Butterfly Bayou (Butterfly Bayou 1)

The dog obviously hadn’t lost his sense of direction or his instinct as to who he could manipulate with big doggy eyes. His tail wagged and he moved toward the new girl, dumping Armie in a heartbeat.

“You said you could fix my lights? I know I shouldn’t ask, but it’s late and I don’t want to wake up my sister to get Remy out here to do it. If you could show me, I’ll know how to fix it myself next time.”

He got to his feet. “Of course. I’ll put Peanut out in my car and check the fuse box.”

Even in the low light from his flashlight he could see the way she frowned. “He can come inside. According to you this is his home. And he needs food and water. I wondered why there were tins of dog food left in the pantry. I was going to find a shelter and donate them. I’m glad I was lazy about that now.” She sighed and scratched behind the dog’s ears. “They never planned on taking you with them, did they?” She glanced back up at him. “How long has he been gone?”

“Since the day of Bill’s funeral. Almost three months now. I should get him to a vet.”

She shook her head. “I think I can handle it. I’ve taken care of dogs before. Back in the trailer park where I grew up I was the one who took care of all the animals my siblings found. And some whose owners couldn’t afford it. Puppies were my first patients. Come on in. I need to see how bad he is.”

He followed her up the steps to the little porch Bill had built with his own hands thirty years before. They creaked and groaned under his weight.

He would likely need to look at more than the electricity if Lila was going to stay in this house.

He should talk to Remy about it. Remy was her brother-in-law. Her first thought had been to call her sister. If her phone had been charged, it would be Remy who would be out here right now. Watching her take in a mangy dog. Watching her hips sway as she stepped into her dilapidated house.

“I’ll go look at the fuse box. Did it happen in the middle of the night? You tried to turn on the lights and they wouldn’t work?” He moved to the utility room, where the ancient washer and dryer sat. There was a fuse box trapped behind a stack of something. “What the hell is in here?”

“Numerous items. If you’re wondering what’s in that closet, it’s comic book boxes, I think. I peeked in there and that’s what it looks like. The guy who owned this place before me collected everything. I mean everything.”

He could see the outline of her frame in the shadows thrown off by her flashlight. She held it down and away, keeping it from hitting his eyes. It made it easy for him to work. “I haven’t been in here in a couple of years. Not since before Glenna passed. I knew he had a record collection and he liked stamps, but I didn’t know about the comics.”

“Oh, he collected all kinds of stuff.” Her voice had regained its composure. She was calm again and he was a bastard because he missed the moment when it sounded like she needed him. “I will say, for a hoarder he was a neat and orderly one. Everything is stacked and organized. I would actually say he probably had a mild case of OCD. He has stamps and coins. I guess they’re not worth anything or his kids would have taken them. Though they didn’t take the sweetest thing, did they? They didn’t take the puppy. Bastards.”

The end of her speech was said in that singsong tone women reserved for babies and small creatures. And some not-so-small ones since Peanut had been misnamed. The mutt was part lab, part golden retriever. Armie found the right switch and sure enough it had popped. He flipped it and the lights immediately came back on.

Lila sighed, a sound of pure relief. “Thank you. I didn’t know where the box was. That was foolish of me.”

“It’s a new place and you didn’t exactly give yourself a ton of time to settle in before you went to work.” He stepped around the stack of boxes and moved back into the kitchen. He’d wondered about why she’d simply moved in one day and gone to work the next. Most people would have unpacked.

Not that she’d brought much with her.

“I didn’t see a reason to wait. I don’t like to sit around. You know, I’m not normally this woman. I don’t flip out. I’m a trauma nurse and I freaked out over a dog.” She took a long breath and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m sorry to have woken you, Sheriff.”