Heart's Refuge

“This is my daughter, Chloe. We’re on our way to the lake.” When he felt a weight on his foot, Will glanced down to see Bub perched on his sneaker. The dog sighed as he leaned against Will’s leg and glanced up at him, tongue dangling out of his mouth.

Should he object? Unseat the dog? He glanced up to see both Sarah and Chloe watching him.

Moving Bub could wait.

Chloe stepped forward to shake Sarah’s hand.

Like an adult. A serious, fully grown woman.

Except she was wearing pink shorts and black sneakers that squeaked with each step.

For a brief second, Sarah’s lips flattened, but she pasted on a smile. “It’s a beautiful day out there. I won’t take much of your time.”

“Twenty minutes.” Chloe motioned over her shoulder. “He promised. The guy works all the time. It’s Saturday.” The exasperated expression on her face was a carbon copy of his ex-wife’s.

He’d heard similar complaints from Olivia regularly.

Sarah clasped her hands in front of her and nodded seriously. “Sure, but does his work always include cute cats?”

“No, that’s new.” Chloe pursed her lips. “Where are they?”

“Ah, someone who likes to cut to the chase. I wonder where you get that?” When Sarah’s eyes met his, he could see she was teasing him.

They weren’t friends. Maybe they weren’t enemies, either.

Sarah pointed at the hallway. “Follow me?”

“Show me your cats.” Chloe marched around the corner, pulling Sarah and Will along in her wake.

Giant miscalculation, Barnes. A kid, surrounded by cats and dogs ready for adoption. What are you going to say when she finds the one that has to come home with you?

He’d say no. When Chloe was in Austin, he would be working. All the time. No animal would be happy or healthy with a setup like that.

He was a person and didn’t really enjoy it.

But it was too late for sound judgment now.

“Realizing you didn’t think everything through?” Sarah wrinkled her nose, the teasing glint in her eyes returning. “Kids love pets.”

Will nodded. “Yeah. Let’s get on with the tour.”

Sarah saluted. “Bathroom. Cramped conference room.” They paused in front of a door with a large glass window. Inside he could see concrete floors, cinder-block pens with chain-link gates. Everything was fresh and clean. “Prepare yourself. There will be barking.”

She was right. Inside the room, conversation was impossible. He walked down the line and read the cards. “Good with kids. Needs special care. House-trained.”

Sarah motioned them to follow and then stopped in front of a large window. The room on the other side held a few smaller cages, an interesting jungle gym and cats of different colors and sizes. “Cats don’t cause much fuss,” she said. Where the dogs rushed their gates to speak to him, the cats sat back and eyed him coolly.

Chloe immediately stepped close to the glass, her breath fogging the window.

Sarah shot him a sympathetic glance. “You can go inside if you like.”

“No” burned on the tip of his tongue, but Chloe’s pleading eyes made it impossible to say. He waved a hand at the door. Chloe slipped inside so fast that she missed him say, “Don’t get too attached. We aren’t taking one home.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets as he watched Chloe carefully approach a fat orange cat. They stared at each other for a long minute before Chloe reached out slowly to run a finger over the cat’s head. A dog would have probably knocked her to the ground and licked her from head to toe at this point.

“I think I must be a cat person.” He appreciated the quiet and reserve. “Although Bub is nice, too.”

Sarah blinked at him for a minute. “I did not expect you to say that. Better take a look at your pants before you commit.”

He glanced down to see the white hairs dotting his pants. “How does a brown dog leave white hairs?”

“Unsolved mystery,” Sarah said.

“Time to clean the litter boxes,” a small, older woman sang as she came down the hall.

No one should be that happy about cat litter.

Sarah’s lips were twitching as she said, “Shelly, can you keep an eye on Chloe?”

“You got it, Sarah.” Shelly slipped inside.

“Shelly’s one of the volunteers keeping the doors open.” Sarah led him into another room. “Food, treats, toys, everything we might need for the cats or dogs stays in this room and we keep a careful inventory.” Sarah pointed at a long line of bowls. “Shelly’s getting ready to feed the cats next.”

“All by herself?” The cat-to-person ratio seemed high.

“Usually I help.” Sarah led him back to the hallway. “The vets who volunteer sometimes use these exam rooms. We take the animals to the clinics for anything out of the ordinary, but the van isn’t running. Needs a new battery.” She shoved open a heavy door. “And this is our exercise yard.”

Will stepped out behind her to see that this part of the shelter was also immaculate. Beyond the fences was another grassy area but it was overgrown. “What do you use that for?”

Sarah studied the fence. “Well, if we could repair the fences, we’d use it as another exercise yard. The shelter has room to grow, so we could increase our capacity, but not without more volunteers and some improvements.”

And that was the critical point. They both knew it.

“Come back to the director’s office. It’s cramped, but if you have a minute, I’d appreciate your opinion on the information I worked on last night. If I’m on the right track, I’ll keep going.” Sarah rubbed her forehead. “You will let me meet with Rebecca, won’t you? If I have to, I’ll wait for her at the grocery store and spring out from the frozen foods. I need this.”

His steely reserve was faltering. This was not a big surprise.

“Show me what you’ve got.” Maybe he was going to cave, but he wouldn’t make it easy for her.

Sarah’s fist pump of victory was premature, at least as far as she knew, but he enjoyed the way she lit up. Today she was young and honest and completely trustworthy. It was too bad they hadn’t met today for the first time.

She moved back through the building at twice the speed of the tour. Will stopped in front of the cat room to check on his daughter. Chloe had worked her way across half the room. She and Shelly were discussing a black cat perched high in the corner.

When he got Chloe’s attention, he pointed in the direction of the office, and she nodded quickly to dismiss him.

Is the lake enough to get her out of here without a cat?

He might have to throw in the new tablet, too.