Don't Hex and Drive (Stay a Spell #2) - Juliette Cross Page 0,21
on a huffy breath, watching a woman walk past with her Golden Labradoodle leading her. So cute! I was ready to be done with this conversation and be on my way, but I couldn’t help asking, “Isn’t that kind of beneath your stature as a celebrity and elite vampire?”
His mouth dropped open in surprise, but laughter still shone in his eyes. “I was attempting to lure you to lunch, not to my dark lair for nefarious reasons.”
“So you say,” I mumbled before quickly darting around him, my skirt swishing. “Have a good day, Mr. Kumar.”
Walking faster, I couldn’t help but feel his eyes boring into my back. So I picked up my pace, anxious to get to Angel Paws.
I mean, what was his deal? If he really wanted to make up for hitting me with his car, he could buy me some new potting soil, perhaps some new planters. But to be honest, as long as he fixed my bike, we would be totally even. He could just let it go. Pretend it never happened, and we could move on with our separate lives. Emphasis on separate.
I swung open the glass door of Angel Paws and marched down the corridor, waving as I passed the reception window. “Hey, Trudie. It’s just me.”
“Morning, Isadora. They’ll be happy to see you.”
I rushed quickly through the gate when Trudie buzzed me in. The soft padding of feet and welcome whimpers greeted me.
“Hey, you guys,” I said sweetly.
A dozen wagging tails swished and wiggled inside the kennels. I started at the end, opening my canvas bag and pulling out their treats. After crouching down, I slid my hand in between the bars of the first kennel where a new yellow Labrador mix stared back at me. The handwritten tag on her door read Frannie.
“Here you go, little lady,” I cooed. Her tail wagged as she reached out tentatively to my open palm. As she licked the treat away, I pushed a pulse of magic into her. The energy heated a trail down my arm and tingled along my fingertips. She jumped back, shocked by the zap, then her ears perked up, her tail wagging harder.
“Good girl.”
I smiled and moved on, making sure to give Oscar two treats because he was obviously older than most in here with a gray muzzle around his terrier snout. Hardly anyone adopted an older dog. If I could give them just a little longer to live, a little boost to help them with any sickness they might have, then I would keep coming back in hopes they’d all find good homes.
I’d wished so many times that Angel Paws had a bigger network or something to find homes for these guys. They took good care of them, letting them out in the yard in the back daily. But they needed love and affection, not just food and board. My heart yearned to do more, but beyond adopting them all, I didn’t know what else I could do.
Finally, I reached the last cage where my favorite little man sat waiting with his sweet eyes staring up at me.
“Hello, Archie. Did you miss me?”
He wagged his short tail harder. He was so scruffy and scroungy even after Trudie bathed him. He was just one of those mutts that was so ugly he was cute. I’d thought of bringing him home a hundred times, but I couldn’t imagine him getting along with Zombie Cat and Fred. Z was so old he could barely escape a good pecking from Fred when the dang rooster was in one of his territorial, ornery moods.
Archie had been caught and brought into Angel Paws as a stray “going after” a lady’s cats over on Camp Street. I couldn’t ask Evie to give up her beloved Z or bring in another pet who might hurt him.
“How are you doing, my best man?”
I held my palm between the bars. He licked the treat, then kept licking my palm, almost like he was lapping up the magic I poured into him.
“You like that?”
He let out a whimper-bark and spun in a circle, his little dance to get me to give him more. He blinked sweetly from under the tuft of hair covering his eyes.
“Okay,” I said on a laugh. “You don’t have to convince me.”
I pulled out another treat and fed it to him.
“If only men were as easy to figure out as you, Archie.” I scratched his scruffy goldish-red head. “But they’re not. And so aggravating.”