Problem solved, Dex climbed into his truck. He was pretty sure only oldsters like Mr. Clement still got actual newspapers, so the delivery guys should take better care.
Holding his hard-won newspaper to his chest, Mr. Clement waved as Dex pulled onto the street and put the truck in drive. Dex waved back. They weren’t really friends, but they were decent neighbors, bonding over war stories. Nobody was a better listener for stories like that than someone who had their own.
~oOo~
About ten minutes from the Brazen Bulls compound, Dex pulled up at a red light. Nobody else was around, and he fucking hated stopping at reds like this. He felt like a pussy, obeying a meaningless signal. But he’d gotten five tickets—three for speeding and two for going through reds—this year, and though the club lawyer had fixed them all, Eight Ball, the club president, and Maverick, the VP, had both given him the same long look when they’d heard about the last one. It was not good for the club to keep pinging law’s attention, even in such a trivial way, and despite the club’s arrangement with local law.
So he sat at the fucking light, all by himself. And it was a long one. Fuck.
While he stewed, movement at the corner of his eye caught his attention. His years in uniform, most of them spent in combat, had fine-tuned his senses, especially his peripheral vision. He couldn’t help but react with adrenaline to unexpected stimuli.
Really, it was PTSD, but he preferred to think of it as finely tuned senses.
What he saw when he looked that way was a row of low bushes in the sward on that corner. A bit of bush shook near the bottom. Probably an animal. Most likely a bird, maybe a squirrel. No biggie.
But before he could turn back to focus on the endless, stupid red light, the bush gained a tiny black tail.
Not a bird or a squirrel. A dog or a cat. Right at the edge of the street. There was no traffic but Dex just now, but this intersection got busy as the day matured.
He pulled through the light—which finally shifted to green as he went under—turned right, and parked. Slipping his heavy leather gloves on, he got out of his truck and went to the bush.
As he got closer, he could tell that the tail was a puppy’s, and the bush had stopped moving. Getting down on the ground but keeping his senses sharp, in case there was a protective mama under there, too, Dex clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, an instinctive noise he’d made with animals as long as he could remember.
The little tail twitched lightly. Almost a wag. And then a bit of watered-down winter morning sunlight pushed through the foliage and made a tiny eye gleam.
“Hey, little buddy. You okay?” He patted the grass, crispy with cold, just outside the bush. This close, he was pretty sure somebody under there was very much not okay. Despite the frigid temperature, he could smell rot.
Reaching with a gloved hand, ready to be bitten, Dex brushed his fingers over the small black butt attached to that little tail. The body under his fingers was bone-thin and so cold he felt it through his glove, but soft and obviously alive. He scooted closer, lay flat on the ground so he could peer under and get something approaching a better look.
Mama dog was under there, too. Black and tan, marked like a Rottie, but much smaller. And very obviously dead. Her side was completely shredded; grey meat and pale fat lay in clumps on her bloody coat.
The little pup was hurt, too. Something was wrong with its head. But it was moving, a bit, trying to nurse.
“Okay, baby, okay. Gonna get you some help. Hold on.” Dex rolled to his feet. On his way back to his truck, he pulled his phone and called the station.
“Brian Delaney Sinclair, Duncan speaking.”
Duncan was the club’s newest patch, just barely a year at the table. He was also Kelsey Helm’s younger brother, and Maverick’s only son.
“Hey, Dunc, it’s Dex. I’m gonna be late. I got a brake replacement on the books for eight-thirty, and I don’t think I’ll be in in time. Do me a favor and push it to somebody else. Or call and reschedule.”
“Sure thing. There a problem? Eight and my dad are both here.”
Things were quiet in the clubhouse lately. They usually were at the end of the year, between the holidays. Not even outlaws had a taste for badness at Christmas. For the past few weeks, and most likely the next few, the Brazen Bulls MC were nothing more than humble service station employees.
“Nah, just some personal shit to deal with. I’ll be in soon’s I can.”
“I’m on it.”
“Thanks, kid.” Dex ended the call. Then he climbed into the bed of his truck, opened the box, and pulled out some supplies he usually used for other work: a shovel, some heavy-grade plastic sheeting, and some duct tape. And a quilted moving blanket.
He carried his bundle back to the bush, opened the blanket, fashioned something like a nest with it, and reached in with his gloved hands to get hold of the puppy.
“Oh,Jesus,” he muttered when he got a good look at the … girl. She was about three or four weeks old, marked like her mom. Whatever had killed her mom had tried to have this puppy for dessert. Her head was absolutely mangled, so badly Dex thought he could see brain under the blood, pus, and matted fur.
She made a tiny, almost imperceptible whimper and tucked her nose into the open part of his coat, above the zipper. Abandoning his idea of bundling her in the blanket nest, he instead put her inside his coat and zipped it further up. Against his chest, she sighed and went still.
Dex stood on the corner and held her for a few minutes, feeling her trembling, starved body calm as it warmed.