In Your Arms: A Small Town Love Story (Safe Haven Book 1) (30 page)

Marlo wouldn’t allow us back in the house until we’d peed. It must have been a routine because Fala quickly peed and rushed indoors. I took longer because the myriad of smells about the place had to be checked in case there was anything needing my attention.

W
e had
a routine at the house which helped settle me. As I started to trust it, I knew there were things I could rely on such as meals, walks, training, and I no longer had to concern myself about food or water. Or fighting.

I loved being with Fala and she helped me with the routine. If I became concerned about anything I only had to look to her to see if she was worried, and if not, I was happy to relax.

Training was so much fun and I’d do anything to hear Marlo or Lulah tell me what a clever dog I was. Sure, the treats were a bonus, or the reward of a game of tug with the thick knotted rope, but mostly I loved the warmth of their voices, the gentle touch of a hand—even if it was for a vigorous rub around my neck—and the way their faces changed when they experienced pleasure from what I was doing.

After learning manners like sitting and staying, and coming when I was called, I was taught specific house manners such as not stealing socks and shoes, staying off the furniture unless I was invited, and no counter-surfing for food! I was also taught to behave nicely when visitors arrived and that was difficult for me. If they were the people I knew from the Sanctuary I would become excited and want to express my pleasure at their presence. If a stranger came to the house I became anxious and would try to hide. My favorite hiding place was behind the drapes in the sitting room and although it appeared to me to be the ideal spot, Marlo always found me.

After we’d practiced good manners I would learn fun things like retrieving. We started with a ball but after a while a new aspect was added to the retrieve game. I learned to identify various objects so that when asked, I could retrieve things like Marlo’s bag, the phone, or the car keys. It was amazing how often I heard Marlo say, “Where are my keys?” and I’d search the house until I found them. It was a challenging game because they were always in a different place.

Each day I walked to the mailbox and was allowed to help carry the mail home once I understood it wasn’t my job to open the parcels.

We also played games where they would hide toys from me in the yard. I had to wait in the house until I was sent out to find them and that all but drove me nuts. I’d dance from foot to foot, and sometimes make a whining sound because all that energy had to go somewhere. One day it clicked for me that I was never given the command to
go search
until I was sitting quietly. From then on, most times I was able to control myself and wait patiently.

As a surprise for Adam, Marlo was also teaching me to get him a beer from the fridge. At times, the temptation to steal a piece of meat while I was looking for the beer almost got the better of me, but I resisted because I didn’t want to disappoint Marlo.

I got to know the sounds of the car engines, each one unique, and I loved anticipating Adam’s arrival, seeing the change in Marlo when he entered the room. I didn’t like hearing Marlo’s car driving away when I was left in the house, even though Fala was there to remind me that Marlo would always return. Sometimes my courage deserted me and I had trouble believing that was so, but Fala encouraged me to trust them. At those times I would search for a piece of Marlo’s clothing and take it to my bed where I could wait quietly and pretend she was there.

E
veryone was thrilled
with my progress and it turned out that the more I loved people and displayed my affection to them, the better my life became. Trust seemed to be the most difficult thing for me; it was always such a fine thread, ready to break. I knew this because inside Marlo I saw her own struggle to trust people and I liked to follow her lead.

Sometimes when Adam was at the house I could sense Marlo’s anxiety and I would be torn between comforting Marlo and being Adam’s friend. I didn’t know how to prove to her that Adam was a good person and that she could trust him.

We weren’t left alone at night very often but one evening I watched Marlo behaving differently. She kept changing into different clothes and I couldn’t understand why because they all looked fine to me. I lay on the bathmat and watched her do things with her hair, and put stuff on her face. She tried to disguise her scent, but I could still smell her beneath the floral perfume and wondered why she’d bothered.

Then she changed her dress again and I began to fret inside because she seemed so anxious. I heard her mention the keys and I got them for her off the bench. Her search-and-find skill appeared to be completely broken and I thought maybe it had something to do with the way she’d become even taller and a bit unsteady on her feet. Or maybe that was the shoes she wore that I’d never seen before.

Then the awful moment came when she issued instructions about behaving ourselves, saying she wouldn’t be long—which seemed to be something she said no matter how long her absence—and she left the house. I waited behind the door, listening to her car until it turned out of the driveway onto the road.

I have no idea how long she was gone. I lay with Fala, feeling the slow rise and fall of her chest, and tried to sleep, but I couldn’t shut off my need to wait for the sound of her car and I kept one eye cracked open, one ear prepared for sound the entire time she was gone.

Finally I heard her return and I waited at the door for her to enter. She was her normal height, her shoes in her hand, her walk steady, but I sensed something awful, almost fear, and I wondered what she had brought with her back to the house. Was it physical, was there another person with her, or was it strong emotion, like the resurrection of an unpleasant memory?

I followed her to the patio and she called me up onto the daybed to sit with her. She remained deep in her thoughts, an absent stroke of her hand trailing from my shoulder and along my ribcage, and apart from sitting as close to her as possible, I demanded nothing further from her than to be allowed to give her some comfort.

Her phone rang several times and it seemed her search-and-find skills must still have been broken, so finally I hopped off the bed retrieved the phone from her bag and tried to place it in her hand. I must have made it slippery because she didn’t grip it well and it dropped to the ground.

During the phone call she became more upset so when the call was finished I gave her wet face a long lick. She smiled at me but I’d learned that smiling didn’t necessarily mean she was happy.

Whatever had happened made me afraid for her.

H
aving been
in a state of calm I stepped up my vigilance to match that of Marlo’s. There had been distress between Marlo and Adam and I hadn’t seen Adam for a few days. Marlo was jumpy, reacting to sounds and shadows and I reacted to her.

Part of my training was for me to become accustomed to a variety of people and situations—something that in a good home would have occurred when I was a puppy. Lulah would take me down to the barn where the other dogs were trained and I would go through exercises like the one with toys that looked like babies, to test my reaction to children. Other tasks were designed to test my self-control around things I wanted to chase, like skateboards, joggers and bikes.

I hated to leave Marlo, though, and although I had enjoyed the lessons and socialization in the past, I would become anxious if I was at the barn, away from Marlo, for too long.

I was in the office late one afternoon when Marlo received a phone call and became agitated. When she’d finished she called me to her side and we went through the routine of closing up and setting the security systems…twice. I could feel the churning within her as we walked up to the house. She startled at noises she would normally ignore. The length of her walking stride had shortened and she paused to examine movement in bushes, the change of a shadow or the silencing of a bird. The air felt supercharged around her and instead of sticking to her side I made a reconnaissance of the gardens that lined the path to flush out anything bad that might be there.

Once she opened the house door she stepped inside and waited as Fala and I entered. I was certain nothing was amiss but I checked thoroughly anyway. We ate our dinner on the patio as usual then Marlo called us inside as soon as we were finished. I followed her as she shut the doors and windows and wondered whether she was going out for the evening.

Later, in a half sleep I heard the crunch of car tires on gravel. It wasn’t Adam’s vehicle; I hadn’t heard that in days. Marlo was wired and every muscle in my body tensed, ready for whatever was coming. I rose, padded to the door and on pure instinct, emitted a low growl.

Marlo praised me but took me by the collar and calling out to Fala, ushered us both into the bedroom then left, shutting the door behind her. I stayed on high-alert, concerned about the unusual turn of events that had us separated from Marlo.

Outside the door I heard voices. A man—not Adam—and Marlo. I didn’t know the man’s voice and I didn’t like the pitch of Marlo’s. All of me itched to break out of the room and investigate but Fala convinced me if we were supposed to be with Marlo she’d never have shut us away. Still, I couldn’t settle and I constantly stood, paced and lay down, shifting my position every couple of minutes.

The situation in the other room escalated and I felt a rush of relief as I heard approaching footsteps. The rhythm of them was all wrong but what I wanted was the door opened so that I could get to Marlo.

I froze. The voices came closer, the tone broken before some fumbling and the opening of the door.

Heat coursed through my veins, in a manner I hadn’t experienced since my fighting days. The stranger fixed me with a hard stare and I couldn’t help the low growl that rumbled in my chest. He held Marlo aggressively and it took me only a split-second to shift from freeze to fight and launch myself at him. My move was precisely executed so that I got hold of his arm without harming Marlo. The man swung at me, punching me around the muzzle and landing a kick to my ribs, but it was nothing to what I’d once been accustomed to. I grabbed a better hold of him and took him with me to the ground.

Marlo had made a terrible noise, high-pitched like a wounded animal and although she called on me to release the man, I was in a situation where my only option was fight. He wasn’t going to have the chance to come at us again.

A short time later there were more voices, more strange men and Marlo convinced me to let go of my prey but I found it impossible to come down off the adrenaline that flooded my system. Soon I was locked back in the bedroom. Fala lay in her basket trembling and when I finally managed to make a connection with her I discovered she’d met this man before.

I paced, whined and scraped at the door, desperate to know what was happening. Fala stayed in her bed, yawned any time I looked at her and licked her nose in a self-soothing manner. It had the benefit of calming me, too, so that I managed to settle near the door.

Eventually I heard Adam’s voice and although unable to stop my pacing and whining, his presence meant we were safer.

I couldn’t understand why I was still locked in the room. I needed to be out the door, to check perimeters, satisfy myself about who was still here, and who had been here. I needed all the scents in my memory to enable me to recall them and react quickly if I ever came across them again.

Finally Marlo came for me, taking me into the sitting room with Adam. I could still smell blood and had to battle inside to prevent myself from shutting down. The combination of the smell and the bad energy in the air was too close to the stuff I’d experienced as a fighting dog.

Marlo worked with me for a bit, asking me to perform simple things like sitting quietly, giving her a paw—ordinary tasks to bring the pressure down. Once I’d settled enough she put me back with Fala and I slept.

The man came and seized me the next day.

I
n the morning
we followed our usual routine but something had changed. There were little spikes of tension, but worse, I kept seeing that look in Marlo’s eye when I caught her simply staring at me.

Then a van came up the drive and parked outside the office.

The man introduced himself and told Marlo he’d come to pick me up. She was calm at first, the tone of her voice one I’d often heard her use when a dog she worked with needed reassurance. She explained she was being attacked by the man in her home and that I had protected her.

The man apologized and said he had an order to pick me up.

As each minute went by, each argument countered, I understood by the change in pitch of Marlo’s voice that she was losing this battle. As Marlo fought for me, the man attached a chain around my neck, removed my collar which he placed on Marlo’s desk, and led me from the office.

I was right back there.

Day one.

Flat as a pancake.

I could feel Marlo’s horror and that added to my distress so that I couldn’t walk. I was half-carried to the vehicle and lifted through the door. Inside the van was hot, and smelled of the fear of a hundred other animals.

When we finally reached our destination I found myself again in a concrete kennel, bars on the door and only a small amount of natural light coming through a high window. The incessant barking was present, along with the palpable distress of my fellow inmates, and the loud voices that hurt my ears and set my nerves on edge.

I retreated to the back of my kennel, curled to make myself as small as possible and faced the corner.

I don’t know how long I waited for Marlo or Adam to come and find me, but each day that passed ensured I regressed further towards the psychological state I’d been in when I was taken to the first shelter. I began to have dreams about fighting again. Nightmares that jarred me awake and left me panting.

Eventually somebody came for me, but he wasn’t familiar. I walked alongside him in a low crouch, my spirit defeated by disappointment and the fear that I would never see my friends again.