“I know that. So are you saying you want to bring more cats here?”
Megan chewed on her lip. “I don’t suppose you watched the news last night or this morning?”
“No, I babysat my nieces last night, and it was a string of princess movies. This morning I didn’t have time. Why?”
“There was a large-animal confiscation centered around St. Louis. It’s a really big one. It has expanded to three states so far.”
“Like a ring of cat hoarders?” Kelsey asked playfully.
“I wish. That would be so much easier. It was a dogfighting ring. A big one. They’ve confiscated over 150 dogs already. They’re raiding a few more houses that may be involved.”
Kelsey’s heart sank into her toes. “That’s horrible. It’s beyond horrible. It’s sickening.”
“I know, Kels. These dogs… You know we can’t take any of them at the shelter since they’re fighting dogs and we’re a public facility.”
Kelsey turned away from Megan to take in the house. “And the Sabrina Raven estate isn’t.”
The massive brick mansion could realistically house three times as many animals as the shelter. If those creaky hardwood floors didn’t give way. And even though the house was smack-dab in the middle of South City, it was at the tail end of a quiet street, and the yard was a half acre or more. The backyard was huge, mostly reclaimed by nature, and surrounded by a tall privacy fence. She could see why Megan had thought of the house.
“No,” Megan said, “it isn’t.” She paused, letting Kelsey take everything in. Finally, she added, “I made some calls earlier. If we act now, they’ll make sure we get dogs that pass high on sociability and health tests. Ones that can be rehabbed for certain. The guy who’s taken the lead in the rescue said he’d help find a trainer to do the retraining. You’d oversee their basic care. And I’m sure volunteers will be stepping up in droves to help. But you’re the only one I trust to take this on. I’d do it if I wasn’t nearing my third trimester.” She cocked an eyebrow hopefully. “There’s going to be a trial, and there’s still so much red tape to sort, but I think in a few months’ time we could start bringing them into the shelter for adoption.”
Kelsey’s stomach did a flip like when she was in school and about to do an oral report. Letting out a controlled breath, she caught the gaze of Mr. Longtail. His yellow-green eyes narrowed into slits, and he gave a twitch of his impressive tail before letting out a hiss, as if expressing his opinion on the idea. Orzo replied with an eager bark.
An untold number of dogs needed lots of loving care. The shelter had been given the perfect place that they could use to step in to help. And Megan trusted her to lead it. The whole thing felt a bit surreal.
But Megan was right. Her birthday wish on turning twenty-seven last week had been that she really wanted to shake things up. She just hadn’t decided how. Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined like this. “I’m in. You know I’m in. I don’t know a thing about rehabbing fighting dogs, but you know I’m in.”
Chapter 2
Kurt passed his first twenty-four hours in Fort Leonard Wood without placing the call he most needed to make. Finally, knowing he’d put off the inevitable reunion long enough, he borrowed Thomas’s cell phone and arranged to meet his grandfather.
It wasn’t so much that he dreaded reconnecting with the stalwart man who’d raised him. The problem was that seeing him would make it impossible to deny that his grandmother—Nana—was gone. Forever. His grandfather had been an upstanding, stern, and dedicated parent figure. Nana, on the other hand, had been comfort, love, and understanding.
Half an hour later, Kurt met his grandfather outside Tilly’s, the quiet pub that escaped the craziness frequenting some of the more popular bars and taverns around Fort Leonard Wood. His grandfather was stepping out of his ten-year-old emerald-green F-150 when Kurt pulled up.
William Crawford nodded his way, squinting in the bright afternoon sun. He hardly looked a year older than he had when Kurt enlisted, certainly not eight years older. They exchanged handshakes rather than hugs and headed inside, taking seats at the bar.
Kurt found himself blinking at the familiarity of the place as they settled into awkward conversation highlighted by more silence than words. He shifted on his stool and swigged from his longneck beer. It felt like a lifetime since he’d been at Tilly’s. Nothing here had changed, not even the glowing Miller Lite sign whose M flickered sporadically or the chipped pool table at the back of the bar. Kurt felt eons older than the twenty-year-old he’d been when he enlisted. But here time had stood still.
Beside him, his grandfather lifted his glass of bourbon to give it a swirl. Kurt couldn’t remember a night the man went without one. When he was little, he’d watched him pop open a Coke along with the Maker’s Mark, watched the careful way he mixed and stirred. For the last fifteen or so years, William Crawford had drunk it straight.
Kurt had never seen his grandfather drunk. One glass, sipped slowly, deliberately. Without variation.
He knew from the set of his jaw that his grandfather was still pissed. Kurt didn’t blame him. His grandmother had given Kurt everything, and he hadn’t made it to her funeral. Kurt tossed around the idea of telling his grandfather why, but he’d probably have more luck composing a sentence in broken French than he would telling his grandfather something with such heavy underlying emotion. The truth was, Kurt didn’t have a good reason, other than that he hadn’t been ready to accept her death. You slip. You fall. You hit your head. That wasn’t reason enough for a life to end. Especially not hers.
And besides, his grandfather wasn’t the type to let anyone talk him out of
