Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
I turned to her. “Huskies have strong prey drives.”
“Well, fortunately, Tonks was surrendered because she talked too much.”
My frown that time was a lot more severe.
“I know, right?” she asked. “However, her previous owner had two cats and another dog. She’s been around them since she was a pup. In her dossier, she’s been approved for multi-animal households, including cats, due to her early socialization.”
She looked to the window of the cat room and kept talking.
“That said, if you went there, you’d have to spend time introducing them slowly and not leaving them alone together until you were sure they get along.”
I stared through the cat window with her.
I shouldn’t, I thought.
“Let’s look,” my mouth said.
Half an hour later, I was filling out a form for both Tonks and Moccasin, otherwise, and now for good and ever to be known as Moxie, a sleek black and brown tabby with a white chest and the most adorable white finger mittens on both her front paws.
She was three, had been in a house with dogs, had her best weapons intact—her claws—and she was a cuddle muffin with lots of purrs to give, which could be a ruse she used to get her out of there, because she’d been there over six months. But I didn’t care if she was faking it. I was getting her out of there.
After handing back the application, I asked Winona, “Am I tempting fate if I go to the feedstore to stock up on pet stuff?”
She smiled. “I’ve seen you with both of them, Mabel. I’ll put in a good word for you. But anyway, it’s rare they turn anyone down. Truly. It’s usually only things like they say they’re going to try to declaw, something no vet in this county does and no cat parent should want, or they’re loading up with pets because their hearts are so big and they’ve never had a pet before. With folks like that, they’ll approve for one animal, not reject in total. You’ve had both cats and dogs. You’ve done your research. You’ve got land for Tonks to roam. They’ll approve.”
I felt my worry lift and said, “Thanks. And thanks so much for your time.”
“My pleasure,” she replied.
I headed out to a misty, cool day, gathering my jean jacket closer at the front, and ducking into my thick scarf, before I saw the big, dark blue GMC truck in the parking lot.
My heart skipped a beat.
It obscured my little Ford pickup.
And then, as I kept hesitantly walking, it didn’t.
I almost tripped when I saw the burnished thick locks of my Post-it Lover over the roof of my truck.
He was leaning against my driver’s side door.
Hearing me approach, he turned and looked at me.
Yep.
There was my Post-it Lover.
What the heck?
After I rounded my hood, I greeted with a tentative, “Hey.”
“Huskies are a lot of work.”
I stopped dead three feet from him.
“They got a lot to say. And grooming is a chore. Especially at the change of seasons. You can’t allow mats. Mats pull at animals’ skin. It’s painful.”
“I—”
“Regular baths, at least weekly full brushes, if not daily. Taking them for a monthly bath and professional groom is optimal.”
It was then it dawned on me.
Except “dawn” was too positive of a term.
So, the better way to put it was, it collapsed on me.
My Post-it Lover was Mr. Grouch.
How I didn’t foresee, with all my history, that my luck was this bad, I did not know.
But here it was.
More proof I didn’t need that my luck was cataclysmically bad.
“I looked—” I tried again.
“And they’re high energy. Seriously high. We’re not talking a couple quick walks a day. We’re talking good, solid, get-the-dog-panting workouts daily or she’ll destroy everything in your house if you’re not there.”
“Listen—”
“You got problems with the nutjobs living next to you, I’m gonna loan you Hannibal.”
Hannibal?
My question must have registered on my face because he bit off, “Not the fictional cannibal, the Carthaginian general.”
Bet he had that question a lot.
“I already put my appli—”
Again, I didn’t finish.
“I’ve spent time with Tonks. She’s trained. She’s smart. She’s got a good bark. But Hannibal is ready to roll.”
“I don’t want—”
“I don’t give a fuck what you want.”
At his assertion, I stared in shock at him, but he kept speaking.
“You’re on the radar of those crazies, you’re getting Hannibal.”
I blinked as something else hit me.
Then I asked, “How did you know I was—?”
“You called me, I called Harry. He was thrilled I was taking an interest, seeing as I’m a fuckuva lot closer to you than he is.”
“But, isn’t it confidential—?”
“It isn’t an active investigation, Mabel,” he clipped. “And you’re a woman alone whose got some religious fanatics pissed simply because you did what’s well within your rights to do. You took a man’s cock.”
I was trying to process his blunt words, but he still wasn’t done giving them to me.