Page 14 of Lee

“Maybe I’ll ask Charli to come by with her one day.” Lee figured she might do that since she was out of school at the moment. The girls would probably also love to spend a little time at the shelter.

“Have you seen the new dog?” Cheryl asked.

“Not yet. I am going to check on him now.”

“Why don’t you go with him, Rori?” Cheryl suggested. “See how we do things in our shelter.”

Rori looked at Lee, as if waiting for him to give her permission.

“C’mon,” Lee said, tipping his head toward the door leading to the shelter. “Let’s go meet our newest resident.”

A small smile played across Rori’s face as she got to her feet. She wasn’t dressed as formally as she’d been for her interview, but also not as casually as their first meeting.

Instead, she wore a pair of jeans and a dark blue T-shirt that had the clinic’s logo on it. That was pretty much the uniform for the staff, simply because sometimes things got a little messy when working with animals.

As they reached the door, he held it open for her, then led her to the desk where Carmen sat.

“Hi, Carmen. Have you met Rori already?” Lee asked.

Carmen nodded with a smile. “Cheryl introduced us earlier. Have you come to see the pup?”

“Yep. Need to check how he’s doing.”

The dog was currently in one of their quarantine rooms. It was the policy to segregate any animal that came into the shelter until it was examined and given a clean bill of health.

When they walked into the quarantine room, they found the dog cowering near the back wall, watching them over the low fence that was in place to allow them to contain the dog while still being close to him.

As he observed the dog from a distance first, Lee explained to Rori what they knew of the animal, which wasn’t much.

“So you give any animal that gets brought in like this a checkup?” Rori asked as she stood next to him.

In the process of glancing over at her, Lee noted that she came up to his shoulder. Her profile showed delicate features in the slope of her nose and in her cheekbones. She was a pretty woman, though there was an air of fragile reserve around her.

Was that just because she didn’t know them well yet? Cheryl and Alys didn’t have a reserved bone in her body, whether it was with a friend or a stranger, but not everyone was like that.

“Yes, we check over every animal brought to the shelter. First, though, we’ll need to give this dog a bath and clean him up.”

“Do you do that?”

“Rachel or Cap usually takes care of the grooming.”

“The other volunteers?”

Lee nodded. “I’m sure one of them will be in soon to take care of it.”

Lee approached the fence and leaned over to hold his hand out toward the dog. He didn’t move at all, so Lee took the opportunity to further observe the animal.

“Do you think he was abused?” Rori asked, her voice soft. “He seems scared.”

“It’s possible,” Lee said. “Or he could have been neglected, so he doesn’t know how to react to us.”

“Why do people do that to animals?”

“I have no idea. Just like I have no idea why people hurt children,” Lee said. “Or other people, for that matter.”

Rori gave a short hum of agreement. “How do you get him to come to you so you can check him over?”

Lee spent a few minutes walking Rori through their procedure for animals coming into the shelter. Some, like the kittens, were fairly straightforward. Older animals could be more of a challenge, and large dogs, in particular, could be dangerous.

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