“Thanks . . . thanks for bringing him to me, Lydia.”
And with that, he turned and walked out of the house. When he got outside, he felt as if he had dodged a bullet, and he couldn’t quite say why.
Chapter 4
Lydia couldn’t sleep. She was sitting in the center of her bed, picking at a fingernail. She was on edge after that encounter with Remy. After he had thanked her. Thanked her for bringing the dog, thanked her for involving him.
He had gone from resentful to thankful a lot quicker than she ever could have imagined. And then, there had been that moment in the utility room.
HEAR THAT YOU HAVE VOLES.
The text from her brother was overdramatic on arrival.
Voles that I rescued. I don’t have an infestation.
It’s weird.
I’m weird.
That was true. No one could ever dispute it, and no one ever had. Lydia Clay was a weirdo. Maybe that was why she had always felt an affinity with Remy. Not that he would ever identify as a weirdo. Hell, he was one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen, and that wasn’t just a personal opinion or her own bias. He was over six feet tall, broad and muscular. His angular jaw was just the kind of sharp that caught a woman’s eye, his eyes a piercing blue, his nose straight, his mouth beguiling.
Yes. She had used the wordbeguiling. It was just that. There was no other word for it.
She would give quite a few things to be less weird, and less obsessed with him. Sometimes she wondered if she had imprinted on him like a baby deer. Maybe that was her problem.
Oh well. She wasn’t going to dwell on her obsession. Because there was no point in dwelling. There was no point in anything but helping him with Hank.
She didn’t think about Remy all the time.
Just when she had to deal with him. And that was . . . often. He came to every family function, after all. She sighed and lay on her back on the bed, arms out like a starfish. And when she woke up the next morning, she put her animal shelter T-shirt on, a pair of jeans and sneakers, and went to work. Work started first at home. Feeding the animals, checking in on Chicken Little, her one-footed banty hen, and giving kibble to all the pets that needed kibble, including Terrence the blind ferret.
Some of them required special medications as well. Then she went to the shelter for the day. An elderly couple came to look at small dogs, and they left with a geriatric Chiweenie.
It always made Lydia’s heart feel full to bursting when an animal found its people. And what she loved about the shelter was that it facilitated people finding exactly the right dogs for them. So many of the dogs that came into the shelter were older, dogs who had lost their owners because they had passed away or they had had to go into assisted living.
In most cases, those dogs had been very well taken care of. Hank’s situation was unusual.
With Hank on her mind, she called the equine rescue and asked for an update about the three surviving horses she had brought in.
“I know someone who’s willing to take them and care for them. Give them a permanent home.”
“They should be ready in another week,” said Shelley, her contact at the rescue.
“Great. I’ll give him that timeframe.”
She didn’t mention that Remy was Hunter’s son. She didn’t think he needed anyone wondering about his character. Shethought so often about small-town gossip and how damaging it could be to have parents with difficult reputations, because she had seen it affect Remy. In spite of the fact that he had never been anything but good, disciplined, successful.
The opposite of his parents in all ways.
He had done well for himself, and still, he seemed to exist on the fringes everywhere but in the Clay household.
She wrinkled her nose, and went through some new intake paperwork, scheduling vaccinations and neutering appointments with the three veterinarians who volunteered to work on the shelter animals.
Then she texted Remy to let him know that she was on her way, and tried to tamp down the little flutter in her stomach.
He didn’t text back, but she drove straight to his place all the same. When she arrived, his truck wasn’t in the driveway, and she felt a kick of irritation.
She walked up the front steps to the house and peered in the window. If the dog had been left there alone, she was going to be annoyed at Remy.
