“I think Beau has the right idea,” Melanie said, and she sat on the top step on the other side of him. The spoiled dog groaned when she patted his side. He pawed at her knee, seeking more attention, and she laughed, petting him vigorously between the ears, which Gabe knew he enjoyed. Gabe certainly enjoyed when Melanie had her hands on him. And that dress? As if the woman wasn’t distracting enough in shorts and a tank top, she had to go and put that on. Mercy.

Gabe returned to his seat on the other side of Beau, trying to remember he was a gentleman and that he could get through an evening without jumping Melanie’s bones in a fit of uncontrollable lust. Yeah, right.

Lady returned, dripping drool on the steps at his feet as she dropped the retrieved ball again. “One more,” Gabe said, “and then you need to go inside.”

He doubted she’d follow that instruction, but he was very much looking forward to taking Melanie out on the town and showing her off, so Lady’s fun would have to come to an end.

Gabe picked up the sopping-wet ball and heaved it across the yard. Lady sped after it joyfully, hitting it with her paws an inch off center. The ball popped forward and bounced out toward the road.

A billow of dust rose up in a long trail as a vehicle sped down the gravel road toward the house.

“Expecting someone?” Melanie asked.

“Nope.” He didn’t see many vehicles out this way, but it wasn’t entirely unusual for the locals to use this road.

Lady chased the ball closer and closer to the road.

The old rattling pickup sped closer and closer to the house.

The ball bounced out into the gravel. Lady bounded after it, oblivious to the approaching truck.

Gabe’s heart froze, and he jumped up, scarcely aware that he was racing down the steps and across the yard “Lady! Stop!”

She stopped just short of the road and glanced back at him, tongue lolling, as she gave him one of her speaking glances. This one seemed to say, What? Do you think I’m an idiot?

He released a breath of relief and drew to a halt, turning his attention to the truck. It was going far too fast on the gravel road. Fucking idiot. As the rusty vehicle flew past his mailbox at the end of the driveway, Gabe yelled, “Slow down!” even though there was no way the driver would hear him over the rumble of tires on gravel.

The passenger side wheels grazed the grass of Gabe’s front yard, sending the truck lurching in the opposite direction as the truck slid in the loose gravel. The driver overcorrected the skid and drifted back into the yard. Gabe didn’t have time to process what was happening. There was a thud, a pained yelp, and the crunch and spray of gravel as the vehicle came to a skidding halt.

“Oh my God,” he heard Melanie say behind him. “Lady!”

That’s when he saw the unmoving mass of black fur lying in the grass several feet from the truck. Gabe knew he was running toward Lady, but he couldn’t feel himself move. He couldn’t feel anything but an undeniable rage welling up inside him.

He dropped to his knees next to Lady. Blood covered her side and the grass beneath her. Her left foreleg was bent at an unnatural angle. She blurred out of focus as he laid a hand on her head. She wasn’t whining, wasn’t drawing air, wasn’t moving at all.

“Is she okay?” A voice came from the open window of the truck.

Beyond shock and the grief came anger. As it was the only emotion Gabe could handle at the moment, he went with it. He sprang from the ground and stalked toward the truck. He wrenched the passenger door open, reached across the ragged bench seat, grabbed the driver in both hands, and yanked him bodily from the vehicle. Fists clenched in his shirt, Gabe slammed the driver’s back into the side of the truck.

“Why in the fuck were you driving so fast?” Gabe yelled.

The kid cowered, and some rational shred of Gabe’s senses realized he was just a child. He couldn’t beat the ever-loving shit out of a minor, no matter how much he wanted to. “How old are you?” he asked, because if this kid was over eighteen, he was about to get the ass-whooping of his life.

“F-f-fifteen,” the kid said, the unmistakable smell of alcohol wafting from his mouth into Gabe’s face.

“You’ve been drinking,” Gabe said.

“No, I—”

Gabe cuffed him on the side of the head. “Don’t fucking lie to me. You hit my dog, you little shit.”

“Is she… is she dead?”

The kid tried to peer around Gabe to see the damage he’d done, but Gabe slammed him against the truck again.

“If you’ve been drinking, why the fuck are you driving?” Gabe yelled, memories of one horrible, drunken night in high school rising up to haunt him. “Bad enough that you killed a dog. What if it had been a little kid? Would you be able to live with yourself? What if you’d hit a fuckin’ tree? Is a little drunken fun worth your life?”

“I didn’t mean to hit her. I have to get home before my grandpa finds out I took his truck.”

“And his whiskey?”

The kid lowered his eyes.

“Gabe,” Melanie said, her voice gentle and easy behind him. “We need to get Lady to a vet.”

“A vet?”

“She’s breathing, but she’s losing a lot of blood. I think she’s going into shock.”

Gabe released the kid’s shirt and whirled around. Beau licked Lady’s face, trying to get a response out of her. Melanie was holding the gash on Lady’s side closed with her hands. With bloody hands. God dammit to hell, here he was hell bent on teaching a fifteen-year-old a lesson, and his dog was bleeding out. Still, he couldn’t very well let the kid get behind the wheel again, and he knew that’s just what the little shit would do the second they were out of sight.

Gabe leaned into the truck and removed the keys from the ignition.

“What are you doing?” the boy asked as Gabe hurled the keys into the weed-thick field across the road.

“Think about what you did while you’re looking for those,” he said. “And think about how much worse it could have been. And if after you find those keys, you still think it’s a good idea to get behind the wheel drunk, wait for me to return so I can beat some sense into you.”

God, he wished he’d taken Joey’s keys when he’d had the chance. But he didn’t have time to think about Joey at the moment. He needed to get Lady to the vet and try to save her or, if she wasn’t going to make it, at least keep her from suffering any more than she had to.

He rushed back to the house and called the emergency number for the vet. Dr. Nelson wasn’t in the office on Saturday evenings but after Gabe’s breathless explanation, she promised to meet them at the office and do what she could for Lady. Gabe tried to coax Beau into the house, but he refused to budge from Lady’s side, so he decided to allow the stubborn dog to ride with them. He wrapped Lady in his shirt, lifted her carefully from the ground, and carried her to his truck. Her eyes blinked open and she whined, her brown-eyed gaze pleading with Gabe as she looked up at him.

“It’s all right, girl,” he said to her.

“She’s scared, Gabe,” Melanie said. “You hold her and I’ll drive. She’ll be calmer that way.”

He nodded, glad Melanie was here with him and holding it together. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if she hadn’t been there.

He maneuvered himself into the truck with Lady cradled on his lap. Beau sat at his feet, his massive blond head on Gabe’s knee as he whined at Lady and offered her an encouraging lick every so often. The drive seemed uncommonly long. He gave Melanie directions to the clinic, but was too choked up to talk. While sitting at a stoplight several blocks from their destination, she squeezed his shoulder, and he looked at her.

“She’ll be all right,” Melanie said. “Have faith.”

He offered a half nod, but the quivering of Lady’s flesh, her struggle to draw breath, and the chill in her skin didn’t instill much confidence in him. He crooned encouragement to her, probably more for his sake than hers, and ignored the burn at the back of his eyes.