Page 109 of The Leaving Kind
“Thank you so much for delivering and spreading the gravel on the same day!” she enthused.
A meeting with Luisa late last week meant Cam and Jorge now owned all of Shepard’s landscaping materials, and all deliveries came with a quote to spread such materials at the client’s pleasure. It had been Luisa’s way of handing over her client list. They’d also bought her trucks. After December, the Shepard’s phone number would point in their direction too.
Cam and Jorge were officially in business.
Sweaty business.
August might have been wet, but early September was hot and humid. They were both drenched and gritty by the time the path was done.
They were on their way back to the farm to swap trucks when Cam’s phone rang. As he was driving, he handed it to Jorge. “Who is it?”
Jorge frowned at the screen. “The animal hospital.”
Oh, no.
Jorge took the call since Cam couldn’t make his hand reach for the phone. He couldn’t even bear to look at Honey when they got back to the farm. She was waiting inside, curled up on the couch in Luisa’s office. She hopped down when she saw him and trotted over with her endearingly awkward gait. Cam dropped to his knees and pulled her into a little hug, his eyes squeezed shut. “Hey, girl,” he whispered over her head.
Man, it hurt. For a moment, Cam wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand up again. To let go of the dog wriggling ever deeper into the loose circle of his arms. Above him, Jorge and Luisa were talking. He let their voices drift into meaningless word babble.
He thought to ask Jorge if he could take her to Milford. But one glimpse of Jorge’s bleak expression killed that notion dead. Still, when Jorge offered to come for the ride, Cam tucked away all pretense and nodded a simple yes.
He couldn’t meet Luisa’s gaze before he left. Could only keep his head down, his face pressed into Honey’s fur.
The sweat on his back was itching by the time they got to Milford, and the grit under his shirt chafed. Cam bore both with the stoicism of a martyr as he carried Honey into the reception area. When he spied no one in the arc of plastic chairs, his spirits rose. Maybe pictures had been exchanged and a decision that no, this wasn’t the right dog, had been reached. Then an office door opened and an elderly couple shuffled out.
Honey turned her little brown head, her ears flapping over Cam’s arms, and pushed off with her back legs.
“Whoa, girl.” Cam knelt to let her down before she broke another leg and then stood and rocked with silent body blows as Honey bounded into the old woman’s arms, yipping and licking in that way she did when she was happy. Her entire body seemed to wriggle, every leg independently, the casted one bouncing off the woman’s ribs. Then she was passed—still wriggling—into the old man’s arms.
The woman approached Cam, one hand extended. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
You could try not existing.
Cam swallowed over Mount Everest as he thought about simply turning around and leaving. Not saying a word. It’d be rude. But what did he care? He’d never see these people again.
Instead, he forced himself to take her hand, and then she was sobbing against his chest and somehow, he had his arms around her and was patting her back awkwardly, this stranger, this dog loser and retriever, this breaker of his heart.
Jorge received her attentions next. Cam met his eyes over the top of the little old lady’s head and they shared a WTF look.
After handing Honey to the vet for what would presumably be a final checkup, the old man approached, one hand out.
I swear, if he hugs me and sobs, I’m done.
Thankfully, he confined himself to a businesslike handshake. “Thank you, son.” Not your son. “We’d all but given up hope.”
Cam unstuck his throat. “How long?”
“Nearly six months.”
Damn. “Where?”
As though fluent in Cam-Speak, the old guy said, “We moved to New Paltz. New York.”
“That’s over an hour away.”
“That it is. Name’s Fred, by the way. And this is Ginny.”
Cam blinked at the man in front of him. “Like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.”