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“Love you, too.”
After a quick peck on her lips, I take Sara’s hand and lead her back to the park. There are way more people here than there were ten minutes ago. The volunteers from the shelter are here, setting up crates and playpens for the animals. People are already cooing over the puppies and kittens, checking out the auction items, and mingling with the other attendees. The event doesn’t start for another half-hour, and there are more people in attendance than I ever imagined there would be.
“Are we prepared for this many people?” I murmur to Sara.
“Yep. I upped your catering numbers because I knew more people would show up than you thought.”
I squeeze her hand. “I am falling in love with you all over again.”
“Good.” She grins, then leads me over to a mangy-looking pup, cooing at the little guy.
“Absolutely not. We have six animals as it is!”
“Oh, stop. I’m just looking,” Sara grumbles.
“That’s all it takes, love. One doe-eyed look and he’ll have you taking him home in a heartbeat.” I pull Sara away from the temptation and closer to the food table, hoping a cookie will distract her long enough that she’ll forget about the dogs.
“I know you’re trying to distract me,” Sara says around a mouthful of sugar cookie. Her glare would be deadly if she wasn’t so cute.
I lean in and kiss her forehead. As the fundraiser hits full swing, I realize Sara was right: Nearly the whole town has shown up for the event. There are so many people here, milling about and chatting with each other. I can’t quite believe they’d all be willing to support this event—support me.
“Hey guys,” Dax says, walking up to us. “Quite the turnout. Congrats.”
“Thanks.” I reach out to shake his hand.
“How you holding up?” Dax asks Sara.
She shrugs her shoulders. “As good as you’d expect. I heard you helped get the information needed to find me.”
Dax nods his head, but doesn’t say any more about it.
“Seriously? That’s all I get? A head nod? I mean, you’d think getting kidnapped would allow me some secret information, but noooo. Not with this guy.” Sara shakes her head, fighting a grin.
Dax busts out laughing and rolls his eyes. “No amount of whining will do it either.”
“We’ll just have to get him drunk,” she conspires, leaning in close to me as if Dax can’t hear her.
“That won’t work either.” He grins.
“Ugh. Fine. Whatever. I’ll just force you to be my friend, and eventually, you’ll tell us something about you.”
“Sure. You get right on that.” He shakes his head before growing serious. “I am glad you’re okay, though.”
“Thanks for helping with my rescue.”
“Yeah, we really are grateful for your help,” I add.
“Happy to be of service. And hey, if you want to come by next week and talk about starting a self-defense class, let me know.” Dax’s change of subject doesn’t go unnoticed, but Sara lets him get away with it.
“I’ll give you a call.”
We say goodbye and start moving through the crowd, each person stopping to say hi and how much they’re loving the event. Some of them are even asking when we’ll do another one.
“Dr. Crawford!” Margie calls from across the park, her green animal shelter polo making her stand out from the crowd.
“How’s it going?” I ask when we finally make it to where she’s standing.
“Every animal has been spoken for.” She grins, excitement brimming out of every pore.
