The Unexpected Shelter Read online

  The Unexpected Shelter

  Applebottom Matchmaker Society

  Abby Tyler

  Contents

  Meeting Minutes

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Luke & Savannah’s Wedding

  Gertrude & Maude’s Lemon Chess Pie

  About Abby Tyler

  Summary

  When the surprise son to Applebottom’s mayor arrives in town and begins volunteering at the animal shelter, the town encourages the tender romance between him and the young woman who has run the shelter since her father built it in honor of her mother.

  Copyright © 2019 by Abby Tyler. All rights reserved.

  * * *

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  * * *

  AbbyTyler

  PO Box 160116

  Austin, TX 78716

  www.abbytyler.com

  * * *

  Paperback ISBN: 9781938150876

  * * *

  Edition 4.1

  Meeting Minutes

  APPLEBOTTOM TOWN SQUARE PROPRIETORS

  Gertrude Vogel, secretary

  Because nobody else has a clue.

  * * *

  Today we met at the Applebottom Pie Shoppe, owned by yours truly.

  Maude Lewis, co-owner of the pie shop, set out the nicest chess pie you ever did see for the others to take a gander at. Lemon chess with blueberries, pretty as you please.

  I made it, of course.

  As she sliced it, Mayor T-bone came in looking more serious than usual. Behind him was an interloper, a young man of maybe twenty-five.

  T-bone stood in the doorway like a hanged man until Maude finally asked who the young man was.

  Topher Smith-Cole, co-owner of Applebottom Blossoms, said the boy had to be kin. He was the spitting image of T-bone.

  I figured he was right. They had the same eyes and nose, and the two of them had an uncanny way of standing in the same position.

  “Well, spit it out,” I said. “You already broke the sanctity of the Town Square Proprietors by bringing in a stranger.”

  “This ain’t no stranger,” T-bone said. “He’s my son.”

  The room went wild with chairs scraping back and people gasping like T-bone done announced he was from Nebraska.

  Topher and Danny recovered first, standing up to shake the boy’s hand. Delilah sat there with her mouth open like she just swallowed a bug.

  I finally said what everybody was thinking. “How in the world did you keep him a secret all this time?”

  T-bone shrugged. “I didn’t know. He showed up a couple days ago. We ran it by Micah and got all the legal paperwork square.”

  “Is he staying?” Betty asked.

  “I reckon you can ask him yourself,” T-bone said.

  “Well, introduce him proper,” Maude said.

  “I’m Luke Southard,” the boy said, shaking hands all around.

  Everybody settled down and Maude finished cutting the pie. I noticed she gave Luke the first slice.

  “Turns out a woman I knew back in the day had a kid and didn’t tell me,” T-bone said. “Luke’s a mechanic, and I figure we needed one of those around here.”

  “We surely do,” Delilah said. “I had to haul my minivan all the way to Branson. Cost a hundred dollars just to tow!”

  “Where will you set up shop?” Betty asked.

  Luke swallowed his bite of pie. “T-bone has an outbuilding we’re gonna empty out at the RV park.”

  Everybody went on and on about how good it would be to have someone fixing cars right in town again.

  But I kept my eyeball on that boy. Sort of strange, turning up like this after twenty-five years. Good-lookin’ too.

  No doubt he’d be turning the local girls’ heads.

  Betty was thinking the same thing, as she caught my gaze across the table and gave me a quick nod.

  We better work fast if we wanted to have a say in the matter of who got matched with the mayor’s son.

  Since nobody had anything for the agenda, we drank some coffee and talked about nothing special.

  At least not in front of the boy.

  Meeting adjourned.

  Chapter 1

  Savannah Perkins was pretty sure her life consisted of only two things – kibble and poop.

  She hefted a giant bag of dog food on her shoulder and carefully stepped along the round paving stones that safely lead her from the food storage shed to the kennels.

  The recent rains had turned the entire free-range yard for the dogs into a muddy pit. She had to stick to the path, because she couldn’t tell for sure the difference between the kicked up bits of mud and the poop she’d be cleaning up later. The sky had sprinkled off and on that morning before she could get to yard patrol. Why couldn’t dog poop be blue or something, easy to spot?

  Sergeant, a tall German Shepherd with a patch of dark hair circling one eye, trotted toward her.

  He was the current alpha at the animal shelter. The rest of the dogs scurried after him, all approaching her as she made her way to the kennels for feeding time.

  Savannah blew a stray hair out of her face and glanced up at the sky. The wind was changing. That meant a cold front was blowing in. She’d have to get the dogs in soon or end up with an entire pack of wet shivering pups that she’d have to towel down.

  Where was her volunteer? She could have sworn one was coming today.

  She shoved the new bag of kibble on a high shelf, well out of reach of any of the dogs, and took a second to catch her breath.

  Sergeant stood for a moment near the open door and watched her. If she started filling the kibble bowls, he would lead the pack inside to settle in their kennels.

  When Savannah moved toward the sick bay, Sergeant turned aside and trotted back out into the yard.

  Actually, forget the human helpers. Sergeant was Savannah’s greatest ally at the shelter. He taught the new arrivals the routine, alerted Savannah to any outliers in health or behavior, and generally kept the pack in line.

  Currently, she had ten dogs, which was about all she could handle on her own. Seven of them were out in the yard with Sergeant. One, a terrified Chihuahua named Pixie, had still never been coaxed from his kennel even though they kept the door open.

  Savannah would check on him in a moment.

  First, though, she wanted to see to the puppies.

  She leaned in to look inside the sick-bay kennel set up on the table in the back corner. A heat lamp kept the clear plastic dome at a consistent temperature. The bed was lined with soft blankets, and in the center, two four-week-old Rottweiler puppies curled together in a ball.

  Savannah checked the clock over the kennel. It was time for their feeding.

  She’d wake them in a minute. She ought to look in on the cat room.

  She squeezed between two stacks of carriers, the ones she used when she
had adoption days down at Delilah’s doggy bakery. The screen door squeaked as she opened it.

  This used to be a sunroom, something her dad had built when Savannah was a baby. Now it was a cat sanctuary. Ten kitties in various colors, breeds, and ages, lounged on cat trees by the wall of windows. Most of them were asleep, but a few of the youngest prowled the room, tossing catnip mice around or jumping each other.

  The cat fountain was squealing, as it often did, and Savannah tapped it with her foot to make it go silent.

  Sweetie, a white Persian with long fluffy hair peered up at her.

  “You’re the reason the filter’s always clogged,” Savannah said.

  Sweetie paid her no mind, drinking in her preferred way, her head under the flow of water, her little pink tongue lolling out to catch stray drops.

  The litter boxes were full, another chore she would get to once she had shoveled out the yard while the dogs ate. Which would happen after she fed the puppies.

  The days stretched out long, one the same as every other. The only things that ever seemed to change were the names and breeds and health conditions of animals in her care, and occasionally the faces of the volunteers.

  When they showed.

  She hurried back to the puppies, who were stirring and stretching. One of them had the tiniest little cast on his leg. Savannah had found them herself, her intuition leading her to the creek just off Table Rock Lake where puppies were regularly abandoned. It always seemed this time of year she’d find one or two or a whole litter down by the rocks.

  She checked each time she went into town, and three days ago, there they were. She’d named them Tom and Jerry. They were mostly black with the usual markings, light brown cheeks and chests and paws. Tom had an injured leg. She suspected he’d been thrown in the river and hit a rock. She didn’t understand people.

  But he was healing up fine. In fact both the pups were thriving. They’d just had their first softened meal of solid food yesterday and could poop and pee on their own.

  Another week in the private sick bay and she’d start introducing them to the smaller members of the pack.

  Savannah pulled two bottles of formula from the fridge and heated them up in the little bottle heater she kept by the sick-bay kennel.

  Both pups had already started to understand the routine, wobbling toward her as she pulled the bottles out and checked the temperature.

  She lowered the side of the kennel and spread out the blanket, encouraging them to come closer. She sat on a stool and fed them both at the same time, glancing over her shoulder to make sure Sergeant still had the rest of the dogs under control in the yard.

  She was only halfway through the bottles when the front doorbell rang. Great. Who was that?

  “Boone!” she called. “Can you get the door?”

  She heard a shuffling of feet, and she knew her dad was headed to the front of the house. Hopefully it was somebody they knew.

  “Drink up, pups,” she said. Tom finished first and staggered sleepily, milk drunk, back to the center of the blanket where it was warmest.

  “Hurry up, Jerry,” she said. The middle-of-the-night feedings were her cuddle time with them. Morning was get-it-down-and-go.

  She heard a male voice, low and rumbling, definitely not her father’s. She wondered what was going on out there. Worry gnawed at her belly. Her dad didn’t always know what to do with people at the door.

  Jerry got sleepy as the bottle grew to the end, so she went ahead and cut him off and tucked him in next to his brother.

  She pushed her hair off her forehead, grimacing as she felt the sticky wetness of warm milk smearing from her fingers. She wasn’t going to win any beauty pageants today, that was for sure.

  She was about to head to the front to see who the visitor was, praying it was a new volunteer and not a drop off that she couldn’t take right now, when the sound of raindrops on the tin roof forced her to change direction.

  Boone would have to handle the visitor. She needed to get the dogs in before they got drenched.

  She hurried to the back door. “Sergeant,” she called. “Bring everybody in.”

  Sergeant tried to lead the pack inside, but they were distracted by the storm. Luigi, a boxer-pug mix, was particularly prone to wallowing in the mud when he got the chance. As Sergeant attempted to herd the other dogs toward their kennels, Luigi plopped down in a shallow depression in the yard and rolled around on his back.

  “Luigi,” she called. “Come on.”

  A peal of thunder caused many of the dogs to jump and bark in fright. Savannah hurried out in the rain to shoo the dogs into the kennel room more quickly. Luigi was still on his back.

  She squatted down to push him toward the back door. “Come on, Luigi. This is no time to play outside.”

  The rain picked up another notch, drenching her hair and shirt. “Come on, puppy dog. Let’s go inside.”

  She would have to pick him up in a moment and see to the other dogs, even if it would get her muddy. The pack was clearly distressed, only a few of them actually going to their kennels. Their muddy paws left trails everywhere on the concrete floor. She’d have to mop on top of everything else.

  A tall figure appeared at the back door. Savannah peered through the rain, trying to make out who it was. Jesse? He hadn’t volunteered for a couple months, but maybe he was back. She could definitely use his help and would ask no questions about his disappearance.

  “Can you get the dogs squared away in there?” she called. “I’m trying to get Luigi in.”

  He nodded and turned back. Had to be Jesse.

  She got down on her knees, grimacing as her jeans slid in the muck. It’s just mud, she told herself. She suddenly recalled her mother’s singsong voice. God made dirt, so dirt can’t hurt.

  She pushed on Luigi until she got him on his feet. With an unhappy grunt, Luigi finally yielded and started trotting toward the back door.

  Savannah stood up. She was a fright, mud all over her hands and arms and knees and feet.

  She used the rain to wash off the worst of it. Maybe Jesse could watch over the dogs for a moment while she went to change.

  She shoved her hair off her face as she ducked inside the kennel room, knowing she was streaking mud across her forehead. Couldn’t be helped.

  “How are they?” she asked, then stopped short. Wait. Who was that?

  The man turned around, and Savannah took two steps back.

  “Oh my gosh. Who are you?”

  The man was disarmingly good-looking, with short dark hair that laid smoothly over to one side. He wore a T-shirt with a plaid button-down over it, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

  “I’m Luke Southard,” he said. “I don’t believe we’ve met.” He extended a hand.

  Savannah lifted her arm, then realized it was covered with streaks of mud and withdrew it.

  Strangers in Applebottom were rare. The town was off the beaten path. Most of the tourists stayed in nearby Branson. And certainly, people who were just passing through didn’t stop by the animal shelter.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been wrestling Luigi in the yard. Why are you here?” She shoved her hair back, and realized she probably just put another streak of mud on her face.

  “The lady who owns the dog bakery sent me. Said you could use some help.”

  Delilah, God bless her. But who was this man?

  “I know everybody in Applebottom,” she said. “But not you.”

  He moved suddenly to the side, blocking Luigi, who was trying to escape out the back again. Savannah lunged for the door and shut it.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” His grin made her belly flip over. “I’m new in town. It’s a bit of a story, but it turns out T-bone is my pop.”

  “T-bone? The mayor?” Nobody would see this coming. But now that he said it, Savannah spotted the resemblance.

  “That very one.” He bent down to scratch Luigi behind the ears. The overweight lump flipped on his back immediately
to get belly rubs instead.

  “I’ll be working on cars in the mornings, but I was in veterinary school up north before moving down. Delilah thought helping you out would look good as I tried to switch to a college down here.”

  Savannah felt absolutely faint. A new man in town. Son of a local. Ridiculously handsome.

  And studying to be a veterinarian.

  That was it.

  She was dead.

  Chapter 2

  Luke Southard looked up at the prettiest girl he’d met in a long time while he scratched an overweight pug’s belly.

  She was streaked head to shoe with mud and soaking wet to boot. Some people might have said she looked like something the cat dragged in, but Luke could bear witness to the fact that it was actually a dog that caused her predicament. The one he was scratching.

  “I figured I might have a few hours a day to come and help out,” he said.

  She stammered, and Luke couldn’t tell if she was overwhelmed or just cold from the rain.

  “Th-thank you. I mean, really. Thank you.”

  Luke glanced around. A few of the pups had gone inside the kennels, like they knew where to be. The others, including this overweight fella at his feet, were loose among the rows.

  “What would you have me do with them?” he asked. “You look like you might want a change of clothes and a hot drink.”

  “I could. I would. Please. I would love to change.” Her hands fluttered all around as she pointed to one part of the room, then the other. “I already fed the babies. I just checked on the cats. I have to mop the floor. I won’t be able to muck the yard until it stops raining.”