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Will appeared at her side. “Ah, there was something I didn’t get around to telling you,” he said with a sheepish smile.
Her blood cooled. “What did you do?”
His grin faltered momentarily but then he reinforced it. “I switched our supplier, ta-da!” He did a flourish towards the grumpy driver who had finished unloading the pallets and came over to them.
“Are you Will?” he grunted.
“Yes.”
“Sign here,” he shoved the clipboard at Will who signed and then the driver tore off an invoice and tipped his imaginary hat. “Y’all have a nice day,” he said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
Rebelle could feel her anger ratcheting up again as one more thing had been taken out of her hands, in her own damn shelter.
Will began inspecting the pallets, oblivious to her swelling temper.
“I switched the pet food supplier and we’re going to save a chunk of money from our next delivery, isn’t that great?”
“You did that without speaking to me?” she growled and that got his attention. He looked over at her and his sunny smile tipped her over the edge. The anger and frustration over the last few days of him barging into her life and deciding it needed fixing spilled over. “Why do you think that was somethingacceptable for you to do? It’s not up to you where the dog food comes from!”
He was taken aback by her anger. “But they’re charging you a fortune, it was the most expensive one across the market.”
“I don’t care.”
“You don’t care? But the money it’s costing could go so much further. Based on some of the things you want to do here, you need to cut costs and that’s a big expense that can be easily reduced.”
“Itcanbe, but I don’twantto. These animals have been through hell and back and the least they could do is have a nice damn dinner and you had no right to interfere with that!” she shouted, then sucked in a breath when she realized how much she had raised her voice.
The habitual fear that was instilled in her reared its head, terrified of the consequences of her anger and raising her voice to a man. Fear that increased tenfold when Will raised his arm to run his hand through his hair and she flinched, leaping back. Immediately she realized what she’d done and judging from the expression on his face he’d seen it too. Rebelle blanked her features, willing the tension hovering in the air to disperse.
“I would never hurt you. We’re just arguing, it’s how passionate people get their point across,” he said, his words calm, his voice moderated.
There was a pause before she absorbed his words, focusing on one thing. “You think I’m passionate?”
“Of course you are, you’re these dogs’ momma. I know you’d do anything possible to make their lives better.” There was a pause before he added, “Including spending far too much money on their food when you weren’t spending any on your own.”
Before she could rebut him, he continued. “It’s something I’ve been wanting to speak to you about actually. I want to partner with you on the shelter. Be your financial investor or a director,whatever you want. I know you have plans and I want to help you achieve them.”
She scoffed. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”
They had spent a lot of time together but for the first time she saw his sunny expression fall. Not when she barked orders at him or was rude to him, but now.
“For wanting to help?”
Her throat closed up, tears threatened to spill from her eyes and the thought of crying in front of him had her fighting them back. “Stop trying to save me, save this place. We don’t need you. We were doing fine, just fine without you.”
“You were doing the best you could,” he replied gently, and she stumbled back at the pity in his words. “I don’t want to take anything away from you, I just want to help move it forward. For the animals, for you. Please just say you’ll think about it?”
“I don’t want your money.”
His expression softened. “Belle, you needsomeone’smoney, it might as well be mine.”
She needed to go, get away from the big man with big money and a big heart who threatened all her plans to do this all on her own. To prove to the world that she could do it, that she was fine without anyone, she didn’t need anyone. She would do it on her own or she would die trying. After Marcus she made a promise to herself; she would never rely on anyone else, especially not a man, ever.
She didn’t want much from this life, had learned not to try and shoot for the stars a long time ago. She had simple, achievable dreams and yet they seemed like they were forever out of reach.
She was a failure.
She left the shelter and headed towards her home, the homehehad bought for her, and a sob tangled in her throat. She made it inside and into her room, closing the door. Her breath heavedas sobs tried to escape and she wrestled them back, but fighting was pointless, it hadn’t gotten her anywhere and she let them out. Gave them free reign and collapsed onto the floor, burying her face in her hands.
