Chapter Four
Becky flipped through her camera bag before she got out of the car. Flash, check. Wide lens, check. Squeaky toy, check.
She put the bag of homemade peanut butter dog treats in her pocket. She had made the mistake of putting them in her camera bag exactly once. Fortunately, the only damage was to the bag itself, but still . . . Camera bags weren’t cheap, and she couldn’t bear to put a dog in a situation where he felt like misbehavior was the only option. Removing barriers to homemade peanut butter dog treats, for example. It wasn’t the dog’s fault there was an expensive camera bag in the way.
Just before she shut the door, she grabbed her sunglasses. She was still a bit foggy from her late night and early morning—she shivered a little just thinking about it. When she got home after sneaking out of Deke’s apartment like a cat-burgling maniac, she’d very much wanted to get under her covers and stay there. At least until she had to get up for work on Monday.
But she’d been coming to the New Hope Animal Sanctuary every Sunday afternoon for a little over a year now, ever since Dakota got the job as director. Part of her hated it; it broke her heart every time she left those little doggie faces behind, but she wasn’t allowed to have pets in her apartment. Still, the painful thought of quitting totally outweighed any sadness she felt. For one thing, the hurt Dakota would inflict on her for not showing up would probably be very real. But more importantly, she couldn’t imagine not doing whatever she could to help these pathetic little love bugs find homes.
She couldn’t adopt them, but she could photograph them.
And she had, every other weekend for a year now. She took well-lit, well-posed photos, and the shelter posted them on social media, and boom, the adoption rate had increased by 20 percent—which was a lot!—but it wasn’t enough. People continued to be dumb with animals, abandoning them or worse. New Hope continued stepping in to help.
“Heads-up!”
Becky ducked just as a Frisbee whizzed by her ear. That was a close call, she thought as she straightened up. But being a little off-balance only put her even more directly in the line of the charging pit bull.
“Ack!” she said, raising her camera up to protect the expensive gear as she went down, her back getting wet with mud, her front getting covered in slobbery kisses.
“Rizzo, off!” she heard Maddie call. Rizzo planted her paws on Becky’s chest and got down to business, searching for the source of the peanut butter smell.
“Are you kidding me? Rizzo!” She heard Maddie run toward them. Becky flipped off the lens cap and snapped a few quick shots. The angle wouldn’t be great, but adorableness in action was an effective marketing tool.
“Rizzo, off,” Maddie said to Rizzo’s face. Becky looked up and took a shot of Maddie. She’d probably hate it—didn’t all teenage girls hate pictures of themselves?—but Becky thought it would do her good to see how authoritative she looked when the dogs listened to her.
Rizzo whimpered and climbed off. Then the dog noticed the Frisbee lying in the grass and went nuts trying to pick it up.
“Sorry,” Maddie said, giving Becky a hand up. “Bad throw.”
“Well, you missed, kid.”
“In my defense, you did say ‘yes’ when I asked if you were ready to catch it.”
Becky didn’t recall hearing that Maddie was about to throw a plastic disc at her head. If she had, she definitely would have said no because her hands were full of camera.
In Maddie’s defense, Becky had been a little distracted. By Deke. The lumberjack of her dreams.
She shivered.
“You OK?” Maddie asked.
Yup, just having aftershocks from a night of getting thoroughly, royally, and athletically boinked. That was probably not an appropriate thing to say to a teenage volunteer. She knew Maddie was no innocent—and was she a volunteer when it was court-ordered?—but still. Becky felt like she should at least pretend to be a good role model.
“Just distracted,” Becky told her. That was true. Maddie didn’t need to know why.
“Are you getting sick or something? Your face looks kind of red.”
Becky knew her cheeks were flushing, on account of remembering all that thorough and athletic stuff—
“No, I mean—” Maddie made a circle around her mouth. “Like beard burn.”
Becky felt her cheeks get even hotter. She didn’t need to be talking to a sixteen-year-old about beard burn.
“I always put Vaseline on it.”
“Doesn’t that make you break out?” Becky said, mentally scanning her medicine cabinet. “Also, why are you making out with people old enough to give you beard burn?”
Maddie shrugged. “Some guys in my class developed early.”
“Maddie—”
Maddie held up her hands. “No, please. Don’t give me the safe-sex talk. I’ve heard it from my mom, two aunts, and last weekend my brother came home and, man, that was awkward.”
“You have a brother?”
“Yeah. He lived in New York, but he had to move back here for work.”
“Oh?”
Maddie rolled her eyes with impressive teenage disdain. “And, he says, to keep me out of trouble.”
Becky snorted. “Good luck.” But inside, she melted a little. That was sweet; a big brother coming home to take care of his kid sister. Plus, he saw the smile Maddie tried to hide. He must be a good big brother.
Unless he was a controlling alphahole, in which case he deserved all the hell Maddie’s sixteen-year-old attitude threw at him.
“Hey, I’m not the one so gaga over some bearded dude that I’m getting hit with Frisbees.”
“I’m not gaga.” Becky was decidedly not gaga. That was the whole point. One night only. She’d gotten her gaga out last night.
“So who was he? A hot date? Are you going to see him again?”
Because the answers were I don’t really know; not a date, a one-night stand; and no, Becky changed the subject. “Is Rizzo our first victim?”
“What, you don’t want to be a good female role model and show me what a healthy and appropriate relationship looks like?”
“What, you want Rizzo to spend another week in the shelter?”
“Gah! You’re getting way too good at guilt trips.”
Becky smiled triumphantly.
“You sound like my mother,” Maddie said.
Becky deflated, just a little, at Maddie’s tone. She’d never met Maddie’s mother, but she knew that wasn’t a compliment. Becky didn’t know much about Maddie’s home life, but she’d been working with her long enough to know it wasn’t good. She got dropped off and picked up by a big, shiny SUV and she had a phone that was way nicer than anything Becky would even dream of spending money on, but when a kid as young as Maddie was doing community service . . . well, something was up.
Becky knew what it was like growing up in a house where nobody understood you. She had coped by keeping her head down and barely meeting everybody’s low expectations of her. She would never in a million years have acted out the way Maddie did; that would have drawn too much attention to her, and the last thing Becky wanted was attention.
Still, she recognized teenage-girl drama when she saw it. Sisterhood of the hormonal and all that.
But she wasn’t here to be Maddie’s mentor. She wasn’t even her supervisor; Dakota had assured her of that when Maddie started. But, well, the more time she spent with her and her alleged bad attitude, the more she liked her. Especially because the kid hadn’t met a dog she didn’t love into blissful submission.
Maddie whistled and Rizzo came trotting over with the now-destroyed Frisbee.
“I’m going to check in,” Becky told her, giving Rizzo a quick scratch as she walked by. “You get Rizzo set up in the enclosure on the hill.” Although the whole place was fenced in, it was much easier to capture a good shot when the dogs had a slightly limited place to run. Besides, the spot on the hill had an old stone wall and some great tree trunks. Rizzo would get to show off her explorer side, making her appealing to potential hikers. And in Denver, there were quite a few.
Maddie nodded and jogged through the yard, Rizzo following happily behind her. The kid really did have a way with dogs.
She walked toward the shelter office, brushing the dirt off her jeans. She didn’t know why she bothered; she was going to get covered in mud and dog slobber again as soon as she started the shoot. But, well, she had a professional aesthetic to uphold.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the reflective glass of the door. Flyaway hair, chapped lips, and her flannel was buttoned wrong. Very professional.
Fixing her shirt, she went inside, expecting to see one of the other volunteers at the reception desk.
“Hello?” she called into the void.
“Be right there!”
Becky followed the voice to the puppy room, where Dakota was doing her second job, after acting as Becky’s pimp, as the executive director of New Hope. She and two of the burlier kennel workers were trying to maneuver a small dog carrier into a larger cage.
Dakota turned and nodded at Becky. “Give us a second. We’ve got a freak-out over here. Put it down, guys; she’s not coming out.”
There was a loud yip as the crate rested on the ground. “Maybe undo the top? Let her calm down a little before you take it off.”
The burlier of the burlies got down on the floor and started quietly unscrewing the bolts that were holding the top of the plastic crate to the bottom. While he worked, he spoke nonsense words in a surprisingly gentle voice.
“She was just dropped off,” Dakota explained quietly.
“Not abused?” Becky asked hopefully. She hated the abuse cases. She hated that they’d be at the shelter longer because they were so afraid of people. It made her get all ragey.
Dakota shook her head. Becky stood down.
“Her owner went into a nursing home.”
“Poor girl,” Becky said. No wonder she was freaking out.
“The Realtor found her hiding under a bed when she went to list the house. She’d been there all alone for three days.”
Becky’s hand went right up to her mouth to stifle whatever loud, sad noise she was about to make.
At first Becky didn’t think there was a dog inside when Mr. Burly lifted the top off the crate. Just some ratty old blanket. Then the blanket moved, and two tiny black eyes locked with hers. Becky saw sadness and fear and confusion in those watery little eyes, and she found herself blinking back tears.
Maybe she could keep this one. Maybe her landlord wouldn’t notice.
“Come on, little Starr,” Dakota said, putting her gloves back on and slowly approaching the open crate. Starr huddled in the corner, shivering, her matted fur shaking. Dakota bent down and reached for her. Becky held her breath.
Starr didn’t bite—that was a good sign—but she didn’t move either. Still, Dakota was able to scoop her up to put her into the open cage.
“Sweet girl,” Dakota murmured, and Becky watched how Starr melted right into her, her little doggy head resting on Dakota’s shoulder. “Jesus, I hate to put you in here, my love.” But without knowing anything about her, they couldn’t just let her run free. Becky knew that; she’d asked about it before.
But now she was getting choked up. Before she rendered herself entirely unable to take pictures, she scooted out of the room and waited for Dakota in the lobby.
She came out a few minutes later. “Well, that sucked. I’m glad to see you, though.”
“I can’t believe that poor little dog was in such bad shape.”
“I know. But little fluffy white dogs have no problem getting adopted, so hopefully we can clean her up and get her out of here soon. And no, you can’t take her home. I know your building’s rules.”
“I wasn’t going to—”
Dakota just shook her head and gave her a rueful smile. “You do enough. You don’t need to make yourself homeless, too. Anyway, you think you can do eight or ten today?”
“It’ll be tight.”
“It’ll require the stamina of a lumberjack.”
If Becky’s camera wasn’t so expensive, she would have thrown it at Dakota’s head. She cursed her morning oversharing, then cursed the lovemaking lumberjack who’d caused her to get a late start in the first place. Then she uncursed him, because, well, it just didn’t seem right.
“We can do it,” she assured Dakota once she was done shooting daggers at her. “Maddie’s out there with Rizzo, so can someone bring the next model in about twenty minutes?” That wasn’t much time, but Rizzo knew her a little, so it shouldn’t take as long as it usually did to get the dog comfortable with her camera.
Becky couldn’t stop thinking about Starr as she walked out to the enclosure, where Maddie and Rizzo were waiting. It would be a while before the little fluffball was ready to be adopted and Becky hoped she got the chance to photograph her next weekend.
Then Rizzo saw her, and in addition to being a Frisbee enthusiast, she also turned out to be a born model, posing and hamming it up so perfectly, Maddie had almost no corralling to do. It allowed Becky to put Starr to the back of her mind for now.
With the sad little mop dog and the sexy lumberjack, the back of her mind was getting awfully crowded.
* * *
“Hey, squirt. Rob any banks today?”
Madison rolled her eyes at Foster as she climbed into his SUV. It was an old joke between them. He realized now that it was probably time to retire it.
Not that Madison had robbed a bank. But she had been arrested for underage drinking when her friend got pulled over for driving recklessly. Just thinking about it made his palms sweat.
But Madison didn’t need to be reminded of how stupid the whole thing had been. And she’d seemed more subdued since then, as if she was, for once, thinking about the consequences of her actions.
Or maybe it was because every time she sneezed, their mother gave her a lecture.
Still, she seemed to like her community service. Did that defeat the purpose? he wondered. It was supposed to be a punishment. Maybe Maddie, for once, had gotten lucky. She got to learn a lesson and find some fulfillment that didn’t involve breaking a law. He wasn’t sure what it involved, but it wasn’t illegal.
“What do you do in there all day?” he asked her. “Just walk dogs?”
“No. I also pick up their shit.”
“Hey. Language.”
Madison stuck out her tongue.
They rode in silence for a moment. Foster wanted to say something meaningful, something that would get his sister’s head out of her ass and get her to quit being such a brat. Because if she didn’t, she’d be a felonious brat, and there was only so much a family of lawyers could do to help her then.
That wasn’t true. Their dad could probably get her out of any legal trouble she found herself in, wielding the powerful connections he’d cultivated from all those years of being a shitty father.
Yeah, he was a shitty father, and Foster got why Madison was acting out. But he’d never done the kind of crap she pulled. No, that wasn’t true. He’d gotten into plenty of trouble. He’d just never gotten caught. And, really, was it right to call it trouble if there were no consequences? Wasn’t the nature of trouble defined by not just the breaking of the rules but being caught in the act?
By that logic, if he had killed someone—a big if—would it be murder if he wasn’t caught? Sure, it would. But it wouldn’t be trouble. So he’d be a murderer, but he wouldn’t be in trouble.
“Quit arguing with yourself.”
“Hmm?” Had he said that aloud? Yikes, he didn’t need to give Madison any tips on causing mayhem without getting caught.
“You’ve got that lawyer face on. Like when you and Dad go at it at dinner.”
“I don’t have a lawyer face.”
“Yeah, you do. You and Dad both have it. It comes out when you guys start arguing over whether that bank guy in Aurora was really responsible for all those people losing their houses.”
“He willfully misled the homeowners—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I was there. Then Dad was like, it was all laid out in the contracts they signed, and you were like, but they were written in language designed to mislead and blah blah blah, who cares, people lost their houses!”
“I didn’t know you were paying attention.”
“I tried not to, but what was I gonna do, talk to Mom?”
“You could try it.”
“No, thanks. Besides, you guys were arguing over little tiny words, which I’m pretty sure the people who are now homeless don’t give a shit about.”
“Language.”
“I’m serious. Who cares about a word or two when people are losing their houses?”
“They lost their houses because of a clever lawyer who cared about that word or two.”
“Yeah, but the point is, you and Dad weren’t arguing whether the banker was wrong, but whether the words made a difference.”
“So?”
“So! You think those people in court cared about semantics?”
“I think they did, because semantics won them the case. Also, semantics? That’s a pretty big word for you.”
“I’m not an idiot. And I’m not arguing with you just so you can win.”
“That’s not why I’m arguing. I’m just pointing out—”
“Please, please, don’t lecture me! I’m saying this totally shady guy was doing something shitty and you’re arguing about words instead of the fact that, hey, maybe people shouldn’t be so shitty to each other. And yes, I know, language.”
Foster shouldn’t have egged her on like that. Madison was still a kid. Of course she wasn’t going to be able to set the ethical implications aside to enjoy the legal puzzle in the case. He remembered when he was that naïve. He would get so frustrated with his father, who’d spin an argument around his teenage head until Foster didn’t know which way was up, and then he’d always get in a parting shot, just to make sure Foster knew who was smarter.
He resisted the urge to get in the last word with Madison.
Although it was hard.
“Can you drop me off at Dylan’s?”
“No. Who’s Dylan?”
“What do you mean, no! You’re just picking me up because Mom didn’t want to drive all the way out here.”
“That’s not true. Who’s Dylan?”
“She’s a girl from school.”
“A girl named Dylan?”
“Yes. God, don’t be such an old fart.”
“I am not—” He stopped himself. Even he, who never met an argument he didn’t like, could see that there was no sense in trying to convince a sixteen-year-old that he wasn’t old. “I’m taking you out to dinner—that’s why I’m not taking you to Dylan’s.”
“Can we bring Dylan?”
“You’re not too embarrassed to have your friends see you with your old-fart brother?”
“Shut up.”
“Too bad, because we’re here.” He pulled into the lot of a new gourmet pizza place. He’d Yelped it and it had good reviews. None of them explicitly said it was a good place to have a forced heart-to-heart with your troubled teenage sister, but never mind that.
They got their table and placed their order. Madison fiddled with her silverware. He looked around the restaurant, as if it might contain clues about how to deal with teenage emotions.
“You should get a dog.”
Well, that was one way to start.
“Why should I get a dog?” He’d like to get one, but it had seemed cruel to have one in New York. Denver was a great place for a dog, though. Too bad he wasn’t sticking around.
Madison shrugged. “Dogs are great. And there are so many great dogs at the shelter. You could save a dog’s life.”
“If I got a dog, it wouldn’t be some random shelter dog.”
“Don’t be gross. Shelter dogs are great. It’s just people who are dumb.”
“Shelter people?”
“No, people who abandon their dogs. But seriously, there are so many great dogs there.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Today, Becky and I—”
“Becky?”
“Yeah, she’s the photographer.”
His heart started to beat a little faster. But surely there was more than one Becky in Denver.
“Don’t look so weird; she’s a positive influence. She’s old, like you.”
He threw his crumpled up straw wrapper at her.
“What does she look like?”
“Gross.”
“No, I mean I know someone named Becky. I wonder if it’s the same one.”
“What’s her last name?”
“Ah . . . I’m not sure.”
“Ew, no. I do not want to hear about this random Becky. My Becky is old and she wears combat boots.”
“Is she blonde?”
“You’re seriously pissing me off. No, she’s not blonde.”
“Ah.” He tried not to feel disappointed. Because, really, what were the chances?
“If you’re done being a creepy horndog . . . ?”
“I wasn’t—never mind. What about you and Becky?”
“She takes photos of the shelter dogs so they can get adopted more quickly and I help her out. And today we had a marathon. There’s this one dog who would be perfect for you . . .”
As Madison waxed on about the perfection of each of the dogs she worked with, Foster got a worried feeling in the pit of his stomach. She was attached to pretty much all of them. And he was going to adopt absolutely none of them.
Not because they were shelter dogs. Because he didn’t want to get a dog.
Not now anyway.
“Why don’t you adopt one?” he asked. Having a dog would teach her responsibility, probably. He’d bet he could convince his mother of that.
“Please, you think Mom’s gonna let me bring home some mutt?”
“I thought they were perfect.”
“They are perfect, but Mom’s a snob. You’re not.”
“I’m subletting. I don’t think Brock would appreciate me bringing a dog into his home without checking with him first.”
“So check. Brock loves dogs. And I’ll help clean up any messes the dog makes, I promise.”
That seemed likely.
But if he got a dog, he could hold Madison to that promise. And it would be a reason for them to spend more time together without her trying to ditch him for Dylan or whoever. So he could be a positive influence and teach her responsibility.
Of course he’d have to live with the dog. And what would he do with it when he left?
Still, he couldn’t outright say no to his kid sister.
“Let me think about it.”
She squealed and clapped her hands, and it was the first time he’d seen her genuinely happy since . . . well, since he didn’t know when.
He smiled back. Their pizza arrived. He could have the serious emotional conversation later. For now, he’d just have dinner with his happy little sister.