Shelter Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

think about herself.
    She glanced down at the puppy sleeping in her hand, Thumbelina’s mouth slack with sleep. Lacey tugged a wet wipe and cleaned the little one’s waste before lining her up alongside her brothers and sisters, a mix of brown, tan and brindle babies.
    The mother dog had been hit by a car when her litter was three days old. The family who owned the dog had tried to care for the puppies for forty-eight hours before losing three then taking the remaining five straight to the local animal shelter. Since the shelter was overflowing, they’d called Lacey.
    Five little lives.
    She’d been rescuing for over ten years for other groups before starting her own. But these days, preserving life had taken on a frenetic edge. She tried and tried, yet each success left her feeling emptier. Two friends who volunteered with the rescue told her she wasn’t dealing with her grief.
    Like there was a way to get over losing her husband in a war.
    She only knew one way to cope. Keep moving forward so quickly she didn’t have time to think. She couldn’t afford to dwell on the past or the present, and most especially she couldn’t think overlong about that new dog asleep in a crate in the family room. Trooper was the final tie to an honorable man more committed to others than his family or even himself. If she gave in to those raging thoughts, she would surrender to the temptation to hurl the last piece of wedding crystal at the wall.
    She soaked in the familiarity around her, needing something steady to hold on to in her shredded world. Trooper seemed to be settling in well—other than barking his head off at the cuckoo clock. He hadn’t even protested over being crated in the family room, growling a couple more times at the clock before settling to sleep. He seemed to take comfort in all the animals around rather than feeling overwhelmed.
    A novelty.
    Some said she should give up rescue work, that it was too draining. They just didn’t understand that saving these abandoned and abused animals hauled her grieving body out of bed each morning.
    Her eyes were beyond gritty as she checked each little body in the line of puppies snoozing away in a milk coma. She wasn’t far behind. Exhaustion tugged at her. Her head lolled against the screened wall, and she didn’t have the energy to move from the plaid dog bed. Each breath of barley-scented air drew her deeper into the intoxicating allure of sleep. Just leaving her insane life behind for a few blissful hours. Peace, she craved it all the way to her tipsy toes. Might as well sleep here rather than in her bed with a conspicuously empty space beside her . . .
    “Mom?” Her daughter’s voice pierced her sleepy fog. “Mom, wake up.”
    Startled, Lacey jolted awake. Sunlight streamed through the screens onto her Lab Clementine sleeping at her feet. Morning? But she’d only closed her eyes for a minute. Or maybe not.
    Her daughter stood beside her, wearing a tank top and blue running shorts. Sierra used to wear nightshirts and cute little PJs, but she slept in clothes these days, always ready to face the world.
    Lacey looked fast at the puppies, and they all breathed and slept and twitched. Her neck screamed with a crick from sleeping sitting up. She rubbed the kink. “Sierra? What time is it?”
    “Six, but Mom, we have a problem.”
    Lacey looked out at the freshly mowed lawn, over to the lawnmower abandoned in the middle of the driveway. Panic fired hard and fast. “Has Grandpa wandered off again?”
    Sierra shook her head. “Not this time. He’s asleep in his room. But Trooper’s missing.”

Three
    S IERRA STIFLED A yawn and scratched her toe along the back of her leg, her brain still foggy even as her heart raced with anxiety over the missing dog. Her days of sleeping until noon were long gone. Life started early around here, Little House on the Freakin’ Manic Prairie style. Of course she might not feel like a zombie if she hadn’t spent half the night