“Well, that’s a clue,” she said.
Dell waited to see if Rose would lick and tear the amniotic sack off, but she seemed confused and unsure so Dell gently tore the membrane and allowed the fluid to be released. Rose dutifully took over bathing the newborn with her tongue while Dell tied off the cord and made sure the puppy was breathing.
Things moved quickly after that. Three more healthy puppies in a row, and then one that wasn’t moving. Dell wrapped the puppy in a small warmed towel and dried it aggressively, trying to stimulate it so it would cry. Crying was the natural way to clear the mouth and trachea of amniotic fluid.
But the puppy didn’t draw air.
“Oh no,” Jade breathed, leaning over him. “Is she going to make it?”
Dell worked the puppy for over a half hour, but it was no good. There was no heartbeat. And when Rose started to push again, he set the wrapped stillborn down to help her.
Twenty minutes later, Dell had helped extract all the stragglers. One by one he and Jade dried the pups with sterile towels, cleared their mouths and set them back next to Rose to keep them warm. When Rose was alert and starting to nurse, Dell went to his office to call Michelle and fill her in.
By the time he finished and went back to check on Rose, it was nearly four in the morning. Not sure where Jade was, he picked up the stillborn and moved out the back door to sit on the top step with her, staring out into the black sky.
Adam showed up with a quiet greeting for Jade as he leaned over her and looked into the box. The corners of his mouth quirked at the blind, soggy puppies nuzzled up against Rose. His sharp, dark eyes counted them up. “Six.”
“Seven. We lost one.”
Adam let out a breath, barely discernible, but she was learning to read him now. Grief for the one they’d lost.
“Where’s Dell?” he asked.
“He went to call Michelle.”
Adam was quiet a moment, stroking Rose. “He takes it hard. Losing them. Always did.”
“He feels things,” Jade said. “Deeply.”
“Deeper than the rest of us. Always did that, too. Along with the whole saying good-bye issue.”
Jade met his gaze. “Good-bye issue?”
“Doesn’t like ’em. In fact, he’ll go out of his way to avoid them.”
“Meaning?”
“Love isn’t real, at least not the kind you get from people. Never get too close, leave ’em smiling…”
She inhaled. “But leave ’em.”
He nodded. “So you do understand him.”
All too well. But there was something in Adam’s voice she’d never heard before.
Protectiveness.
Dell might be a grown man, but Adam was the older brother, if only by two years. “He has seen more than his fair share of good-byes,” she said softly. He and Adam both had.
“And he makes sure to say them first if he can,” Adam said. “But the animals are different. He’d never leave an animal first, never.”
“He doesn’t blame himself, does he?”
“Not for the animals, no.”
Jade stood up and brushed off, wanting to go find him. “Are you saying he blames himself for all the human good-byes in his life? None of them were his fault.”
Adam lifted a shoulder. “You know that self-blame isn’t logical.”
Yes, she knew. She knew exactly. She’d been blaming herself for a year and a half for the attack that hadn’t been her fault.
“Our dad died in a car accident on the way to a job he hated with a passion but kept to provide a roof over our heads. Sol died while riding broncos on a day that Dell had missed his competition. Then I left him to go off to the National Guard because there was nothing other than jail in my future if I stayed. And you-”
“That’s all ridiculous,” she said. “Not a single one of those things were his fault. And me…” She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard Adam string so many words together at once, but when he did, he packed a punch. “What about me?”
Adam didn’t answer.
“He’s not blaming himself for me leaving,” she said slowly. “I was always going to go.”
Adam just looked at her from those dark, dark eyes.
She stared at him some more, feeling her heart quicken as she took in everything that he wasn’t putting to words. “I’m not abandoning him. We’re not… He and I…”
One of the puppies mewled and Adam stroked a finger over the tiny body, whispering something softly to it until it stilled.
“I mean, it’s not like we’re…” Jade broke off.
“You’re smart,” Adam said in the same soothing voice he’d just used on the puppy. It was shockingly effective. “You’ll catch up eventually.”
Oh God. She was pretty sure she’d done that now. Just because she and Dell had never put a label on their relationship didn’t mean that it didn’t exist. Of course it did. True, it was different from any other relationship she’d ever had. It was also true that there’d never been a man in her life who could drive her crazy in one moment and then make her tremble in the next like he could. He was her best friend. Her lover.
And she was desperately afraid he had become much more than that.
But just because
“So you really are going.”
“I always was.” What she didn’t say was that her own reservations about leaving were keeping her up at night. But given Dell’s reaction-or lack of-to her trying to talk to him about it, it didn’t matter all that much. “It’s not like I’m suddenly abandoning him because we didn’t work out. We did work out, as much as he allowed us to. We both knew this was coming.” She stood up. “I’m going to go find him.”
He wasn’t in his office or anywhere that she could see, but the back door was ajar. She found Dell on the top step in the dark night, his big body hunched protectively over a small, still bundle in his hands.
Heart squeezing, she sat at his side. “Hey.” She nudged him gently with her shoulder, and he nudged back but said nothing.
“Rose is okay,” she said quietly.
“Good.”
“And now I’m wondering about you. Are you okay, too?”
“I just always take a minute with them. Afterward.” His voice low and a little raspy, like it hurt him physically to lose any animal, no matter how short a time he’d known them.
He hadn’t taken his hands or his eyes off the carefully wrapped puppy, and Jade couldn’t take her eyes off of him. Without being consciously aware of moving, she scooted closer, setting her head on his shoulder.
For a moment he didn’t move, then slowly he shifted and leaned into her. She slipped her arm around his waist and he shifted even more, turning into her, pressing his face to the crook of her neck.
She went still as her heart squeezed. Always it’d been him offering her comfort, safety, whatever she needed, but now for the first time he was taking those things from her.
She didn’t dare move, not even when her toes and fingers and nose and nipples got so cold she could no longer feel them. In fact, she wanted to never move again. She wanted to preserve this quiet closeness between them that felt almost more intimate than when they’d been naked.
But Dell pulled back and straightened. “You’re frozen. Get back inside.”
He was already regretting the brief moment of weakness. If she wasn’t still so touched that he’d trusted her enough to see it, she’d have rolled her eyes at the utter manness of the move. “Dell-”
“I’ve just got to take care of him first, then I’ll be right behind you.” He stood and pulled her up.
