Page 9 of Mountains Divide Us

The look on the doc’s face got a little more severe. “He won’t eat, and you don’t think he likes you.” Reaching behind her, she grabbed a bone-shaped dog treat from a blue ceramic jar on the counter. She held it out for him, and it disappeared. Just like that. “Well, he ate for me. Why don’t you think he likes you? Puppies usually like everyone.”

“He just sits there, lookin’ at me. If he sees a squirrel or somethin’, he likes that, and he runs around like a normal dog, but then when it’s just me and him, he stares at me. And when I put his food down, he takes a few pieces and puts ’em in a pile he’s been makin’ by the door, then he just sits down again.”

Now the doc looked like she might be losing her patience. “Frank, do you take him for walks? Do you play with him?”

I shrugged. I mean, I let the damn dog out to do his business, and he’d run circles around my yard. Wasn’t that exercise? And I took him to work with me occasionally. My partner liked to take him for walks sometimes.

“Oh c’mon, Frank. You have to play with him. Throw a ball for him or take him for a hike. Puppies love to expend energy. He has a lot of it. You need to help him get it out.” She looked me up and down. “You exercise every day, right? Take him with you.”

I’d never had a puppy before. Dogs, sure, had a few, but never a pup. Older dogs were lazy. And I couldn’t “take him with” me. I worked out at home, in my spare bedroom on a rowing machine and with a boxing bag. If I let him in the room, he’d probably break the rower and eat the bag. “Think he’d like to go to the library?”

“The library? Um, are animals allowed inside the library?”

Okay, so maybe that hadn’t been my brightest idea, but I didn’t want to have to take the damn dog all the way home and then drive back into town. Yesterday, he made me late for work ’cause I had to clean up remnants of the pillow he’d decided to steal off my couch and then rip to shreds in the night. He’d figured out how to escape his crate in my extra bedroom and had destroyed my living room. And he ate a loaf of bread off the kitchen counter. I hadn’t found any wet spots, but I wasn’t convinced he hadn’t pissed on my rug too.

“If you have Doc Whitley fill out a form, you can claim him as an emotional support animal, and then you could take him to the library, although he might knock over the bookshelves. Maybe wait till he grows into his body a little and calms down a lot.” To prove her point, the dog jumped at her. It looked like he was trying to dunk a basketball, he jumped so high.

Dr. Masterson laughed.

“I don’t need a therapy dog.”

“Okay, well, it was just a suggestion,” she said. “Look, he’s perfectly healthy. He’s had all his shots, so you need to stop bringin’ him here unless he gets worms or needs stitches, okay? Play with the damn dog, Frank. And for pete’s sake, give him a name!”

* * *

When we were in my truck, waiting for it to warm up and watching snow falling lightly outside, I looked down at the dog, sitting shotgun on the floor and staring up at me. “What’s your problem?”

He tilted his head.

I held half of my organic chicken wrap in the air above him, and he lunged, trying to get to it, but he couldn’t reach without climbing on the seat next to me, which he wouldn’t do ’cause he wasn’t sure about me yet. The feeling was mutual.

“You want this? Here.” I stuck it directly in front of his nose, and he scarfed it down. Took him about two seconds. “How am I s’posed to like you if you make me look like a liar to the vet?”

I’d had a dog who’d loved me, a rat terrier my ex-wife had named Boopers, but I lost him in the divorce. When my ex took him, there was no discussion. She just left, and the dog went with. I hadn’t missed her once in eleven years, but I missed that dog every damn day, despite his name.

So I decided to get me a new one. I’d been called out to serve a woman with foreclosure papers south of Barton, and as luck would have it, she had a litter of goldendoodles. Well, maybe luck was the wrong word. Those poor dogs. The old woman hoarded dogs, and she hadn’t paid her mortgage in two years. She knew she was up shit creek, so she gave the litter to me.

They were cute, and my quick internet search told me they weren’t quite hypoallergenic, but they were good for people with allergies and didn’t shed a whole lot, so I could take one to the station. The biggest one licked my hand and followed me around, so I took him home and dropped the rest at the no-kill shelter in Jackson. Thankfully, they were still young enough, and they’d all been adopted out quickly. The shelter’s receptionist had texted me with the news, along with a not-so-subtle hint that if I asked her out, she’d say yes. I didn’t respond. I wasn’t interested in a quick romp in the hay with a random woman who liked the look of my ass. Been there, done that. Married that.

Besides, I had my sights set somewhere else.

That was four weeks ago, and this creature was still a mystery to me. He was a goofy, curly-haired pain in my ass, and I wasn’t sure if his tongue could stay inside his mouth for longer than ten seconds, but he was nice enough, at least when he wasn’t ruining my property. But we hadn’t bonded yet.

“Never mind what the doc said,” I told him. “Wanna go to the library?”

He yipped and tried to jump again, tangling himself in his leash, and I figured that was probably a “yes.”

“Good,” I said, shoving my cruiser into gear. “There’s a woman there, and I go on my lunch break to see her on Tuesdays. I bet she’ll like you. She likes anything cute and cuddly. She reads these old romance books, and she’s always got a dreamy look in her eye.” When I peeked down at him, he was gazing up at me with his head cocked again. I thought he might be smiling. Could dogs smile? I wasn’t sure, but it looked like he was, and I took that as a good sign.

“She’s a little younger than me,” I said, wincing to myself as I admitted out loud, if only to a dog, the thing I was worried would stop Samantha Russo from agreeing to go on a date with me. But first I had to ask her. That was the preliminary hurdle. Today was the day.

Shelley’s voice came through on my shoulder radio. “Come in, Frank.”

“Yeah, I’m here. Relay.”

“Aubrey called to report a break-in over at the bookstore. Carey and Abey are both out, so you better get your butt on over there.”

“First,” I told him, “you’re gonna have to wait in the truck. I gotta take this call.” Pressing the speaker button, I waited for the static to clear. “10-4. En route.” Flashing my annoyance to the dog, I said, “Maybe you can use the alone time to think up a name for yourself.”

---