When Summer Comes

She almost opened the door, but then whoever approached called out to someone else. “Get your lazy ass out of the truck and come up here.”

That voice definitely didn’t belong to Godfrey....

The passenger door opened and slammed as Callie stood at the front window. Because of the glare, she couldn’t make out who’d come to visit. It wasn’t as if she had the benefit of streetlights. Out here, there was no lighting at all, except the moon and stars, and tonight the moon wasn’t more than a thin silver smile.

The first man knocked as his companion joined him on the front stoop.

Gripping the pellet gun, Callie moved to the peephole and peered out. As she’d already surmised, she had two male visitors, neither of whom she recognized. “Who is it?”

“Denny Seamans and Powell Barney,” came the answer.

“Who?” she muttered to Rifle. She’d never heard of a Denny or a Powell. “It’s a little late to be out visiting,” she called above Rifle’s resounding bark.

“We’re not out visiting.”

“Then what can I do for you?”

“You can explain why the hell that old guy Godfrey Blume showed up at the vet’s today and had my dogs taken away by animal control.”

Denny and Powell were the Gruper renters.

Lowering the pellet rifle, Callie unlocked and opened the door.

The men were very obviously bodybuilders. About five feet nine inches, they had shaved heads to go with an overabundance of muscle and looked like twins, despite the differences in their facial features and last names.

“In case Godfrey didn’t already explain,” Callie began, “your dogs attacked a man who was pushing his motorcycle past—”

The first guy exploded before she could finish. “That’s bullshit!”

Callie didn’t know if it was Denny or Powell until he gestured at his companion.

“Tell her, Powell. Tell her Sauron and Spike would never do that.”

“They wouldn’t.” Powell shook his head as if it was a foregone conclusion. “I’ve been around those dogs a whole year. They’ve never caused any problems.”

Sauron’s name suggested he’d be capable of anything. The only other place Callie had heard that name before was in The Lord of the Rings. Sauron was the villain, which she suspected Denny knew. But she didn’t comment on that. He had the right to call his dog anything he wanted. Besides, the size of these men made her nervous. So did their attitudes.

She gripped her gun tighter, in case she had to raise it. She doubted a pellet would do much against the armor of all that beefcake—especially because she’d be lucky to squeeze the trigger once before the man who didn’t get shot took the gun away—but she figured it was better than nothing. “Then you need to tell that to the authorities. You have no reason to be standing on my doorstep.”

“According to Godfrey Blume, we do. You’re the one who’s saying otherwise. Seems your word is gold in this town.”

She couldn’t help reacting to his sarcasm. “Because they know I wouldn’t lie.”

“That’s why we’re here. It’s you we have to convince. You need to stop what you started, or I’m going to lose my dogs.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t change what they did. No one wins in these situations, least of all the animals. But I saw the results of what happened. You can’t tell me they didn’t attack.”

“It isn’t what you think!” Denny argued. “It’s not like they went after that drifter without reason. He tried to sleep in our garage. That’s trespassing. And my dogs just did what any guard dog would.”

Levi had to find somewhere to sleep at night. Given his situation and the late hour, their story might’ve been plausible. Except the police found his bike on the side of the road, halfway in the ditch, right where Levi said he’d dropped it. And when she’d been at the Gruper rental earlier, she’d seen no blood in the garage—only on the driveway leading to the back porch, suggesting the incident had occurred off-site, and then the dogs had trotted home.

“That’s not true,” she said.

The way she’d challenged his explanation didn’t sit well with Denny, who came off as the more aggressive of the two. “How the hell would you know?” His face, with its wide nose, jutted forward. “You weren’t there.”

These men didn’t act at all concerned that their dogs had mangled someone. All they cared about was the possibility of their own loss.

“I was at your place this morning,” she said. “I saw the bloody paw prints, Mr. Seamans. They weren’t in the garage.”

Denny’s eyes narrowed to a razor-sharp point. “You went on to my property?”

“I knocked first. You didn’t answer.”

“That doesn’t give you permission to snoop around!”

Rifle growled when Denny raised his voice, but Denny seemed too angry to care. Maybe he trusted her to hold the dog off. “Because of you, they’re going to put down two innocent pit bulls!”

“Because of me?” Callie echoed. “You mean because you allowed your dogs to injure someone!”

“I didn’t even know it was happening!”

“They’re still your responsibility. A child couldn’t have survived that attack. You didn’t see the number of stitches it took to repair what your ‘innocent’ Sauron and Spike did!”

“The stupid bastard they bit shouldn’t have trespassed on the property!”

Callie feared Levi would hear them. She didn’t want him to come out, didn’t want this to get out of hand, so she lowered her voice. “He didn’t trespass.”

“You don’t know that!” Powell shouted, despite her attempt to get him to speak quietly. “You don’t know anything! You’re just some small-town bitch who’s sticking her nose in something that’s got nothing to do with her.”

The barn door slid open with a resounding bang. At that point, Callie knew Levi would be joining them. It was too late to hope he’d stay out of it.

“Time for you to go,” he announced to the Gruper renters.

Because he wasn’t within reach of Denny’s headlights or the dim circle thrown by her porch light, Callie could only make out his shape, but it was enough to tell her he was striding purposely toward them.

Denny and Powell swung around. “Who the hell are you?” Denny asked.

Powell grabbed Denny’s arm as Levi stepped into the light. “That’s got to be the guy. Why else would he be in the barn so late? He tried sleeping in our garage last night, didn’t he?”

In deference to the cooler temperatures once the sun went down, Levi was wearing a thermal shirt with his jeans. He must’ve gotten it from his pack because Callie hadn’t seen it before. She liked it on him, but she wasn’t too encouraged by how lean it made him look in comparison to the two bruisers on her porch.

With Denny and Powell distracted by the interruption, Callie raised her gun. She was afraid she might have to head off a fight. But she hesitated to speak up too soon, didn’t want a show of force to cause this situation to escalate if there was still a chance of avoiding it.

“Calm down,” she warned Rifle who, taking his lead from Levi’s appearance, was growling at Denny and Powell.

Levi came close—close enough for Callie to see

the fury in his eyes. Together with the anger chiseled in the hollows of his cheeks, the firm set of his jaw and the thinness of his lips, he looked dangerous despite the fact that he weighed a lot less than the two Gruper renters.