by Unknown
“Which is why I am giving you this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his key ring. Taking the house key off, he placed it in her hand, then brought her fingers to his mouth to kiss them. “And Shay, be waiting in nothing but the panties.”
“Thank you, everyone, for coming out and supporting St. Paws,” Shay said into the mic, but her eyes were squarely on Jonah, who was standing to her side with Kitty Fantastic, looking decidedly fine.
Her mind, however, was still back in that alley, contemplating the key in her pocket. The key to his house. Which he gave her.
Dear God, if she hadn’t been all-in before, she was now.
Shay had never been given a key to someone else’s house before. Even when she’d been in foster care she’d been forced to knock on the front door if it had been locked when she’d gotten home from school. So she couldn’t help but wonder if this key was Jonah’s way of inviting her into his house. Or into his life.
“Because of each and every one of you,” Harper said from beside Shay. She was holding the Coat Crusader chart and it was all the way filled in, even spilling over the top. “We have raised enough money to open St. Paws Rescue and create a fund to spay and neuter over a hundred strays next year.”
A loud applause filled the streets along with barking. Lots of barking.
Shay let that settle—the we and the money—and gave her friend a hug. “As a token of how much this means to us at St. Paws, we’d like to invite all of you to the shelter’s grand opening next Thursday. We will have wine and appetizers, pet friendly of course.”
“And the Cuties with Booties,” Ida hollered from the front row. “Don’t forget to tell them about the cuties.”
“There will also be some of your favorite men and dogs from the Cuties with Booties blog on hand for a meet and greet.”
At that, a slew of hoots went up.
“And now, if you will all get on your feet and give another round of applause for today’s Prance Court, we will crown the winners and ask them to make their final prance down Main Street.” Shay took the mic off the stand and handed it to Judge Pricket, then went to the podium to get the ribbons ready.
“The winner of the very first Prance Princess”—Judge Pricket looked down at the winner sheet—“comes straight from St. Paws rescue herself, and is available for adoption. Ladies and gents, let’s hear it for Socks!”
Shay’s eyes misted over a little at the announcement. She knew she was supposed to be impartial to who won, that it was all done in fun and support of all the animals, but her Socks had won.
She couldn’t believe it. A pair of booties and custom earmuffs and the skittish Maltipoo had become a phoenix, rising above her fears to steal the show. Shay had already received over a dozen inquiries about adoption applications since they’d first announced the finalists twenty minutes ago. She was sure to have another dozen by the end of the event now that Socks was the crowned princess. But best of all, Socks was going to go to a nice family.
“Did you hear that?” Peggy squealed and set Socks on the ground.
Since Jonah was standing behind her holding Kitty Fantastic, who had also finaled, Peggy led Socks to the winner’s circle, where Shay got down to pin a ribbon to Socks’s scarf and kiss her nose. Socks let out a big yip, then took the steps two at a time to prance the red carpet like she owned it.
“And the Prance Prince,” the judge went on, “is another local-grown pet who spends his days eating everything in sight. Congratulations, Blanket.”
“Damn straight,” Frankie shouted, shooting a single fist in the air. She made some kind of victory circle around Jonah and Kitty Fantastic, thrusting her hips and looking as if she’d just spiked a ball, then led her alpaca down the red carpet—Blanket humming the entire way.
“And for our three runners-up, who all receive a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar gift card, let’s hear it for Shasta, Awesome Bob, and Kitty Fantastic.”
One by one they came to the winner’s circle to collect their ribbons, but Jonah waited until last.
“I’m sorry your sister beat you,” Shay said, taking her time to secure the button on the holster, not feeling guilty that her fingers kept slipping. Kitty Fantastic was fast asleep.
“The alternate is I win and she never forgives me.” He smiled. “Trust me, this is better for everyone involved. Wait, why do I get two ribbons?”
“This one,” she touched his holster, “is for Kitty Fantastic. And this one,” she touched the back side of his utility belt, “is a first-place ribbon for best tail in wine country. I have finished my investigation, Sheriff, and have decided that yours is definitely worth perusing.”
He grinned in a way that had her heart singing.
“Stop smiling,” she scolded and he smiled bigger. “You’re distracting me from my job. Go walk the carpet.”
“As long as I get to distract you later.” And with a wink he strode away, Shay watching him as he went. And yes, definitely best tail in all of wine country. Maybe even the whole planet.
And it was hers. She had the key to prove it.
“When you’re done checking out my brother’s ass,” Adam said from behind her, “we need to talk.”
Shay turned and froze.
Oh boy, Adam did not look happy. He didn’t look mad either. He looked concerned, which didn’t seem right for a man who had two speeds: easygoing and balls-to-the-wall.
“Tell me again where you got the kittens,” Adam said and Shay’s pulse skidded to a stop.
“I never told you where I got them.” It wasn’t a lie. Besides Peggy, she hadn’t told anyone of their origin. In fact, she really didn’t know much beyond they came to her in a box. She hadn’t wanted to figure it out. She’d posted a small Found ad in the back of the paper, between the obituaries and June Whitney’s ad for seasonal oven mitts, when all she had to do was ask Goldilocks. But asking Goldie would mean knowing, and knowing would mean having to go through the proper channels, and she knew that those kittens wouldn’t make it.
“Good, then let’s start there,” Adam said, taking her by the arm and leading her offstage. “How did you happen to come across this particular litter of kittens? More importantly, how did one end up at my brother’s place?”
“The owner was unable to care for them so I promised to find owners who could. I asked Jonah if he could watch—”
“Cut the shit, Shay. You’re BS-ing a guy who knows how to sweet-talk his way out of any situation, including sleeping with my ex’s sister, calling a woman by the wrong name, and being caught with my pants down by my battalion chief . . . when I was with his goddaughter. So get to the truth and get there quick, because I am trying to figure out if you are just too stupid for your own good or if you’re trying to fuck with my brother’s life.”
“What?” Shay yanked her arm away as though Adam’s words had burned her. “The last thing I would ever want is to make Jonah’s life harder.” And she wasn’t stupid. Big-hearted maybe, but not stupid.
Adam turned his ball cap to the back of his head, but she could see some of his fury fade. “Okay, that’s good, because telling Jonah he’s screwed is one thing. Telling him that you screwed him over would suck, because I think he really likes you.”
Shay wanted to ask more about this “he really likes you” comment but figured it was best to stick to the problem. “I found a box with my name on it.” She went on to tell him the story, leaving out that she was pretty sure Goldilocks was the delivery person. “I asked Jonah to watch one of them. They are both stubborn and way too grumpy for their own good, so I thought they might bring each other a little companionship.”
Adam let out a breath. “I just overheard Mr. Gillis talking to the sheriff about how Kitty Fantastic—thanks for naming him that by the way—was one of the stolen kittens he reported missing a few weeks ago. He saw him in the parade and wanted to have Jonah arrested for stealing the litter.”
“Oh no,” Shay said, feeling as if she might be sick.
; “It gets worse. The guy is claiming that maybe it was a cover-up since he called the station and no one responded or followed up,” Adam said. “He wants the cats back and he wants someone to be held accountable. I think he is just after the prize money but this whole thing could ruin Jonah’s chances of sheriff.”
Oh God. What had she done?
“I never meant for Jonah to be caught up in this and I promise I will fix it,” she said, then took off running for the sheriff’s department.
She needed to tell the sheriff exactly what had happened. Set the record straight. She’d taken one look at those cats and knew she’d do anything to save them, but right then Shay wasn’t thinking about the kittens. She wasn’t thinking about her shelter or herself.
She was thinking about Jonah, and how she had to make this right so that he wasn’t obliterated by the tornado that was Shay’s life. He was by-the-book and she was take-it-as-it-came, and yet he’d known that and had gone out on a limb for her anyway. He’d taken on Warren, the mayor, even the sheriff to give her the chance to prove herself to this town.
And how had she repaid him? By having him walk down Main Street with a hot kitten in his holster.
Shay hit Adams Street and shoved through the front doors of the station, only to come to a stop. Because there, looking confused and taking the heat from not one, but two people he answered to, was Jonah. And beside him was Warren, soaking it all in.
Jonah looked at her and her heart thudded hard in her chest once, and then stopped.
She was too late. And she might of have just blown the best thing in her life.
“Is it true?” Jonah asked, his voice so remote, so distant, she knew in that moment that everything between them had changed. “Did you steal the cats?”
“No,” she said, then thought better of it. “Technically yes, because I didn’t follow the proper channels, but a box of clearly neglected kittens showed up with my name on it and a note saying that the kittens needed a good home.”
“Did you check to make sure that the person who gave you the kittens had the right to release them to you?” the mayor asked, and Shay shook her head.
She knew that was the first rule in animal rescue but had chosen to overlook it anyway. “I took one look at their condition and knew they had been mistreated.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?” Jonah asked and Shay felt her heart break.
Because I was scared. Because I knew you’d tell me to take them back and I couldn’t give up on them. Because I think I was already in love with you and I didn’t want to have to choose. “Because I didn’t think that the sheriff’s department would have taken my concern with the same level of seriousness. Pets get neglected every day and no one does anything.”
“Got it,” was all Jonah said, but his face told so much more. He was frustrated and hurt and, worse, disappointed. In her. In his decision to trust her.
It was the kind of look that Shay knew well, the kind that breaks the skin first and hurts a little worse with time. It was a look that she had finally started to believe she’d never see again. Only this one, coming from Jonah, didn’t just hurt. It burned through.
“Well, I can look into these accusations,” Sheriff Bryant said, his tone gentle. “But what concerns me is that you are admitting keeping property, which you believed might have been stolen, for the purpose of selling it to someone else.”
“Them,” Shay said and swallowed. “Not ‘it’ but ‘them.’”
The sheriff’s expression told her the pronoun she chose to use didn’t change the fact that she had stolen property in her house.
Which felt weird even thinking because Shay had never thought of her animals as property or the fees as selling. They were little lives that she got to help on their journey, and the adoption fees were there to make sure that people who applied for the animals would value them, and to help offset the medical costs.
“I don’t make any profit off of my animals, sir. I just wanted to find them a safe, loving home,” she explained. Then, determined not to make any excuses for her behavior, she added, “But I can see how it would look that way.”
“The problem I’m having,” the sheriff began, “is how it looks when one of my deputies, who put his neck out on the line for you, walks down the middle of town with stolen property on his person, while in uniform. That’s a big problem. Not just for him, but for this entire department.”
“I know and I am so sorry.” She looked at Jonah, wanting him to see the truth in her eyes, but he wasn’t looking back. “I know what I did was wrong and I would like to make a statement that Jonah knew nothing about the cats. When he came to my house in regard to the noise violation, he asked about the kittens and I was not forthcoming.”
“Are you saying you lied?” Warren asked like it was Christmas morning and Santa had come.
“No.” Shay turned to face Jonah, because he was the only person who mattered. “But I wasn’t truthful either, and I am so sorry.”
“Me too,” Jonah said quietly and then looked up and, bam, the hurt and disappointment swimming in those blue pools shot her dead. Knocked the foundation right out from under her, with little to no chance of recovering. Her fault.
Shay had been too scared to put her faith in one of the best guys she’d ever met for fear that he’d hurt her. And in the end she’d hurt him and destroyed any chance they had at becoming more. Too bad she’d lost her heart in the process, because even though her head had a hard time trusting, her heart had become his a long time ago.
“Deputy, we’ll give you a minute to figure out how you want to handle this, but know that this goes higher than me now,” the sheriff said and pulled Warren and the mayor away, leaving Shay and Jonah alone.
Jonah didn’t move or speak, just kept staring at her as if trying to figure out how he’d been so wrong. The longer the silence stretched on, the closer she came to tears. But she’d made this mess on her own, so she’d cry about it alone.
Jonah looked over at Warren, who looked like he was already filling out the paperwork, then shook his head. “You could have come to me and this would have all been avoided.”
“I know,” Shay said, her voice shaky. “I wish I would have, but that was me trying to do the right thing. I’m not sorry for saving the kittens—they would have died—but I am sorry you got caught in the middle.”
“I’m not caught in the middle, Shay. I’m fucked.” His voice was shaking too and that made the tears come closer to the surface. Jonah was the strongest, most sure man she’d ever met, and she’d rocked his belief in her—and himself. “You broke the law and made me an accessory. If I arrest you, you will go to jail while the fine is being set and you’ll probably lose the rescue. If I don’t, I’m not doing my job.”
A job that meant the world to him.
The shelter meant the world to her too, but he meant more. Once word got out that she was dealing in stolen animals, the fallout would be bad, but she would recover. It would be devastating and heartbreaking, but she’d handle it and move on. She’d done it a million times before and she could do it again.
What she couldn’t handle was Jonah going against who he was for her. Personal experience told her there was no coming back from that.
“I know,” she said quietly, then held her hands out to Jonah, angry that they were trembling. “I guess I finally get to see your cuffs. It wasn’t how I imagined it happening, but I guess that’s the problem with imagining. In the end it’s kind of like wishing—nothing ever turns out the way we want.”
He didn’t reach for his cuffs. “Why are you doing this?”
That was easy. “Because I protect what I love.”
“That’s just it, Shay,” he said quietly. “I don’t think you know what love is.”
She looked at him for a long time, playing over and over what he’d said, praying she’d misunderstood, then the tears finally spilled over.
“This time I thought for sure I had figured it out.” Thought that she’d
finally experienced what was so easy for her to give, yet so impossible for her to receive. “I guess I was wrong.”
Jonah rolled up into his drive an hour shy of midnight, beyond exhausted, and trying to shake off the gnawing in his gut. Just like he had every night that week. A few steps up his driveway he froze and knew shaking it off wasn’t an option tonight.
Sticking out of his mailbox—like a big fucking neon sign telling him that the ignore what you can’t fix method he’d adopted as of late was leading to a dead end—was an envelope with very familiar writing.
Shay’s.
The envelope was light, but it was clear there was something solid and absolute inside. And the six simple words scrawled on the outside . . . those made it clear that everything he’d been avoiding was about to take him by the throat and drag him under.
In case you changed your mind . . .
That was it, no signature, no demand, no blame, nothing else inside except his house key—and a shit ton of emotions he wasn’t sure he had the capacity to handle.
Two days ago, Shay had pled guilty to unintentional theft, was booked then released the same night on her own recognizance. Until now, they hadn’t spoken. Mostly because he’d done his best to avoid her. He should have been relieved that she’d given him an out, only relief was so far from what he felt.
Jonah was already so far in, he wasn’t sure he’d ever get out—no matter how hard he tried to convince himself otherwise.
Every time he found a moment of quiet or closed his eyes, he saw the look on her face, and it was like he was back in the station, reliving the whole thing.
The regret and genuine sorrow in her apology had broken his heart, because he knew that Shay was just being Shay, acting first and thinking later. But the absolute despair that had filled her eyes at the end . . . that he’d never forget.
Angry and hurt, Jonah had said the one thing that could have shattered her world. And he’d said it on purpose, which made him all kinds of fucked up. The worst part was, it was a lie. Shay absolutely knew what love was. She showed it every day, in her life and in her work. She also showed it in the way she cared so selflessly for others.
