Kelsey’s cheeks lit with a pretty blush. Like him, she was probably wondering what assumptions, if any, Rob had made about their relationship. Tess’s words had an air of innocence about them. However, since Kurt had already asked Rob for overnight dogsitting during the reception next weekend, she likely knew he and Kelsey were doing more than just leading a rehab together.
Rob and Tess loaded into the van, and Rob gave Kurt a single knowing wink before flipping the ignition and heading out.
Kurt stood beside Kelsey as the van headed down the road. A mess of words rolled over his tongue, but none came out. He wanted to thank her for letting her guard down so easily when, aside from the few snippets that had come out during the tour, she knew so little of his and Tess’s history.
But the words were stuck alongside all the words about the unexpected money and the forgiveness his grandmother must have felt toward her family, and the most befuddling words of all about a father and a connection that Kurt had given up all hope of.
He dragged a hand through his hair, and the words slipped further and further away.
A few hundred feet from them, Ida and Megan were on Ida’s porch pouring honey that Kurt could smell even from here. Inside Sabrina’s house, his grandfather was waiting for him to finish with a mess of plaster.
“Thanks.” It was a small word and hardly worth saying without being attached to a string of others.
Kelsey tugged at the zipper of her hoodie while a bee circled around her hand. “Sure. She’s nice.”
“Yeah.”
“I’d, um, better get back. We weren’t even a quarter of the way through when I left.” She turned away without waiting for a reply.
He was about to let her go when he caught her hand and pulled her into a kiss that was both deep and heavily curtailed at the same time. When he let her go, she brushed a wisp of hair back from his forehead.
“Kurt, whenever you’re ready to talk about it, whatever it is, I’m here.”
He nodded and felt his throat constrict. “I know. And right now, this is all I can do.”
“That’s okay. You’re worth waiting for.”
Chapter 22
There were places where you could go a hundred times and still feel like a foreigner or, at best, an interloper—the post office fit the bill for Kelsey—and there were places you could go only once and feel you absolutely, unequivocally belonged. This had happened the first time Kelsey visited the shelter.
She knew she belonged, and in a big way. Despite the small staff size, getting hired had fallen into place easier than many other things in her life. Seven years later, looking around the building as it underwent changes and renovations, Kelsey still felt the same sense of belonging and ease. She sank into the familiar, one-leg-was-just-a-touch-shorter-than-the-rest chair at her desk and placed her palms flat against the wooden top, savoring a moment of quiet.
Hearing the plop of one of her favorite human’s bodies into a chair, Trina raced over and hopped up onto the desk with the grace and ease of a cat who wasn’t missing one leg.
“I can always make time for you, girl.” Kelsey leaned forward and let Trina sniff her nose and face before the attention-loving cat began to rub against her.
It was so nice to sit and do nothing. Even if it was only for a minute or two. At Sabrina’s house, there was always another item to be checked off a seemingly endless list. Here, it was basically the same, but there was a coziness about the place that most everyone slipped into savoring from time to time.
And now was as good as any. All the volunteers had gone home early, and there were no customers. Fidel was in back clanging around by the kennels, and Patrick was out front using a hose with a nozzle powerful enough to wash away the bird poop that collected under the big oak that pushed the sidewalk up near the parking lot entrance. This was a chore he saved for when he needed to work through something. Since things were going so well here and his home life was usually predictably quiet, Kelsey suspected he was still reeling about Mason Redding’s accident and the struggle the Red Birds were having in the playoffs this year. He was a Red Bird fan to the bone.
Since Megan had left for Georgia last Friday, Kelsey had been here a few hours during the midday rush each afternoon. The most eventful thing that had happened was when a laid-off construction worker came back for the senior Bernese mountain dog he’d surrendered three months prior. He’d found work and, with his first paycheck, had come back inquiring whether the old dog had been adopted. The man was quiet and reserved, and if Kelsey wasn’t so head over heels for someone with a similar demeanor, she might have mistaken his feelings for indifference.
She’d seen his hands shaking and couldn’t help wondering if he was someone who held everything in. He’d done nothing more than nod and swallow when she admitted that while a few people had shown interest, his dog was still here. Moose was a good, quiet dog, but at seven and a half, he was nearing the end of the average lifespan for the breed and was already down in his hips.
She’d pulled Moose from his run and brought him to the front room to reintroduce them. As soon as his master said his name from across the room, Moose let out a high-pitched bark and bounded over in a way that seemed to shed the years from him.
The man had dropped to his knees, breaking into tears and bear-hugging the ecstatic dog. There hadn’t been a dry eye in the place,
