“God, I hope so. Dad was scary mad about me being here.”
“Your father? He knows where you are?”
“Yeah. We had to call him. The lawyer said so. But Dad said he’d send my brother after me, and I wasn’t going to escape again and all that bullshit.” She flicked me another look, like I might comment on her language.
I figured she was entitled. “For what it’s worth, Brooklyn will never let them take you away.”
“Brooklyn’s the smallest of my brothers. Well, least strong, anyway. Tall like a beanpole, but the others are fighters.”
“Well, I won’t let them either. Is your brother bigger than me?” I hoped I could make her feel safer.
She looked me over at the stoplight. “No, I don’t think so. About your size.”
“So Brooklyn and I together can take him, right?”
The crinkle of her nose said she was doubtful, which was fair enough because honestly, I’d never been a fighter even without a bad leg.
I added, “Chili and Sadie can trip him, Ebony will sit on him, Xandra will use him for a scratching post, and Twain will blind him with face-licking.”
That got a tiny giggle from her. “Okay.” Then she sighed. “At least he’s driving. That means we have a couple of days before Denver can possibly get here even if he drives straight through. I looked the distance up in the library back home.”
“Denver’s his name?”
“Next oldest brother after Brooklyn. Denver, Austin, and our sister’s Nevada, then me.”
“Wow, your parents really had a thing, huh?”
“All-American.” Her lips twisted.
I hurried to add, “Although Cheyenne’s a great name.”
“I don’t mind it. I wouldn’t want to be Nevada. Or be like her.” Her hands tightened on the steering wheel, her knuckles whitening. “I’m not going back. Just not.”
“I promise,” I said recklessly. “Brooklyn’s pretty new in town, but he has me, and I have friends, people I can call on.” I maybe hadn’t realized until this whole episode how many friends I had. “Worst comes to worst, we’ll sic James’s mama on him. She’s a force of nature.” I gestured. “There’s the clinic.”
We parked and Cheyenne got the carrier out of the back. I let her carry the dog inside, since I was still ungainly with the cane. We stopped at the front desk, and I told the receptionist, “We have a dog abandonment situation. We need to get her scanned for a chip, and figure out if she’s been missed by anyone.”
“Aw, Arthur. That’s too bad.” Christa had worked the front desk a lot of years and knew me well. “I’ll let Dr. Louisa know you’re here.” She called to the back.
A few minutes later, the head technician, Oscar, came to meet us. “Hey, let’s get you into an exam room. We can scan for a chip and weigh her in there, if she’s small enough to fit in that carrier.”
When we coaxed the dog out on the floor, Oscar eyed her. “I’d swear that’s Sadie.”
“Yes. That was her name. She was left at my friend Brooklyn’s doggie daycare and never picked up.”
“Let me verify.” Oscar waved a circular wand over Sadie’s shoulders, then went to a computer terminal in the corner and entered her chip number. “Yes, same Sadie. They just left her?”
“Unless they were in an accident and are in a coma. But the phone number came up as out of service.”
“Those creeps!” Oscar paused as the little dog jumped at the anger in his tone. He murmured, “No, not you baby. Here, have a treat. Have three treats.” He tossed her some tiny bites, and went on quietly, “Sadie belonged to Mrs. Robertson, an elderly client who passed away a few weeks ago. Her son and daughter-in-law called asking about putting Sadie to sleep, but we said we wouldn’t do it. She’s only seven, and basically healthy. She has some anxiety, and takes time to warm up to people, but she’s not aggressive, just afraid. Dr. Louisa sent them all kinds of behavior references and the shelter info.”
“I guess they decided abandoning her was cheaper than paying our shelter drop-off fee,” I grumbled. We waived the fee for folks who really couldn’t afford it and for strays, but for voluntary surrenders we did charge a modest amount. “Cheapskate creeps.”
“Well, she’ll be better with you than people like that.” Oscar tossed Sadie another small bite. “We can send you her medical record. Just pretend we didn’t until the fourteen days for surrender are up. Will you put her up for adoption?”
“No!” Cheyenne burst out before I could say anything. “I’m keeping her. I mean, Brooklyn and I will. She’s already been abandoned too often. It’s horrible when people treat you like garbage!”
Oscar and I exchanged glances over the vehemence in her tone, and I gave a tiny nod to say, yes, there’s trauma there and we’re aware of it. He nodded back, then said, “Clearly, she’s never going to have to worry about that again.”
