Hissing, I carried him back to Carrie Ann. "You aren't goin' out there to antagonize Lady, Nic. You stay right there and be a good boy."
The dog wagged his tail at me and flopped down on Carrie Ann's bed. I took a moment to clean up Lady's mess and replace her pee pad with a fresh one. Few people believed it just wasn't all that hard to take care of my menagerie, but when you stayed on top of things? It was no big deal.
Speaking of which, I reached for the hard floor mop and did a quick once-over of the kitchen. After that, it was the work of minutes to vacuum the carpeted living room. Everyone's water bowls were topped off, as was the communal water fountain. It was time for brunch.
And there was absolutely nothing in my fridge that looked good.
From greens to fish, I frowned at all of it. I shoved past the mashed potatoes, reached around the brussels sprouts who had seen better days, and briefly considered the cooked, tube-shaped chicken dog food I kept on hand for Lady's bad days. The stuff looked and smelled like salami and I was tempted but even I hadn't sunk that far. I hoped.
I pulled open the freezer and my eyes locked on the first thing I saw. There was a massive old steak with a thick bone running down the center of it. The t-bone had been a gift from a neighbor when they'd butchered one of their cattle last year. Though there was a little potential freezer burn on it, I drooled at the thought of a steak. Just the red flesh melting between my teeth was almost too much, but the idea of gnawing on that bone, breaking it between my molars?
God, it was better than sex.
I tried to shove that word out of my mind. Between neighbors asking if I was interested in their sons (I wasn't), and strong men who turned up to donate things like old dog kennels flirting with me, I had plenty if I ever wanted it. The simple fact of the matter was that none of them shared my passion. They looked at animals like they were lower than the dirt beneath our feet. None of them would have tolerated Lady's problems or the cockatoo that shrieked curse words. That cockatoo had found a wonderful home, but I still had memories of him screaming at me at the top of his lungs.
Almost no one wanted to deal with that. And that's why he'd come to me.
Besides, men weren't as loyal as the animals I helped. I'd had my heart broken so many times, it just wasn't worth the effort.
"Easy, Sadie," I told myself. The steak slid out of the freezer with just a little tug. Delicious.
I popped on one of the dials and clicked the gas on. It sparked and the flame quivered in the morning light. It didn't matter that the steak was frozen. I liked my meat blue, when it was safe to eat it that way. The butter knob skittered across the cast iron pan and I put the steak down without bothering to season it.
The meat popped and crackled like wet wood. Okay, maybe it did matter if the damn thing was unfrozen or not, but it just meant a stiffer crust. Right?
"Sure," I said. "Yeah. That's how that works. I'm positive."
I had no idea how it worked.
"Yes, you do." I stirred the butter and the accumulating drippings, basting the steak again and again. Then I turned up the heat. A hotter pan meant good things, didn't it?
Why was it so hard to concentrate? Why was I questioning myself so much? I made great steaks, but the science felt just out of my reach. It was like I was losing my mind.
I sighed. "Time to do it the old-fashioned way."
The meat thermometer was hidden in the endless reaches of my kitchen utensil drawer. I pulled it out and stuck it in the middle of the steak. Then? I waited.
And waited.
I absently rubbed my shoulder, the pain not so deep as it was before. The slight discomfort distracted me from staring at my steak and pulled my mind around to the pup downstairs. I'd moved the electrical, the plumbing; anything high enough that Carrie Ann and Matilda couldn't reach it. Yet, they'd never managed to land a bite on my shoulder, either. ...And maybe the pup was hungry.
After all, a few treats weren't much on an empty, young stomach and it wasn't as if I could finish the entire steak myself. I checked the thermometer and, satisfied that any pathogens were probably long dead, pulled it out and gave the steak a quick flip. I let the other side sear for a moment or two, then flopped the whole thing onto a plate, grabbed a fork and knife, and headed down to see the pup.
He wiggled at me from the bottom step, still too frightened to try the stairs. I didn't blame him; I wasn't much of a fan of them either. The dogs of the household would get the drippings from the pan and the pup would get a proper meal of puppy kibble that evening; but it seemed sensible to try to make friends with him.
I sat down on the floor after heading down the stairs. The pup jumped for the plate, but I gently pushed him back. "Ah, ah. We don't do that."
Amazingly, he sat down beside me at the mere utterance of "ah ah". Someone had bothered to train him a bit, at least. I
