Courting Chloe (Hudson Valley Heroes Book 1) Read Free Page B

meekly rolled over wouldn’t work either. A service dog needed that perfect Goldilocks temperament: not so dominate that it wouldn’t take orders, but not so submissive that it was afraid to make decisions on its own.
    Chloe gave him a final pat and rose to her feet. “All right, boy. Let’s play.”
    She moved jauntily about the yard, seeing if the dog would follow her. He did. She gave a modified play bow. He happily returned it. Abrupt, awkward movements (the sort of movement someone using crutches or suffering from a degenerative muscular disease might make) didn’t startle him. She tossed a rubber toy across the grass. He retrieved the toy and returned it to her, dropping it without too much coaxing.
    Chloe played with him for a little bit longer, but just for fun. The test was over. She’d already made up her mind. This one was definitely coming home with her.
    Home. The word startled her. When did she start to consider the sprawling Hudson Valley Canine Assistance Camp, the nonprofit organization formed to take unwanted, abandoned shelter dogs and train them to be service dogs, as home ? Home had always been New York City. The noise, the crowds, the excitement. Home had been walking the halls of St. Mark’s Hospital in lower Manhattan. Home had been the Tribeca loft she shared with—
    Nope. Not today. She wouldn’t think about that today. She abruptly pushed away that painful train of thought and reached for the dog’s lead. They left the evaluation room and made their way through the shelter, heading to Sheila’s office to fill out the adoption paperwork.
    “I knew the moment he came in that you’d fall for him,” Sheila quipped. “What are you going to name him?”
    Chloe crouched down and rubbed the chocolate lab’s chest. “I thought Marley might work.”
    “Marley?” Sheila quirked a brow. “After that dog in that movie? That untrained beast who wreaked havoc everywhere he went?”
    “Nope.” Chloe smiled and shook her head. “Marley as in ‘Bob’. The laid-back reggae artist. This boy’s pretty mellow.”
    “He is, indeed,” Sheila agreed. “I think that name suits him just fine.” Her eyes misted up as she finished the paperwork and gave Marley a farewell pat. Despite her gruff exterior, saying good-bye was always hard for her. “Hear that, boy? Marley. You’re a rock star now, and that means you’ve got a job to do. Go on, then. Get out there and make this world a better place.” 
     

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
     
    Chloe left the shelter with Marley and headed north on the Taconic Parkway. Although she drove the divided parkway nearly every day, she never tired of its rolling farmland and scenic beauty. As she crested a hill before her exit, the Hudson Valley spread out before her in all its early autumn glory. Although the grass remained lush and green, several of the oaks, maples, and sumacs had begun to flash the showy reds and gold of autumn.
    Off the parkway to her left was a picturesque fishing pond surrounded by tall reeds that blew gently in the late morning breeze. A rowboat bobbed against a floating dock. To her right sat an enormous apple orchard. A countdown calendar mounted on a billboard facing the parkway announced to passing motorists how many more days the orchard would be open for public picking.
    She took the next exit off the parkway, sending her Subaru wagon skirting along a frontage road until she reached her destination. The Hudson Valley Canine Assistance Camp was a sprawling, twenty acre training facility for service dogs. The property had been designed and built in the ‘50s as a motor inn to serve the tourist trade. For years it had been a lively spot. But the tourist trade slowly dwindled and the original owners grew old, eventually abandoning the property when they were no longer able to afford the upkeep.
    Sara Porter, owner of the camp, picked up the property at a foreclosure auction. Undaunted by the amount of work that the place