Second Chances (Nugget Romance 3) by Stacy Finz

emergency?”
    “Yeah, that would be great.” He didn’t think the bleeding was life threatening, but the infection could be serious.
    Two hours and three hundred dollars later, Colin drove up McCreedy Road. “This place look familiar, boy?” The dog, whose nose rested on his two front legs, looked up at Colin with doleful eyes—one blue and one brown. “You buzzed on doggy tranqs?”
    When Colin knocked on Clay McCreedy’s door, his fiancé, Emily, answered and looked a little surprised to see him. “Hey, Colin.”
    “You by any chance missing an Australian shepherd mix, about two years old?”
    “No. I don’t think so.” Emily invited him in and called to Clay, “We’re not missing a dog, are we?”
    Clay came into the foyer and nodded a greeting at Colin. “Nope, at least not that I know of. One of the barn dogs might’ve gone for a stroll. You got her with you?”
    “It’s a he, and he’s in my truck.”
    Emily and Clay grabbed their jackets off a hall tree and followed him outside. Colin opened the passenger side of his truck. The dog thumped his tail a few times, stood up, did a couple of turns, and dropped back down, looking up at Colin like What now?
    Clay scratched the dog under his chin. “Not one of mine.”
    “He’s so sweet,” Emily said. “Where did you find him?”
    “Under Sophie and Mariah’s new deck. He was filthy and cut up on barbed wire. The vet cleaned him, gave him a shot of antibiotics and stitched him up. He didn’t have a collar or one of those tracking chips. Dr. Weil thought I should check with some of the local cattle ranchers, since he’s a herd dog.”
    “Sophie and Mariah’s property is a good five miles from any cattle ranches,” Clay said. “While it’s possible that the dog might’ve gotten hurt and run off to lick his wounds, it’s more probable someone dumped him off. Unfortunately, it happens all the time. You could put a notice in the paper, but I doubt anyone will claim him.”
    The dog had cuddled up next to Emily’s leg as she stood inside the truck door, stroking his head.
    “You want me to take him off your hands?” Clay asked. “I got room in the barn for one more.”
    Colin scrubbed his hand through his hair. The dog would probably like a place like this. Plenty of animals to keep him company, young kids to play with, and a nice roof over his head.
    “Nah,” Colin said. He and the dog had kind of bonded—maybe because they were both a little lost. “I’ll keep him unless someone comes forward to claim him.”
    “Man’s best friend,” Clay said, wrapping his arm around Emily’s shoulder.
    Colin could use a friend.
    Once they got back on the road, he reached over to scratch the dog behind his ears. He seemed to like that. “You got a name, boy?”
    The pooch just gave him another one of his doleful stares and licked his hand.
    “You look like a Max to me,” Colin said, sliding the dog a sideways glance. “What do say? Max work for you?”
    The dog let out a bark, and Colin grinned the rest of the way home.
     
    “Oh my God,” Darla mouthed to Harlee, her mile-long fake eyelashes fluttering at the array of miniature pastries, finger sandwiches, and salmon pinwheels decoratively arranged on tiered silver servers.
    “Wow.” Harlee waited until their host was well out of earshot. “This is not what I expected. It’s so sophisticated.”
    “It’s absolutely lovely, girls.” Harlee’s mom poured each of them a cup of tea.
    At sixty-one, Leigh Roberts had the kind of grace and beauty that still turned heads. She wore her hair, now completely silver, in a stylish chin-length bob. Unlike Harlee, who’d become a slave to designer labels, Leigh chose clothes that were arty, one-of-kind pieces that she liked to accent with exotic scarves or interesting jewelry.
    “Thank you so much for thinking of this,” Leigh said to Harlee.
    “It was Darla’s idea,” Harlee told her mother, taking in the ornate dining room with its