Amy stammered in a near whisper. ‘I’ll be back at the shelter between four and six. I could show you the dogs and see if there is one who suits.’
‘See you then,’ Sev completed, turning on his heel to head for the exit.
‘I told you he was interested,’ Denise hissed over the counter after passing the food order back to the kitchen.
‘Yeah,’ Amy muttered ruefully. ‘In acquiring a dog, not a girlfriend. A guy like that wouldn’t go for someone like me.’
‘I think you’re wrong,’ Denise carolled.
But Amy didn’t argue because she knew she was right. She didn’t have what it would take to attract a man of that calibre, neither the looks nor the stylish sophistication. Indeed, she thought it was absolutely typical that she had finally met a man who did attract her, only to discover that he was more interested in acquiring a pet. A man who was interested would simply have asked for her phone number, wouldn’t he?
CHAPTER TWO
AMY WENT HOME after her shift finished, the rain having stopped and business having picked up sufficiently for both her and her fellow waitress to have stayed on at work.
Harold, the vet for whom she worked, was just finishing up in theatre with the nurse, Leanne. Amy suppressed a sigh, knowing that she would have to do the post-operative clean-up required and she was already tired. Leanne was a pleasant woman but she never did any physical work when there was someone more junior on staff, particularly someone like Amy, who did not have the luxury of working set hours. Amy had been hoping to get the chance to tidy herself up a little before Sev arrived but, if he came early, that prospect was now unlikely.
An hour later, already wondering if he would visit at all or if he was simply another one of those random people who said they wanted a pet but never actually got around to getting one, she hurtled into the shower room, already reckoning that Sev would fail to appear. Why had she got so excited anyway? Even if he did come, he would only be looking at the dogs, not at her, she reminded herself in exasperation.
But what was it about him that had grabbed her interest so strongly that she had felt weirdly intoxicated when he’d actually spoken to her? So thrilled she could barely vocalise? So excited that she was embarrassed for herself? Obviously his sheer magnetic attraction had played an initial part in her reaction. But there had been something more, something she had never felt before with a man, a deeper hunger to get to know who he was, how he functioned, how he thought...oh, just everything about him. Dumb, she told herself impatiently, because even if he did visit, it wasn’t her that he was interested in, was it? So, she was being childish and silly weaving dreams about the poor man, who for all she knew went home to a wife and a bunch of children after work, quite unaware that he had wowed the waitress out of her apparent single brain cell!
He hadn’t been wearing a wedding ring though, because she had somehow checked that out the instant she’d sat down at that table, but not all men chose to wear a ring, she reflected, thoroughly irritated with her thoughts and her one-track mind as she raced upstairs to her room to get dressed and apply a little make-up. Why? Well, miracles did happen, she conceded with a rueful smile, because Cordy had been Amy’s very first miracle, entering her life again when it was a mess and bringing her into her cosy home and loving her. Nobody had ever loved Amy before and Cordy’s love and support had been transformational for her in every way.
Attired in jeans and a blue sweater, she went downstairs to the shelter to feed the animals. Volunteers came in several days a week and cleaned the kennels and walked the dogs. Some animals at the shelter were old tenants, those deemed unlikely to be rehomed for various reasons. She let Hopper out of his cage, and he danced around her in rapturous welcome, his lack of a fourth leg not inhibiting him in any way, but he quietened down quite quickly because he was no longer a young animal.
For all intents and purposes, and only behind closed doors, Hopper had become Amy’s pet, who slept in her bed every night and loved her as much as she loved