Page 26 of Love Out Loud

Chapter Eleven

“You seemed kind of intense today,” Addison said as she helped Fiona load some supplies into boxes to go to Addison’s animal shelter seventy miles away in New Jersey. Animal Attraction paired with the shelter, raising funds and soliciting supplies on their behalf at their annual fundraiser. Usually, supplies were shipped from donors directly to the farm, but several individuals and local stores regularly dropped off overstocked items and donations at Animal Attraction.

Fiona didn’t answer, not really knowing what to say.Intensewas a good word to describe the scrambled feelings bouncing around her insides, she supposed, but talking about it was not going to help. Instead, she folded the flaps on the box under one another to keep it closed and grabbed another box from a shelf behind her in the storage closet next to the grooming room, where they were loading up supplies. Everyone else had left for the day over an hour ago.

From a crate in the corner, Brutus watched Otto and Daisy tussle over a rope toy with knots on each end. Both dogs were growling, tails wagging wildly.

“Does it have to do with the speech Jane was talking about?” Addison asked.

“Yes.” That should satisfy her and end the subject. It wasn’t a lie, honestly, though it wasn’t the speech itself that had pushed her off balance. It was the man helping her with it. Helping…

She shoved some boxed dog treats into the container. Jacob—Jake—wasn’t just helping with the speech; he was helping her lose sleep. He was also helping her hormones flit around like fireflies, making her body hot and cold at the same time. Yeah, he was helping. And getting up all hours of the night to feed Brutus hadn’t made for a good night’s sleep, either. All in all, she was grumpy and frustrated.

“Jane says this speech guy is super cute.”

Right. Jane was helping, too. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Addison snorted and added several more containers of treats to Fiona’s box.

“Jane also said he’s coming here tonight to work with you.”

Fiona and Jane were going to have words. Many of them. She folded the flaps and stacked the box on top of two others near the door. “When is your brother going to be here to pick the stuff up?” she asked.

Addison put her hands on her hips and smiled. “You mean, when am I leaving so that you don’t have to answer any questions about the good-looking man who will be here in”—she slipped her phone out of her jean pocket and checked it—“twelve minutes?”

Crap. Twelve minutes.

Heart bouncing around her rib cage, she looked down at herself. It had been a messy day. The last patient had been a Himalayan cat that shed all over the place. Before that was a parrot that needed a nail trim, whose owner promised it had never bitten anyone.

Of course, it bit Fiona. Twice. Once on the shoulder and again on the finger…and that was before she had even examined the bird.

There was a palm-sized blood spot on her scrub sleeve to commemorate Pedro’s proclaimed first-ever aggressive act. Fiona knew better. The bird was a biter, and that was why the owner brought it in for a routine nail clip. She should have paid closer attention to the body language of the bird and less to the words of the owner. Animals were always honest.

“I need to change clothes,” Fiona said, turning to leave. As she entered the hallway, it struck her that she had walked out without saying goodbye. She poked her head back into the doorway. “Bye. See you next week. Thanks for helping out today.”

Addison was in the same position, grinning. “Bye, and you’re welcome. Want me to put these two in the kennel when I go?”

Holy cow. She’d not only walked out on Addison, she’d walked out on Otto and Daisy. “No. I’ll keep them with me.” She snapped her fingers, and both dogs trotted into the hallway, each still holding an end of the rope, neither willing to relinquish possession.

“Hello,” a voice called from the waiting room. “Fiona?”

No. No, no, no.He was early, and she looked like… She glanced down at herself again, then took a deep breath. She looked like a veterinarian who had been working all day. She would not change who she was for someone else. Ever. He’d have to deal.

Addison brushed past her, and the dogs jumped into her wake. “I’ll bring him back. You want him in the exam room?”

Good question. It hadn’t been thoroughly wiped down, since she’d run late today, and it was as big of a mess as she was. She’d have to come in early tomorrow to detail what the cleaning crew missed tonight.

“No. The break room would be great, if you don’t mind. I’ll be right there.” She wasn’t surprised Addison jumped at the chance to check out Jake after Jane’s lead-in. She wasn’t certain whether to be irritated or grateful. Grateful, she decided, because it gave her enough time to grab her clean lab jacket.

Addison gave her a wink and a thumbs-up as she passed her in the hallway. When Fiona entered the room, she found Jake sitting in a chair at the circular table with his wide eyes glued to Daisy and Otto, who were playing a loud and ferocious game of tug-of-war with the rope toy.

Great. Way to put him at ease, kiddos.“It sounds menacing, but that’s just the way they talk to each other. Terriers of all kinds are notoriously feisty,” Fiona said, hoping to ease some of his obvious tension. “This breed was fine-tuned over the decades to be good ratters. This tugging game is a natural extension of that instinct to pull something out of a tight place and tear it apart.”

He paled.

Oops. Wrong thing to say. She snapped her fingers and said, “Stop.” Both dogs fell silent, but, in typical hardheaded terrier style, neither was willing to give up the toy, so they stood facing each other, looking at her out of the sides of their eyes. “Drop,” she said, and after a moment, they both let go of the toy. “Sit.” Reluctantly, the dogs obeyed, eyes never leaving the rope as she picked it up and set it on the counter near the sink. She felt bad taking it away. They’d been having so much fun.

Maybe she should have let Addison kennel them for this session with Jake, but if she was going to have to do something that made her uncomfortable, then it was only fair that he be uncomfortable, too. She sighed. That wasn’t really the reason. Deep down, she was hoping to chip away at her friendship requirement number one: must like animals. From the look on his face, she wasn’t sure that was a possibility.

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