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Mack’s brows shoot up, probably because I don’t have female friends and I sure as shit don’t have female friends staying at my house, but I ignore him.
“Her,” I say again, “asshole ex decided to show up and assault her.”
“I did not!” George says, exactly like the asshole he is.
Mack barely glances at him, flashing his badge. “I’ll be with you in a minute, sir,” he says calmly, but I know just from my one statement and the outburst from George that he’s already lost whatever little amount of patience he would have had with the other man. Mack doesn’t tolerate violence toward anyone, but he sure as shit doesn’t tolerate it against women.
“Then he kicked her dog,” I say.
“That little shit bit me—”
“The dog is all of fifteen pounds and was determined to protect his owner,” I interject.
Mack’s jaw hardens.
I also know him well enough to understand this is the kiss of death for George.
Violence against animals is another trigger point for the local sheriff.
“That dogbitme!” George shouts, pushing to his feet, moving toward us aggressively.
“I wouldn’t,” I warn.
George puffs up his chest. “Fuck you!”
“Sit down,” Mack snaps.
“And fuck you too!” George yells at Mack.
This is the wrong move.
Thismakes me smile for the first time since I looked out in the back yard and saw what was happening.
Because approximately three seconds after George tells Mack to fuck off, Nova’s ex is face down on the hardwood floor, his hands cuffed behind him.
“You rang?”
My smile is wiped away when I see Jer on the threshold. The vet had a big bag in one hand, another tossed over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” I say, tilting my head toward the pile of blankets.
He starts toward Nova and Steve, glances back over his shoulder. “I get tickets too, right?”
I sigh.
“Yeah, Jer. On the glass.”
Twenty-Nine
Nova
“I don’t thinkthis is broken,” the kindly old vet says long minutes later, stethoscope draped around his shoulders. He’s given Steve an extremely gentle and thorough exam. “But I’ll splint it anyway, and you should make sure he takes it easy.”
Steve huffs out a sigh, slumping into the blankets, much more comfortable now that Jer—the kindly vet with the shock of white hair—had given him an injection for his pain.
“I don’t think that will be a problem,” I say softly, as the snores start to come.
Jer smiles. “Not for today, anyway. I’ll leave you some oral pain medicine and small supply of tranquilizers, just in case, but have Lake call me if anything seems off with him and I’ll come right back out.” He pulls out some supplies, starts expertly wrapping up Steve’s leg, and doing it in such a way that my little pupper doesn’t so much as miss a snore. “And then,” he says, “once we’re dug out a little bit, come into the clinic for an X-ray.”
