Page 7 of Lee

“Well, since I can’t have a kitten at home, I’ll just hang out with them here,” Rachel said.

The teen went with Lee to the small room where they’d placed the litter of kittens that had been brought in a couple of days earlier. They were so young, and since the mother hadn’t come with them, they had to be fed by hand.

As he picked up a little white kitten, Lee was reminded of the cat he’d seen that morning. The difference was that the kitten welcomed his affection. He hoped that the woman who had brought the pet in, had taken his words to heart and didn’t worry too much about the cat not purring.

“Do you think we’ll find people to adopt these?” Rachel asked as she prepared a small bottle to feed one of the kittens.

“I don’t know,” Lee told her, choosing to be honest with the teen. “But hopefully we can find people who want them. As long as we don’t get another litter, their chances will be better.”

“We need to set up a social media account for this place and include pictures of the animals we have for adoption. Other shelters do that.”

“I’ve seen that,” Lee said. “You’d probably have to convince Dr. Carl of the benefit.”

Rachel sighed as she fed one of the kittens, snuggling it close. “He’ll probably say no.”

Lee thought maybe she was right. Coming from an animal hospital in a big city, there had been a stark contrast in how things were run in Serenity. Not that the animals received sub-standard care at the Serenity clinic. In fact, he’d say that it was on par, or in some cases, actually better.

It was just that Dr. Carl liked things done the way he wanted them done, and some of those things were not the most up to date. Like using social media to help advertise the shelter and its animals.

Cheryl might have been the one person who could have convinced him, but Lee doubted she’d make the effort when her attention was focused on her pregnancy and training someone for her job. Maybe once his position was more secure, he’d push harder for things like social media for the shelter.

For the rest of the afternoon, Lee split his time between the clinic and the shelter. Dr. Carl was out of the office at a nearby ranch, which meant Lee was responsible for any patients brought in.

But eventually, the clinic’s hours of operation wound down, and the guy who took care of the shelter and clinic during after-hours came on duty. He cleaned the premises and monitored the shelter occupants and any animals who were staying overnight in the clinic.

Lee shared on-call duties with Carl, though so far, he hadn’t been called in.

“See you tomorrow,” Lee said to Cheryl as he headed to the back of the clinic.

“Yep. Have a good evening.”

The July sun shone brightly, with the sunset still a few hours away. He walked to the parking lot next to the building and climbed into his car.

Before he started the engine, he pulled out his phone to check his email. A couple of weeks earlier, he’d submitted a DNA kit, and now he was waiting for the results to see if he had a biological family somewhere.

He hadn’t cared too much about his birth family during his growing-up years. His life with the Halversons had been great, and he’d never felt like he was lacking anything by not knowing about his life before joining their family. It had probably helped that he wasn’t the only adopted one in the family.

However, his last girlfriend—the most serious one he’d had to date—had felt strongly that he needed to know about his past before she’d even consider a marriage proposal. If not for her sake, then for any children they might have.

Her insistence had started him thinking about his biological heritage, but he hadn’t been ready to jump on researching it right away. Unfortunately, that indecision had led to their breakup. In the end, her desire for those answers about his past had obviously been stronger than her love for him.

In the time since they’d broken up, Lee had come to consider that perhaps she’d been right about his unknown past. So recently, he’d begun the journey to find those answers, just in case a woman he wanted to date in the future felt the same way as his ex.

Since the Halversons seemed open about most things, Lee had figured they were the best place to start. Only… they’d been surprisingly vague in their responses to him.

They’d said that they didn’t have any details to share with him about his early life. Those first three years before he’d come to live with them.

Lee wasn’t completely clueless. He knew that if everything had been great in his life, he wouldn’t have needed to be adopted. Jay and Janessa, two of his other adopted siblings, had ended up with the Halversons when both their parents had died.

He figured that it was pretty rare that adoptions—especially of non-infant children—resulted from a positive situation. So he already knew that something bad had likely happened before he ended up with the Halversons. He just didn’t know what. Yet.

In addition to submitting his DNA, he’d been in contact with a private detective, so he felt like it was just a matter of time before he had some answers.

Seeing no email from the DNA site, Lee dropped his phone into the cup holder, then started up the car and headed home. When he stepped into the house a little while later, Layla, Amelia, and Elsa greeted him energetically.

“Heya, Uncle Lee,” Layla said as she skipped up to him for a hug.

Getting to know his nieces and nephews had been a real joy. Amelia was still a bit reserved around him, but she was warming up. It had taken a while for Peyton to get used to him, but he greeted Lee as enthusiastically as Layla did these days.

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