Page 39 of Where There's Smoke
Ugh, this was going to be a long few weeks.
Chapter 19
Melody
Ihad slept in. It was the last thing I’d intended to do, but I had left my phone in the den the night before when I had given Dotty her late feed and made my way to bed. Now that she was nearing five weeks, she didn’t need a bottle anywhere near as often, so I could sleep for four-plus hours at a time.
Grabbing my phone, I barely looked at the time, cursing when I realized she’d been due for a feed about twenty minutes ago. She was already starting to nibble on some mushy foods, so I knew she would be able to feed herself soon, and I wouldn’t have to get up constantly. The exhaustion would no longer be weighing on me so heavily. But just because she was nearing that stage didn’t mean I should gettoorelaxed.
Ah, to be a puppy mom.
Padding over to the other side of the room where Dotty’s little playpen was, I stilled when I noticed it was empty.
Where the hell was my dog?
My heartbeat was immediately through the roof, panic ringing in my head. Had I been so tired that I left her somewhere without even realizing? No way. I would remember if I’d put my puppy somewhere other than her playpen before I went to sleep.Plus, she was scampering around solo a bit now, so maybe she’d had a jailbreak?
Or one of the guys was playing with her?
Without bothering to change out of the T-shirt and shorts I’d been sleeping in, I strode out of the room toward the den. When I found the room empty, I cursed to myself and made my way toward the kitchen, where I could hear several voices.
Most of the guys were surrounding the table, tucking into what looked like a breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon.
“Hey, have you guys seen Dotty?” I asked.
Samson beamed at me, holding up the bundle in his arms. The little Dalmatian was bright-eyed and wagging her tail excitedly.
“Our girl is right here,” he said proudly.
I sighed in relief. “Oh, thank god. I thought I’d lost her for a moment.”
I’d been so worried about the puppy that I hadn’t even paused to think about what Fitz and I had done the day before. Did the other firefighters know about that? I mean, they had to, right? Samson had joked about beinghungrywhile we were making sandwiches, and I didn’t think I’d done a very good job of hiding the blush in my cheeks.
They seemed to be unaware of my internal freakout because Fitz just kept talking. “I could hear your alarm going in the den, so I decided to grab her and let you sleep for a bit longer.” He grinned, shrugging at the way I put my hand to my chest, thanks to the surprising gesture.
"Thank you, but I really need to feed her,” I said, stepping forward to take the puppy out of his arms.
Shaking his head, Samson held the puppy close with a shit-eating grin on his face. “She’s already been fed,” he declared proudly.
“Yeah, he did a really good job,” Fitz said. “We’ve been watching you do it for the last week or so, and we decided to give it a go. We followed all the instructions on that tin as well. She took the bottle like a champ. Didn’t you?” he said, beaming down at the little puppy and scratching her nose. Her tail went into overdrive at the attention.
I was tempted to call her a traitor. But evenIhad to admit scratches from Fitz were nice.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said weakly.
He leveled me with a glare. “We wanted to. You’re clearly exhausted.”
I gazed at him, my face probably giving away my utter bafflement. “You’refirefighters. You stay up all hours of the night, fighting dangerous fires. I just have to wake up to feed a puppy every few hours. You’re the ones who should be desperate for some sleep.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. You’ve got bags under your eyes. We wanted to help, and we helped. Dotty girl doesn’t seem to mind so much.”
Given the way she was nestling into Samson’s chest, she obviously didn’t mind one bit.
Traitor.
Despite my mild annoyance, the more prevalent emotion was gratitude. I didn’t trust anyone to look after any of my fosters. Most guys were flakes if I asked them to help, and even some of the volunteers I’d had at the rescue hadn’t worked out.
These guys hadn’t even asked if they could help. They had just stepped in and done it.
