Chapter Five
Lance didn’t understand how someone so beautiful could be so evil. From the moment he’d pulled that pink t-shirt over his head that morning, he’d decided that she was trouble. As if a scalding hot coffee down the front of his suit hadn’t been a big enough clue. And now, here he was at New Hope’s little pet rescue on a Tuesday morning, getting ready to walk some flea bitten dogs.
He’d never been an animal person. His mother wouldn’t let him have a pet as a child. Not even a goldfish. Somehow, animals seemed to sense that about him. They liked to take advantage of his naivety and scratch or bite him when he was least expecting it. He had a few puncture marks on his ankle from a little rat of a dog to prove it.
“You remember meeting Chloe and Laurie at the office yesterday,” Gemma said to him, as she and her cronies huddled for warmth inside Ricardo’s kennels.
Lance nodded at each of them. This hadn’t been at all what he’d expected. Three beautiful and intelligent women working at the foundation - three women who he’d probably have to fire in a few days. Frankie had wished him good luck with the task last night, as if sending him off to his own death. He couldn’t even be bothered with volunteering to join Lance at the shelter. It’d ruin his Tom Ford denims, he argued.
“Hello, my beautiful muchachas!” A man with heavily moussed hair and sporting a matching pink t-shirt leapt into the room, pulling the three women into a warm hug. They returned his embrace and laughed, pulling apart only when the man noticed Lance standing there awkwardly. “And hello, man-candy. What heavenly host dropped you under my Christmas tree?”
Lance gulped and felt a flush run up his neck. He didn’t know how to respond.
“That’s no man-candy, Ricardo,” Gemma replied with a wry smile. Lance found himself grateful for her interruption, but slightly put out by the way she disagreed with him. He could be man-candy if he wanted to be. “That’s Lance Barkley. He’s here to learn what makes the foundation tick. He’s ready to get his hands dirty.”
Lance opened his mouth to protest, but the four of them had already turned to discuss the day’s work. Dogs needed washing and walking and kennels needed cleaning and sanitizing. The ladies of the New Hope foundation worked as an efficient team, pulling out supplies and readying the excited dogs. He loitered near the cage of a particularly shy dog, hoping to go unnoticed. Maybe if he kept quiet, they’d forget he was here.
“How are things with Scott?” Ricardo asked Gemma. “Your boy toy hasn’t been around much lately.”
Lance’s ears pricked up. So the evil woman had a man? Instantly, he felt sorry for the dude. He couldn’t imagine how the guy managed to get up every morning.
“Ex-boy toy,” Gemma replied with a sigh. “We broke up a couple nights ago. I don’t think you’ll be seeing much more of him.”
He grinned to himself. Guess that guy had broken free. He should be touring the bars, celebrating his freedom. That’s what Lance would’ve been doing. Of course, that hadn’t been the case when his ex-girlfriend dumped him a year ago out of the blue. But hindsight was twenty-twenty. Turned out, she’d been cheating on him with all his buddies. So much for true love.
“Lance, buddy, are you ready to get to work?” Ricardo spotted him near the kennels and a smile stretched across his wide mouth. “I’ve got the perfect pup for you. I see you already have a leash.”
Lance limply held up the pink rhinestone leash. The thing felt like a dead banana peel in his hand. He couldn’t wait to get rid of it.
“Get me the biggest, baddest pooch in this place,” he told Ricardo with a confident swagger. The women were watching him out of the corners of their eyes. He would prove to them he wasn’t a wimp. “I can handle it.”
“Alright, man, if you insist.” Ricardo led him to a kennel at the far end of the shelter. Two beady eyes peered back at them from the darkness of the doghouse inside, unblinking. “This is Spartacus. I think the two of you are going to get along just fine.”
Lance puffed out his chest and nodded, despite the innate worry that had begun to gnaw at his insides. A name like Spartacus belonged to a fearsome beast. Surely, he hadn’t oversold his skills with the animal kingdom. Maybe he needed a muzzle along with a stronger leash to handle this dog.
“Don’t worry, dude,” Ricardo said, his voice softening. He padded him on the back, coming close enough to whisper. “The ladies will be impressed. You know, Gemma loves a dog guy.”
He shrugged. Why should he care what kind of guy Gemma liked? All he wanted to do was to get this day over with and dive back into the mounds of paperwork waiting for him back at the office.
“Bring on the beast,” he said with as much confidence as he could muster.
Ricardo nodded his approval and opened the pen. Kneeling on the ground, he whistled and patted his knee. “Come here, Spartacus. Time for your walk, buddy boy.”
It took a bit more sweet talk and convincing before Spartacus would make his appearance. But when he finally stepped into the harsh fluorescent light of the shelter, Lance felt like the butt of a joke. Spartacus was nothing but a seven-pound blond miniature poodle with a pink nose and bad breath. He could have punted the thing across the room, had he wanted to. It looked up at him pathetically, as if reading his train of thought.
Ricardo chuckled as he clipped the rhinestone leash onto the dog and handed it back to Lance. “Here you go. A match made in heaven. Let him stretch his legs and then we’ll get him in a bath. A turn around the block should do it.”
Lance gently pulled the leash forward, unsure what to do. Spartacus looked about as strong as a glass unicorn. One wrong move, and he might shatter a leg. He wasn’t sure whether he should pull him along or carry him.
“Just give him time to get used to you,” Gemma said, coming up from behind. “He’s from an abusive home. He doesn’t trust easily.”
Lance turned to watch her get a beautiful old golden retriever from the neighboring kennel. Despite his strong dislike for her, he liked the way she bent down to pet the dog, as if they were old friends. Her graceful hands worked their way behind the dog’s ears, finding the perfect spot to scratch. Lance imagined those hands encircling his own neck, her body close to his. He imagined she tasted like peppermints and sweet wine.
Shaking his head, he put a halt to the thought. No one in this room wanted that. He needed to keep his mind on the job and away from career ending sirens. No good would come of him getting distracted from his uncle’s mission.
“My girlfriend and I actually broke up around the holidays, too.” Lance wanted to pinch himself. Why had he told her that? It was an absurd story to tell.
“Okay….?” She looked up at him, suspicion in her large brown eyes.
“I just mean to say that, you do get through it,” he said. It was too late to back out of the topic of choice. “Even with everyone being all lovey dovey and shoving Christmas down your throat, the holidays do end. And then you get over them. You move on.”
Her eyes narrowed, and Lance couldn’t tell if she was unhappy with him or merely calculating the hours until he left. Still, she didn’t seem enraged, and that was a big step up from their meeting in the coffee shop yesterday.
“I think it’s broken,” Lance said lamely, blindly reaching for a different topic, and nodded at the dog. It’d huddled into a ball on the floor, looking up at him with meek whimpers. “Do you accept returns?”
Gemma smiled unexpectedly and let out a light laughter that gave him thrills. “Afraid not. No returns, exchanges, or refunds.”
“Shoot.” He was stuck with the rat then. “Come on, Spartacus.”
It took a few minutes to coax him to the door. A few more minutes to get him to actually step over the threshold and into the brisk December air. All along, Gemma and her pals were laughing it up and having a good time at the bathing station.
Lance tried to hold back his embarrassment, but a hot flush had worked its way up his neck. They were probably mocking his dog walking skills, wondering how a guy who couldn’t even get a toy poodle to walk could ever lead a million dollar corporation. The pain of failure stung deep. Even Gemma’s distracting smile couldn’t pull him out of his misery.
“Maybe, I’m going to enjoy firing them,” he said to Spartacus as they finally got out the door. “Maybe they deserve it.”
He wasn’t sure about that, but one thing was certain: he needed to get Gemma Rink out of his head.