He Rescued a Dog Over My Gran, So I Took His Helicopters novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Dog

"I didn't know if you'd eat," Sheridan said. "So it's just chicken and rice."

She held the dish out in both hands.

I took it against my ribs and said thank you, because Gran had raised me to.

The dog jumped down from the truck and trotted up the porch steps like she owned them.

She leaned her whole weight against my knees and sighed.

"That's Duchess," Sheridan said. "She likes people who are sad. I'm sorry. She's got no manners."

I put a hand on the dog's head without thinking.

Her coat was clean and soft, and when I turned her paw over the pads were pink and unburned.

I had spent eight years checking the hands and feet of people who were hurt.

There was no soot in her fur, no singe on the tips of her ears and no smell of smoke on her at all.

Sheridan watched me look.

"She's very lucky," she said, too fast.

"Where was she?"

"In the truck." Sheridan's voice thinned. "Most of the time."

I stood up.

"You didn't come here to bring me chicken."

"I did," she said. "I wanted to see you. I haven't slept since the ninth."

She pushed a lock of chestnut hair behind her ear and looked at the burned hill instead of at me.

"Beck wants me on the stage at the Fire Season Dinner," she said. "With Duchess, in front of everybody. It's the fourteenth, and the vote on the contract is the morning after."

"And you'll go."

"He says it would help every person who works for him."

"He told me that, too."

She flinched.

"I don't want to be his story, Victoria," she said, very low. "I've never wanted to be. I only wanted a barn."

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