It Started With A Pregnancy. Christy Jeffries

revealing tiny yellowed teeth, and its front legs were perched on the back seat as if it was about to leap over and attack. Grant held himself perfectly still and lowered his voice. “What in the hell kind of animal is that?”

      “I think it’s that stray dog that everyone has been trying to catch. Remember the one from last week that your aunt chased into the street? I’ve never seen it this close up, though, so I can’t be sure.”

      “What’s it doing in your car?” Grant asked.

      “How should I know? It must’ve jumped in when I left the back hatch open to argue with you in the parking lot.”

      “Okay, where is your extra leash?”

      Rebekah was also holding herself very still, which made her raised eyebrow even more prominent. “My extra what?”

      “My aunts always keep an extra leash and a few lengths of rope in their pickup truck for this exact reason. They say they never know when they’re going to come across an animal that needs help.”

      “Grant, just because I work at a pet rescue doesn’t mean I go driving around town looking for actual pets to rescue.”

      The dog growled again and made a snapping motion, as if it was about to lunge at them. “Well, we probably shouldn’t stay in here with him. Or her. Let’s get out slowly and then I’ll call an animal control officer to come take him.”

      Rebekah nodded. “On the count of three, we’ll both get out at the same time.”

      Grant began the count. “One, two—” He didn’t make it to three because Rebekah was already out her door.

      “Oh, hell,” Grant said, following suit.

      Unfortunately, neither one of them realized that they’d left the windows down until the scruffy mutt launched himself over the back seat and leaped through the driver’s-side window. It made a strangled yelp as it landed awkwardly on its left hind leg before it began limping across the street.

      “Oh, no,” Rebekah took off after the dog, calling out over her shoulder. “The poor thing is hurt.”

      The animal must’ve been more afraid than injured because when it realized Rebekah was following, it hobbled even faster, past an iron gate that had been propped open and into the yard of one of the older stately homes on Second Street.

      Well, the home might’ve been stately at one time. It currently needed quite a bit of work involving a weed whacker, a few gallons of fresh paint and, Grant noted as he got closer, a new roof. Just as Rebekah was closing in on the scruffy pup, it found a hole in the base of the rotting porch and scurried underneath.

      Grant dropped to his knees in the dried-out hydrangea bush near the hole, but it was too dark to see how far back the crawl space went. He brushed the dirt off his hands as he looked up to Rebekah. “Do you have anything we can use to bribe him out?”

      Her eyes opened wider and she jogged back to the car without so much of a hint as to what she had planned.

      Grant swallowed his groan. The woman certainly had a habit of doing whatever she wanted and then filling him in on the details later.