Page 155 of Come Back to Me

“Do I smell bad to him?” I whisper once I make it back around to mine.

“Your anxiety is putting him on edge,” is Cody’s answer. “Look how he’s shaking. He’s nervous enough for the two of you. So relax and he’ll nose his way over to you because he’ll want a treat too.”

It’s almost reassuring that the mutt Callan picked keeps on trying to bite him.

I know, I know, I’m a bitch.

But in the following ten minutes, it’s clear to me that Cody’s really good with dogs and Callan and I aren’t when the pack approaches him as, gradually, they’re let off their leashes, while avoiding Callan and me like we have pooch plague.

When Cody scratches behind Brogan’s ears after the German Shepherd nuzzles his head on Cody’s knee, I declare, “I think I’d make a good doggy matchmaker.”

“Hey. I helped pick too,” Callan grumbles, hopping over to us with his dog hanging onto the hem of his jeans.

“Maybe you’re better at picking matches for others than for yourselves,” Cody points out dryly. “Though, I’m not going to lie, that Bernese mountain dog and Colt are going to be a perfect union.”

“They’re both BFGs with bite,” Callan says with a laugh.

The dog is 85% floof.

“Zee’s going to kill me if she expects to sleep on their bed,” I muse, taking in the furry Goliath.

Cody snorts. “Colton won’t let that happen. She’ll need a super king to herself and probably eats more than all the other dogs combined.”

“You might be right. Her old owners had a farm, but they went bankrupt and couldn’t afford to feed her anymore.”

He grimaces. “That’s sad.”

“I figured a billionaire would be able to keep her belly full, and the haven assured us that she was good around cows and horses.”

“There’s a difference between dairy cows and steers.”

“Callan said it’d be fine.”

Cody hoots loud enough to stir Brogan, but because he’s some kind of dog whisperer, Brogan just nudges his new owner’s hand for another stroke. “Because he knows so much about the ranch.”

“Hey! I resent that.”

“You’re into admin, dude. Simmer down.” Cody rolls his eyes. “What was the logic behind the Bichon Frisé for Zee?”

I hide a smug smile. “She’s an ex-service dog. Her old owner had diabetes but she died. They wanted to retire her because she’s getting up there in age, but there’s life in the old girl yet.”

Said ‘old girl’ is currently pissing around the paddock like her scent is Chanel and the whole space needs to smell like a perfume shop.

“Seems to me that she has a lot of life left in her.”

“She does!” I agree happily.

“What about the… Is that a beagle? Who’s that for?”

“Beagle and poodle cross. Mrs. Abelman is a busy person. What better than a mix of two hunting dogs! She’ll bustle around and have a buddy with her.”

“You put a lot of thought into this.”

“We developed an Excel spreadsheet about dog breeds,” Callan calls out as he runs past us to escape his dog. “Cross-sectioned them with your personality types according to Briggs-Myers testing.”

“We made many assumptions about you all as human beings,” I drop in. “But we asked as many questions as we could.”

“You two are sneaks. You’d belong in the CSIS if you weren’t so averse to following orders.”

---