At least she knew him. “Fine. I’ll let you in on it.”
That got him a grin that threatened to take his breath away. “Deal.”
He needed to let her know that wasn’t likely to happen. “But you should understand that we’ll probably never know why this dog was left here. Ninety-nine percent of the time, dogs who are brought into a shelter because they were left like this are never reclaimed, and we just don’t know what they’ve been through. She doesn’t have tags. They were taken off so no one could ID her. Whoever did this doesn’t want to be found, and that likely means this little pup’s past will remain a mystery.”
She hugged the puppy close. “What happens if she doesn’t have a microchip?”
“She goes into a shelter and we all hope for the best,” he replied. “Or more likely I’ll get to the shelter, look at her sad puppy face, and bring her home with me until I can find a place for her. I might parade her by Lisa and mention that the shelter is overcrowded and it would be sad if they put her down.”
Lisa was his sister-in-law, and she had a tender heart. She would fall for the puppy and then his brother would give him hell because they didn’t have time for a dog. His brother ran the local pub and restaurant. It was pretty much a twenty-four-seven job.
Roxie gasped and held the dog closer. “They are not going to put this dog down.”
He stood and reached to help her up. “Maybe Armie needs a trained police dog.”
It probably wouldn’t be a Lab, and certainly not this one from the looks of it. She would likely lick the criminals or beg them for pets.
“Maybe we do.” Roxie stared at his hand and started to stand on her own.
She got tangled in the leash because the dog had managed to run a circle around her. She hit the ground with a thud and a curse.
Stubborn woman. “You won’t even let me help you up?”
“I don’t normally need help,” she said with a sigh.
“The ground here is rugged. Hold on to me. I promise I won’t try anything. I know how quick you are to arrest an innocent man.” She did it to him all the time. At first it was annoying, but lately he’d been wondering if it might not be her version of flirting. Not flirting exactly, but her way of staying close to him even though she thought he was a bad bet. After all, she almost never actually did anything beyond tossing him in a cell and then letting him off with a warning.
“You had unpaid tickets,” she shot back as she untangled herself. “Could you give me some light? I think I can manage this on my own if I can see. It’s so dark out here. I’m not used to it.”
He reached down and picked up her flashlight. It had fallen out of her hands when the dog had created her charming chaos. “Because it never gets dark in New York?”
She chuckled at that. “Trust me, when the power goes out, it gets really dark, and there are things in the city that make the gators look civilized.”
She managed to unwind the leash and handed it to him as she started to get to her feet.
Something caught his eye, a slight rustling of leaves and the slither of something moving through them.
“Roxanne, I need you to be very still,” he said quietly.
The puppy barked and Roxie stumbled back down.
And that was when the copperhead struck.chapter twoRoxanne blinked up at the stark light in her eyes and groaned. Everything hurt. An ache went through her like a wave that never actually left the shore and sank back into the ocean. It simply pounded against her. Where was she? She hated this particular feeling. It was why she limited herself to two beers now. No more. After she’d left Joel, she’d gone a little wild and pain had been the outcome.
“Yeah, I bet you feel like hell.” Lila LaVigne stared down at her. She was wearing scrubs and not an ounce of her usual makeup. Despite the fact that she ran a tiny clinic in a backwoods parish, Lila had never lost her big-city glam. She wasn’t the same woman who’d walked into town a year before. Papillon had softened her up, but she still liked to look chic.
Roxie’s head was killing her, and she seemed to be in the clinic. Her night had apparently taken a wrong turn, but then that seemed to be the story of her life. “What the hell happened?”
“Don’t close your eyes. I need to make sure you don’t have a concussion,” Lila said in that no-nonsense fashion that Roxie usually found calming. Lila wasn’t a woman who panicked. Ever.