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Ginny narrowed her eyes at him. “You were doing so well, Little Rhodes.”
“Don’t call me that,” he huffed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his shorts.
Ginny smirked and turned back to the boxes, finger trailing over each one until she stopped at the last box. He smiled when he realized that she’d been captivated by his favorite feline. Copper—another Bronte appointed name—had come in a year ago and was the tiniest calico he’d ever seen. She just wandered into the fenced off area during a play session one day and curled up with one of the older dogs in a corner and fell asleep. Copper had been so little and weak that the minute they found her, he rushed her to the hospital and Spencer looked her over to make sure she was okay. Whatever had happened in her old home made her skittish around people, so when her sedation wore off, she hissed and protested every time someone tried to pick her up.
Then Gavin brought Cedar to the back room and within minutes, Copper had settled. In the year since, she’d gotten better at responding to humans, but put her with a dog and somehow she calmed down instantly.
Walking towards Ginny, Gavin tugged at the information card Bronte made for each animal and read the basics off of it. “Copper’s about two years old, had all her shots and is currently in perfect health. Took her a while to warm up to humans, but seems to like dogs. She’s a huge fan of tummy rubs, scratches behind her ear and sitting on your shoulder.”
Ginny smiled and slipped her pinkie into one of the tiny holes on the front of the fiberglass case. Copper cautiously moved towards them, eyes darting to both the humans and then playfully swatted Ginny’s finger. When that wasn’t enough, she stepped even closer and licked the digit.
“She likes you.”
Ginny sighed, a sound so content and happy it was almost a purr. “I think I want her.”
And I think I still want you.
“Okay, I’ll get Bronte started on the paperwork,” he said instead, untying Copper’s information card from the box.
Ginny turned to him, eyes wide. “That’s it?”
“We sometimes vet the person, visit their home and make sure that they can actually handle the pet and they’re not just adopting them for other reasons.”
“And you trust that I have no nefarious motives?”
Gavin smirked, arching an eyebrow at the choice of word. “You might be a pain in my ass, Ginny, but there’s nothingnefariousabout you. Besides, Spencer would vouch for you and he’s the one that got Copper back on her feet. So if he says you’re solid, then you’re solid.”
“You’re a pain in my ass too, Little Rhodes.”
She was never going to let that fucking nickname go and the more he reacted, the more she used it. So he turned around and headed back to the front desk.
“Let me hand this over to Bronte and then you can tell me all about these new ideas.”
Ginny hurried after him and when he didn’t find Bronte at the front, he just kept walking to his office. Cedar lifted her head to look at the two humans and then turned over and went back to sleep on the couch. Gavin had barely set his ass in his chair before Ginny was speaking.
“Do all the animals have those information cards?”
“Yup.” He flipped the card over and slid it across to Ginny. “Only if they’re here longer than six months.”
“Why wait that long?”
“We often put out calls when an animal shows up at our door, unless they’ve been abandoned, so we try not to get too attached if their humans show up. Or if they don’t survive all of the abuse they’ve been put through.” He blew out a breath and leaned against the side of his desk. “Six months is a good amount of time between finding them and making them part of our family.”
Ginny’s mouth turned down and her eyes lost their light, making Gavin frown. She brushed her hair out of her face and he wanted to reach out and turn that mouth upside down. But she was already straightening up, pushing her shoulders back and nodding.
“Okay, so at first I thought this could be a Valentine’s Day event, but that doesn’t give us a lot of time,” she started and Gavin glanced at the calendar, noticing they were already a week into February. “It can still be around the theme to show some love for homeless pets, buy some time with them sort of thing. And now that I’ve seen these—” Ginny waved Copper’s information card around with a smile “—I think we should incorporate them into the event.
“I’m thinking of creating dating app profiles to drive more interest. We can use Instagram to get more attention and people love looking at pictures of cats and dogs on the internet, so let’s lean into that. I was also thinking that instead of it being a loud and chaotic auction, it can be a more silent one. So people can drink and eat, mill around and we’ll print these info cards out to put up all over the venue. Then guests can leave their name, number and amount for whichever animal they like and we raise the funds that way.”
Gavin just stared at Ginny, blown away by the way her mind worked. She’d come up with a bunch of ideas and now she was building on that and he hadn’t even thought of a single thing wrong with what she’d said.
“Gavin?”
“Yes, sorry. Yeah, all of that sounds good. Bronte’s the one who fills out the cards, so she’d be happy to help you make new ones for promotions and whatever.”
Ginny’s face lit up with a beautiful smile and for the first time in his life, Gavin noticed that she had dimples.My greatest weakness. He cleared his throat and returned the smile, a little less enthusiastically, but a smile nonetheless.
“A part of me was expecting you to reject the idea straight out, but I’m glad you didn’t.”
