The Sergeant's Christmas Mission. Joanna Sims

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СКАЧАТЬ He also hated to see Recon, who was still faithfully watching over the kitten, so worried and upset. They were lucky that Dr. Harlow could get them in after only a few minutes of waiting.

      “I tried to give him water. He couldn’t drink anything,” Shane explained to the vet.

      Dr. Harlow, a woman in her midfifties with frizzy, short salt-and-pepper hair gently handled the kitten.

      “It’s a she,” the vet informed them. “When did you find her?”

      “He’s a girl?” Shane asked.

      “She’s a girl, yes.” Dr. Harlow sent Shane the smallest of smiles.

      “This morning,” Rebecca told her. “Under my front porch. I have no idea how she got there. I didn’t see a momma kitty or siblings anywhere.”

      “Unfortunately—” Dr. Harlow manipulated the kitten’s belly “—she could have been dumped. Or her mother and siblings could have been killed.”

      “I thought of that.” Rebecca frowned.

      “She’s severely dehydrated and malnourished. And she has an eye infection and an upper respiratory infection.”

      Shane instinctively put his hand on Recon’s head, as much to comfort himself as the dog.

      “Will she survive?” he asked the vet.

      Dr. Harlow’s slow response to his question raised his level of anxiety. The kitten’s survival wasn’t guaranteed.

      “I’d have to draw some blood to know what’s going on with her liver and her kidneys. We can treat the dehydration and infections,” the vet told them. “Other than that, I need the blood work.”

      “Can I ask,” Rebecca asked with a concerned expression in her pretty hazel eyes, “how much would all of that cost? The fluids and antibiotics and the blood work?”

      “I’d have to get the front desk to figure out a total for you...it could be as much as four hundred, five hundred dollars.”

      The minute the vet gave them the total, Rebecca’s eyes started to tear up. Shane didn’t know her, but he’d been in some financial binds in his life. He knew he was looking at a woman who wanted to help the little kitten but didn’t have the funds. Shane looked down at Recon; the dog hadn’t taken his eyes off the kitten on the exam table.

      The room was silent for a moment while Shane thought about his next move. In the silence, the kitten opened her eyes, stared up at him and made the most pitiful little high-pitched meow he’d ever heard. It was as if she was pleading with him to save her life.

      “Do whatever you need to do to save her life,” Shane told the vet. “I’ll take care of the bill.”

      “We’ll be keeping her here for several days.” The vet nodded with a smile for him. “I’ll call you then, Shane, with the results of the blood work? We’ll talk about next steps then.”

      “Okay.”

      Dr. Harlow gently picked up the kitten and handed her to an awaiting technician. “Does she have a name?”

      The ex-soldier didn’t know how he’d managed to acquire a kitten, but that’s what had happened.

      Shane looked at Recon, who looked back at him with an anxious whine.

      “Her name is Top.” He sneezed. “Top Brand.”

      * * *

      Rebecca opened the front door of her inherited two-story home and surveyed the work. What she really wanted to do was curl up on the couch to take a nap. But to get to the couch, she would have to create a path through the boxes. And as good as a nap sounded, she had to push herself to make progress on the unpacking while her boys were at school. Once they got home, there would be dinner to make and homework to check. Rebecca knew that this was a big adjustment for Carson and Caleb; the sooner she got this house feeling like a home, the better it would be for them.

      “No rest for the weary.” She tossed her keys on the kitchen counter on her way to find the vacuum. The cereal explosion she had created was the first on her list of chores.

      “What a mess.” She sighed as she leaned over to plug in her vacuum. The first outlet didn’t seem to work, so she went in search of another outlet nearby. The third outlet worked, but now Rebecca was concerned about the fact that the other two hadn’t.

      “Oh, Aunt Ginny. What happened to your beautiful house?”

      After vacuuming up the cereal, Rebecca avoided the boxes and headed to her sons’ room instead. Carson had been a protective big brother from the moment Caleb was born; he always wanted to hold Caleb and feed him. The two boys grew up as best friends in part because they shared a room. Now that they could have their own rooms in this big old house, they still chose to stay together. Rebecca made the beds, something she usually had them do in the morning before school, and then grabbed the hamper and dirty towels out of the bathroom on the upstairs floor.

      She disliked doing laundry, and the fact that she was picking this chore over the boxes was a testament to her hatred of unpacking moving boxes.

      “You know what you need to do, Rebecca?” she said aloud as she used her back to push open the squeaky screen door leading to the back porch. “You need to get your butt inside and unpack those stinking boxes. Quit procrastinating!”

      She put the laundry basket down on the stained concrete porch floor with a sigh, trying to avoid dwelling on all of the things that needed attention on the property. Luckily, Shane had maintained the grass and shrubs while the deed to the house was being transferred to her, but she had inherited the house and all of its many belongings. And some of those belongings were just junk that needed to be collected and hauled away, like the rusted, broken lawn chairs littering the back porch.

      “I think Aunt Ginny, God rest her soul, may have turned into a bit of a hoarder,” Rebecca mused as she loaded the washing machine.

      When she went to retrieve the load of clothes she had washed the night before from the dryer, she found a ball of wet clothes that weren’t dry at all.

      “I didn’t turn this on last night?”

      She could have sworn that she had.

      She turned on the dryer again and then went inside to begin tackling the boxes. With the trip to the veterinarian with the kitten, and her strategic avoidance, the day was frittering away. As she started opening the boxes labeled “Kitchen,” Rebecca rehashed her interactions with Shane Brand. He was a bit of an enigma; his look was rough, with the beard and hair down to his shoulders, but there was something so soft and honest about his aqua-blue eyes. When they weren’t red from lack of sleep and too much alcohol, she imagined that those eyes could make any woman take a second and third look.

      For her, when she looked into his eyes, there had been a spark of familiarity somewhere deep inside of her that had flickered. She recognized him even though she had never met him before. Every now and again, she met a new person and it felt as if they connected on a soul level, as if they had known each other all their lives. That’s what it felt like with Shane; it felt as if she had known him all her life. And the way he took charge in the vet’s office and the mercy he showed that СКАЧАТЬ