Page 19 of Warrior Security
“That’s good,” he said. “That’s real good. How’s Lark doing?”
“Busy. She had an open house a couple days ago for the therapy program. Therapists and families, kids working with the animals. It was something to see.”
“She does those every month. Puts more into them than she’ll ever admit.” Hunter leaned against the counter. “Jada still talksabout her time out there. She was in a bad way when she started working for Lark. Didn’t know who she was, barely knewwhereshe was. Lark just handed her a shovel, pointed at the stalls, and said they needed mucking.”
That didn’t sound terribly different from Audra’s story.
“And then there were the kittens,” Beckett said.
The corner of Hunter’s mouth moved. “Three of them. Their mama died, and Lark asked Jada to foster them. Knew exactly what she was doing, putting those kittens in Jada’s hands.” He shook his head. “We’ve still got them. Sir Pounce, Biscuits, and Moose. They run the house now.”
Beckett grinned. “That’s almost as bad as the puppies Travis and I had to take care of that one Christmas, thanks to Lark. It’s like she’s a pet matchmaker.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stood there and let the picture shift. Not about the animals, about the woman herself.
Lark had told me she’d had friends come through and help over the years. Extra hands, short-term. She’d made it sound like a staffing situation, a rotating door of people who pitched in and moved on.
That wasn’t what this was. Audra, who’d shown up with nothing and a story she couldn’t tell. Jada, who didn’t even know her own name. People who’d been in trouble, running, breaking apart, and Lark had opened the door without asking what they were running from.
Which meant she’d looked at me in Deja Brew that morning—a man with no plan and nowhere to go and exhaustion carved into every line of his face—and she’d known I was one more person who needed catching.
The man behind the counter came back with a coil of fence wire, a box of galvanized staples, and two bags of quick-set. “That’ll do it for Lark’s order.”
Hunter and Beckett helped me carry it all out to the truck.
“Listen.” Hunter placed one of the bags of cement into the bed of the truck. “If you ever want to pick up some part-time work with Warrior Security, the offer’s there. Lachlan’s been dealing with a drug operation moving through the county, and we’re helping out. We could use an extra set of hands.”
I leaned against the truck. “I appreciate it. But Pawsitive’s keeping me busy right now.” And I wasn’t going to take a chance on another incident like at the hotel.
Hunter nodded. He didn’t push.
“Still good to have you around,” Hunter said when I climbed into the truck.
“Good to be around.” I gave them a quick wave. “I’ll catch you guys later.”
I picked up Princess Whiskers’s prescription food from the vet clinic next and drove back to Pawsitive.
The barn was quiet when I carried the first bag of quick-set inside. I set it by the feed room and went back for the wire. On the second trip, I noticed the silence. No music from the speaker Lark almost always kept playing. No voice narrating the day to the animals the way she did from dawn until dark.
I found her in the feed room. Sitting on the floor with her back against the wall and her knees drawn up. Dobby was pressed into her side, his heavy head in her lap, and her arms were wrapped around him in a way that had nothing casual about it.
She was holding on.
Her eyes were closed. Her face was turned down toward the dog. I stopped in the doorway, not sure what to do. Dobby saw me first. His tail thumped once against the concrete. Lark’s head came up.
Her face, for half a second, was someone I hadn’t met yet. The brightness that I’d come to expect from her was gone, and what lived underneath it was rawer than I was prepared for. Hermouth was set in a line that looked like it had been holding back something heavy for a long time, and her eyes, when they found mine, had a flatness to them that made my chest tighten.
She looked like a woman who’d been carrying a weight she hadn’t told anyone about, and for a few minutes in an empty feed room with a dog pressed against her ribs, she’d put it down.
Then she picked it back up. I watched it happen before my eyes.
Her spine straightened first, then her shoulders, then her mouth softened into something that wasn’t quite a smile but was close enough to pass. By the time she stood and brushed hay dust off her jeans, the woman I’d seen on the floor was gone and the one I knew was back in her place.
“Hey. You’re back. Get everything we needed from town?”
“All of it. Princess Whiskers’s food too.”
“Perfect. You are now officially my favorite errand-runner. Okay,onlyerrand-runner. But, still.”
