Mother by Fate

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#u5a2f51c6-af66-51c3-ac62-0c6d8966e6c9)

“I CAN HOLD HIM, Daddy. While you get his kennel ready.”

With the object of his six-year-old daughter’s attention held out in front of him, rescue kennel owner Michael Edison strode through the large converted barn, to a wall of empty cages in the back.

“You know the rules.” Setting the fat cat gently onto the cold metal bottom of the first cage, he withdrew his hand quickly—obtaining a scratch on the arm in the process—and closed the door.

“Yes.” The skinny little brown-eyed minx looked up at him, her long dark curls still tangled from her night’s sleep.

“So?”

“I can’t touch him until Aunt Diane has a chance to examine him.”

Examine. Michael enjoyed an inner grin at the sound of the very adult word coming from the baby voice with the little lisp. Shelley would be proud of him. And maybe, if people did become angels looking down from above when they died, she was. “That’s right” was all he said.

Mari didn’t remember her mother. But their little house in front of the kennel was filled with photos of her.

“Trouble is you said she can’t come till later...”

“That’s right, too.” His twenty-nine-year-old sister had recently graduated from veterinary school and, having just joined a practice, had to work the less-popular weekend hours.

“But can I hold him right afterward?”

Always looking on the bright side of things. Mari took after her youngest aunt, Peanut, that way. Made his life a hell of a lot easier.

“Yep. First thing.”

“You want him in isolation?” Twenty-five-year-old Ashleigh, the third sister in a line of four, asked, pulling a disposable cage liner and water bottle out of a cupboard on the opposite side of the room from the cages.

“Yeah,” he told her, raising his voice enough to be heard over the whining and barking coming from the canine end of the kennel.

While it didn’t look as if the newcomer had fleas, until he knew for certain that the cat wasn’t carrying anything the other animals in his care could catch, he couldn’t move him into the dorm area.

Mari put her hand in the treat bin and pulled out some all-natural dog treats they used for training, as he poured a little milk into a cup. Just enough to calm the cat who’d been dumped on Michael’s front porch that morning—in a box barely large enough to fit him and secured with duct tape.

While he dealt with the new cat, Mari walked with purpose to the first door in the occupied section of the kennel. “Shh, Whitehorse. Your breakfast will be here soon,” she said, tossing in a treat that quieted the white-and-gray Great Dane mix they’d rescued from an illegal dog-racing track a month ago.

The name was Mari’s. The malnourished female had come to them with the name Three. She’d been housed in the third cage in the facility she’d been born to.

Ashleigh, his only full-time kennel employee and main child-care provider, prepared a more permanent kennel for the new resident in a partitioned-off room in the back corner of the barn. She took the cup of milk from Michael as he retrieved the smaller cage he’d dropped the cat in moments before.

While Mari visited each of the eleven dogs in their care, he and Ashleigh got their newest resident settled.

“His name is Gus,” Mari announced, coming up behind them with a label for the kennel and the black marker Michael used to mark down the name of each rescue animal and the date when he or she came into their care.

“Gus?” Ashleigh looked from the little girl to the fat gray cat.

“Yes, Gus. He looks like Gus down the street, doesn’t he?” She giggled.

Ashleigh rolled her eyes.

“I see the resemblance,” Michael said with mock seriousness, moving on to start the morning’s chores with Mari right beside him.

“The reds first today,” Mari said, standing with him as he opened the main gate that would allow the dogs, once they were released from their individual runs, out into the three-acre mowed and fenced play park behind the barn. He watched as Mari opened the cages one by one, waiting for each dog to reach the park before releasing the next, just as she’d been taught.

The reds were on the right side of the kennel area, so designated because of the red paint Mari had chosen for the cement surrounding the kennels.