing animal cruelty charges.”

“Of course,” Lucy answered. “I didn’t even think about that.”

“Riley will probably want to take statements from both of you.”

Considering he talked to the Hope’s Crossing chief of police just about every day in connection with work, Brendan didn’t think that would be a problem.

After Elizabeth left, Lucy’s sister and Faith pulled the puppies out of the crate.

“Is our puppy a boy or a girl?” Faith asked.

He wanted to tell her there was no “our puppy” but he didn’t see the point. He couldn’t imagine yanking the puppy out of Faith’s arms and handing her over to some stranger. Not when it was obvious his kids were already attached.

Maybe it wouldn’t be such a terrible thing. Yes, it would add to the general chaos, especially for the next few months while the puppy was so young, but they were all in a much better place than they had been even six months earlier. They had picked up the pieces of their shattered world and were moving on with life.

Faith was almost eight. The responsibility would be good for her and might help her take on all those new challenges she had been avoiding since Jessie died.

“She’s a girl, if that’s the one you wanted,” Lucy said.

“What are you going to call her while you’re taking care of her?” Crystal asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve always wanted a dog named Princess.”

He tried to imagine standing at the door calling for Princess to come get her supper and just couldn’t wrap his head around it.

“What about you?” Faith asked.

“Max,” the girl said promptly, as if she’d been thinking about it since the minute they opened that Dumpster to the little rat-squeak sounds.

“I like the name Max,” Carter said. “I have a friend at school named Max. He has really stinky farts.”

“Carter!” Brendan exclaimed.

“What? He does!”

“You don’t need to tell everyone about it, especially when there are ladies present.”

The particular ladies in question were both hiding their laughs, Crystal behind the little dog and Lucy by turning her face away.

“Sorry,” Brendan muttered in an aside to Lucy.

“I love that kid,” she answered in the same low voice.

“Let’s just hope this Max doesn’t take after the other Max,” Crystal said as Elizabeth came back in carrying two packets of information and two cases of formula.

They scheduled follow-up appointments in two weeks to begin the process of giving the puppies their necessary shots and then Brendan carried both cases of formula out to the vehicles.

“You never made it to the grocery store,” Lucy said. “Would you like us to pick up your list?”

Drat. He had completely forgotten that—along with dinner. How was he going to drag two kids and a tiny puppy to the grocery store now?

“That would be great.”

“Let me see if I remember,” she said. “Milk, eggs and bread. Is that right, Carter?”

“Yep.” His son beamed at her, and Brendan felt a weird little tug in his chest.

He needed to stop this right now. Lucy wasn’t at all the woman for him. That was the reason he hadn’t pursued their fledgling attraction more than a decade ago, and as far as he could see, nothing had changed.

Yes, maybe he had been contemplating dating again; maybe the time was right to start dipping his toe in that dating pool he’d been thinking about earlier.

He missed having a woman in his life. It wasn’t just the sex—though Lord knows, he missed that. He sometimes sat in his empty house in the middle of the night aching for the softness of a woman’s curves next to his, for the sweet sound of feminine laughter, for a tender touch and a loving smile.

Lucy Drake wasn’t that woman. Life might have temporarily derailed her career train, but he knew it was only a matter of time before she yanked all the cars back on the tracks and took off again.

“What do
you
think we should name her, Dad?” Faith asked from the backseat, distracting him from his grim thoughts.

“I don’t know. How about Agnes or Gertrude? Or maybe Prudence?”

“Hmm. Those might work,” she said after a long pause, too softhearted to laugh at his tongue-in-cheek suggestions.

He felt extraordinarily lucky to have this girl for a daughter, who had definitely inherited her sweetness from her mother’s side.

“What else did you like besides Princess?”

“I like Iron Man,” Carter said. “Or what about Darth Vader?”

“Those are boy names,” Faith answered. “We could name her Hermione or Princess Leia.”

Again, with the princess. “We don’t really have to decide tonight.”

“We have to call her
something.
” Faith’s brow furrowed as she studied the little creature in her arms.

“How about Stinky?” he suggested.

“Dad. Be serious!”

“Okay. Okay.”

In all his life, he had never named a dog, he realized with a start. During his childhood, his family always had at least one or two dogs around the house, but it seemed his siblings had generally taken over naming rights. He was the third oldest and Drew and Patrick had always seemed to win the naming lottery.