Ever the professional, apparently, Jessica nodded at familiar faces and made a show of smiling and rolling her eyes good-naturedly as if saying, “There’s no reason to panic. It’s just a dog and dogs get loose at a shelter. No big deal.” Emily wondered about the animal’s case, though; it had to be hard to adopt out a dog that was such an obvious escape artist. She watched as Jessica peeked under the stage, evidently found nothing but empty space, and continued to smile. Next, she scooted behind the stage and down the hall, Lisa following her, Emily following Lisa. Emily had a pretty good idea where the dog had headed.
When the voice on the PA continued on with the next “model,” she heard Jessica breathe a sigh of relief, probably glad somebody had taken control of the crowd and recaptured their attention.
“Which way did he go?” Lisa asked.
“I think I know,” Emily spoke up, and it was obvious by the surprise on both faces that they’d had no idea she’d been following them.
“Yeah?” Jessica glanced at her and Emily smiled with amusement.
“Follow me.” Emily took the lead and walked straight down the hall to Catherine’s slightly open office door.
The blonde who’d lost the dog finally caught up with them. She was out of breath, her hair disheveled, her cheeks flushed a deep red. “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, Jessica. Did you find him?” Obviously frazzled, she shot a look to Lisa, who squeezed her shoulder.
Jessica looked at her and smiled her best smile of reassurance. “No worries, Ashley. Not your fault.”
Ashley. Emily made a note.
“Ugh,” was all Ashley could seem to muster.
Emily knocked lightly on the office door, then pushed it open the rest of the way. Inside, Catherine sat behind her desk. The four of them stopped in the doorway as Catherine looked at them over the top of her black-framed glasses and arched one eyebrow. Emily felt a flutter in her stomach.
“I assume you’re looking for this?” With her startlingly blue eyes, Catherine gestured down to her feet.
Jessica squatted enough to see under Catherine’s industrial metal desk. “That little dog that’s sitting directly on your feet? Yes,” Jessica said with a half-shrug and an expression of what can you do? “We’re looking for that.”
Catherine raised her hand, producing the end of the leash—which made Emily chuckle aloud—and held it out. Ashley stepped forward before the other three could, apparently ready to fall on her sword. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Gardner. That was my fault. I didn’t hold on to the leash tightly enough and he bolted. Took me by surprise. Again. I am so sorry.”
Catherine nodded, glancing up from her computer monitor, then handed over the leash.
Ashley thanked her again, made a yikes face at the other three as she passed, and led the dog out the door—even as he kept looking back at Catherine—obviously wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible. Lisa followed, close on her heels.
Jessica stood quietly for a moment when she seemed to realize Emily was still there. Her expression was unreadable as she turned to Catherine and spoke. “Okay. I’ve gotta get out there. Sorry, Cat.” She turned to go, the spun back around. “And stop working, for God’s sake. It’s Saturday. Come out and have fun. There’s an awesome Mexican food truck in the parking lot.” She winked and gave Emily an indefinable look before leaving the office completely.
And then she was alone with Catherine.
“Cat?” Emily grinned as Catherine raised an eyebrow at her, then went back to her computer.
“Yeah, nobody calls me that.”
“Somebody just did.”
“Well, she’s my boss. She can get away with it.” Catherine poked at a couple keys on her keyboard.
“Can I?” The eyebrow was back and Emily caught her bottom lip between her teeth. God, that’s sexy.
“No.”
“Kate?”
“No.”
“Cathy?”
“No.”
“Well, okay then.” Emily laughed as she glanced around the office, her eyes unsurprisingly pulled back to Catherine. “That dog loves you, by the way.”
“So you’ve told me.”
“He’s the one obviously trying to tell you something.”
Catherine shrugged, but said nothing.
“Things are going really well out there,” Emily said, trying again.
Catherine gave a nod. “Good. That’s good.”
Another beat of silence went by and Emily’s amusement only grew. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”
That got Catherine’s attention, Emily noted. She finally looked up, made eye contact with Emily. Pulling her glasses off, she said, “We’re business colleagues. Does it matter whether or not I like you?”
“Which doesn’t answer my question.” Emily cocked her head. “Or maybe it does.” She moved farther into the room and took a seat, uninvited. She crossed her jean-clad legs and studied Catherine’s face, pleased when Catherine didn’t look away. “Why?”
Catherine raised her eyebrows, silently asking for clarification.
“Why don’t you like me? I mean, you don’t know me. You know very little about me, in fact.” Emily pursed her lips, made a show of thinking. She had to admit that she loved having Catherine’s full attention. It gave her a tiny thrill in the pit of her stomach. And a little bit lower. “Maybe it’s because of what you do know.”
Catherine sat back in her chair, folded her arms, and if Emily didn’t know any better, she’d say her expression showed amusement more than discomfort or anger. “Please. By all means, tell me. What do I know?”
“Well, I can think of two things right off the bat.” Emily ticked them off on her fingers. “One: I am wealthy. My family has money, which means I have money, which means you probably think I don’t have to work very hard to get the things I want. You probably think I’m a spoiled little rich girl.” Catherine’s only response was to press her lips tighter together and raise one eyebrow. Okay, that eyebrow thing has to stop. Way too distracting. “Two, my brother is…” She took a deep breath and just blurted it out. “Kind of a dick.” A bark of laughter burst out of Catherine’s mouth, and it was so unexpected that Emily flinched before smiling in response. “He can be. I know. That’s why he’s not here now and I am.”
It was very slight, but Emily caught it: the subtle pinkening of Catherine’s cheeks. And while Emily was happy to have (subtly) made her point, she felt bad that she’d embarrassed Catherine, even just a little.
“So, in my defense,” Emily went on, “I think you should wait until you get to know me a little better before you decide whether or not to like me. Okay?”
Catherine wet her lips and looked down at her hands, then back up. With one nod, she said, “Fair enough.”
“Good.” Emily rubbed her hands along her thighs and then stood. “I’ve looked at some of the figures in the reports my mother gave me from the past couple of years and I’d like to go over some of them with you next week, then talk about future numbers. Do you have time?” She watched as Catherine slid her glasses back on and consulted her paper planner.
“Tuesday?”
Emily nodded. “Let’s do eleven. We’ll go to lunch after that.”
To her credit, Catherine only hesitated slightly before giving her assent and writing the appointment into her calendar.
“Excellent,” Emily said. “I’ll see you then.” She turned and headed for the door, but stopped just shy of it. Turning back to Catherine, she said, “And you need to adopt that dog. He was obviously meant to be with you. Stop fighting it. And name him Geronimo. It fits.” Then she winked and left the office, shutting the door behind her.
Once in the hall, Emily let herself fall against the wall as she blew out a huge breath of relief. “Oh, my God,” she whispered, all the bravado she’d displayed two minutes ago leaving her like the air of a deflated balloon. She wasn’t averse to standing up to somebody who deserved to be knocked down a peg or two. In fact, she was good at it.
She relished it. This certainly wasn’t the first time somebody had made a judgment about her based on the size of her bank account only, and frankly, Emily didn’t give a flying fuck if somebody didn’t like her. But Catherine? Catherine was different and something about her not liking Emily didn’t sit well. At all.
Emily literally shook her head free of the thought, not wanting to analyze further.
Luckily, the crowd at the end of the hall burst into applause at that moment, which captured Emily’s attention and focus. She was here to volunteer. To work. To help run this place that she was growing to love with every day she visited. Heading down the hall, she forced her mind to look for Jessica Barstow and see what else she could do for the shelter today.
She tucked her confusing jumble of thoughts regarding Catherine Gardner into a little box in her mind and set them on a very, very high shelf. She’d deal with them later. An image of Catherine and her one arched eyebrow suddenly appeared in Emily’s mind and she sighed loudly.
Or, you know, now.
***
Catherine did not enjoy being called out by somebody who didn’t know her. She didn’t enjoy being called out by anybody, of course, because who did? But in this case, the caller-outer was correct. Catherine didn’t enjoy that either.
She pulled off her glasses and tossed them onto her desk, then pinched the bridge of her nose. She didn’t have to be here. It was Saturday, after all, and the place wouldn’t fall down around the fundraiser if she’d stayed home. But Catherine was a hard worker. Not only that, Junebug Farms meant something to her. Pretty much everybody who worked there felt the same way. The shelter was a part of them. In their hearts, in their blood. Each employee as well as each volunteer put in 110% on any given day. The only one who was at Junebug more often than Catherine was Jessica.
Daylight was fading, she noticed, as she glanced out the window. The sky had become the color of a dull nickel, a sure sign of impending precipitation. It still felt too early for snow, but a couple more weeks and they’d be into December. She was one of the few people she knew who didn’t mind winter. True, she did not love being cold, but she’d always thought of winter as a way to begin again. New-fallen snow was like a clean slate, fresh and blank. January 1 was her favorite day of the year because she used it to start over, to let go of every bad thing that happened the previous year and begin again, this time hopefully fixing the things that had gone belly-up in the twelve months prior.
The loud rumbling of her stomach reminded Catherine that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast and the darkening sky told her it was probably near five o’clock. The fundraiser would be wrapping up—she’d try to grab the receipts and donations before heading home—and she hoped the food truck hadn’t left yet. A burrito sounded like heaven right about now, so she tucked a ten-dollar bill in the pocket of her blazer and headed out.
Bill Tracey, resident custodian/handyman/Mr. Fix It, was working with two younger volunteers to take down the makeshift catwalk. People still milled around the lobby, some with animals on leashes already, others peering into the glass of the cat wall, cooing at the various felines looking for homes. A glance in the direction of the double doors that led to the dog wing told her there were a lot of visitors looking at the adoptable dogs. That would make Lisa very happy.
Once in the parking lot, Catherine wished she’d thought to grab her coat; it was colder than she’d expected and she wrapped her arms around herself as she stood in line behind one other person at the La Fiesta food truck, the smells of cilantro and fresh tortillas filling the air and teasing her empty stomach. Cars were on the move as people loaded up and left, headlights being turned on in the growing dusk. The air was crisp and cold, and Catherine shivered a bit as she paid for her bean and cheese burrito and walked quickly back to the main building.
Nodding and smiling at various people who said hello to her, Catherine bit into her burrito, unable to wait until she returned to her office—she was that hungry. A mouthful of beans had never tasted so wonderful. A glance to her left stopped her in her tracks as her eyes fell for the second time on the double doors to the dog wing. Before she had a chance to second-guess herself—or talk herself out of it—she hurried across the lobby and pushed her way in. The chaotic symphony of barks, whines, and howls assaulted her brain like gunfire.
She hadn’t been in this section of the shelter in more than three months before she’d given Emily the tour. Not since she lost Pablo. A small grin of memory tugged on one corner of her mouth. He’d been the best dog in the world for nearly ten years. Letting him go had been the hardest decision of her life and she still wasn’t over it (as indicated by the tears that suddenly misted her eyes as she thought about him), but she did miss having a dog. She missed that companionship. The unconditional love. The knowledge that there was someone at home, waiting for her.
Before she realized what she was doing, she began to wander the dog wing. She’d avoided it for fear that it would be too hard to see dogs in her fragile state, and she was right. It was horrendously difficult. But she kept walking.
“Hey, Catherine.” Lisa was clearly surprised to see her, sitting at her desk halfway down the aisle, poking at her keyboard. Not a lot of people were left—better things to do on a Saturday night than peer at abandoned dogs, Catherine figured, but she nodded at Lisa and continued her slow stroll as she chewed the last of her burrito and watched each dog at the door of its kennel, wagging its tail, barking for her attention.
It was a different sight at Kennel 16.
He was curled up in the back corner on some blankets, seemingly not interested in the people who wandered by, napping or pretending to. Catherine stopped at the door and stood quietly. When he opened his eyes and saw her, his little tail thumped once, twice, and he popped off the blankets like they were covering an ejector seat. He zipped to the kennel door, so obviously happy to see Catherine that her eyes misted over yet again. She squatted down, stuck her fingers through the metal, and allowed him to lick them. He wasn’t a big dog and Catherine tended to like big dogs, but there was just something about this guy.
“What is it?” she asked him quietly. “Hmm? What is it about you and me?”
He looked up at her as if he completely understood what she was saying and had the same question. He was barrel-chested, built like a cinder block, his short legs seemingly too small for his body, but Catherine suspected there was a ton of unexpected strength packed into that little package. The brown patch over his eye made him look suspect, like a bandit. He was deceptively soft, and he turned his head to allow her better access to his ear, which she rubbed between her fingers like a piece of felt.
Had Catherine not been dressed for work, she’d have plopped onto the floor and stayed there for a while. The way she seemed to calm the dog, he seemed to do the same for her. She suddenly felt relaxed, content. But she was wearing a suit and her legs had begun to protest her squatting for so long. She stood up and smiled down at the dog, whose tail continued to swing back and forth.
“All right. I’ve gotta go.” She spoke softly, so only he could hear her. “You stay here for now. Okay, Geronimo? All right, Mo? I’ll be back.” Once again, as if he completely got what she was saying, he turned and went back to his blanket. He turned in a circle. Once, twice, three times, before settling back down. He gave Catherine one last look, then lowered his head and closed his eyes.
Catherine felt something squeeze in her chest. She took a step back, then turned and headed down the hall to the double doors, walking quickly, not looking back. Which meant she didn’t see the smile on Lisa’s face as she passed, or the “hold” order Lisa entered on Kennel 16.
CHAPTER SIX
“SO? HOW GOES THE new position?” Michelle Edmonds stabbed a tomato with her fork and stuck it in her mouth, her eyes never leaving Emily’s face.
Emily nodded, took a sip from the straw in her soda before replying, “Not bad. It’s been a lot to absorb, but I’m getting there.”
“I
can totally see you on your couch at night,” Sandy Cooper commented with a knowing grin. “Poring over numbers, doing research, jotting notes.”
“Just like college,” Michelle agreed. “Study nerd.”
“I seem to remember attending several frat parties with you two. I did more than study.” Emily grinned—good-naturedly, though. Sandy and Michelle had been her suitemates for three years of college and she never understood how she’d gotten so lucky as to have scored not one, but two friends for life using only the luck of the draw.
“That’s because you were the only one of the three of us who could do both: party and get good grades.” Michelle took a bite of her turkey club sandwich, then dabbed a blob of mustard from the corner of her mouth.
“Well, we all ended up just fine, didn’t we?” Emily looked from one to the other, and her heart warmed, as it always did in their presence. These two women were her saviors, the people who kept her head above water when she felt like she was drowning, the people who kicked her ass when she needed it. Or deserved it. In turn, she did the same for each of them.
“So, what’s been the best part of running the Foundation so far?” Sandy popped a French fry into her mouth, her blue eyes sparkling. She was sporting yet another new hairstyle, this time short and light brown, her ends nearly bleached. Anybody who couldn’t guess that she worked in a salon wasn’t paying attention.
“I really like Junebug Farms.”
“The animal shelter?” Sandy asked.
With a nod, Emily explained. “My mom loves the place, has always donated a boatload. I think we’re their biggest donor and—of course—they’d like to keep it that way. So Clark took me over and introduced me around…” At the snorts and eye rolls, Emily had to nod. “I know. I’m hoping he’s learned his lesson.”
Run To You (Puppy Love Romance Book 2) Page 5
