white stocking. He fingered the strap of a garter that ran up the front of her thigh.
“Mercy,” he said breathlessly. “Are you sure you want to go out?”
“Oh yes,” she said, grinning up at him. “I’m very much looking forward to watching you squirm as you wonder what the matching bra and panties look like.”
If the three-inch strappy shoes were a clue, he’d imagine they were completely boner-inducing.
“Just let me get the dogs inside.” Unable to take his eyes of Melanie, he yelled, “Lady, get in the house.”
When the dog didn’t listen—big surprise there—he looked out across the yard and spotted her with her paws on a tree, panting up at a squirrel or a bird or some other wild creature nestled in the branches above. “Get your ball, Lady,” he called. “Time to go inside.”
The black lab looked at him, wide pink tongue lolling out the side of her wide open mouth, pushed off the tree, and put her nose to the ground, hunting for ball trail, Gabe assumed.
“I think Beau has the right idea,” Melanie said, and she sat on the top step on the other side of him. The spoiled dog groaned when she patted his side. He pawed at her knee, seeking more attention, and she laughed, petting him vigorously between the ears, which Gabe knew he enjoyed. Gabe certainly enjoyed when Melanie had her hands on him. And that dress? As if the woman wasn’t distracting enough in shorts and a tank top, she had to go and put that on. Mercy.
Gabe returned to his seat on the other side of Beau, trying to remember he was a gentleman and that he could get through an evening without jumping Melanie’s bones in a fit of uncontrollable lust. Yeah, right.
Lady returned, dripping drool on the steps at his feet as she dropped the retrieved ball again. “One more,” Gabe said, “and then you need to go inside.”
He doubted she’d follow that instruction, but he was very much looking forward to taking Melanie out on the town and showing her off, so Lady’s fun would have to come to an end.
Gabe picked up the sopping-wet ball and heaved it across the yard. Lady sped after it joyfully, hitting it with her paws an inch off center. The ball popped forward and bounced out toward the road.
A billow of dust rose up in a long trail as a vehicle sped down the gravel road toward the house.
“Expecting someone?” Melanie asked.
“Nope.” He didn’t see many vehicles out this way, but it wasn’t entirely unusual for the locals to use this road.
Lady chased the ball closer and closer to the road.
The old rattling pickup sped closer and closer to the house.
The ball bounced out into the gravel. Lady bounded after it, oblivious to the approaching truck.
Gabe’s heart froze, and he jumped up, scarcely aware that he was racing down the steps and across the yard “Lady! Stop!”
She stopped just short of the road and glanced back at him, tongue lolling, as she gave him one of her speaking glances. This one seemed to say, What? Do you think I’m an idiot?
He released a breath of relief and drew to a halt, turning his attention to the truck. It was going far too fast on the gravel road. Fucking idiot. As the rusty vehicle flew past his mailbox at the end of the driveway, Gabe yelled, “Slow down!” even though there was no way the driver would hear him over the rumble of tires on gravel.
The passenger side wheels grazed the grass of Gabe’s front yard, sending the truck lurching in the opposite direction as the truck slid in the loose gravel. The driver overcorrected the skid and drifted back into the yard. Gabe didn’t have time to process what was happening. There was a thud, a pained yelp, and the crunch and spray of gravel as the vehicle came to a skidding halt.
“Oh my God,” he heard Melanie say behind him. “Lady!”
That’s when he saw the unmoving mass of black fur lying in the grass several feet from the truck. Gabe knew he was running toward Lady, but he couldn’t feel himself move. He couldn’t feel anything but an undeniable rage welling up inside him.
He dropped to his knees next to Lady. Blood covered her side and the grass beneath her. Her left foreleg was bent at an unnatural angle. She blurred out of focus as he laid a hand on her head. She wasn’t whining, wasn’t drawing air, wasn’t moving at all.
“Is she okay?” A voice came from the open window of the truck.
Beyond shock and the grief came anger. As it was the only emotion Gabe could handle at the moment, he went with it. He sprang from the ground and stalked toward the truck. He wrenched the passenger door open, reached across the ragged bench seat, grabbed the driver in both hands, and yanked him bodily from the vehicle. Fists clenched in his shirt, Gabe slammed the driver’s back into the side of the truck.
“Why in the fuck were you driving so fast?” Gabe yelled.
The kid cowered, and some rational shred of Gabe’s senses realized he was just a child. He couldn’t beat the ever-loving shit out of a minor, no matter how much he wanted to. “How old are you?” he asked, because if this kid was over eighteen, he was about to get the ass-whooping of his life.
“F-f-fifteen,” the kid said, the unmistakable smell of alcohol wafting from his mouth into Gabe’s face.
“You’ve been drinking,” Gabe said.
“No, I—”
Gabe cuffed him on the side of the head. “Don’t fucking lie to me. You hit my dog, you little shit.”
“Is she… is she dead?”
The kid tried to peer around Gabe to see the damage he’d done, but Gabe slammed him against the truck again.
“If you’ve been drinking, why the fuck are you driving?” Gabe yelled, memories of one horrible, drunken night in high school rising up to haunt him. “Bad enough that you killed a dog. What if it had been a little kid? Would you be able to live with yourself? What if you’d hit a fuckin’ tree? Is a little drunken fun worth your life?”
“I didn’t mean to hit her. I have to get home before my grandpa finds out I took his truck.”
“And his whiskey?”
The kid lowered his eyes.
“Gabe,” Melanie said, her voice gentle and easy behind him. “We need to get Lady to a vet.”
“A vet?”
“She’s breathing, but she’s losing a lot of blood. I think she’s going into shock.”
Gabe released the kid’s shirt and whirled around. Beau licked Lady’s face, trying to get a response out of her. Melanie was holding the gash on Lady’s side closed with her hands. With bloody hands. God dammit to hell, here he was hell bent on teaching a fifteen-year-old a lesson, and his dog was bleeding out. Still, he couldn’t very well let the kid get behind the wheel again, and he knew that’s just what the little shit would do the second they were out of sight.
Gabe leaned into the truck and removed the keys from the ignition.
“What are you doing?” the boy asked as Gabe hurled the keys into the weed-thick field across the road.
“Think about what you did while you’re looking for those,” he said. “And think about how much worse it could have been. And if after you find those keys, you still think it’s a good idea to get behind the wheel drunk, wait for me to return so I can beat some sense into you.”
God, he wished he’d taken Joey’s keys when he’d had the chance. But he didn’t have time to think about Joey at the moment. He needed to get Lady to the vet and try to save her or, if she wasn’t going to make it, at least keep her from suffering any more than she had to.
He rushed back to the house and called the emergency number for the vet. Dr. Nelson wasn’t in the office on Saturday evenings but after Gabe’s breathless explanation, she promised to meet them at the office and do what she could for Lady. Gabe tried to coax Beau into the house, but he refused to budge from Lady’s side, so he decided to allow the stubborn dog to ride with them. He wrapped Lady in his shirt, lifted her carefully from the ground, and carried her to his truck. Her eyes blinked open and she whined, her brown-eyed gaze pleading with Gabe as she looked up at him.
“
It’s all right, girl,” he said to her.
“She’s scared, Gabe,” Melanie said. “You hold her and I’ll drive. She’ll be calmer that way.”
He nodded, glad Melanie was here with him and holding it together. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if she hadn’t been there.
He maneuvered himself into the truck with Lady cradled on his lap. Beau sat at his feet, his massive blond head on Gabe’s knee as he whined at Lady and offered her an encouraging lick every so often. The drive seemed uncommonly long. He gave Melanie directions to the clinic, but was too choked up to talk. While sitting at a stoplight several blocks from their destination, she squeezed his shoulder, and he looked at her.
“She’ll be all right,” Melanie said. “Have faith.”
He offered a half nod, but the quivering of Lady’s flesh, her struggle to draw breath, and the chill in her skin didn’t instill much confidence in him. He crooned encouragement to her, probably more for his sake than hers, and ignored the burn at the back of his eyes.
Stupid stubborn dog, she shouldn’t have been playing by the road. He squeezed his eyes shut. Stupid fucking dog owner; he shouldn’t have let her get that close.
A vet’s assistant met them at the door and hurriedly led them to an examination room. The vet arrived moments later and began checking Lady. The dog was calm as Dr. Nelson’s skilled hands moved over her blood-matted fur.
At Dr. Nelson’s calm, succinct instructions, the assistant placed an oxygen mask over Lady’s snout and soon had an IV inserted into her foreleg—the one that wasn’t damaged. The doctor looked up at Gabe, who watched them work with a sick ache ripping at his stomach.
“I’ll try to save her,” Dr. Nelson said. “Her leg is broken and ribs are cracked. I’m not sure how much blood she’s lost. She also has internal swelling. I won’t know what I’m up against until I take a closer look.”
Gabe nodded, feeling numb.
“You should go sit in the waiting room. We’ll let you know how she is when we know more about her injuries.”
Gabe nodded again, but his feet were rooted to the floor.
A gentle, but firm hand grasped his forearm. He looked down to find Melanie looking up at him, her eyes swimming with tears. She had Beau’s collar gripped firmly in her other hand.
“Come on, sweetheart,” she said. “Let’s go sit down.”
Before I fall down, he thought dully.
He allowed Melanie to lead him out of the exam room and into a gloomy waiting room. Apparently no one had thought to turn on the lights. At Melanie’s insistence, he sank into a vinyl chair. Beau immediately jumped onto his lap and made himself as comfortable as an eighty-pound dog could get when crammed into a narrow chair already crowded by a pair of human thighs. Gabe stroked Beau’s ears.
“You’re worried about her too, aren’t you, boy?” he said to the dog.
Beau groaned and snorted, his big brown eyes fixed on the door.
“You okay?” Melanie asked. “Do you want something to drink?”
He nodded. Shook his head. Took Melanie’s hand and tugged her into the chair beside him. She sat and held his hand. Both his hands and hers were sticky with blood and her pretty dress was ruined, but she wasn’t being a girl about it at all. She was definitely a strong woman, the kind he needed at his side.
“I hate waiting,” she said.
“Thanks for driving,” he said. “And for realizing she was still alive. I thought… I thought she was dead.”
“I thought you were going to beat the shit out of that boy.”
“He needs someone to beat the shit out of him. Fifteen years old and already driving drunk. What’s he going to be like in his twenties? I should probably call the sheriff and send him after the kid to make sure he doesn’t get behind the wheel again. Hopefully, he’s still looking for those keys.”
Melanie chuckled softly. “I think that will keep him occupied for a couple hours. Do you want to use my phone?” She pulled it from her purse and handed it to Gabe, who struggled to hold the massive dog on his lap and dial for an emergency operator. Within minutes he was assured that someone would head toward his place and check things out. Yet he still didn’t feel he’d done enough. He’d done more than he had when he hadn’t stopped his friend Joey from driving drunk. One moment of adolescent courage just might have saved Joey’s life.
“Is something else bothering you?” Melanie asked. “You know it wasn’t your fault that Lady got hit.”
He did feel responsible for Lady, but that wasn’t all that was bothering him. Gabe’s sole regret in life was that he hadn’t taken Joey’s keys from him when he’d had the chance. He’d had let his friend get behind the wheel, drunk. Gabe glanced at Melanie, who offered him an encouraging smile. He didn’t like to talk about Joey. But Gabe wanted to share things, meaningful things, with Melanie. He trusted her. He liked her as his friend as well as his lover. And after the way she’d supported him this afternoon and continued to support him, he might even be in love with her. Maybe he’d feel better if he talked about the thing with Joey. People he’d grown up with knew the story, but he hadn’t shared it with anyone in recent years. It hurt too much.
“I’m torn up about Lady getting hurt,” he said. That was no lie. Just saying it made his chest constrict and his eyes burn with unshed tears. It was easier for him to choke down his feelings when he didn’t talk. “That kid, though,” he said, his voice breathless with emotion. “That stupid fucking kid reminded me of something that happened when I was in high school. Something that ended tragically. Something I might have prevented.”
She didn’t speak, but looked at him expectantly and squeezed his hand in reassurance.
“We were down by the lake, me and a bunch of the band-kids, having a good time—laughing and talking, listening to music. A few of the guys were drinking. I was… uh… trying to get this girl’s attention, but my braces and knobby knees had some strange repelling force on her. Like anti-gravity.”
“I’m sure you were adorable,” Melanie said with a grin.
“Yeah, right.” He snorted. “One of the other drummers in the band, Joey Turner, had about five beers too many and said he wanted to crash the popular kids’ party. The one none of us had been invited to. He tried to get me to go with him. He had no business driving, Mel. He was completely wasted. Otherwise he wouldn’t have even wanted to crash the popular kids’ party. But I was sure if this girl I liked had another wine cooler or two, she’d start to think of me as doable. I was trying so hard to be doable. So instead of taking Joey’s keys or driving him, I let him go. Let him get in that fucking car and drive. He hit a tree about two miles down the road.” Gabe watched Melanie, searching for her reaction. “He didn’t have to die, Mel.”
Her eyes glittered with tears that sparkled in the dim waiting room, and she sucked one side of her bottom lip into her mouth, worrying it between her teeth. After a moment, she released a sigh. “I never know what to say at times like these,” she said, a hitch to her voice. “In that situation, I’m sure I’d feel guilty too. Even though he made the decision to get behind the wheel, and it’s not really your fault, I’m sure it must feel like it is.” She took a breath. “I said the wrong thing, didn’t I?”
“No. You telling me it wasn’t my fault, saying I shouldn’t beat myself up about it, wouldn’t change the way I feel. I’m glad you understand why it’s unbearable for me.”
“I do understand. I think that’s why I try so hard to keep Nikki out of trouble. For her benefit, yes. But also for mine. So I don’t have to feel guilty if something bad happens to her. That’s horrible, isn’t it? Selfish and…” She glanced at the waiting room door. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about me at all right now. Not after all you’ve been through today.”
Her hand reached toward his jaw, but she snatched it back and stared at its red-streaked surface in horror. “I’m going to go use the restroom real quick. Will you be okay by yourself for a few minutes?”
H
e chuckled, touched by her unnecessary concern. “I’ll be fine. I’m tougher than I look.”
She eyed the tattoos on the side of his head speculatively. “I kind of doubt that.”
After she’d gone, he checked out the blood on his hands and clothes too. He went to wash up in the men’s room, leaving Beau to rest on the waiting room floor. The shirt he’d wrapped Lady in was completely ruined, so instead of putting it back on, he tossed it in the garbage. He washed his hands and belly in the small porcelain sink, but no amount of blotting his jeans with a wet paper towel lessened the stains.
When he returned to the waiting room, Melanie smiled at him. At least he thought she did. It was hard to see her face around the giant yellow dog on her lap. Gabe leaned over the beast to steal a kiss from his lady friend, and a big slobbery tongue wet the undersides of their chins in a series of enthusiastic licks. Melanie drew away, laughing.
“Save those kisses for Lady, big guy,” she said, giving Beau a scratch behind the ears. “She’s going to need them.”
Gabe wiped dog drool from his chin with the back of his wrist and took the empty seat beside Melanie.
“I can’t feel my legs,” she said.
“Beau,” Gabe said. “Get down.”
The dog groaned and then hopped to the floor and lay at Gabe’s feet, still as stone. He rested his head on his front paws and turned a watchful gaze to the door.
“Aw, he misses her, doesn’t he?” Melanie said. “Did you get both dogs at the same time?”
Gabe shook his head. “Beau is five years older than Lady; she’s only two. Still a pup, really. I had another lab before her. A