Noelle Read online

  Copyright © 2017 by Greg D. Kincaid

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Convergent Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  crownpublishing.com

  CONVERGENT BOOKS is a registered trademark and its C colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Kincaid, Gregory D., 1957– author.

  Title: Noelle / Greg Kincaid.

  Description: First Edition. | New York : Convergent Books, [2017]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017008207| ISBN 9781524761196 (hardback) | ISBN 9781524761202 (el)

  Subjects: LCSH: Human-animal relationships—Fiction. | Dogs—Fiction. | Christmas stories. | Domestic fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Family Life.

  Classification: LCC PS3561.I42526 N64 2017 | DDC 813/.54—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2017008207

  ISBN 9781524761196

  Ebook ISBN 9781524761202

  Cover design by Olga Grlic

  Cover photographs: dog by Ksenia Raykova/Shutterstock; snowflakes by ET1972/Shutterstock; trees by Shutova Elena/Shutterstock

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  For my parents,

  Rod and Darlene Kincaid

  This was Lulu’s fourteenth litter. Because her puppy count was down, it was also likely her last. She had given so much but was now worn out. She’d been Lester’s mint: a golden retriever who had produced twenty thousand dollars’ worth of puppies over nine long years. It was hard for Lester to make it on traditional farm income alone; the puppy business helped him bridge the gap. Lulu’s large, uniform litters meant eager buyers and good profits for the reliable holiday puppy market. A smallish litter of four, like this brood, was hardly worth the effort. Next year Lulu would have to be replaced with a younger dog.

  While the markets for soybeans, corn, oats, milo, cattle, and hogs go up and down, Lester Donaldson counted on puppies for a stable income that came at an opportune time—the long winter months when nothing else grew on his 160-acre farm in north-central Kansas. It was still early November, but in five weeks Lulu’s new litter would be ready to sell.

  Lester owned seven dogs: four goldens, two Labs, and one standard poodle. State regulations imposed on commercial dog breeders applied only to those with more than four females on their premises. To dodge any scrutiny, Lester kept three of the animals on his own property and then rented space from neighbors, where he set up makeshift pens for the other mothers and pups. He sought out silent partners, like his cash-strapped neighbor Ralph Williams, who knew not to ask too many questions and who were satisfied simply to look the other way, leave the dogs be, and take Lester’s rent money.

  Lester was getting a little ambitious—building more pens, finding more neighbors—so that next season he could expand his inventory even further. The market for the giant breeds—mastiffs, great Danes, and Irish wolfhounds—was excellent, and he wanted to take advantage of it.

  The commercial breeders, who owned well over a hundred dogs, were like factories. Lester enjoyed the money, but he was small-time and wanted to keep it that way, flying under the radar. He didn’t need people from the government telling him how to keep cages clean or when to call the vet. He did just fine without any supervision. He sold his inventory over the Internet and in classified ads. He could never keep up with demand. He had a web page that he’d built by dropping in stock pictures of dogs running carefree through flowers in open spring meadows, with cuddly puppies tagging along behind. For one hundred dollars paid online with a credit card, you could reserve your puppy months before the holiday rush. He called his business Dream Dogs, LLC. After he uploaded puppy pictures, he added descriptions that he stole from other web pages and animal shelters. “We call this little guy Zorro. When puppy play gets out of hand, he loves to come to the rescue of his baby sister. Great with kids! Hurry, this little dude will go fast!”

  Lester felt as if dog breeding was honorable enough work. Puppies make people happy and provide the finishing touch on the perfect family fantasy. He also knew that their living conditions might raise the hackles of some, but puppies, like hamburger and milk, are sold as commodities. Santa was coming, and in that run-up to Christmas no one much cared about how his puppies were raised or how clean their cages were kept—that was all in the past. What mattered now was price, appearance, and availability. Some mom or dad would meet him at an agreed-upon halfway spot, excitedly pick up the chosen puppy, hold it in the air, say something predictable, like “He sure is cute,” turn to Lester, and ask, “Would you take four hundred and fifty dollars?”

  Lester would scratch his chin and say, “He’s worth every bit of six hundred.” He would pause for effect and then ask, “Cash?” and when the buyer nodded his or her head, he’d say, “It’s more important to me that little Zorro have a good home than I get every dollar for him that he’s worth. How about five hundred?” They’d shake hands, and the deal was done. No expense spared for a happy holiday. Lester would drive home with a fat stack of crisp twenties in his wallet, freshly minted from the neighborhood ATM.

  —

  Lester entered the numbers for the still-tiny puppies from Lulu’s most recent litter in the register he kept on his iPad as #4118 through #4120, with one anomaly, #4121. He weighed each puppy on a small portable scale and kept the data in the column to the right of each dog’s number. The anomaly was three ounces too light. It happened sometimes. Nature does not always offer the uniformity that the dog market craves. It was simple. Golden retrievers have a certain look. Same with Ford Mustangs and BMW 325i’s. Without that look…well, the dream just didn’t come true.

  He explained this to his neighbor (and sort-of landlord, as far as the dogs were concerned), Ralph Williams, and Ralph’s twelve-year-old daughter, Samantha, that morning as they peered through the wire mesh at the new litter. “If they lack that golden look, you just can’t sell ’em.” In this particular case, Lester thought that the anomaly had problems that went beyond confirmation or size. The puppy did not even look like a golden—her color was not too far off the mark, but seeing her tiny, too-short legs, he could already tell the proportions were all wrong.

  Lester had suspected something that would explain the dog’s appearance. Now, as he noted how quiet Ralph’s usually talkative daughter was, he was virtually certain. Samantha had taken Lulu out of the pen—something Lester asked her not to do—and had left Lulu unattended. It was his own fault. He should have put a padlock on the door. This little misfit looked very different from her siblings, and even at this stage Lester could tell she’d grow up to lack the elegant proportions of her mother, though maybe she resembled her father. Like other breeders, Lester had seen it before—different dads, same litter. Some mongrel had wandered onto the Williams property while Lulu
was still in heat. Samantha had let Lulu out, or at least failed to properly shut the gate. That was the only explanation.

  He held the strange-looking puppy up for inspection and quizzed Samantha. “You didn’t let Lulu out, did you?”

  Samantha’s father frowned at his daughter. He liked the extra income from housing Lester’s pups, but he didn’t like his daughter being exposed to the underbelly of the industry. He’d asked her to stay away from the pens. Truth was, he felt bad for the dogs, too, and kept his own distance. This was Lester’s project and not his—certainly not Samantha’s.

  For the life of her, Samantha could not figure out how Lester knew her secret. She thought she’d been very careful. She denied it. She shook her head back and forth. “No, sir. Maybe she got out on her own.”

  Lester knew she was lying, but it made no difference. What was done was done.

  Thinking about the tractor that needed to be fixed before springtime, the hit his crop yield had taken from the latest drought, and the usual bills piling up, Williams brushed off a twinge of guilt he felt over what he was about to say to his daughter. He had to show Lester he was still committed to their partnership. “Samantha, you need to leave the dogs alone. They’re Mr. Donaldson’s business, not ours.”

  The look on Samantha’s face suggested guilt. “Yes, Dad.”

  Lester smiled, knowing he’d made his point. “We won’t worry about it. We’ll see how she matures. You never know, I might be able to find a buyer at a discount.” He slapped Ralph on the shoulder as he turned to walk away. “Kids!”

  —

  Samantha did her best to ignore the puppies as she was told, but as the weeks passed and their eyes opened and they became more mobile, it was harder. Samantha would bend down near the bottom of the cage, and the puppies would bolt toward her, yapping excitedly and licking and biting at the fingers she poked through the mesh. This, she could have resisted. What pushed her over the edge was the cold weather and their less-than-clean living conditions. The poor puppies huddled near old Lulu. With limited windbreaks on the open cage, winter poured over their bodies. Samantha thought it was wrong, but she knew better than to say anything. Or do anything. Her father had made it quite clear: the puppies were not their business.

  Finally, in early December, when the temperatures dropped even further, she acted. One of the puppies, the misfit, appeared to be sick. She’d been listless the last few days and had barely moved from her mother. Lulu moved very little as well, lying on her side as the puppies tried to stay warm and nurse. Lester fudged a little when he advertised that the puppies had been completely weaned.

  It was Saturday morning, and Samantha’s father had gone to town to run errands and drink coffee with neighbors. Alone, she opened the door to the pen and stepped inside. Because Lester was so busy delivering puppies from the other litters to his buyers, his day-to-day attention to the pens had waned. She had to step carefully. Conditions were worse than normal. The earthen floor was a mess, and the puppies were covered in their own waste. Lester’s policy seemed to be to protect and keep his investment clean only when he had a buyer. Surely no one would complain if she cared for the dogs. What could be wrong with that? She was helping Lester and her dad in a way, and she wasn’t asking to be paid. Or even thanked.

  First she picked up the little runt and tried to warm her body. The puppy squirmed and wiggled, and Samantha felt reassured that she was at least alive. Nonetheless, there was something wrong with the pup’s right eye, which was swollen almost shut. Samantha set the puppy down by her mother and got to work. She used an old shovel that Lester kept leaning against the pen just for this purpose and tried to remove the waste. She redistributed what was left of the unspoiled straw, creating a layer of fresh bedding.

  Lulu seemed oblivious to Samantha and didn’t do what mother dogs ordinarily will do when someone approaches them and their litter: growl, snarl, and bark. Instead she stayed still and, as Samantha continued to clean up, even allowed the girl to pick up her puppies. The animals were so soiled that Samantha was reluctant to handle them, so she ran back inside and drew a bucket of warm water and returned to clean each one, then Lulu. She carefully dried their damp coats with an old towel. When they were clean, she sat down on the cold December ground and allowed the puppies to crawl all over her, vying for attention, while Lulu watched, as if she were content to have a teenage babysitter on hand. The exhausted dog lay prone, resting.

  Samantha liked the way the runt snuggled up into her neck and whimpered lovingly. She wiped the crusty yellow substance from the puppy’s face and asked her, “Are you feeling okay today, little runty?”

  Before an hour passed, Samantha’s fingers ached with the cold, so she said good-bye to the puppies and Lulu and closed the door to the pen. She hoped no one would notice that the pen and its furry contents had all been cleaned.

  If Lester noticed her handiwork, he didn’t say anything about it, but he did offer the misfit to Ralph—“Your daughter might enjoy a puppy of her own”—but Ralph thought that could start a dangerous trend, so he declined. That next week Lester delivered three more of Lulu’s puppies to buyers across the state, leaving only Lulu and the misfit. Lester told Ralph that he would be closing the pens for the winter. “Lulu’s been a fine dog, but she’s practically barren.” Samantha had grown up on a farm, and she knew what that meant. She also knew what it meant for the runt.

  “Samantha, hon,” her father said, not unkindly, “we need to say our good-byes.”

  Samantha wanted to cry, but instead she just turned and walked away. They think I’m stupid, she thought, that I don’t understand what’s happening.

  Her sadness gave way to anger, and she felt helpless and small as she headed for the farmhouse.

  Lester dropped his voice. “I’ll come by tomorrow night, after she’s gone to bed.”

  “That might be better,” Ralph confirmed.

  While Samantha buried her head in the pillow of her twin bed and cried, the men talked about their future with rottweilers, wolfhounds, and mastiffs for a few more minutes before Lester left to make another delivery from his own farm—the last of the Labs. It was a two-hour drive to Abilene.

  Lester spent most of the next day closing the breeding operation for the winter. By evening there was only one task left. It was an unpleasant one, but he couldn’t put it off any longer. He had a cousin, Hayley Donaldson, who used to run a no-kill animal shelter in Crossing Trails, an hour or two away, but it had closed for lack of funding. There simply was no place for him to take an unwanted dog and her unsellable puppy. It wasn’t a part of his job that he liked, but he was a businessman, not a charity.

  Around ten that evening, he pulled in to the Williamses’ driveway, got out of his truck, and walked toward the pen carrying a muzzle and a leash. Poor old Lulu was so broken down that he’d probably have to lift her into the bed of his truck. One way or the other, he’d get them back to his place, where he would do what had to be done.

  It was dark, so he left his headlights on and carried a flashlight. The wind blew hard, unwelcome, so he drew his coat taut, trying to stay warm. He hadn’t seen any point in coming out here to feed or water Lulu that day, as he knew it didn’t matter at this stage. Lester made his way around the barn and flashed the light toward the pen. He stopped and stared for a moment. The door stood wide open. Lulu and the runt were both gone. The girl? Probably. He shrugged and went back to his truck. There was nothing more he need to do.

  In this weather Mother Nature could do the job her way or he could do it his way. The outcome would be the same. It was the end of another profitable season.

  —

  Dr. Welch, the burly chief veterinary surgeon at Kansas State University, was still at home the next morning when the phone rang shortly after 7:00 a.m.—Good thing I am an early riser, he thought as he picked up the receiver.

  “This is Dr. Welch,” he said.

  The man on the other end of the call sounded upset. “Dr. Welch,” he be
gan, “it’s her eye, and her breathing seems…” The man paused to find the right words. “Her breathing is shallow. Dr. Welch, what should I do?”

  Dr. Welch tried to calm the man down. “Okay, first thing. Who am I talking to?”

  “It’s me. Todd. Todd McCray.”

  The surgeon knew Todd, but he sounded so upset that at first Dr. Welch didn’t recognize his voice. Todd was a bit of a legend at Kansas State, a caring kid and now a grown man well into his twenties. Todd had been calling Dr. Welch and the other vets at the university for over ten years. As a boy, Todd had been a homing beacon for injured animals—a broken wing on a hawk, a litter of abandoned coyote puppies, or a raccoon that had strayed onto a busy road. He had a way with them all, but above all Todd McCray knew dogs.

  Dr. Welch found the adult Todd to be a painstakingly, almost irritatingly, thorough dog trainer, working at one of the nation’s most impressive training facilities—the Heartland School for Dogs, in Washington, Kansas. Nowadays Todd called monthly with questions on dog behaviors. He was a hard worker and had risen almost overnight to head trainer. Dr. Welch had heard all the stories about Todd’s success rate in training dogs and of his gift for matching the right dog with the right human. Todd expected a lot from a service dog, but when it didn’t happen, he put it on himself and not the animal.

  “Todd, slow down. It’s early, and I haven’t had my coffee.”

  Dr. Welch listened carefully to Todd’s rescue narrative. A farmer whom Todd knew saw a lifeless dog by the side of the road, either hit by a car or dead from exposure. It was hard to see in the dark of the early morning, so he got out of his truck with a flashlight to check for tags, and that’s when he’d heard a faint whimper from a nearby culvert. Before the farmer had crawled more than a few feet into the large aluminum tube that passed beneath the road, a small puppy stumbled toward him, bloodied and with a damaged eye. The farmer tried to warm the little pup but knew she needed more care than he could give her. With his own dog close beside him on the bench seat of his pickup truck, he set the puppy on his lap and drove straight to Washington, hoping to find Todd.