Chapter One
Molly
Life is perfect on my creaky front porch.
I have my own eleven-acre patch of Texas land, hot coffee in the percolator, Dolly Parton’s voice on my MeMaw’s ancient transistor radio, and no more handsy restaurant managers hounding me as I wait tables. My career as a server is blissfully over and done.
Most importantly, I have dogs.
A lot of dogs, in fact.
Some might say too many.
I would say those people don’t know what they are missing.
Around me on this pleasant morning are Bucky the bloodhound; Randy the goldendoodle; Susie and Penelope the black lab mixes; Carter the boxer; Fluffy the pregnant Bichon, Fluffer-Nutter, the Pyr-Golden mix; and finally, Dolly, my German shepherd, who I found under this very porch as a pup.
These older, relaxed canines like to kick it on the porch with me and watch over the property. They follow me everywhere. The younger dogs are frolicking in the grass, scrambling up the steps to get scratches behind the ears, lapping up water, then scrambling back down for more play before they, eventually, collapse in a heap at naptime.
Some of these animals belong to me. Some I adopted. Some of them got dumped here one day anonymously. Fluffy, the Bichon, was rescued from a nearby puppy mill. Some of them, like the goldendoodle, are visiting while their owners work or go on vacation.
I had a hunch about those puppy mill people when I saw their breeder ads in the newspaper and had gone to check it out. I roped my do-gooder big brother, Boone, into helping me, and for protection. He’s a big, grumpy-looking dude.
Some people know him as Pastor Boone, but he doesn’t actually have a church building, so to speak. Mainly he spends his days hanging out with homeless people and chasing down legislators to talk about affordable housing. It’s a good thing I don’t have to visit him in an actual church since I might get struck by lightning if I darkened any sacred doorway.
Boone and I may or may not have trespassed to get a better look at that puppy mill. My brother had fussed at me under his breath the whole time, but I think he was having fun. He is so strait-laced-for-Jesus, he needs some bad behavior once in a while or he’ll go insane.
I won’t bum you out with what we saw at that puppy mill, but you can bet your ass I called the SPCA of Texas right away and let them bust up that operation.
The owners were fined, and the rescue organization found homes for most of the dogs and offered me one of them as a gesture of gratitude. Boone stayed with me for a week after that to make sure those owners didn’t show up at my place to harass me or worse.
“When are you going to settle down with a partner so I don’t have to play the bodyguard anymore?” he had asked me teasingly.
“Soon as I find someone at least your size who ain’t such a goody two shoes.”
I sip my coffee and sing along to the radio while I put my bare feet up on the railing, my skirt flapping in the breeze. My daddy would say it’s not very ladylike. But Daddy ain’t here. This is my house and I make the rules.
Most of big dogs don’t get bothered much when a plume of white clay dust rises from the unpaved road. The rest of the motley band of canines that live here—or stay here part time while their owners are at work or on vacation—rile themselves up but good. Especially the small dogs who like to think they’re the ones in charge.
It’s too far out to see who it is, but I make a mental note where my rifle is just in case it’s those boys from the puppy mill coming to harass me. Out here in the sticks, you never know who’s gonna come to bother you.