All We Have (Book 2)

7

Colson

I hate getting up early but Jane looked so peaceful as she slept and I knew she was having a hard time sleeping due to the pregnancy, so there was no way I was about to wake her up. I went upstairs to wake Casie and then went into the kitchen to make her a  light breakfast.

"Daddy, what's gonna happen to Gunner?"

"Who?" I asked looking quite puzzled

She then pointed over my shoulder. I turn to look and to see that she is pointing to the dog. Damnit, she named him. This is going to be harder than I thought.

"I don't know. We're taking him to the vet to see if he's been chipped. We probably won't be able to keep him."

"But why?!" She pouted

"Because he belongs to someone else. And we just can't have a dog right now."

The hurt on her face was just about enough to kill me. She was so disappointed. She got up from the kitchen table and went over to the dog and petted him.

"I don't know if you'll be here when I come back or not but if your not, I just want you to know that I love you and it was nice having you here." She said

She then walked into the living room and collected her things.

"I better go, the bus will be here soon." She said not looking at me.

"You don't want me to drive you?" I questioned

"No, I'd rather take the bus today." She responded

"But you hate taking the bus." I replied

"Yeah, well I'd rather ride the bus than to ride with you." She said before walking out the door.

I walked over to the window that was closest to the street and watched her as she waited for the bus. Damn! She was pissed. I can count on one hand how many times she's actually been mad at me. Oh well I guess I better get use to it. A few minutes later the bus came and Casie got on. It was still pretty earlier so I decided to go climb back into bed with Jane.  

A few hours later Jane's phone started ringing. She reached over on her bedside table to make it stop. She tried to sound awake as she answered the phone.

"Hello? Hello? Hello?!" She yelled into the phone.

"Who was that?"

"I have no idea. It just kinda sounded like someone breathing on the other end until they hung up. I'm going to try googling the number to find out who it was." She said

"Don't worry about it. You hungry? I can go whip us up something real quick."

"Yeah, I'm super hungry. Can you make me some French toast?"

"You know I can."

"With some..." I cut her off before she could continue

"Cream cheese in the center and strawberries on top."

"You know me so well." She smiled

"Of course I do. Your my wife."

About 20 minutes later, I came back to the bedroom to serve Jane breakfast in bed.  She had the biggest smile on her face. God, I love that smile.

"So I looked up that number and it said it belonged to some hardware store."

"That's weird."

"Well you know whats even weirder? The store doesn't even open for another hour. I think its someone trying to spoof call me."

"Why would you think that?"

"Because one of my old boyfriends use to do that when I wouldn't take his calls. I wonder why someone would wanna do that?"

"Next time a weird number calls I'm answering it."

"Ok, question. Why didn't you wake me up this morning so I could get Casie ready for school?"

"Well you were sleeping so peacefully that I didn't want to wake you. Besides she wasn't in the best mood this morning."

"Why? She still didn't want to go to school?"

"Well she asked me what was going to happen to "Gunner" and then got mad when I said we couldn't keep him."

"Wait she named him?" She said as she put her palm in her face.

"Yep, she was so mad at me that she took the bus to school and then said that she would rather ride the bus than to have me take her."

"Oh wow!" She replied with a shocked look on her face.

"Its cool though. Just finish up your breakfast and then we can head to the vets office."

Jane

"Well, he was chipped. I got all of the owner's info right here. Let me make a print out for you."

"Casie is going to be on 10 tonight." I say

"Well she's gotta learn that she can't have everything her way." Colson replied

"Here you go." The vet said coming back with the print out."it's got all of his shot records and his owner's last known address and phone number."

"Thank you so much. Hopefully we can reach out to his family so that they can reconnect." Colson said

After that we got into the SUV and started driving.

"Maybe we don't have to call them." I blurred out

"Are you serious? We can't just keep these peoples dog."

"Well maybe they should've been more responsible and then we wouldn't have him in the first place."

Colson took out his phone and started to call the number. Then line had been disconnected.

"Put the address in the gps." He said

I rolled my eyes and put the address into his gps. 25 minutes later we were at our location. We parked the car in front of the address and got out with the dog.

"Are you sure this is the right address?" He questioned.

"Yeah this is it."

We were looking at a completely burned down house. We were both very confused.

"Let's go find a neighbor or something. Maybe they can tell us where the owner's are now."

Colson and I walked up to the house across the street and luckily someone answered. A Hispanic woman in her mid 30s came to the door.

"Um, hi, we were just wondering if you could tell us anything about the owner's of the house across the street?"

"Oh, the Martin's. Well Dr. Martin and his wife children lived there for a little over 15 years before their house burned down 3 weeks ago."

"Do you know where they are now or how we can get in touch with them? We think we have their dog and we would like to return him to them."I stated.

"No I'm sorry. The whole family burned to death in the fire. He was the only survivor."

"Well do you know of any of their next to kin or.." Colson started

"No, I'm sorry I don't. I have to go now." She said as rushed back inside to tend to what sounded like a crying toddler.