Read Guarded for Free Online Page B

don’t. Just go and clean up Hercules.” Shelley shooed Jacob toward the back door with her free hand. “I’m leaving the Out to Lunch sign up. Make sure you take it down at one. I’m headed home to clean up, then I’ll be at the zoo this afternoon. Dr. Kessler should be back in the office by two. Think you can get all the guests in the doggie spa handled by then?”
    “No prob.” Jacob nodded until his bangs flew into his eyes again. Then he jerked his head sharply to the left to clear the hair from his vision.
    “Don’t forget we’ve got a cat scheduled for a grooming this afternoon. Mrs. Blaney’s old orange tabby. Make sure to place Morris in the cat sanctuary and lock that door tight when she drops him off. We don’t need him strolling into the spa again.”
    “Gotcha.” Jacob took Hercules’s leash and hurried through the swinging door.
    “Doggie spa? Cat sanctuary?” Dev asked at the same time Beau said, “I’ll just finish bringing in the dog food.”
    Shelley glanced at the little boy so often forgotten by the town; she didn’t miss the way his stomach rumbled. “Have you had lunch yet? You can go get something. Or I can drop you and your guinea pig at home. You can always come back after.”
    “Nah, no good.” Beau grimaced. “Mama Margaret will be mad for sure if she sees you at her house, Doc. You know how upset she got the last time you tried to help me.”
    Shelley frowned at the memory. She took an instant dislike to Mama Margaret on their first meeting. Probably because the old bat insisted that Beau call her Mama, all the time reminding Beau how no one wanted him and he was lucky she kept him.
    Then Mama Margaret had turned her beady, greedy eyes on Shelley, as if daring Shelley to argue. Oh, she had wanted to, but refrained. Shelley remembered all too well how much uglier life in the foster care system could be when
outsiders
interfered.
    That nasty meeting had been on a Wednesday. Another hard truth Shelley had to learn. The whole town had known Beau had been abandoned by his biological mother. That he was probably being neglected at best, emotionally abused at worst, by his foster mother—but no one could do anything about it without proof.
    Shelley doubted it was love that kept Beau silent. And he was more than silent. Beau did everything he could to keep his failure of a foster mother from getting into trouble. Even denying allegations of abuse when questioned by the social workers.
    But Shelley understood his motive. Having lost her sisters, Hannah and Jules, in that callous machine called the foster care system, Shelley knew how badly the program could fail. Even though she was eventually adopted by a loving couple, she still had nightmares.
    So she couldn’t blame Beau for wanting to protect his life, such as it was. After all, a known hell was better than an unknown one.
    “Beau, surely Mama Margaret must be okay with you coming to see me here. I mean you’re here all the time . . .” She let her words trail off at Beau’s sideways glance. He chewed on his thumbnail and stared at the portrait of Dr. Kessler hanging over the couch. In the white suit, with that white hair and goatee, the vet looked more like Colonel Sanders than an animal doctor.
    Beau’s fascination with the picture was his tell whenever he tried to lie or hide something. A small headache formed behind her right eye. “Oh, dear. She doesn’t
let
you come here, does she?”
    “She
does
.” Beau met Shelley’s gaze briefly before shifting his eyes away. “She thinks Dr. Kessler lets me help
him
. That I don’t see you at all. She told me if she found out I was lying, she’d get rid of Mr. Fuzzbutt so I won’t have no reason to come back here. If I tell her it’s you I’ve been helping—”
    “I got it.” She raised her hands in submission. And she
did
get it. The poor kid was being forced to choose between lying about spending time with someone who’d shown him an ounce of kindness or