Puppy Love
Her Secret Menagerie Book 1
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living, dead, undead, masked, or unmasked, events, places, or names is coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced or transferred in any form or by any means without the written permission of the author. Upload and/or distribution of this book without permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law.
Text © 2020 Katelyn Beckett
Cover by Enchanted Ink Studio
Dedicated to all those striving to find their happy place in life. May you love where you land.
Chapter 1
Sadie
I sighed and tried to crank the car for the third time as the wind gusted against the cardboard-and-tape window. The weather had called for a blizzard last night not hurricane-like winds. Though October was a little early for snow, it wasn’t entirely out of the question. My poor car creaked to life and meandered through the front yard, reaching the frosty driveway.
Calls came early in the cooler months. Whether people were worried (rightfully so) about a dog out in the chill or if it were something as simple as a cat sneaking around, I was asked to rectify it. The county was too broke to build an animal shelter, so my home served instead.
That meant I had a collection of pets, all of them a little bit different from the others. The big perk? There was no one else for anyone to complain to when the dogs decided to have a howl-off at 3 am.
I pulled up to the Jenner's house with another, quieter sigh. I didn't want to get out of my warm car. I didn't want to set foot on their property; not after they'd threatened to run me off at the end of a shotgun the last time I'd been over. The law had backed me up and we'd taken care of their chickens against their will. The poor things had been malnourished and too weak to fly.
The Jenners hadn't been able to afford to feed them. I understood poverty all too well. I was always one injured dog or sick snake away from eating ramen three times a day; if I could manage that. It didn't matter. There was no one else to do my job. The animals needed me.
"Sadie Faye what're you doin’ out here in this miserable weather?" called a man with corded hands and knobby knees. He made his way over to me, a smile on his face. It hadn't been Mr. Jenner who'd run me off.
It'd been his wife.
I locked the car behind me, just in case, and fell into the accented cadence of my childhood. "Amber said you guys got a pup last night? Some little ratty thing, doesn't look like it's been fed real good?"
"Aw, he's a good boy. Growls at ya, lifts his lips and shows you the cutest puppy teeth you done ever did see. 'Course, he don't look quite right. We're thinkin’ he might be some kind of coyote or coydog. The Martins on down the road, they breed them coydogs you know."
The Martins on down the road did no such thing, but it was much easier to agree with him than to deny him the decades-old blood feud with his neighbors. "I'm sure they do, sir."
"You wanna come on in and warm up, getchu some coffee before you head on back down the road?"
I folded my hands behind my back and looked around the property. There was the abandoned chicken coop, the shed that held their old beagle, the ramshackle garage that always seemed to be just this side of still threatening to fall down. "Is your wife in?"
A cloud appeared on that man's face. "She done up and run off to her momma's house for the weekend, all tore up over the fact that I wouldn't let her just shoot this here pup. Didn't seem right to do after the kids had seen him and he was so small."
"It's illegal to shoot wild animals that don't pose a direct threat to you in Clareton County, Mr. Jenner. It's a good thing you stopped her. I'd hate to have to turn her in to the local cops, let them have them have their say on it."
My accent folded up under me as I spoke. It was something I just hadn't quite killed off in all the years I'd tried. Clareton County wasn't the most progressive or the most extravagant place in the state. The local schoolhouse was still a single class, for all I'd graduated at the head of it. No matter how hard I tried, I still sounded like some ignorant redneck once I got around the locals.
That wasn't to say they were ignorant rednecks. They were just country folks trying to squeak out an existence. Sure, it meant that trapping and fishing, growing weed and selling the occasional questionable prescription was sometimes the difference between paying your electric bill and not. But that was just fine so long as you kept it on the down-low or the low-down or whatever it was. Sometimes? Both.
"Well, I wouldn't wanna go messin’ around with your laws, Sadie. Come on in. We'll go see the pup in a few minutes. You look plum tuckered out and it's too damn early for you to feel like that."
I sighed. Again. God, it was going to be that kind of day, wasn't it? I gave in with all the good grace I could muster. "I appreciate it, Mr. Jenner. It'd be rude for me to reject you, seein' as how you're so polite."
He held the door open as I walked past him. The house smelled faintly of mildew, but it was in that manner that all old houses do. Doesn't matter how much you care for them or how little you put in; once a
