Jules is at the front desk, printing forms, when I come in from the back with a squeaky stuffed duck missing an eye.
“Found this under Baxter’s bed,” I say, dropping it onto the counter.
He takes one look at me, damp shirt, fur stuck to my jeans, hair escaping its braid, and sighs. “You look like a cautionary tale.”
“You look moisturized and smug.”
“Thank you, darlin’.”
I reach for the pen behind my ear. “What time’s the walk-in?”
“Any minute now,” he says.
The bell over the front door jingles before I can answer. I don’t think much of it at first. People come in all day with donations, questions, curiosity, and sometimes to stand in the doorway and decide they’re not ready. I wipe my hands on my jeans and turn toward the lobby.
And then I see the little girl. She stands just inside the doorway in lavender leggings and white sneakers with tiny stars on them, her warm brown curls a little rumpled like she’s been leaning against a car window. Her hand is wrapped around the fingers of the man beside her.
She looks around first, not rushing, just taking it all in. The mural, the kennels, the glass room where two puppies are tumbling over each other in a mess of paws and enthusiasm. Her hazel-green eyes go wide.
“Oh,” she breathes.
That one small sound hits me square in the chest.
The man beside her doesn’t move. He doesn’t take in the mural or the puppies first. His gaze moves through the room in one clean sweep, corners, exits, people, before coming back to her, and only then does he look up at me.
He looks like every warning label my mother ever handed me wrapped in six-foot-two of dark, dangerous male, all tailored edges and expensive everything. Dark hair, neat like he’s got no patience for mess, a strong jaw that hasn’t seen a day off, and eyes so pale they almost don’t look real. Ice-blue and sharp enough to make you feel like you’ve been sized up without a word.
There’s no flash to him, no show, just presence. Broad shoulders under his coat, a build that says strength without needing to prove it, a tattoo on his hand and one creeping out of his collar, but nothing out of place.
Definitely older than me, in his late thirties at least. The type of man my mama would take one look at and say,“Mm-mm, don’t you start.”
And just to be clear, I’m not starting. Not even a little bit. Because yes, objectively, he is… very attractive.
I clear my throat.No. We are not doing that today.
The girl’s hand slips from her father’s, and she takes another step into the lobby, her eyes moving from the painted river to the adoption wall to the glass room where the two puppies are still tumbling over each other. There’s no wild shriek or grabby little-kid rush. She watches first, taking it all in carefully, like the whole place matters.
Jules, who can charm anyone with a pulse and half the folks without one, smooths his palm over the front of his shirt and pastes on his polite welcome smile. “Hey there. Welcome to Second Chance Savannah.”
The man’s attention goes to him, his eyes traveling over Jules in a quick, thorough pass like he’s taking note of more than what’ssaid out loud. He keeps one hand in his pocket. The other rests lightly on the little girl’s back.
“We’re here to look,” he says, his voice low with a faint trace of a Russian accent. There’s nothing wasted in the way he speaks.
Jules’s brows rise just a touch, though most people wouldn’t notice. I do. “Of course. I’m Jules.”
The little girl steps toward the puppy room glass and flattens her palm against it. One of the pups bounces over, tail going like a metronome on fast-forward. She smiles, small at first, and then it spreads across her whole face, and Lord help me, that does me in.
I move before I even think about it.
“Hey, sugar,” I say gently as I come around the desk. “You can go in there in a minute if you’d like. They’re still learnin’ that not every visitor belongs to them.”
She turns to me. Up close, she’s all lashes, solemn eyes, and a face that could talk me into poor decisions with zero effort.
Her father turns too, and good grief, those ice-blue eyes hit me like a cold hand at the back of my neck.
I’ve dealt with city inspectors, angry ex-boyfriends returning “problem dogs” they created with their own stupidity, and one possum in the supply closet that refused to leave for six straight hours. Yet somehow looking at this man feels far more inconvenient.
“I’m Magnolia,” I say, then immediately wish my voice had come out a little less breathy and a lot more like my usual self. “But everyone calls me, Maggie. I own the shelter.”
