Even now, p.1
Even Now, page 1
Even Now
Osprey Cove Pets, Volume 1
Gina Ardito
Published by Gina Ardito, 2018.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
EVEN NOW
First edition. August 31, 2018.
Copyright © 2018 Gina Ardito.
ISBN: 978-1386212997
Written by Gina Ardito.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Sign up for Gina Ardito's Mailing List
Further Reading: Duping Cupid
Also By Gina Ardito
About the Author
For all those who work with shelter pets, adopt shelter pets, and love shelter pets.
Chapter 1
Fur-Ever Friends Animal Shelter
This Evening
“You think you can just walk in here with your money and your fancy red sports car and your fame, and fool me into believing you? That if you just tell me you’re sorry, I’ll forget all about how you deserted me and I’ll fall in love with you all over again? It won’t happen, Wy. Face it. You just want us to go back to the way things were so you can feel better about us before you fly out of here for another seven years. Or would it be for good this time?”
“Neither. I’m asking you to come with me. To be by my side for all time.”
An anguished wail rose up inside her, but she clamped her lips shut. What she wouldn’t have sacrificed to hear those words seven years ago. Now? Now, it was way too late. Leah waved a dismissive hand at him. “Forget it. I’ve got a life here, and it doesn’t include you anymore.”
“So, that’s it?” Wyatt demanded. “You’re not even gonna consider giving us another chance to make this work?”
“No.” Before he could see the hurt in her eyes, she dropped her gaze to the mountain of paperwork on her cluttered desk. “I guess that makes us even now, huh?”
Fur-Ever Friends Animal Shelter
Three Months Ago
Leah Stewart swallowed a huge gulp of disappointment while viewing the chaos around her. Two trees had fallen during last night’s storm: the two-hundred-year-old oak and the recently planted weeping cherry. The cherry was a monument tree, meant to mark the place where long-time resident Buddy the Bull Terrier’s ashes were buried. If not salvageable, the sapling was, at least, replaceable.
The fallen giant, on the other hand, now dissected her backyard, its massive trunk crushing the stockade fence at the rear of the property. The uppermost branches had missed the cat sanctuary by a few feet, but took out the power lines, a telephone pole, and the transformer box in one swoop.
“Well, that explains the power outage,” she muttered to Casey, who stood beside her, slack-jawed and eyes agog.
“Now, what do we do?” His whine raised the hackles on her nape. He was a sweet kid, seventeen and willing to work for minimum wage, but God, he was a young seventeen. Had she ever been so naïve, so helpless, so totally out of touch with the world when she was a teen? If so, she owed her father a major league apology.
“We go back to the office and use our cell phones to contact the power company, the phone company, and the rest of the staff. Make sure everyone’s okay and see who’s available to come in to help. It’s probably gonna be a while before we can get a utility employee out here to assess the damage, much less to repair it. We may need to relocate some of the animals ‘til then.”
The Nor’easter that had blown into town last night had cut a wide swath of destruction throughout their area. With all the damage residents sustained, Leah’s little out-of-the-way shelter wouldn’t be a priority for tree crews, utility workers, or the denizens of Town Hall. Stray animals didn’t rate high on the emergency action list; they didn’t vote.
Terrific. How much would it cost to fix all this? With angry dollar signs buzzing around her head, she plodded through the wasteland of mud, broken tree branches, and bits of debris to the rear door of the office, Casey on her heels.
Inside, she headed straight for the storage closet and rummaged around for the portable radio, hoping the batteries were still good.
“Where should I start?” Casey asked.
“The employees. I’ll get the ball rolling on the electricity and phone.” She clicked the power button on the old boom box and immediately got an earful of static. A flick of the dial landed her on a local radio station where an overenthusiastic deejay rattled off a list of towns experiencing power outages. Lots of them.
“Great,” she grumbled. “Looks like we’re gonna be out for a while.”
This was trouble. Big trouble. Already, the temperature in the building had dropped to the point she could see her breath on each inhale and exhale. She’d have to move the animals until she had heat and electricity in here again, especially the sick ones in the infirmary. She wondered if any of the other shelters in the area had fared better. Her list of phone calls to make kept growing, while her battery life would continue shrinking. Luckily, she had her backup quick charger. Still, even that would only last so long.
“And, in other, better, news,” the deejay intoned, “Wyatt Blackthorne has announced he’ll launch his ‘Homecoming’ tour right here on Long Island where his career started.”
She stiffened, gripping her cell with the strength of a vise. Wyatt? Coming back? Surely, not to Osprey Cove. Seven years ago, he couldn’t wait to leave this town—and everyone in it—behind. He hadn’t returned since.
The pain, long dormant, reawakened with vengeful fangs to eat out her heart.
You’re not that same dumb bunny anymore, she reminded herself. You’re smarter now. Smart enough to know there was more to life than the pursuit of fame and fortune. Unlike Wyatt.
Wyatt Blackthorne had disappeared from her life at the exact time she’d needed him most. To this day, she often wondered if he’d suspected she was in trouble, and that was what sent him running without a backward glance.
“Something wrong with your phone?”
Casey’s question shook her out of the past. “Huh?”
“Your phone. You’re staring at it like it’s dead or something.”
“No, it’s... umm... it’s fine. I’ve got a full charge and I’m ready to go. I was just trying to figure out which area shelters might be able to help us out.” Tossing memories of Wyatt the traitor into the dumpster in the back of her brain, she refocused on the problems at hand. Wyatt was old news. Old flame, old wound.
No, he wouldn’t dare come back to Osprey Cove. She wasn’t the only one he burned on his rocket ride to semi-stardom.
Thirty minutes and half that many phone calls later, Leah buried her face in her hands to keep Casey from witnessing her total breakdown. The rep from the power company she’d finally reached had promised her they could send a crew to remove the tree by next week. Oh, and another crew would gladly come to reinstall the transformer box and utility pole, too. But the rep couldn’t tell her when she could expect the second crew. Only after the first crew had removed the tree could she be placed on the waiting list for the second crew. Then she’d have to shell out for an electrician to connect her buildings to the new box and pole. The phone and cable companies couldn’t do their jobs to get her back in contact with the public until she had electricity again.
Meanwhile, area shelters lucky enough to still have electricity and all the other modern conveniences were crammed full of lost pets and the overflow from other, larger adoption centers.
The irony of this situation? Yesterday’s fundraiser, meant to help buy a generator for instances where the building might lose power, had been cancelled due to the extreme weather.
Leah glanced at the daily roster. Fourteen dogs, three of them recuperating from some medical treatment or temporarily quarantined until they’d received a clean bill of health. Eleven cats, five taking up residence with the recuperating dogs in the infirmary. In total, twenty-five prospective pets currently onsite with nowhere to go.
Well, technically, with one-where to go.
“Fire up the van,” she ordered Casey. “We’re gonna have to get all these pets to my house before it gets dark.”
“All of them?”
“Unless you think your mom will let you take home a dozen cats...?”
“Yeah, umm...no.”
“I didn’t think so. Well, they have to go somewhere. I’ve still got power there, at least, so I can keep them until everything’s back to semi-normal here. Did you reach all the employees? Everybody else is okay?”
“Uh-huh. It looks like the storm picked sides. Everyone north of Main Street is without power, anyone south had their lights flicker, but they never went out.”
Naturally. Because the shelter sat on the north side, her home on the south. Still, with her dad’s needs, better to have this half of town out than the other way round. It would take a while to move everyone, but she had the room, and more importantly right now, the modern comforts they all needed.
“Hey.”
At this new intrusion, Leah glanced up and into the concerned expression on Jenny Conway’s face. Jenny, the shelter’s assistant manager, wore pink sweats and, thank-you-to-the-caffeine-gods, carried a cardboard carryout tray that held three tall disposable coffee cups.
“I brought reinforcements,” she announced, hefting the tray. She settled the coffee on the desk and handed one to Leah before peeling off her jacket. “How bad is it?”
She sipped the coffee, reveling in its heat and hoping to gain some liquid courage before replying, “We’ve got a downed tree that took out the power lines in the back. I don’t know how long it’s going to take to get us up and running again. The other shelters around here are dealing with their own issues. Casey and I were about to start transporting everyone to my place.”
“Well, I can help a little in that respect. I’ve got all the comforts of home at my place so I can take some of the animals, too.”
“That’d be great. Thanks so much.”
“Don’t thank me yet. There’s a catch,” Jenny replied with a smirk. “I’m taking Duchess.”
Duchess was a hound mix, longtime shelter resident, and the staff’s favorite because of her sweet nature. She was shy around strangers and tended to hide in the corner of her area when visitors strolled through. Often, potential pet owners assumed, wrongly, that she must have been abused in the past and that explained her reticence to connect with humans. But Duchess’s true story was a common one. She’d been dropped at the town’s kill shelter when her elderly owner died and no one in the deceased’s family would take in Grandma’s old dog. Loyal Duchess, confused and frightened, had been abandoned by everyone familiar until Leah found her and brought her to Fur-Ever Friends.
Nowadays, the staff took turns working with the old lady dog to re-socialize her. They took her in their cars when they went on errands, played with her in the yard, walked her on the street, and showed her the love she’d been missing since her owner’s death.
“Fine,” Leah said with an exaggerated sigh. “You get Duchess.”
“Ha!” Jenny shimmied a mini-victory dance.
“But it’s gonna cost you all the cats in the infirmary.”
“I’m still getting the better deal.” She sobered. “Wait. How many are there?”
“Two dozen.”
The triumphant grin wobbled. “Two dozen? As in twenty-four?”
Leah had to hide her own triumphant grin. “Yup. Still think you drove a great bargain?”
Jenny sank into a chair, as if the number was too ponderous to bear while standing, then replied, “Yeah. Come to think of it. I do.”
“Good. Because there are only eleven cats, five in the infirmary.”
“Oh, thank God,” she uttered and dropped her head to her folded arms on the desktop. Leah found her first laugh of the day, and Jenny raised her narrowed-eye gaze. “I shoulda told the guy at the bagel shop to put decaf in your cup.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” To be on the safe side, Leah took another sip, this time testing the taste on her tongue for that familiar zing.
“No.” Jenny smirked. “I wouldn’t. I’m not as mean as you.”
“No one’s as mean as I am,” Leah remarked, raising her cup in a mock toast.
“True. That’s why we appease you with the sacred dark bean juice.”
“You got that right.”
The two friends shared a sip and a smile before Jenny sobered once again. “How’d everybody else fare? Have you heard from them?”
“I had Casey call the staff. Everyone’s okay. South of Main seems to be relatively unscathed, but the north side got hit hard.”
Casey chose that moment to slip in through the back door. “Oh, good. The coffee’s here. Which one’s mine?”
Jenny held up the last cup, and he took it gratefully. “Awesome.” After peeling back the piece of lid and taking a healthy swallow, he turned to Leah. “Van’s all fired up. Where do you want to start?”
“The infirmary. Jenny’s gonna take the cats. I’ll take the dogs.”
Hours later, exhausted, dirty, and with the last five dogs in hand, she pushed open the door to her temporary pet shelter: an updated, detached garage she’d renovated for emergencies just like this one. A cacophony of barks and yips erupted.
“Okay, guys, settle down. It’s been a busy day.” One by one, she wrangled the final five into their crates. The last one, Murphy, the diabetic pug, barked twice to signal it was time for his insulin shot then swiped his wet tongue over her cheek. Not because he loved getting his shots, but because he couldn’t resist the peanut butter treat he got after each one. “Gimme ten minutes, Murph. I got another patient that needs me more right now.”
After checking the locks were all secure, Leah left the garage and walked across the lawn to the back door.
Giselle sat at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of tea. “Everything okay? The troops all settled in?” Her heavy Jamaican accent gave the questions a musical quality.
“For the most part.” Closing the door by leaning against it, Leah let out an exhausted sigh. “I just need to give Murphy his insulin shot.”
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Giselle said, rising. “You take care of that cranky guy upstairs and I’ll take care of the pooch in the garage.”
Leah grimaced. “Bad day?”
“No more than usual. He’s been waiting for you, though.”
Of course he was. Dad hadn’t left the house since Mom’s funeral. Leah was his only link to the outside world. “Go on home,” she replied. “You’ve had enough excitement for one day.”
Her neighbor cocked her head and stared at Leah with eyes used to studying a patient’s demeanor. “You sure? You haven’t exactly spent the day sipping cocoa, either.”
“I’ll take care of Dad and Murphy. I appreciate you keeping an eye on my father for me.”
Giselle shrugged. “Wasn’t really necessary. He’s had an old friend here since about three, so I washed your dishes and vacuumed the living room while I waited for you.”
A flush burned her cheeks. “You didn’t have to do that. You could’ve just gone home.”
“You asked me to stay ‘til you got the animals taken care of. I stayed.”
“But you didn’t have to clean my house. That wasn’t part of the deal. Once his friend got here, you could’ve left. Who is it anyway? One of his VFW poker buddies?”
A grin wide and predatory as a shark’s stretched Giselle’s frosted mauve lips. “Oh, honey, I don’t think so. This man’s much too young. Young and tasty.”
“How young?” More importantly, how tasty? Her gaze flew to the ceiling as if she might see who loitered in her father’s bedroom upstairs. What stranger was in her house? Or was it a stranger at all? What if it was someone from the past, the same someone mentioned on the radio today? A shiver of unease ran through her. “It wouldn’t happen to be Wyatt, would it?”
“That it would, sweetcakes.” His too familiar voice, along with the hated nickname he’d pinned on her in tenth grade, slithered from behind her.
She whirled, and there he stood, at the bottom of the staircase cutting between the den and the kitchen. Well, crap. Years later, her luck still hadn’t changed. Wyatt Blackthorne had always had those steely good looks that made her heart trip its rhythm. Vivid blue eyes peered out at the world from under soot-colored curls. His tall and rangy body held a certain appeal Leah couldn’t describe, but she, along with hundreds of other women since his first album released, suffered under the effects of that subtle, sexy allure.
Seven years had elapsed, and Wyatt hadn’t changed—no new wrinkles, not a gray hair, no pot belly. If anything, he looked... yummier, that polish of stardom shining up all his natural attributes.
Too bad the same couldn’t be said for her. Oh, she had no wrinkles, gray hair or pot belly, either. But she certainly didn’t have that raw sensuality he wore so well. After the day she just endured, she looked and smelled like something the cat dragged in. Literally. Leah didn’t need a mirror to know her face was streaked with grime and sweat, her hair flew in a dozen different directions around her head, and she wore more dog hair than fabric.
