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“No, they don’t.” She raised her eyes to Dex, peeking at him from under the veil of her lashes. Those eyes were something else. “And the fewer people who know what happened here, the better.”
“Right. You wouldn’t want it getting out that you let killer dogs roam the facility, ready to bite unsuspecting visitors.”
She stopped what she was doing and took a step back. The bandage remained in a loose drape over his hand.
“Wait, what’s going on?”
“Nothing. Toby can drive you to wherever you need to go. Rebels HQ, you said?”
“You’re not going to finish wrapping me up?” Blood was starting to seep through the gauze.
She glared at him, the silver in her green eyes flashing like diamonds. “I don’t need to stand here while you make jabs about the dogs in my care. Bandit is very highly-strung?—”
“Hell yeah, he is.”
“And he’s had a hard life. Strangers make him nervous and he’s also very protective of Peanut.” When he looked blank, she said, “The other dog. The terrier.”
“But I was just trying to help get them back in their homes. Cages. Whatever.”
She picked up the bloodied supplies and threw them in the trash, then started to tidy up. He used the moment as an excuse to check out the rest of her. Even turned away from him, he could tell she had an amazing rack, which filled out her purple V-necked tee like a dream. She wore jeans, rolled a couple of inches above her ankle, and damn, that was one fine ass cupped by the denim.
Still obviously annoyed, she responded with, “I get that. I’m sorry you were hurt. I’m trying to help. But I was a little overwhelmed at the situation, and your tardiness—by several hours, mind you—didn’t help.”
“I guess it didn’t.” He didn’t really see the connection, but he figured agreeing with her was better so they could move on. “Listen, I thought I was helping, but I guess not. Only now I need your help to patch this up because it might get infected and I’ll be out of a job before you can say, ‘Gordie Howe Hat trick’.”
God, he was tired. He’d headed home for a quick lunch after practice and fell asleep on the sofa. Hockey players were used to afternoon naps. He’d figured showing up late to the shelter gig was better than not showing up at all, but now it had descended to the usual Dex O’Malley shit-show.
Ashley stood before him, hands on hips, contemplating whether he was worthy of her medical attention. He really needed to get going, to head to Rebels HQ where they could do a proper job of stitching him up. But something held him locked in place, something strangely powerful. She had a strength of character about her that drew him in.
She was talking and he’d missed it.
“Right,” he said because it looked like she was waiting for a response.
“You’d do that? Apologize?”
He shrugged, not sure why she was asking. Hadn’t he just said sorry? “Like on camera or something?”
“Well, he’s a bit fussy. Not sure we’d want too many people around him.”
Him. Were they talking about the dog?
“Would he even understand?”
Wrong response. She turned her attention to the bandage, looking to wrap it up—heh—as quickly as possible. “I’m not sure this is going to work out.”
“What?”
“You. Here.”
“You’re turning down a volunteer at the shelter?” Christ on a Zamboni, how bad did you have to be to lose the volunteer gig at the animal shelter?
Dex O’Malley-bad, it seemed.
Sophie and Fitz and just about every other responsible adult in his life was going to freak the fuck out if they heard he’d been canned by the Shelter Lady. He needed to fix this.
But before he could apologize more fulsomely, her phone pinged.
“Your Uber’s here.”
