Page 63 of The Leaving Road

My mind was spinning barely thirty seconds into my drive.

Once you lose the love of your life,was stuck on a loop at the forefront of everything,

How was that fair? How could he have felt that way, but had been with Cassie?

That’s where my brain struggled. If it had beenanyoneelse, I could have understood and rationalized. But Cassie? The girl was horrible. The more I think about it, though, I saw how she hid her devious side, playing off her snide remarks as jokes. Hiding hersnidecomments in between laughter as if that made it better, giving a bat of her eyelashes as if that would give way to her innocence. She was a liar and a manipulator, and I think what pissed me off the most was that shealmosttook away everything someone else had worked for. It’s clear she knew how to get what she wanted; clear she knew how to hide her true self.

I half beat the steering wheel in frustration, my heart and my mind were at war. My heart was beating in sync with forgiveness while my mind was half begging me torunso I never got hurt again. If it hurt that much being barely an adult, how much would it hurt now?

I don’t think my heart can survive it

I hated that I was so conflicted, itirritatedme. This isn’t who I was. Once I made a decision, I stuck to it. I made potential life-saving decisions on the fly, potential life-saving decisions every day, but I couldn’t sort myself out enough to figure out my love life. I wanted to yell out my annoyance at my indecisiveness. When I was with Sloan, the past faded away and I found myself wanting to work toward a possible future, whatever that may be. But in the space and silence after our time together, I found my mind running amuck with red stop signs telling me to turn around and not put myself in the position to get hurt again.

But what if he doesn’t?my heart screamed at me.What if he doesn’t?

What if he chooses me and puts me first? What if he’s learned from his mistakes?

My phone ringing interrupted the internal war that was raging between heart and mind inside me and I huffed in irritation, not bothering to look at the caller ID before I answered, “Jace, I haven’t even been gone for fiveminutes…”

“Er, Magnolia? It’s Doc…” The hesitation let me know he could hear the anger in my voice, and I stumbled over my apology.

“Shoot…I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

He chuckled. “No worries. Say, I was just closing up for the night, but I think Peaches and the puppies are good enough to go home. I was wondering if you could get a hold of Sloan and see when he would want to come get them? Not that they can’t stay here, but…”

“But we are hurting for space,” I finished for him. He wasright; we had a lot of kennels and facilities still taking care of the other dogs we found. We were waiting for rescuers to reach back out or coordinate transport, and any extra room would help clear the way for any other emergencies we might have to deal with.

“I can swing by and pick them up here in a bit, Doc.”

I could surprise Sloan with Peaches and her puppies after his workday, and he could swing by and pick them up from the house after his shift.

“If you’re sure? Do you want me to wait around until you get here?”

I heard the exhaustion in his voice. It was evident that still caring for the rescue animals and keeping up with his already scheduled workload was wearing on him, and I could tell it was wearing on Ben as well. I thought about asking about Remi since I had yet to meet her in a work capacity, but I knew she was a single mom and had another job, so her schedule was part time and scattered.

“Please go home, Doc. I can handle this. Peaches is used to me, anyway.” I shrugged off his offer.

“If you’re sure…”

“Positive. I’ll call you tomorrow and we can go over me picking up a few extra shifts to give you guys some time to recoup.”

I heard a small sigh of relief over the phone. “Thank you, Magnolia. Don’t forget to set the alarm.”

“Talk tomorrow.” Hanging up the phone and shoving it into my back pocket, I changed the course of my direction to the clinic. I typed out a quick text to Lex, letting her know I added on a ten-minute excursion to my trip and not to alert the authorities.

She responded back almost immediately with a thumbs down and a voice clip of Jace cursing, saying that wasn’t what we had agreed upon and Sloan would bring him back from the dead just to kill him again if anything happened to me. I couldn’t help but smile and sent a middle finger emoji as I pulled into the clinic’s parking lot ten minutes later.

Jumping out, I slid my phone into my back pocket and made my way into the clinic. Disarming the alarm and heading toward the treatment area where I knew Peaches would be, my presence set off a chorus of barks and happy tail wags. Deciding I could spare a few minutes to do some checks even though Doc just left, I wanted to make sure everyone was set for the night to avoid anyone else having to come back in.

I spent the next ten minutes in a flurry, humming to myself and making quick work of checking on everyone, knowing my final destination would be Peaches and I’d be packing her up to come to the house. When I finally reached her and the pups spot, I couldn’t help but sigh in relief at how good she was looking—same with her pups; chubby little puppies made for healthy puppies. Her lacerations were healing, and while she might never have a full coat, she looked healthier than I could have hoped for. Her small whimpers of happiness reminded me that my job wasimportant,that it wasworthit, despite the horrors I sometimes saw.

Peaches’ happy whimpers turned to snarls, and she let out the most menacing growl I’ve ever heard, backing up to the corner of her enclosure and all but laying on top of the puppies. I cocked my head to the side, wondering what I did to cause her to react that way. I opened the latch of the enclosure to get closer to her to make sure there wasn’t an issue I wasn’t seeing when I felt it. Something cold and hard pressed into the small of my back.

“Move back and out.” A voice I didn’t recognize snarled at me, and in that instant, I knew a barrel of a gun was pressed into my back. “Put your hands up so I can see them.”

Unable to say anything, I hastily moved them up. My brain was finally coming back online and registering what adangeroussituation I had found myself in, and I was allalone.

“Move out of the way of the kennel,” he snarled at me again. “And turn around so I can see you.”

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