Page 10 of At First Spark
I don’t think. I just tuck him against my chest, grab the rest of the protein bar with my teeth, and shoulder the car door open with my hip.
The passenger seat is full. My life in one visual. Phone. Folder. Coffee receipt. Sunglasses case. My father’s notes. The remains of control.
I dump the folder into the back seat, set the dog on the front passenger side floorboard, and climb in before he can launch himself somewhere stupid.
He immediately tries to scramble up into the seat.
“Nope.” I reach down and steady him. “We’re doing this one thing at a time.”
His whole body shakes as I look at the road ahead, then at the dog, then at the GPS route on the dash, still set for Carrington Inn.
The practical move would be to drive straight to the inn, unload, then figure out the dog later. I’m already turning the car around before I finish the thought. There has to be a vet in town.
Coral Bell Cove is small enough that I pass the clinic sign on my second trip through the main stretch.Back Bay Veterinary.A little white building tucked beside a nursery with blue hydrangeas exploding out front and a hand-painted wooden crab by the steps.
I pull in too fast, kill the engine, and scoop the dog back into my arms. He bares his teeth again, weaker this time.
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter as I shoulder through the front door. “I know. I’m the villain.”
The waiting room smells like disinfectant and dog treats. A woman behind the counter looks up, takes in me, then the dog, then my face.
“Found him on the road,” I say before she can ask.
Her expression softens instantly. “Bring him back.”
Everything after that moves fast.
A tech named Marnie takes him from me with practiced hands and no fear at all. He growls at her too. She strokes the top of his head and calls him “sir” until he stops pretending he has any authority.
The vet is a woman in her fifties with silver threaded through her dark braid and the kind of eyes that have seen every version of animal panic there is. She checks him over while I stand uselessly against the wall and try not to look as tense as I feel.
“He’s underweight,” she says. “Dehydrated. Likely been out there a few days, maybe longer. Paw’s cut but not deep. No microchip or collar.”
Something in me sinks and lifts all at once. No microchip or collar means no obvious owner. No owner means this dog was either lost and unloved or left.
I don’t ask which because I’m not sure I want the answer.
“He’ll need antibiotics,” she continues. “A good bath eventually, but not today. Food in small amounts at first. And somebody patient.”
The dog, now wrapped in a faded clinic towel, glares up at all of us from the exam table like he’s furious to be alive.
And I hear myself ask, “Can I take him?”
The vet smiles like she knew I was going to say that ten minutes ago.
“Can you?”
I think about the inn. The filth. The damage. The very stupid lack of stability in my life at the moment.
Then I think about putting him back on that roadside and driving away.
“No,” I say honestly. “But I’m going to anyway.”
The vet laughs and writes out instructions.
Thirty minutes later, I walk out with a bag of medication, a dented loaner food bowl, a tiny leash I did not intend to acquire today, and a dog wrapped in a spare towel in the passenger side of the car.
He stares at me from the floorboard, suspicious and exhausted.
