“I have some paperwork for you to fill out before you take her home,” Taylor said.
“You want me to take her right now?”
“I mean, you don’t have to, but I think it’s best. I could send her home with you now, and then stop by your house after I get off work to help you get her settled?”
“Okay, I guess.” One good thing to come out of this might be the chance to spend more time with Taylor. Maybe this dog would help us repair our friendship. After all, we’d only been lovers for one secret summer when we were sixteen, but we’d been best friends since we were seven, and maybe we could be again.
In her office, I filled out several forms while Taylor explained that she was able to fast-track me as a foster home since we already knew each other. Then she handed me pamphlets and other information to take home with me.
“You’re only responsible for buying her food, although I’ll send you home with a bag to get you started. We pay for all the veterinary care for her and her puppies,” Taylor told me.
“How do I know how to care for her? Or when she’s going into labor?”
“The paperwork I just gave you covers a lot of it,” she said. “But I’ll stop by and go over everything with you in more detail once I’m finished here. I have an approved adopter coming by in about a half an hour, and another appointment after that, but I’ll come by after, okay?”
“What about other supplies? A bed and all that stuff?” I asked.
Taylor stood from behind her desk. “I’ve got you covered. I put out a call to my volunteers on Friday when I realized I was going to have to look outside my usual network of foster homes for Violet, and they’ve brought in everything you’ll need.”
I went down the hall with her, and we soon had my car loaded with food, bowls, and a bed, with Taylor promising to bring more supplies with her later, because we had to save room on the backseat for Violet herself. As I looked at the items piled in my trunk, I felt a flash of panic. What the hell was I doing?
My panic had only grown by the time I led Violet out the shelter’s front door ten minutes later. This was probably going to be disastrous, for me, for Violet, for the puppies, and for the cabin I was supposed to be renovating.
I opened the back door of my SUV, gesturing for Violet to hop in, hoping she knew what to do because I was afraid to reach under her stomach and lift her since she was pregnant. She looked at the car and then at me, and her tail gave an actual wag. Then she hopped in and curled up on my backseat like she’d done it a million times before.
“Look at that,” Taylor said from behind me. “She knows you just sprung her from jail.”
“How?”
“They always know, and she won’t forget it.”
8
Taylor
It was almost six by the time I turned my SUV into the driveway behind Phoebe’s purple Nissan. I walked up the path to the front door and knocked, hoping she and Violet were off to a good start together. It certainly wasn’t an ideal situation, but it had been the best I could come up with on such short notice, and my gut instinct said Phoebe would rise to the occasion.
The door swung open, and Phoebe stood there, wearing the same jeans and yellow top she’d had on at the shelter earlier. Her hair was down now, loose curls spilling over her shoulders. I’d always had a weakness for her curls. I had to resist the urge to reach out and coil one of them around my finger the way I’d done that magical summer.
“Hi,” I said instead. “Everything going okay?”
She nodded, motioning me inside. “So far, she just follows me around the house and watches me. If I want her to lie in her bed, I have to sit down too.”
“That’s fine. She’ll start to settle down soon.” I followed Phoebe into the living room, which was currently stripped to the plywood beneath the carpet. Violet walked ahead of us and lay on the blue corduroy bed I had sent home for her.
“I’m worried,” Phoebe admitted, hands twisting in front of her. “I have no idea what I’m doing. I keep looking at her to make sure she hasn’t quietly given birth over there without me noticing.”
“The vet thinks she has about a week to go,” I told her. “But I’ll go over all the signs of labor to look for while I’m here. We also need to build her a whelping area. It would be a good idea for her to start sleeping there at night right away, so she gets comfortable in it.”
Phoebe’s eyes widened. “What’s a whelping area?”
“It’s where she’s going to give birth. What room do you plan to have her sleep in?”
“I don’t know. Mine, I guess?”
“The master bedroom?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I haven’t gone in there yet. The guest room is where I’ve always stayed when I’m here.”
