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There was no way for him to sneak up on me.
Then I’d be at the pound with Wells.
Then at my house with Wells.
I’d placed an order at the grocery store for a pick-up, so I would swing by there to grab the food, then go home and cook for him.
It certainlyfeltlike a date.
And that little tingly feeling spreading across my chest, it let me know that I wanted it to be a date.
Crazy, given the situation?
Maybe.
Or maybe not so crazy.
Wasn’t it, like, a trope in romance TV and movies that women fell for men who saved them? And, granted, he hadn’t saved me. I’d done that myself. But he’d been there for me after, helping me try to make sure that it never happened again.
“Get it together,” I grumbled to myself as I pulled the car into the lot of the pound, saying a silent prayer that the right dog was inside there somewhere. Or all those boxes that were likely sitting on my front step from the online shopping I’d done the day before would be a complete waste of money.
I parked up close to the door, kept my car on and the windows up, and waited for Wells to show.
He’d texted me when he was leaving the station, so I knew he was only a few minutes behind me, but the wait felt endless until, suddenly, he was pulling in next to me with a smile as he parked.
I walked out to join him, double-checking that I had a copy of my mortgage statement with me to prove I had a right to have a dog.
“You ready for the best decision you’ve ever made in your life?” Wells asked, reaching like he was going to put a hand to the small of my back, but not actually touching me.
The disappointment was instantaneous and absolutely ludicrous.
“Absolutely,” I agreed, even if some part of me was wondering if the best decision I could make was grabbing his hand, and telling him to take me back to his place, and the two of us getting lost in each other for a few hours.
But since that was insane, we moved into the lobby of the pound, speaking to the woman behind the counter, and filling out the adoption paperwork, so things would go quickly if I found my new furry friend while doing a walk-through.
“Try not to be too sad,” Wells said as we walked through a row of pens. Sure, they each had beds and even a toy or two, but it was so sparse and cold. “This is a no-kill shelter. Everyone here will find a home eventually.”
That did make me feel a little better as I passed by small dogs and puppies who were cute as buttons, but wouldn’t work for protection purposes.
“‘Wary of male strangers,’” Wells read on the little laminated sheet on the dog’s run.
“You and me both,” I said, turning away from a cute, but small, pitty mix to see what kind of dog he was looking at.
There, sitting on her bed with a stuffed chicken toy resting between her feet, was some sort of shepherd mix. But big. Way bigger than the typical German Shepherd.
“What else does it say?” I asked.
“They think she’s a German Shepherd and Anatolian Shepherd mix.”
“Is that a good thing?” I asked, noting her lighter coloring and darling little curled upward tail.
“Both breeds are great guardian dogs. Germans are easier to train. Anatolians are more stubborn. But that doesn’t mean difficult necessarily, just that they have good instincts and want to follow them.”
“How old is she?” I asked.
“She’s three. And she’s been here one-hundred-and-fifteen days,” he said.
My heart clutched at that. It was way longer than all the other dogs I’d passed by so far.
