“You know what I haven’t gotten an update on?” Kurt asked, needing to change the subject. “Soccer.”
One of Rob’s eyebrows shot into his forehead. Rob was fifty-two and still playing on a year-round team. He pretty much lived for two things. Dogs and soccer.
Soccer proved to be the change of topic Kurt needed. It monopolized the conversation until they paid and headed outside. They parted ways with him promising to give Rob a call and not to stay a stranger. He was halfway back to Fort Leonard Wood when he realized he hadn’t been able to put the morning’s events out of his mind for a second. Why couldn’t his mind grasp that right now, his best chance of feeling good was to take a stab at something else entirely?
* * *
There were butterflies in Kelsey’s stomach the next morning. Half from excitement, half from nerves. Change was hardly something she embraced, but it wasn’t something she hid from either.
She sat at her desk at the shelter, looking it over with a rare scrutiny as she waited for Patrick to finish getting ready to head over with her to the Sabrina Raven estate. She’d spent most of her waking hours here the last seven years. Half the letters on her keyboard were so worn they were indiscernible. The miniature dog and cat glass figurines lining her monitor riser had collected enough dust to dull their colors. There was a pile of nonessential paperwork off to the right she never seemed to get to. The faded glass fishing float she’d found as a kid on vacation on the Oregon coast rested by her pen jar.
Kelsey picked up the glass orb, wondering how many years it had been since she paid any real attention to it. These blue-green antique floats were abundant in the coastline shops but rare to find washed up on the beach. Her dad had hugged her tight after she found it all crusted with sand while walking the beach. He insisted it proved she was remarkably lucky.
She wondered if he still thought so, considering she’d only been taking classes part time since dropping out of Truman State University halfway through her sophomore year. Or considering she hadn’t been on a date in forever, and her career had stagnated four years ago after she was promoted to lead adoption coordinator. In a full-time staff of five.
Ugh, you’re psyching yourself out again, Kels. Glancing at the dusty framed photo of her family on the far side of her monitor didn’t help ease her nerves. It had been taken six years ago at her brother Chaz’s wedding. Chaz, Brian, and her dad were in suits that complemented their well-muscled physiques and dark-brown hair. Kelsey had been a bridesmaid and was in a fantastic lavender dress. Wearing it with ample makeup and an updo, she looked more like a younger, taller version of her mother than she typically did. Her mom, also a natural blond, had a gift for accessorizing that Kelsey probably couldn’t acquire even if she had a degree in fashion.
Even though they had their differences, she loved her family and they loved her. And over the last couple years, they seemed to have accepted that her job at the shelter wasn’t a phase, and that she and corporate America would never be a thing. Of her family of five, she was the only one who’d been bitten by the animal bug. As far as Kelsey was concerned, strong benefit plans and retirement accounts paled in comparison to warm, brown eyes and four-legged affection.
But working at a shelter was a lot different from leading a fighting-dog rehab effort at a secluded old mansion. Her dad and brothers were going to think she was nuts, and her mom was going to worry. And maybe she’d be right to do so.
This was probably why Kelsey had put off telling them last night when she’d gone to her parents’ for dinner. Chaz was out of town with his wife, and Kelsey’s parents were keeping their four- and five-year-old granddaughters for the week. Kelsey was crazy about her nieces, so it had been all too easy to keep the attention focused on them and not dive into the news yet. But maybe she should’ve gotten it over with.
Kelsey gave her shoulders a brisk shake. This thing with the fighting dogs. She could do it. She could run the rehab operation. In the Sabrina Raven estate. She’d even sleep there if she had to. More than enough furniture was still there, waiting for someone to use it.
Okay, so maybe she wouldn’t take it that far.
But she was bound and determined to rock this rehab. She could feel the little breath of excitement that had been building in her stomach. Before yesterday, she hadn’t realized how much she needed to do something gutsy.
And she wasn’t going to go at this alone. Her parents at least could be comforted by that. Rob had called late last night to tell her everything was in order. He had secured a trainer to work with her, some ex-military dog handler named Tommy Sintras. She’d Googled him and found a half-dozen pictures as well as a few online newspaper articles in which he’d been interviewed. He was around her age and okay-enough looking, but there was something about his eyes that seemed beady and set up her guard.
She should be thankful. It could be worse. She could be working alone in that big house with the other ex-military dog trainer, Kurt. Curt Kurt. The weighty feeling in her chest last night on learning she wouldn’t be working with him wasn’t disappointment. She didn’t know what it was, but it definitely wasn’t disappointment.
He’d been chivalrous, yes. And he was good-looking enough that her pulse quickened when she looked at him. And maybe her mouth salivated a bit. Which was humiliating because judging by the sharp way
