She seemed to think any animal with a limp was her problem to solve.
He wondered sometimes if that was why she took an interest in him—her whole family, really.
They were a constant presence in his life—he’d had dinner with the Clay family the other night. They always included him in their get-togethers.
But much like the pathetic dog at Lydia’s side, he was a shelter animal. Not a pedigreed anything.
“Looks like you have yourself another dog, tiger,” he said, moving to close the front door of his house.
“No,” she said, stopping him from shutting the door, her blue eyes stormy. “I can’t take him. I mean, I actually tried. But he and Pascal took an instant loathing to each other. Also, Maleficent can’t handle large dogs without a lot of preparation and coaching, not after the incident with those pit bulls at her previous owner’s house.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “So let me get this straight. This dog is here because he and a raccoon had a personality clash, and your Chihuahua mix has a Napoleon complex.”
“She has complex post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“She’s a Chihuahua,” he said. “Her brain is the size of a walnut. Nothing in there is complex.”
Lydia sniffed, her indignation clear in every fiber of her being. “I’m going to choose to ignore that, because I assume that you’re grieving, and therefore in a little bit of a dark space.”
“You would assume incorrectly. I drank a six-pack of Bud Light and shot off fireworks the night my dad died.”
“It isn’t Hank’s fault that your dad was a terrible father.”
“No, it’s not,” Remy said. “It’s also not my fault. Not my fault that he owned a dog that he didn’t take care of and didn’t have succession planning for. I’m just grateful that the dog isn’t me.”
As soon as he said that, the dog looked up at him. Made eye contact. And Remy felt . . . seen. Scolded.
That dog looked him dead in the face and asked without words:But you’re okay with it being me? That’s a fine thing.
“It’s a no-kill shelter that you work at, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “But old dogs like him are difficult to place. Can you at least . . . consider fostering him? He just got uprootedfrom his home, and I don’t know if he’s the best pet because I suspect he’s endured some years of neglect.”
Well, Remy was dead familiar with that. He hadn’t asked to be born any more than the dog had asked to be bought by his dad and brought into that house. It was so damned annoying. That he felt sorry for the dog. That he felt kinship with the dog.
“This is—”
“You have plenty of land. Your house is big.” She clasped her hands again and looked up at him, like a sad little orphan, and he was of the mind that if he said no, he was going to come across as a total monster.
He didn’talwaysmind that. Honestly. He didn’t have a reputation for being the friendliest man around town. Though his reserve stemmed from the fact that people often weren’t all that friendly to him—his dad’s reputation preceded him.
But the Clay family gave a shit about him. And as a result, he felt obliged to give more than a shit about them.
“I don’t know anything about taking care of a dog. I don’t have any supplies.”
“Lucky for you, I know everything about taking care of animals. And I’m going to be here to help you. Every step of the way.”
Chapter 2
Lydia Clay had an affinity for difficult animals. It was her great tragedy that one of the difficult animals she had the greatest affinity for was Remington Lane.
Talk about pointless crushes. She’d been nursing one for him for so many years that she had forgotten what it was like to live without the terrible, aching feeling in her chest. But of course, she was the target audience for his particular kind of lost and abandoned.
She could remember her parents staying up late at night talking about what to do with Remy.
They had known pretty quickly after Matthew had developed a friendship with him that not everything was okay in his home. Quite the opposite.
And they had done a lot of soul-searching on that subject.
