Page 5 of Summer Holiday Lifeline

“You’re here!” Lucky stepped out, arms open wide. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d changed your mind and just hadn’t worked out how to tell me.”

“Couldn’t stay away from my people,” Myles admitted. “With a teenager who hates my guts and a six-year-old who I think might be possessed by an art demon of some sort.” He bent and wrapped his arms around Lucky’s thin torso with a grunt. “I forgot how short you are.”

“Ha-ha.” Lucky squeezed him tight. “I’m not short. You’re a beanstalk.”

“Missed you,” Myles whispered.

“Same.”

“Thank you for picking up that call. Thought I would never get here.”

“You’re here now.” A deep rumble behind Lucky made Myles lift his eyes. His gaze met with a broad expanse of red-and-black plaid, then, further up, a bushy mass of red beard, and finally, twinkling blue eyes.

“You must be Kreed.” Myles straightened and held out a hand. “Myles McCreevy.”

“Very alliterate. Yes, I am Kreed. Albert Kreed, but my people call me Kreed.”

“Your people.” Myles nodded.

Lucky smacked his bicep. “That’s you, dummy. Come inside.” He glanced over Myles’s shoulder to where the kids had exited the car, despite his instructions, and now stood behind him. “You guys, too.” He’d half turned when a streak of fur zoomed past him, the screen door yawning wide to accommodate the awkward knee-high missile.

The dog jumped at Myles, fully expecting to be caught out of mid-air. And normally, that wouldn’t be unreasonable. But Myles wasn’t prepared, and his cane left him one-handed. He dropped the stick, caught the dog, but knew, even before he felt his hip give out, they were both going over backwards down the steps.

There was no hope.

Shelly’s shriek was truly awful.

Worse was Jet’s horrified shout of his name and the abject terror in the boy’s voice.

Hands impacted his back, then a sharp shoulder, and one meaty paw fisted around the cotton of his hoodie. Between Jet’s frantic attempt to catch him from behind and Kreed, moving way faster than a guy that size should be able to and grabbing his sweatshirt, the fall was at least guided onto the grass so he didn’t crack his skull open on the paved walkway.

Still, he had the air knocked out of him. The dog standing on his chest licking his face did not help.

“Scratch!” A high-pitched, panicked voice called from the porch as a skinny, all-knees-and-elbows figure hurtled down the steps. “Oh my God. Are you okay? I am so sorry! Lucky, I’m sorry. I didn’t⁠—”

“Stop.” Kreed’s growly voice overrode the kid’s panic to silence them.

“I shouldn’t have brought him here,” the kid whispered. “I’m so sorry. But we couldn’t leave him alone.”

Myles struggled to sit up, pushing the dog off him, though that didn’t dampen the dog’s enthusiasm for licking every part of Myles he could reach.

“It’s okay,” Myles panted. “I’m fine. Just winded, thanks to Jet.” He turned his full attention to the dog. Dog’s a PITA, though. Aren’t you, Scratch? How are you, buddy? Doing all right, I can see.” He patted Scratch’s sleek side, ran a hand over shiny fur. “You are fine, when you clean up, huh?”

“You—you know him?” The kid—maybe not exactly a kid, judging by the light fuzz coating an upper lip and the straggle of hairs across the chin—knelt on the grass next to Scratch and gripped his collar.

“Know him? Of course. He’s my dog.”

The kid’s eyes got wide, and new, bone-deep panic invaded the soft brown.

“Or was,” Myles quickly amended. “I left him with a friend who needed him more.” He scratched behind his beloved dog’s ears. “And I see that he’s now passed him on to the next person who needs him, yeah?”

“We started out looking after him for Ozzy. But Ozzy said it wasn’t safe for him on the construction site, so we… sort of… kept him.”

“Looks like he’s in good hands, then.”

“Just, I had to bring him to work, right? Since he can’t stay on his own.”

“He doesn’t like to be alone, no. I know.”