CHAPTER EIGHT
It took Nora a while to work out what had caused the storm of emotion that had ended with her in Gabe Sterling’s lap, and it wasn’t what she’d first thought.
It wasn’t envy.
It wasn’t self-pity, even though Melissa was pregnant with children that “should” have been hers. Children who would grow up to play in that yard and climb in that tree Nora had been staring at months ago.
It wasn’t even indignation that Vince still went to Thursday night dinners with her parents.
She’d been blindsided by relief.
If Vince hadn’t met Melissa and fallen ruthlessly, recklessly in love with her, he’d have married Nora, and Nora would have gone along with it because she’d thought she loved Vince. She’d always known it was a mild form of love. Now, she was faced with the revelation that it hadn’t been love at all. It had been nothing more than friendship, strong affection and habit.
Let it all out, Gabe had said. He’d been poking fun at her at the time, but in the middle of the emotional hurricane in his arms, she really had let it all out. Since that morning, she’d felt light.
She’d gained clarity.
She had a Filofax full of plans, and now was the time for action. Deliberate choices, all the way.
Which was why she was standing in front of a squat building in a neighborhood so far out on the edges of the city that it barely counted as still being San Francisco, telling herself that she was ready for this.
It was time for the all-important number two task on her list: get a dog.
The reception area of Riverbend Rescue was bright and welcoming. A row of molded plastic chairs ran along one wall. A long counter divided the room from the rest of the building where, from the sound of things, they kept the animals.
“Hi!” a peppy young woman with astonishing curly red hair and a pink polo shirt with Riverbend Rescue straining over her chest said when Nora walked in.
“Hi.” Nora’s voice came out thin and uncertain. She coughed and tried again. “Hi.” Great. That time she’d yelled it.
The woman’s pep dimmed somewhat as she scanned Nora from head to toe. “Here for a cat?”
What did that mean? “No, I—”
“Maggie!” The woman turned and bellowed into the shadows behind her, “Got another walk-in. Mind the desk, will ya?” She grabbed a clipboard and a pen from the pen pot, and came out from behind the counter. “Right this way, ma’am.”
Nora followed the woman through the swinging door, down a short corridor, and into a room filled with large cages.
The woman stopped and threw her arms wide. “What do you think? I’m Kim by the way.”
“Nora.”
“Any of these sweeties catch your eye, Nora?”
She looked at the furry occupants of the cages—they were indeed sweeties—but, “No. I’m still not here for a cat. I’m looking for a dog.”
“You are?”
“Yes.”
“Huh.” Kim didn’t blink. “Cats are great companions, you know.”
“Do you not have any dogs left?”
Kim straightened. “Of course we do,” she said. “Ma’am. I take pride in placing my charges with the right match, that’s all. And you strike me as a cat la…person. A cat person.”
“I’m not a cat person. I’ve never been a cat person.” Nora said. “My spirit animal is a wolf.”
Okay, that was a weird thing to say. She felt the disapproving press of a hundred cat eyes. She’d insulted every being in the room. Good start. Her shoulders hunched up around her ears.
Kim hitched a thumb at herself. “Tiger,” she said. “Come on, pooches are this way.”
The dogs were housed in a room three times the size of the cats’, with a central walkway and cages running along the sides. Nora bit her lip at the sight of all the bars. When the dogs saw her and Kim, most of them danced with joyful welcome, barking to catch their attention.
Nora gripped her hands together over her stomach and pressed, hard.
“Don’t get suckered by the cages and do anything rash.” Kim said. “Folk do it all the time. No one likes to see a puppy behind bars, and they always get carried away. Three weeks later, the puppy’s chewed everything in sight and crapped in their shoes. Suddenly they don’t have such a problem with the bars, and they end up bringing the puppy back because it wasn’t a good fit.”
“I’m not going to be rash. I’ve thought about this a lot.” At Kim’s side-eye, she added, “I’m just browsing.”
She’d meant it as a joke. Kim didn’t seem to find it entertaining.
“I take this very seriously,” Nora told her.
“All right, then,” Kim said, relaxing her disapproving stance. “Browse on.”
Nora surveyed the cages, heart squeezing at all the bright eyes and sweet, hopeful faces. There was a wide variety of dogs, the full range of sizes and ages. The squeeze in her heart rolled over to hard pumps of anger at the callous bastards who’d mistreated or thrown these souls away, abandoned them, or got bored of them, or what the fuck ever.
Bastards.
“You okay?” Kim’s voice broke in. “Need a tissue?” She sounded resigned.
“No, why?”
Kim gestured at Nora’s face.
Nora touched her cheeks, felt them wet. For God’s sake. “PMS,” she said.
“Yeah. Lot of people get PMS when they come back here. Especially dudes.” Kim tucked the clipboard under her arm and slipped the pen into her pocket. “Look.” She hooked Nora’s elbow, leading her down to the far end. “Puppies!”
Nora stopped and gazed in delight at the fat creatures scrambling over each other and batting their paws at the clear plastic screen they had instead of bars, high puppy barks demanding her attention.
“They came in yesterday,” Kim said. “Found in an alley. Mom was dead and the little ones were all crawling…”
Nora turned to her with horror.
Kim took in her expression, and directed Nora back to the cage. “Puppies!”
“What are they?” Nora crouched, and laughed as one of the pups stretched its fat belly against the screen only to be knocked sideways by a sibling. “Spaniels?”
“Could be.”
Their coats were black and white, gleaming under the lights. The pads of their tiny paws were a fragile shell pink. Nora reached out to place her hands against the screen. Before she made contact, she clenched them into fists and pulled back.
“Yeah,” Kim said, “one of these would be a real troublemaker.” She paused for a delicate moment. “Rethinking the cat?”
Did the woman get a commission for every cat she rehomed? “Nope. These guys are gorgeous, but I didn’t come here for a puppy,” Nora said. “I’m looking for an older dog, one who would be happy alone for a few hours a day. I had a puppy when I was ten. I know how much supervision they need.”
Kim nodded. “The old ones are over this side.”
At the fourth cage, Nora fell in love. Unlike the others, this dog didn’t prance up to the bars in greeting. This dog crept up, sat its butt down a good two feet away, and smiled at Nora.
Nora looked at Kim, back at the dog. “She’s smiling at me.”
“Uh-huh.” Kim didn’t quite roll her eyes, but she sounded indulgent.
The dog shuffled forward another cautious inch, and swiped a hot pink tongue over her nose.
“Hi,” Nora said softly. The dog wagged her tail. “It’s a she, right?”
“Yes.”
“Hi, pretty girl.” Nora sank to her knees and the dog shuffled an inch closer. “What’s your na—” Her cell phone rang.
“Oh,” Kim said.
Nora fumbled in her pocket. The dog retreated. Nora met her wistful brown gaze for a second, but the phone kept ringing, and—
“We don’t allow phones back here,” Kim said. “Didn’t you read the sign coming in? All cell phones should be switched off. It disturbs the animals.”
“No problem.” Nora cancelled it.
It rang again at once. If it was her mother, so help her, she was going to drop the phone on the floor and jump up and down on it. No. It was Anna. Shit.
“I have to take this,” she said to Kim, straightening and casting a last glance at the dog. She’d returned to the blanket she’d twisted into a doughnut, and lay with her eyes closed. She kept them shut.
Great timing, Anna.
Nora followed Kim back to Reception and, when the phone rang again, accepted the call. She opened her mouth to speak, and caught Kim’s disapproving glare. Ducking out the door and down the steps to the tiny parking lot, she snapped at Anna, “What?”
“Take your time, why don’t you?” Anna snapped back. “I’ve been calling and calling! Listen, you’ve got to run over to Gabe Sterling’s warehouse, I need you to take some photos and measurements. I want to start placing orders.”
The sun beat down on the top of Nora’s head. “I can’t go over there right now, I’m in the middle of something.”
“What is more important than the job?”
“The dog.”
“What?”
“Item two. Get dog. I’m making an important life decision here. I’m at the animal shelter, choosing a dog.”
“Nora, I support you one hundred percent in this special new life you’re working out and yes, I hear myself, I sound like a bitch. Let me try again. Dog! Yay! Support! But right now, you have to go to the warehouse. I’m stuck at a restaurant romancing a prospective client, and as soon as I’ve done that I need to make progress on the Sterling project. I can’t make progress with the tiny peek at his place I had, and I don’t have time to schedule another meeting or get my own ass over there until next week. I’m sending your ass instead. The key’s at the office. Stop taking the longest lunch break known to man, swing by and pick it up, and the camera and tape measure, and get to work.”
Nora sighed. “You want me to let myself in again?”
“Yes.”
“May I remind you that my streak of bad luck letting myself in to places continues unbroken? Last time, I walked in on him in a towel.”
And she still couldn’t get the image out of her head.
To be fair, she hadn’t tried all that hard. She was keeping it fresh for when she got up the nerve to buy item number three on her list, when a good mental picture would come in handy.
“He won’t be there,” Anna said. “You think tech millionaires hang out at home at lunchtime on a Tuesday? He knows we have the key. The whole point of us having the key is so we can go in during office hours and do this shit.”
“Fine, but—”
“Got to go, the prospect is coming back from the bathroom. Thanks, Nora. See you later!”
Great. She was supposed to go over to his apartment and what, take photos? Measure? Measure what?
“Everything okay?” Kim asked back in Reception.
“Yep. I have to leave, but I’ll come back as soon as I can fit it in.” As soon as.
“No problem. If there’s any particular dog you’re considering, you can register interest before you go. It’s a good idea. The cute ones get snatched up quick.”
“I don’t need to register interest, I’ve already chosen. I know the one I want. Can I reserve her now?”
“Yep.” Kim pulled the clipboard toward her, and clicked the pen. “Which one was it?”
“The last one.”
“Ah.” Kim rolled her lips, and pushed the clipboard away.
“The one who smiled at me.”
Kim set the pen down next to the clipboard. “Yeah, she didn’t smile at you.”
“Okay, I know dogs don’t smile, but she did this cute thing that I swear… Never mind. The last one, she’s the one I want.”
“I can’t reserve her for you.”
“What? Why not? Oh. She’s already reserved, isn’t she?” Figured.
“Her? No. She’s been here eight months, is the problem. If someone else comes in and wants her, I’m not risking putting them off, and then you call to say you’ve changed your mind, or you don’t even bother to call, and she ends up dying here, never knowing the warm embrace of her own forever home.”
Nora thought about the dog’s gentle eyes, timid approach, and beautiful smile.
It was a smile.
“If I swear I won’t change my mind, will you please reserve her for me?”
Kim shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t.” She angled the clipboard toward Nora. “Fill this out, register interest. It’s the next best thing. It’s no guarantee you’ll be picked if someone else wants her, but we’ll call and let you know you have competition.”
Nora leafed through the multi-page form. “Wow. You really go into detail.” Her apartment lease had less pages.
“Saves time-wasters.”
Nora checked her watch and gave an awkward laugh. “Funny you should say that, but—”
“Yep.” Face blank, Kim stretched out to take the clipboard.
Nora snatched it against her chest. “But,” she said, “I’ll take it with me and drop the forms off tomorrow.”
“Can’t let you do that.” Kim made a gimme gesture. “It’s my favorite clipboard.”
Nora slapped it down on the counter. “Fine.”
“Here.” Kim unclipped the forms, folded them, and passed them over.
“Oh. Thanks. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“We’ll see.”
Nora stuffed the forms into her purse. Halfway to the door, she stopped and said, “If I swear—”
“No. I mean, you seem like a real safe bet and all, but if I take a chance on you and you let us down, she’ll never get out from behind those bars. It’s in her best interests, you know?”