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“Trenton High.”
The school was less than a mile from the shelter. Emily nodded. “Are you a freshman?”
“Sophomore.”
“Okay. Do you have any experience with dogs?”
Taylor looked at her as if she were crazy. “I like them.”
“Have you ever owned or taken care of one?”
The girl shook her head and crossed her arms. “Why are you asking so many questions? I said I liked them.” As in, Isn’t that enough?
Not exactly the warm and friendly personality Emily wanted at the shelter. Although Taylor had been both with Susannah. As a teen, Emily had never been this sullen, certainly not when she wanted a job.
“I’ve had a lot of interest from high school kids this semester, and I may be full,” she said. Most of them had left any attitude behind and put on their best faces. “But if you’d like to fill out an application, I’ll look it over and get back to you.”
“You don’t want me.”
For one telling moment, Taylor’s shoulders slumped. Then the surly look reappeared and she raised her head.
Emily guessed that she’d been rejected by someone, somewhere. Having been there herself, when her father had walked out of her life, she sympathized. “I didn’t say that,” she replied with a smile. “School started in late August, and here we are a few weeks later. Most of the kids who want to work here applied last week.” She patted the stack of applications on the desk. “I’m in the process of selecting volunteers now.”
“We only moved here a few days before school started. I would’ve come in sooner, but I just found out about this place.”
While it seemed a plausible excuse, Emily wondered if Taylor’s attitude had cost her opportunities at other organizations. Wanting to help the girl, she opened a desk drawer and pulled out a blank application. “There’s still time to apply.” She handed the form over. “Why don’t you fill this out?”
“Whatever.” The girl stuffed the paper into her backpack. “Where are the other dogs?”
“They spent most of the afternoon out back. Now they’re in the kennel—that building over there.” Emily pointed at what had once been a large, detached garage. “Would you like to meet them?”
“Uh, yeah.” Taylor’s snarky tone indicated that this was obvious.
Shaking her head at the girl’s hostility, Emily leashed Susannah, then led Taylor down the concrete walkway. The afternoon sun had barely begun its descent toward the horizon, but already the air was noticeably cooler and felt like autumn. In central Montana, the weather was known to change quickly, and in a matter of hours, the temperature could vary by as much as twenty degrees.
Leaving Susannah tethered outside the kennel, Emily opened the door and gestured for Taylor to enter. Harvey, the architect Emily had met when he’d adopted a mixed-breed female from the shelter, and who she’d started dating soon after, had reconfigured the garage into a perfect space to house the dogs. Six large cages were spread across the clean cement floor, each equipped with a dog bed, and food and water bowls. A sink and tub for bathing the animals filled one corner, and a stainless steel exam table took up another, along with shelves and cabinets laden with towels and supplies. One large, airy window flooded the space with light, and good insulation and a heating and cooling system kept the temperature comfortable no matter what the weather.
“As you can see, we’re currently filled up,” Emily said.
Taylor looked puzzled. “But there are only six dogs here.”
“Unfortunately, right now, this is all I have room for. We also have two quarantine huts for when new dogs come in.”
Another of Harvey’s contributions to the shelter. Emily could actually think about him now without a twinge of the heartbreak she’d suffered when he’d left some fifteen months earlier.
Taylor angled her head and frowned. “Why do you quarantine new dogs?”
“Because they might carry infectious diseases, and we don’t want to expose the other animals.”
A brown-and-white spaniel-terrier mix whined, and Taylor headed forward.
“Wait,” Emily cautioned in a low voice. “He’s been abused and could bite you out of fear. To keep him from feeling threatened, lower your eyes and put your knuckles close to the bars so that he can smell you.”
Taylor looked taken aback, but complied. After much sniffing and studying her, the dog at last licked her hand through the bars.
“He likes me.” She looked pleased. “What’s his name?”
“We don’t usually name them,” Emily explained. “We let the families who adopt them do that.”
She checked her watch. The front office had been empty for some minutes now. “I need to get back to the office, in case the phone rings or someone else comes in.”
Taylor nodded, and they headed back. As they sauntered down the walkway, the girl’s cell phone trilled out bars from some rock song. “If you wanna stick around you gotta cut me some slack,” a male voice twanged.
She glanced at the screen and frowned before answering. “Hey, Seth,” she said in a bored voice. She listened a moment. “No, I ditched the bus. I’m at The Wagging Tail. The. Wagging. Tail,” she repeated, with exaggerated impatience. “It’s a dog shelter?” Another silence. “It’s for community service. I’m supposed to volunteer, remember? Can you pick me up here?” She listened again. “Yeah, I know I was supposed to call.” The irritated breath she blew was loud enough for the person on the other end to hear. “I forgot, okay? Bye.” She disconnected.
Talk about unfriendly. She’d been okay with the dogs, but Emily couldn’t picture her working at the shelter. Not when Emily had the pick of kids she assumed would be easier to work with. Still, it was only fair to look at her application—provided she turned one in.
“Seth will be here in a little while,” Taylor muttered.
“Is he your boyfriend?” If so, the poor boy was a glutton for punishment.
“Boyfriend? Eww.” The girl pantomimed sticking her finger down her throat. “Seth is an adult—he’s why we moved here.”
Ah, so he was Taylor’s father. Emily couldn’t believe she called him by his first name. This girl was a handful, and Emily felt for the parents. She imagined that if she’d ever called her dad by his first name, she’d have been in major trouble. That is, if he’d stuck around until she hit her teenage years. Since he’d taken off when she was nine, she could only guess.
“Where are you from?” she asked as they entered the front office.
“San Diego.”
“That’s a big city. Even at the height of tourist season, we only have about seventy thousand residents in Prosperity.” Most of the locals were either ranchers or made their living from the tourists, who flocked to the area in late spring and summer for hiking and fishing. And also to visit Prosperity Falls, which was famous for its beauty and a popular place for marriage proposals and weddings. “When the tourists leave, we drop down to sixty thousand,” she added. “Is Seth a rancher? Is that why you decided to move here?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” Taylor said. “I didn’t get a say in whether I moved or not. Otherwise, I would’ve stayed in San Diego. Seth isn’t a rancher, but he used to live here. His brother has a ranch on the other side of town.”
Interesting. “What’s his profession?”
“He’s a veterinarian.”
“Is he?” Emily didn’t hide her interest. “And his specialty?”
“Large animals.”
“You mean livestock?”
Taylor nodded.
“Does he ever treat dogs?”
“Sometimes. When he was at a ranch the other day, he treated a border collie with worms.” Taylor shrugged. “While I’m waiting for him, I may as well fill out the application.”
Emily handed her a pen. The girl sat down on the old couch that had belonged to Emily’s mother before she’d married Bill, around the time Emily had opened The Wagging Tail.
Taylor pulled earbuds and an iPod from a pocket in her backpack and listened to music while she worked on the application.
While Emily sat at the desk, her thoughts whirled. The girl’s father was a veterinarian. Maybe he’d be interested in volunteering at The Wagging Tail. Of course, if he did agree to help out, Emily would have to let Taylor do her community service here.
She wasn’t thrilled about that, but to bring in a new veterinarian, she could definitely put up with a little attitude.
* * *
SOME FIFTEEN MINUTES after Seth Pettit ended the irritating phone call with Taylor, he parked his pickup in the driveway of The Wagging Tail. She tried his patience in every way, but he was determined to bring her around.
The building, a small two-story structure that looked more like a home than an animal shelter, had a big fenced yard and a couple large dog runs.
Seth didn’t remember a shelter on this side of town. But then, he hadn’t been in Prosperity since just before his eighteenth birthday, some seventeen years ago, when the town had been smaller and less developed.
Back then, he’d been a kid with a huge chip on his shoulder and a penchant for getting into trouble. He’d resented Sly, his big brother, for trying to rein him in, and had all but ignored Dani, their baby sister. One semester short of graduating high school, he’d dropped out instead. Vowing to never return, he’d left Sly and Dani in his dust.
Funny how things changed. Karma was a bitch with sharp claws.
In the almost three weeks since Sly and Taylor had moved here, he’d seen Dani twice and Sly once. The first time the three of them had met after all these years, Seth had dragged Taylor along, Dani had come with her husband, and Sly had brought his wife and two kids. It had been an uncomfortable reunion. Especially with Sly. Dani had quickly forgiven him for staying out of touch all those years. But Sly? Not so much.
Seth’s fault, and he meant to fix the rift he’d caused. With barely enough money to tide him and Taylor over for a few months, he also needed to get his business up and running pretty quick. Otherwise they’d have to move out of the two-story house he rented. He wasn’t about to let that happen. Taylor had been through a lot and had moved enough, and Seth meant to put down roots right here. The house, a run-down three-bedroom, wasn’t exactly top of the line, but it had the potential. Come spring, the landlord planned to sell it. He’d offered Seth first option to purchase, and Seth wanted badly to take him up on it. For Taylor and him, but also to prove to Sly that his screw-up kid brother hadn’t turned out so bad, and could be responsible for someone else. He had about six months to save up the down payment.
Last but not least, he had to figure out how to get Taylor to stop hating him. Piece of cake—and the moon was made of sterling silver.
He headed up the cement walkway to the front door, past a black-and-white The Wagging Tail sign decorated with paw prints. The porch, nothing more than a concrete slab, held a welcome mat, and a hand-lettered sign tacked to the door invited him to come inside.
Seth wiped his feet and did just that.
Taylor was sitting on a sagging couch, with a pen in her hand and her head bent over some papers. Surely not homework. Getting her to do that was harder than pulling a decayed tooth from a bad-tempered bull’s mouth.
She looked up at him and frowned. “I’m not ready to go yet. I need to fill out this application.”
“Hello to you, too,” he said. “You’re too young to apply for a job.”
A look of pure resentment darkened her face. “I told you—it’s for community service.”
There was no point in reminding her that she’d already visited a food bank and a used-clothing collection center and had turned up her nose at both.
But then, she turned up her nose at everything. For some reason, apparently this place was different.
The woman sitting behind the front desk was studying him curiously. She was a real knockout—big eyes, an intriguing mouth and wavy, collar-length blond hair that was tucked behind her ears.
“Hi.” She smiled and stood, tall and long-limbed, and rounded the desk. A hot-pink, feminine blouse framed smallish breasts and hips, and faded jeans showcased long, slender legs. She could’ve been a model.
A three-legged whippet joined her, tail wagging.
“I’m Emily Miles, founder of The Wagging Tail. And this is Susannah.” The woman extended her arm.
“Seth Pettit.”
They shook hands. Except for a few cursory hugs from Dani, it had been a while since Seth had touched a woman, even in this casual way. Emily had delicate bones and soft, warm skin, and he held on a moment longer than necessary. Blushing, she extracted her hand.
He turned his attention to the dog, letting her sniff his knuckles in greeting. “Hey, there, Susannah.”
“Why don’t you come into my office and we’ll talk while Taylor completes her application,” Emily said. “It’s right down the hall.”
Wondering at that, he shrugged. “Okay. I’ll be back shortly,” he told Taylor.
She didn’t bother to look up from the application. “Whatever.” The word seemed to be her mantra.
He followed Emily down a hall, a short distance, but enough for him to check out her fine backside.
She led him to a windowed room just big enough for a desk, two kitchen-style chairs, a bookcase and filing cabinet and a doggy bed. Papers cluttered the desk, along with the usual computer, printer and phone, and a framed photo of an older woman with the same flirty mouth, smiling up at a man with a thick beard and silvery hair, who looked vaguely familiar. Although Seth had no idea why. Emily’s parents, he guessed. A clock and a dog calendar adorned one wall, and dark red curtains framed the window. That was about it.
She gestured at the chairs, which were both across from the desk. “Please, sit down.”
They took seats, Emily nudging a pile of folders to one side, to make room for a lined yellow pad.
“Taylor tells me that you’re a veterinarian and that you’re new in town,” she said.
“That’s right. I’m looking to build my business. If you know of a rancher looking for a vet who makes house calls, I’m your man.”
“If you make house calls, then in no time, you’ll have more business than you can handle,” she said. “How long have you been practicing?”
“Four years now.”
Twin lines marred the smooth space between her eyebrows as she moved the pad to her lap and jotted something down. Seth couldn’t see what.
“And you specialize in large animals?” she asked.
“Mostly cattle and horses.”
“Taylor mentioned dogs.”
“Now and then, but I don’t have a clinic or an office.” At the moment, he couldn’t afford either. But someday...
More scribbling.
“What happens if you need a clinic?” she asked.
“I have an agreement with Prosperity Animal Hospital, on the north side of town.”
“I know that place.” She jotted that down, too.
Weird. It almost felt as if she was interviewing him.
“How does your wife like Prosperity?”
