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In the Dog House
by Traci Hall

Copyright © 2019 by Traci Hall. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Chapter One

“Stay,” Emma Mercer commanded, following the word with a hand signal—her palm up as she faced her emotional support dogs, four varied breeds she’d rescued from the shelter and trained for another lease on life.

Ready to wrap up her presentation, she stood on the auditorium stage at Kingston Middle School in front of seventy restless sixth graders who just wanted to pet the pups.

The dogs on the far end of the wooden stage sat on their haunches, noses and ears up. Lulu, a beagle mix with long ears; a Maltese named Princess; and a mutt of indiscernible breed she’d dubbed Sheldon—but not her latest trainee. The three-year-old golden Lab, all sixty-five pounds of rambunctious love, was mesmerized by the kids in the audience.

Emma gave a warning snap of her clicker to keep the dog in place, but Zelda eyed a little girl in the front row and wagged her tail, adding a hopeful woof.

The girl waved.

Zelda barked and scooted on her butt toward the edge of the stage, inch by inch, as if Emma might not notice. Ditching the clicker, Emma brought out the whistle and gave two trill bursts. The Lab stopped as if playing freeze tag and sent Emma a guilty and apologetic whine. She slowly crawled toward Emma despite the whistled command to stay.

The kids laughed, and Emma’s cheeks heated.

Part of the ESD canine certification was that the dog had to follow the rules no matter what else was going on. My mistake—the pup wasn’t ready. Emma tugged the dog’s leash closer to her leg. “Sit, Zelda.”

With a groan and a tongue loll, Zelda did, collapsing against Emma’s calf. The kids laughed harder. “Good girl,” she said softly.

Twenty-eight and never married, Emma had a master’s degree in psychology, with her emphasis on therapy animals, as she worked toward her doctorate. Emma had been called to the school three years ago because Mrs. Mosher, the health teacher, had a student with special needs that required a therapy dog. Educating people about support dogs was the project of Emma’s heart, and starting with kids she considered a fun bonus.

“Is Zelda in trouble?” a young boy with braces shouted from the second row.

“No.” Emma smiled at the students, holding Zelda’s leash with one hand and keeping her palm up toward the three dogs still waiting to be released from her “stay” command. “I use positive reinforcement when training these animals.” She dug a treat from her khakis’ pocket, looked down at Zelda and said, “Sit.”

Zelda stopped wiggling and sat straight so Emma gave the Lab the kibble. “Good pup.” She turned back to the kids. “Zelda here will need more training before I can match her with the right person.”

“What if you can’t?” a girl from the fourth row asked.

“Raise your hand, please,” Mrs. Mosher instructed. “Go ahead, Hannah.”

“What happens to the dogs if they never learn? Do you send them to the pound to die?”

Emma sighed. It was just one of those days when nothing went smoothly, starting with the dead battery in her SUV, to spilling coffee on her shirt, to Zelda’s exuberance. “No. We don’t do that.”

Which was why she needed that government grant approved, in order to build her training shelter. “Even if for some reason the dog can’t be certified for use in therapy, at Heart to Heart Kennel we place the animal in a loving home.”

Mrs. Mosher called on another child. “Matthew?”

“Can a support dog help with bad dreams?” a boy asked.

As Emma considered how best to answer, Zelda strained against her leash to join the pack at the far end of the stage—Princess’s brown ears twitched, but Lulu didn’t budge. Emma gave a quick two-trill whistle to remind the pups to stay.

“Nightmares can be scary,” Emma said, and agreement rose in a murmur from the other children. “A family pet can snuggle with you and take away the bad feelings. What I do with my emotional support dogs is train them to counter distress in people with certain…anxieties that keep them from living a full life.”

She liked to keep things light at the middle school and didn’t go into accidents, war, or abduction. “If you’d like more information, I have brochures for you to share with your parents at home. Mrs. Mosher? If your students would like to pet the dogs now, have them get in single file and I will keep the pups here on the stage.”

It was a routine they’d done a half dozen times before. She held up her palm and walked toward the dogs, not including Zelda, giving each pup a treat and a pat of assurance. The trio waited calmly as Mrs. Mosher had the kids form a line.

A man slipped inside the auditorium as if trying not to disturb the class. His silhouette against the closed door showed melded-on jeans, a fitted T-shirt, the biceps of a male in his prime. Her mouth dried, and she cleared her throat, self-conscious in her baggy polo shirt and sneakers.

“Hi. Go ahead and scratch behind Sheldon’s ears,” she told the boy with braces. “He loves it.” She handed each student a brochure that advertised her kennel and services, while suggesting a donation for the local Kingston animal shelter.

A boy about eleven, all big teeth and ears, in a gray T-shirt and jeans, patted Sheldon’s fur. “How much does this dog cost?”

“Doesn’t matter if they were free, Matty. Let’s go.”

The man with the muscles had navigated the auditorium in quiet strides and crossed his arms at the bottom of the stairs, his smooth jaw tight. Short hair, light brown, and a profile that dredged up memories of high school with a sickening twist to her stomach. He studied the boy and not Emma, which was good because her hands shook. Zelda, picking up on her emotions, whined at her feet. If she’d been able to think, she would have clicked to reward the intuitive behavior.

She snuck a glance as she bent down to pet Zelda. Jackson Hardy. He’d broken her heart, ending their relationship after graduation to run off and join the military.

His solid chest was much broader than it had been when he’d played football as a teen. She never thought she’d see him again, other than in her most secret dreams.

The boy looked longingly at the brochures, but after glancing at the man, he stuffed his hands in his pockets as he went down the stairs where Mrs. Mosher waited.

“I was just asking, Uncle Jackson,” the boy said.

“Don’t talk back,” Jackson admonished in a low tone. “You’ve got some reading homework to do.” He turned to Mrs. Mosher. “He should have been catching up in study hall rather than wasting time here playing with animals.”

Mrs. Mosher’s wrinkled cheeks flushed at the rebuke. “Matthew has done well in my class and earned this reward.”

Jackson put his hand on his nephew’s narrow shoulder as he spoke to the teacher. Emma was close enough to hear but hoped the other kids wouldn’t notice. “I was just talking with the principal. Seems he’s behind the rest of his class in reading.”

Mrs. Mosher removed her glasses to peer at Jackson over her long nose. “And you are?”

“Jackson Hardy, Matty’s uncle. My sister was in a car accident.” His jaw clenched tight. “I’ll be filling in for this last week of school.” He ruffled the boy’s hair. “Guess what you’ll be doing this summer?”

Zelda rumbled a protest from the stage.

“Hush,” Emma said to Zelda as her heart went out to the boy. His mom had been hurt? She remembered Livvie, with long brown hair and a camera around her neck. She’d been two years ahead of them and had watched over Jackson after the death of their parents.

At Jackson’s urging, the boy mumbled something that sounded like a goodbye to Mrs. Mosher. The military had molded the man. Straight posture, polite. A soldier. So different than her memory of him joking with his friends after football games. How she’d loved running her fingers along his sensitive nape—it always made him laugh.

He’d been her first love, the one to show her the stars over the beach, just the two of them wrapped in a blanket on a bed of smooth, oval river rock, protected by the sand dunes and driftwood. Like all first loves, she’d believed they’d have forever, but he’d left her without a backward glance.

Now, ten years later, she wasn’t even a blip on Jackson’s radar as he thanked the teacher and urged his nephew up the aisle toward the exit of the auditorium. Emma sank her fingers into Zelda’s coat in an exchange of solace.

With effort, she peeled her gaze from Jackson’s incredible backside and handed out brochures. His slight shouldn’t hurt and yet…it was a solid reminder of why, most of the time, she preferred animals to people.

…

Jackson Hardy hesitated at the auditorium door, the tingling at the back of his neck hard to ignore. The last ten years in the Marines had trained him to trust his instincts, and he clasped his nephew’s shoulder. “Hey, wait a sec.”

Matty shrugged free and glared up at him.

Jackson peered into the bright lights at the auditorium stage, but there was no danger—only dogs and giggling children. The sensation at the back of his neck was probably Mrs. Mosher glaring daggers into his back. He might have been a little abrupt with the older teacher and with Matty.

He’d just come from Swedish Hospital where his older sis was laid out on a hospital bed, hooked up to all kinds of tubes, her head shaved—he’d agreed when the doctor suggested a medically induced coma as a way to keep her alive until the swelling went down and they could find the tiny bleed before it killed her. So, yeah, he might have been short, but he was barely holding on. He’d do anything for Livvie. Which included trying to figure out how to be in charge of his nephew and run a home rather than training his men overseas.

“What?” Matty shuffled into the quiet hall. Once the bell rang it would be an eruption of kids, and Jackson had no intention of being caught in the tide.

“Nothin’.” He gave one last look into the dark. “I’ve got Mitch’s truck.” Jackson let the auditorium door close and led the way to the front entrance of the middle school and the parking lot. He’d been in Kingston a week to the day, and the transition hadn’t been easy for either of them.

The doc, as well as Bonnie, Livvie’s best friend, had suggested limited visitation for Matty because of the scare factor, and Jackson remembered damn good and well how it felt to be suddenly orphaned.

Jackson forced himself to relax. “Tell you what. Let’s go get an ice cream before you hit the books.”