Fall From Grace

Chapter 19

By Danielle

Nick followed Kevin inside to the kitchen, making sure to close the sliding door behind them. Neither one of them looked back at Ann. It was a chapter in both of their lives that had been closed.

However, Max was still out there.

When Ann made a move closer to the door to the kitchen, Max started a low growl in throat, his chops starting to ascend closer to his nose, baring his fangs just a little.

Max may antagonize Nick. That much was true. But, but he’s fiercely loyal to his masters and those that they love, and even though he may be a dog, he could sense no love towards this woman in front of him. He could sense distrust and hurt, it was almost a smell to him. This woman made his masters smell like that. He didn’t like that smell at all. He much preferred the smell when they were together, like the smell of that big puddle (an: the ocean) out in the back yard. The one that he could see just past his doghouse. He liked their happy smell of big puddle and the round things that grew on the tree in the front yard (an: oranges). That was the smell of happy to him. That was the smell of his masters.

Ann looked at the halfway grown dog growling at her and looked through the glass door, seeing her son, her nephew and his….husband all wandering around the kitchen pulling a meal together. She took another step forward and Max growled even louder and more of the fangs showed.

She looked down at the dog, who was bristling and in attack stance, before stepping back a few steps.

Once she had stepped back, Max sat back down and merely growled lowly again, watching her like a hawk. When she dared to step forward, he was instantly on his paws and snarling at her.

Ann shook her head at him, "You don’t scare me. You’re a puppy." And she took another step forward.

Max sat down and cocked his head at her, really not understanding why this person who brought bad smells was not going away. Even the little dog that comes over to play that belongs to the goofy one was smarter than this.

Ann looked at him, sitting back down again, "That’s what I thought. You’re are all bark."

Max looked at her some more and the breeze blew her scent into his nose again, he leapt to his feet, determined to get the bad smelling thing away from him. Away from his masters.

Kevin, Nick and Brian all looked towards the glass doors at the snarling Max that was barking like nothing they had ever heard before and a shocked Ann Richardson backing away from him with a look of surprise on her face.

The three of them all dropped what they were doing to run to the doors, their jaws dropped in surprise when they saw Max slowly but surely backing her out of the yard and towards the driveway, snarling and barking like a dog three times his size.

"Go Max!" As bad as Kevin felt right at that moment, the sight of his dog doing that caused him to smile and laugh a little.

Nick grinned at the scene playing out in front of him. When Max had backed her around the corner of the house, he opened the door and leaned back to kiss Kevin on the chin, "I better go make sure he’s ok."

Kevin nodded and tapped Nick’s nose, "Ok."

Nick went out around the side of the house and peeked around the corner watching as Max had her backed up nearly to her car. The dog lunged at her and that was all that was needed to send her running for her rental. Nick walked out to the driveway and whistled for Max as he saw Ann squealing out of the driveway.

Max raised his head at Nick’s whistle and loped over to him, sitting at Nick’s feet and watching the car speed away from the house. He was completely calm. If Nick hadn’t seen it, he wouldn’t have believed that seconds ago Max was a barking, snarling ball of aggression.

He crouched down beside Max and petted his head then wrapped his arms around the dog. "Good boy. You are SO sleeping on the bed tonight."

Max just rested his head on Nick’s shoulder and panted happily, smelling the scent of the ocean and oranges on his master. The scent of happiness.