The Sergeant's Christmas Mission
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JoAnna Sims
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16
Chapter One
A loud, urgent knock at the door and the barking response of his black German shepherd, Recon, awakened Shane Brand. He had passed out on the couch, as he always seemed to do, with a pile of crumpled, empty beer cans littering the coffee table and floor.
“Quiet.” Shane ordered his canine companion to stop barking. Without any protest, the dog stopped barking and sat at attention, waiting for his next order.
“Man. Chill out!” the ex-sergeant hollered in a scratchy voice when the knocks kept on coming.
His tongue felt like sandpaper in his mouth and his eyes felt like they were glued shut. Damn, he felt lousier than usual.
Shane sat up, his head throbbing, wondering if he had any beer left over from the night before. After a couple of seconds of sitting on the edge of the couch, trying to assess the situation, trying to figure out whether or not he could stand without falling down, Shane stood up. He cringed at the ache in his back and neck, the stiffness in his left shoulder, from a night spent on his thrift-store couch.
“God bless,” he muttered as he stretched his back. He felt like a bag of broken pieces hung together by rusty nails and screws.
More knocking.
“I’m coming, damn it!”
He kicked a couple of beer cans out of his path and shuffled his way from the small living room, through the galley kitchen, to the front door of his garage apartment. No one bothered to knock on his door—not his friends and certainly not his family. They’d all learned their lesson over time to let him come to them on his own terms, in his own time. Feeling annoyed and grouchy, Shane yanked open the door to give the person on the other side the death-stare. He was, unexpectedly, greeted by the loveliest wide-set, hazel eyes he’d ever seen in his life. He stared into those eyes, unable to look away, and something unexpected—something he couldn’t explain—rocked him at his core.
“Hi,” the woman at his door said.
Beyond her large hazel eyes, which were bright and clear, the woman’s face was rounded, a little on the plump side, and the full lips were unsmiling. She looked tired and tense, and her eyes, now wary, were on Recon.
Shane took note of the two boys kneeling in the grassy courtyard between the main house and his garage apartment. This must be his new landlady; he heard the moving truck pull up, so he knew she had moved in. But he slept most days and played gigs in bars at night, which had allowed him, until now, to avoid her.
“He’s friendly,” he said of Recon as he leaned against the doorway, feeling light-headed and craving a beer.
The woman’s curly light brown hair was pulled back into a haphazard bun at the nape of her neck, and she was petite, with a full bust and rounded hips. She was dressed for comfort in a faded Manchester Yankees baseball T-shirt, threadbare jeans and aqua-blue Chuck Taylors. Several ringlets of hair weren’t long enough to be swept into the bun that framed her face; one ringlet had a Cheerio stuck in it. He almost reached out and plucked that Cheerio out of her hair but resisted the urge to do something so familiar with a stranger.
“You have a...” He nodded toward her hair. “A Cheerio in your hair.”
“What?” With a half-frustrated, half-humored expression on her face, she reached up and felt around until she found the round piece of dry cereal and tossed it on the ground. “Thank you for telling me. It’s been one of those mornings.”
It had been one of those mornings for him, as well.
“I’m Rebecca.” She extended her hand.
Shane took her hand, which seemed so small and fragile in his own, and was careful not to crush the delicate bones in her slender hand when he shook it. The women in his past always told him that he didn’t know the strength of his own hands. For some reason, he wanted to be extra gentle with this woman.
“Shane,” he introduced himself. “You the new owner?”
“We moved in Saturday,” Rebecca said, her eyes floating between his face and Recon. “I thought you might have heard the truck...”
He didn’t respond as the new landlady glanced over his shoulder at the piles of dirty dishes in the sink. If he’d known the new owner was going to be knocking on his door so early in the morning, he would have tried to clean up the place a bit the night before. Shane stepped all the way outside, told Recon to stay put and pulled the door almost shut behind him. He had no doubt that Rebecca could smell the scent of marijuana mingled with the stale air of his apartment.
“Do I need to sign a new lease or are you giving me notice?” he asked. His previous landlady, Ginny Martin, had passed away and his lease had expired while her will was in probate. There was a shortage of housing in Bozeman, Montana; if he got kicked out of his apartment, he would most likely have to return to Sugar Creek Ranch, his family’s cattle spread.
Rebecca, who held her body stiffly and had an anxious, worried look hovering in her eyes, glanced over her shoulder at her two boys before answering.
“I’m not here to kick you out,” she told him. “I thought we’d see how it goes until the end of the month. Aunt Ginny always spoke so highly of you.”
“All right.” Shane nodded with a deadpan expression that didn’t reflect his relief. Rebecca’s aunt Ginny had recently passed away and left her historic home to her niece. Ginny’s late husband had been an army man, which was partly why she’d had a soft spot for Shane. The feeling was mutual. Shane had been grateful to have a friend like Ginny and he missed her. It looked like, at least for now, Ginny was still looking out for him.
“I have to get my boys to school.” She glanced at her phone to check the time. “We’re running late. As usual.”
“Ok. Well. Nice meetin’ ya.” Shane opened his door, about to walk back inside and get back to the business of finding a beer and lying back down on the couch, when Rebecca stopped him.
“Wait.” She waved her hand at him. “This wasn’t a social call.”
Rebecca jogged over to the spot where her sons had been waiting for her, picked up the squirming kitten and headed his way with her two boys following along behind her.
Great, Shane thought. I threw one back and four jumped into the boat.
“We found this poor little kitten under the front porch this morning.” Rebecca held up the wiggly, bedraggled kitten for him to see. “Is it yours?”
Shane got within three feet of the scraggly black-and-white kitten and started to sneeze.
“No.” He shook his head. He had always been highly allergic.
“Then we can keep him,” the younger of the two boys said to his mom.
“I’m sorry, Caleb,” Rebecca said in a soft, but firm, tone. “We can’t.”
She handed the older boy the keys to the car. “Carson, you and your brother wait for me in the car. I’ll be right there.”
The kitten was making a high-pitched cry and Shane had a feeling the little creature was hungry, thirsty and missing its mom.
“I’m not sure what to do with him.” Rebecca tried, unsuccessfully, to soothe the kitten. “I can’t just lock him up in the house. I don’t have a kitty box or food. Is there a shelter in town? Do you know?”
She talked so fast that Shane couldn’t figure out when he was supposed to respond. That high-pitched crying noise was making his headache worse. While he was trying to figure out a solution to the problem, the kitten finally managed to twist out of Rebecca’s hands; the moment it hit the ground, the kitten bolted through the crack in his front door, into his house.
“Oh!” Rebecca exclaimed. “I’m so sorry! I’ll go get him.”
The last thing he wanted was for his new landlady, who held the fate of his address in her hands, to venture into his dungeon. No one went in there and that’s how he liked it.
“No.” Shane blocked her path. “You’re late. Get your boys to school. I’ll catch the kitten.”
“Catch?” She had turned away, paused and turned halfway back to him, the expression on her face concerned.
“Not in a mean way. I’m allergic.” He tried to reassure her. “But I love all animals.”
Rebecca hesitated for a moment longer, appearing to be conflicted. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” He frowned at her, not liking how distrustful she was of him. “I’ve got this.”
She thanked him, seemingly relieved to have a solution for the kitten, and without glancing back at him, jogged toward the carport on the other side of the house.
Shane scratched his long beard with a yawn as he shut the front door of his house.
“Damn.” The soldier stood in his galley kitchen, noticing, as if for the first time, how truly messy his small garage apartment had become. It was a dump. And it smelled.
On his way to the living room, Shane picked up the clothing and trash on the floor. If the kitten wanted to remain hidden in this disaster zone, he could do it. The first thing he really needed to do was get some light into the place. So Shane did something that he hadn’t done in months—he opened the curtains and let the sunlight in.
Balls of dust were kicked up into the air when he yanked open the curtains. Coughing, Shane waved the air in front of his face. Dust was going up his nose and into his throat. After he got his coughing under control, Shane began the task of finding the kitten.
He’d always had horrible allergies, and now, with the dust stirred up and a kitten on the loose, he was sneezing one sneeze after another.
“Quit it!” Shane snapped, frustrated at his own nose. He grabbed a roll of toilet paper out of the bathroom, knowing that a box of tissues hadn’t entered his apartment ever, and blew his nose every couple of minutes while he tried to find the kitten.
He searched the living room, picking up the trash as he went. The kitten wasn’t there. Shane made a second cursory inspection of the tiny bathroom before he headed into his cramped bedroom. He tried to flip on the single overhead light, but then realized that the bulb had burned out sometime last month. Or maybe it was the month before that.
“Recon.” He spoke to his companion. “You haven’t seen a renegade kitten, have you?”
Shane tried to open the curtain covering the window in the bedroom. When it didn’t move, he yanked a little too hard and the entire structure, curtain and curtain rod, crashed onto the ground at his feet.
More dust sprayed into the air, making Shane cough and sputter. “Damn it!”
This day was not going according to his usual plan. He should still be sleeping off his hangover, not worrying about a stowaway kitten.
Shane used a dirty T-shirt he found on the floor to wipe his eyes and his face. Then he balled up the T-shirt and threw it back down on the floor. Recon had lifted his head and was watching him curiously. That was when Shane noticed that his canine companion was harboring the kitten.
“Recon.” The ex-soldier walked over to the side of the bed he rarely used. “Didn’t I just ask you about this kitten?”
The kitten was curled up tightly in a ball between Recon’s legs. The only way the kitten could have gotten up onto the bed was if Recon had put the kitten in his mouth like a chew toy and lifted him.
“Look, buddy. Don’t get attached. You hear me?” Shane stared at the odd pair. “That kitten’s not staying.”
But, when he reached his hands out to the take the kitten from the safe haven, Recon growled. Recon never growled at him.
“What was that?” Shane asked, surprised. He pulled his hands back.
Recon rested his head on his paws, providing complete cover for the sleeping kitten.
The soldier stood by the bed, stumped by his dog’s behavior. Recon was acting as if he was protecting a favored toy. Recon had always been friendly to cats and kids; he looked big and scary, but he was a sweet dog. But he’d never adopted a kitten before.
“Listen to me, Recon. I’m going to clean up and then I’m coming back for that kitten. So be prepared.” Shane pointed his finger at Recon with a sneeze. “You can’t keep him.”
* * *
Rebecca had dropped her boys off at their new school, relieved that she got them there, with only minutes to spare, on time for the start of class. She had accidentally set her alarm for 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:00 a.m., and she would probably still be asleep if Carson hadn’t awakened her. She had kicked a large box of books in her rush to the kitchen—her toe was still throbbing—and then she’d dropped Cheerios all over the kitchen, and in her hair, when she couldn’t get the new box open and overcompensated by yanking on the plastic too hard. She had managed to wrangle the boys, get them fed, make sure they were dressed and then trip on the way out the door, only to be greeted by a stray kitten problem.
In the school parking lot, Rebecca sat in her car, engine off, window rolled up, overcome with a feeling of emotional numbness and exhaustion. It had cost her a huge chunk of her profit of the sale of her house to move them from New Hampshire to Montana. She had adored Aunt Ginny, and her childhood memories of one magical summer spent at the Bozeman house had made her romanticize Montana for most of her adult life. So, when she learned that she had inherited the house, and things in New Hampshire had already unraveled after her divorce, a new start in Bozeman seemed like a promising idea. She had fantasized about how wonderful it would be while she packed her belongings and turned her early model Camry westward. But the reality of the house, which had fallen into disrepair, and the small college town that didn’t seem to have many job openings for a hairstylist, made the move seem like a fool’s errand. And so far, the boys hadn’t come around to the idea that they were on a big adventure. They missed their home. They missed their school. They missed their friends. Most important, they missed their dad. What if she had just made a real mess of all of their lives by chasing a childhood dream?
One ding after another on her phone snapped her out of her thoughts and back into the present. The rapid-fire texts were from her younger sister, Kelly.
“Great,” Rebecca muttered as she quickly read her sister’s texts. Before she could respond, her sister called.
“Hey, Kell.”
Her sister was a well-known Bozeman Realtor, owned her own company and genuinely believed that her sister was incapable of accomplishing anything in her life without guidance from her. Basically, Kelly thought that she was a screw-up and that moving her boys to Bozeman was yet another example of her bad judgment. Not that it was the only reason Rebecca wanted to succeed, but proving her sister wrong would be a bonus to making Bozeman work.
“Where have you been?” Kelly had her on speakerphone. “I’ve been texting all morning. Did you get the boys to school?”
“Yes, Mother,” Rebecca said sarcastically.
“No good deed goes unpunished,” Kelly said after a moment of silence. “I was just trying to make sure you got them to school on time. We both know you’ve always had a problem with being late.”
Kelly had always been the “good daughter” and their mother had never let Rebecca forget it. She had been an A student, always on the honor roll, went straight to college after high school, married a sensible man after she graduated and then started her own business.
“Well.” Rebecca turned the key to start the car. “The boys are in school and I have a ton of stuff to do, Kell. Thanks for checking on me.”
Another pause.
“You’re welcome,” her sister said flatly.
They hung up and Rebecca headed home. As she always seemed to do after a conversation with Kelly, she litigated the conversation all over again, saying the things she could have said if only she had thought about it in the moment. She felt like she never really won a conversation with her sister. Kelly had been one of the major “cons” on the list when she had been contemplating living in her inheritance versus selling it and buying a little farm with some land in Manchester. It was a short drive back to the house that didn’t feel at all like home.
Rebecca walked past her front door and headed to the garage apartment instead. All that was inside of the house was a bunch of unpacked boxes and wayward Cheerios; just thinking about unpacking all of those boxes and cleaning up the kitchen made her feel tired. Better to find a place for the kitten first and get that task off her mind.
Aunt Ginny’s attorney, who had handled her aunt’s estate, had only mentioned the positives of keeping Shane as a tenant—he always paid his rent on time, kept to himself, didn’t have company always coming and going, and he helped out with the yard work and light maintenance of the home. She had never wanted to be a landlord—she didn’t like confrontation, discussing money or dealing with fixing stuff that might go wrong. But the idea of having some extra income to handle monthly expenses made her realize that she didn’t have a choice but to give the whole landlady thing a try.
The attorney did not mention that Shane Brand was a veteran with what appeared to be a shipload of issues. Right off the bat, she was going to have to address the elephant in the room: the garage apartment smelled like a marijuana factory. Why couldn’t Shane Brand have been easy to handle?
With a sigh, Rebecca knocked on her tenant’s door. First she would help the kitten, and then she would deal with the tenant problem. She wished she could make Caleb happy and keep the kitten. She just couldn’t take responsibility for one more life. Not right now. Maybe later.
“Hey.” Shane opened the door. He looked different—he’d taken a shower, and he was wearing clean clothes and shoes. His blue eyes, so much brighter than she remembered, were worried. “There’s something wrong with the kitten.”
She followed Shane to the back of the apartment, her mind naturally registering that Shane had cleaned up the small space quite a bit while she was gone with the boys. At the back of the garage apartment, in a room only big enough to fit a full-size mattress, Recon was on the unmade bed, whining and licking the kitten’s head.
“He hasn’t opened his eyes.” Shane knelt down beside the bed.
She joined him, taking inventory of the kitten’s condition. “How long has he been like this?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I was cleaning up. I thought he was sleeping.”
“Have you checked to make sure he’s still breathing?”
She reached out her hand, but Shane stopped her.
“Recon is real protective of this little guy,” the ex-soldier told her. “I checked. The kitten is breathing. Barely. I was just getting ready to take him to the vet.”
“I’ll go with you.”
The kitten was listless but she could see that he was still faintly breathing.
“We’re trying to help him, buddy,” Shane said in a soothing tone to his dog. “You’ve got to let us help him.”
When she first saw Recon, he’d made her nervous. He was a massive dog, all muscle and as black as a moonless night sky. But to see him protecting that tiny, helpless kitten touched her. He wasn’t so scary after all.
Recon growled low and long in his throat when Shane reached for the kitten. For a tense moment, Rebecca actually thought that the German shepherd was going to bite his owner. She let out her breath, unaware that she had been holding it, after Recon let Shane pick up the kitten and wrap the little ball of fur in a towel.
Shane handed the kitten to her. “I’ll drive,” he said.
“Are you sober?” The question flew out of her mouth, which was unusual for her. She’d grown up with a father who tied-one-on every couple of weeks, and she could spot a hangover on someone from a mile away.
Shane opened the door for her and let her walk out first. “Yes.”
“Sorry.” She cradled the kitten in her arms. “I had to ask.”
“I don’t blame you.” Shane pulled the door shut. “But I’m good.”
They rushed out to his refurbished antique candy-apple-red Chevy truck. Recon took his position on the middle part of the bench seat and she climbed into the passenger side.
“What if they can’t take us?” She rubbed the top of the kitten’s head with her thumb, trying to comfort him.
“They will,” he assured her. “I’ve known these folks for a long time.”
It was a tense ride; she prayed all the way to the vet’s office. Shane periodically glanced over at the kitten and repeated the same phrase, “Hang in there, little guy. We’re almost there.”
