Home Is Where Your Bark Is

Chapter 6

It wasn’t a dream. After sunrise and her first trip to the bathroom since she’d been wheeled to a shared room whose other half was currently empty, Jenna was back in bed, her gaze fixed on the note written in small print on the back of the police officer’s business card that had been paper-clipped to the accident report.

This person took your dog and wants you to call him.

This simple, declarative sentence was followed by a name, Jake Stiles— Jake, that’s it —and a Racine area number. Her lips quirked upward even though it really wasn’t news that should make her happy.

Nothing about the last twelve hours was anything to smile about, unless it was that she hadn’t been hurt any worse than she had been. Now that she’d had more time to process everything, she suspected that her truck—the vehicle that was key to doing what she loved—was totaled. This was one thing. The airbags had gone off; she remembered this much. Memory of the impact itself was piecemeal, but airbags deploying meant body damage, and the truck had been edging toward twenty years old. It had been a gem find though: one owner, very low mileage for its age, and unlikely replaceable for the money she’d spent on it.

Added to this, she’d asked a stranger to take her sister’s dog to a shelter on her behalf. The poor dog was probably stuck in a kennel now, his memory of the last month already fading as he waited for his next chance at a forever home.

This last week excluded, after Monica had found the tender knot in her breast, Jenna hadn’t been much for prayer since her mom died. If all the praying she’d done back then hadn’t worked, it really seemed pointless. Even so, she closed her eyes and said one for the dog to find his way into a perfect home. Wild thing or not, he deserved a loving home that worked for him.

Given what she’d asked Jake to do, he couldn’t think highly of her. But something inside her lightened at knowing he was real. If he was real, then there was reason to believe what had passed between them had been real, too, something intimate and unspoken, hardly something she’d experienced with close friends, much less a complete stranger.

And what’re you going to do about it? Ask him on a date? Because that wouldn’t be weird.

Jenna pressed her fingers lightly against the Steri-Strips covering the stitches in her hair above her temple as she considered this. Why wouldn’t she? Not a date but coffee—once her head stopped feeling like this.

He held your hand in the rain and waited for an ambulance with you and took your sister’s dog to a shelter and you want to buy him coffee?

Okay, maybe she’d assemble a thank-you basket while she was at it. A snort escaped as some ideas of what to put in it popped to mind. An emergency raincoat. A couple flares and a roadside hazard sign. Maybe some hand warmers.

His hands were perfectly warm.

Her morning nurse walked in, interrupting Jenna’s reverie. “There you are, sitting up and everything. Feeling better?”

“Much better than last night, but wow, it’s bright out there.” After last night’s storm, it promised to be a beautiful day, but glancing toward the window had Jenna wincing like a vampire.

“That’s your concussion talking. You’ll want to lie low for a few days once you get home, keep the blinds pulled if you can.” As she spoke, she headed over and pulled the roman shades down halfway. “No TV, no devices. They’ll be discharging you this morning but not until your doctor makes her rounds. Shouldn’t be long though. Enough time to order breakfast if you’re hungry.”

After handing Jenna a menu that had been on the far counter, the nurse took her vitals.

Home. It would be nice to get home to her quiet apartment and her plants. Jenna could nap as long as she wanted, and no one would disturb her. But, after months of being perfectly fine with the status quo of being contentedly single after another failed stab at dating, the idea of going home to no one after a brush with whatever last night’s accident was—maybe not death but certainly tragedy—seemed, well, lonely.

Maybe she’d stay at Monica’s a couple days instead. There was a private guest bedroom in the recently refinished basement with a private bathroom and a far nicer bathtub than the coffin-like squeeze she had in her apartment tub. Even before thinking of the boys and how their exuberant yells and train whistles would pound in her head, Stuart’s concerned face popped into mind.

No, Jenna wouldn’t be headed there.

She was one hundred percent over him. She just hated that she needed to remind herself of that every so often.

Jenna glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even eight yet. Far too early to call a stranger and thank him for his generosity. On the other hand, it was too late to call her sister. The household would no doubt be in chaos as she and Stuart wrangled the boys out the door before Monica’s appointment.

Under the covers, Jenna flexed her toes as she perused the menu. It was, at least, the perfect time for pancakes. Maybe some turkey sausage and orange juice too. In the grand scheme of things, it was a small win, but she’d take it.