“What?” My hand touches my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
Ethan smirks. “Just messing with you.”
“For real? Or do I have some ugly nervous habit I don’t know about?”
He shrugs. “Sometimes you reach up and rub your eye when you’re worried about stuff.”
My lips flatten. A sudden urge to rub my eye makes me even more annoyed. Outside, the storm rages on. Maybe I should be a little concerned about it still being muddy by Friday, but the ground should soak it up well as long as the storm ends soon.
“So you’re good with it?” Ethan asks.
“Yeah,” I say with a shrug. I do not rub my eye. “That sounds great. When are they coming out?”
“We need to schedule something. I said you were very busy with the gala planning, but they’d love to come film you working with Rex’s new handler. So they can do a feel-good adoption story.”
“Rex doesn’t have a new handler,” I say. “What about Rain?”
Ethan shakes his head. “Our own brother adopted Rain. That doesn’t count. I thought Rex had some people coming to meet him?”
I sigh. “My buddy Mike didn’t work out. Then I had another couple come meet him but he got aggressive with the woman when she tried to pet him.”
“Damn.”
He doesn’t have to say anything else. We both know the situation. I took on Rex because I was confident I could find him his forever home, and then replicate that for every retired working dog I could find. I’ve been so confident from day one, and yet here I am with my very first rescue case not finding his forever home in three months of searching.
“I’ll figure it out,” I say. “I’ve been so busy with dog training clients and prepping for the gala that I just haven’t had enough time to work on getting Rex adopted. Give me another week or two.”
“Sure thing.” Ethan stands.
Ranger lifts his head, notices it’s just Ethan, and then lays back down. I know the bond a handler has with their K9. It’s as close as a human can get with an animal, and I can’t even imagine how hard it would be to retire your dog and not be able to keep him. Rex deserves his perfect retirement home. I take good care of him here on the farm, and I will take care of any dog who comes my way, but it’s not the same. Rex deserves to be snoozing in a bedroom of someone he loves and trusts, just like Ranger does in my room every night.
I glance at my phone again. Funny how I didn’t know Charlotte a month ago and now she’s the only person I wish I could talk to. When I’m with her, she makes me feel like everything will work out perfectly. Mostly because she’s a total badass who finds a way to make everything work out perfectly.
What am I going to do when the gala is over and I never see her again?
chapter seventeen
Charlotte
As the storm rages on, I light some candles and wish the power would come back on so I could focus on my TV show again. I need a good distraction from all thoughts of Caleb, and I can’t stop looking over at my worthless phone with its zero signal. Cell service totally sucks out here so far from big cities. The air is cooler, and I throw on a sweater, then do some random cleaning up around my apartment. Finally, my phone gets an alert.
I drop the broom and dive across the small living room to my phone. The signal only came back for a second, long enough for a voicemail to appear.
I click it, and hear my mom’s voice.
“Honey, I cut my hand really bad. I think I need stitches!” I jump off the couch and throw on shoes, grabbing my purse and keys as fast as I can while the message continues to play. “I can’t drive myself to the urgent care with all this blood. Can you come over and take me? I hope this goes through! I’ve been calling for ten minutes!”
My jeans and shoes are soaked the moment I get in my car. The whole parking lot has two inches of water buildup from allthis rain. With the windshield wipers going as fast as possible, I turn up the heater to stop my cold, wet body from shivering. I drive as fast as I can, which isn’t very fast at all in this storm, across town to the next town over where my mom lives. I call and call, but the phone goes to voicemail every time.
I hope she’s exaggerating and there’s nothing wrong with her hand. Just a tiny cut that only needs a Band-Aid. What if it’s worse? What if she bleeds out? No. I shake my head and try not to stress even more. She’d know to call 9-1-1 if it were that bad. Right?
The trek across town takes thirty minutes on a good day and now it’s been fifty-two. Finally, a tiny bar of signal returns and I call her.
“Are you almost here?” she answers instead of hello.
“Yes,” I say into my car’s Bluetooth. “Mom, what happened? Are you okay?”
“I was cutting an avocado and that stupid storm made so much noise it scared the crap out of me! The knife went right through my hand!”
