Tail of Two Hearts. Charlotte Carter

at a fast clip.

      Vivian hurried to catch up with her. As she passed what must have once been the dining room, she caught a quick glimpse of a dozen or more cages containing cats. For an instant, she wanted to step inside to pick out a homeless cat and give her a new home. But she was pretty sure Essie wouldn’t appreciate Vivian’s generosity of spirit. Essie’s nose was already out of sorts with the addition of Roger in their household.

      In the barn they were greeted with a cacophony of barks and yips, and dogs jumping against their enclosure gates. Vivian could almost hear them shouting Pick me! Pick me! Poor fellows sure didn’t like being locked up.

      “Settle down, guys,” Annabelle yelled over the racket. “Be nice. You need to impress these people with how well you behave.” She walked down the aisle of kennels, reaching in to pet this dog and that, calling them by name and cooing over them.

      Vivian caught Chase’s eye. “They’re her babies, aren’t they?” she said quietly.

      “I’d say so. Before she’ll let any of them go to a new home, she checks out the family and makes it clear that if she hears about any abuse, she’ll have the chief of police at their door in minutes.”

      “Sort of like the way they check out families when someone applies to adopt a baby,” Vivian mused aloud. She had certainly filled out a lot of forms and been interviewed at length.

      He shot her a troubled look. “I suppose it’s the same.”

      Wondering why Chase would react negatively to the mention of adoption, Vivian frowned then shrugged off her concern.

      Annabelle finished her tour of the kenneled dogs and returned to them. “So what kind of dogs do you want for your event?”

      “Chase suggested something like a golden retriever because they’re good with children,” Vivian said.

      Closing her eyes, Annabelle nodded. “I think I’ve got just the dog for you. Lady is the sweetest thing.” She began walking down the aisle again. “Good family pet. Loves children. She’s actually a mix of retriever and shepherd so she has a little longer nose than a pure retriever, but she’s got that lovely golden fur and disposition.”

      She stopped at a kennel and opened the gate. “Hey, Lady. I’ve got someone you need to meet.” She gestured for Vivian to step inside.

      Vivian walked into the kennel. Immediately, Lady sat and looked up at her with intelligent brown eyes and cocked her head to the side as if waiting for Vivian to explain her presence. Vivian’s heart melted.

      “Aren’t you the prettiest girl?” Unable to resist, she let Lady sniff her hand. Kneeling Vivian held the dog’s head and gave her a good scratch behind her ears. “You are a sweetheart. You really are.”

      Behind her, Chase said, “I told you to be careful or you’d fall in love.”

      She looked up at him over her shoulder. A shimmer of awareness slid through her as she looked into his soft brown eyes filled with such a gentle spirit.

      “You were...right.” Her voice quavered. “I need to be very careful.” And go slowly. He was talking about falling for a dog. Not him.

      He helped her to her feet. “What do you think?”

      Think? She didn’t dare think. Not about Chase in that way. Not with his hand warming her arm.

      “About the dog,” he clarified.

      “Oh, yes. Lady will be perfect for Doggie Daze.” She forced a smile that felt a little crooked and turned to Annabelle. “Can we match Lady with a smaller dog she’ll get along with?”

      “We’ve got oodles of those. Let’s go see Tikey. She’s a sweetie.” She led them to another kennel that held two small dogs. “Tikey is a Welsh corgi. Her buddy there, Arnie, is a poodle mix.”

      Vivian chuckled at the stumpy little dog. “It looks like Tikey didn’t get her fair share of legs. They look too short for her.”

      “I haven’t heard her complain. As Abe Lincoln once said, his legs were just the right length to reach the ground.” Annabelle opened the door to let Vivian inside.

      “Ol’ Abe was a pretty sharp cookie,” Chase commented.

      It didn’t take Vivian long to decide that Lady and Tikey would be perfect for show-and-tell at Doggie Daze.

      Chase decided he would take Nathan for his adoption day promotion and then selected a German shepherd named Buster.

      “German shepherds are well behaved and make great guard dogs,” he commented. “A lot of farmers want a dog like Buster to keep an eye on their stock.”

      “We had a German shepherd when I was growing up.” Vivian smiled at the memory. “Somewhere in the family scrapbook, there is a picture my mom took of me when I was about eighteen months old trying to ride on his back.”

      “Now that would be worth seeing.” His dark eyes danced with mischief, and Vivian felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment.

      If Chase ever met her family, she’d have to warn her mother of the dire consequences if she showed that scrapbook to him.

      Unaware of Vivian’s chagrin, Chase arranged with Annabelle to pick up all four dogs early Saturday morning. She promised to have them bathed and ready to go by eight o’clock.

      Annabelle walked with them to the barn’s entrance. “Mayor Langston dropped by a day or two ago. We got to talking about the shelter and how there simply aren’t enough funds to keep this place going for long.”

      “Oh, I’m sorry hear that,” Vivian said. “Is there anything anyone can do to help?”

      Wrinkles furrowed Annabelle’s forehead as she fussed with the zipper on her jacket. “The mayor and I were trying to come up with some sort of a fund-raiser that would keep us going. Nothing came to mind right offhand. But if you think of something...” She let the words drift off on the weight of her concern.

      “We’ll give it some thought,” Chase promised, ushering Vivian out the door.

      Walking slowly, Vivian considered the shelter’s financial problem. It would be such a shame to have to close it down. There had to be something....

      Back in the SUV, Chase turned to her. “It’s almost noon. How about I drive us to Highway 135? We can have lunch at the Red Rooster diner.”

      “That sounds good, but don’t you have to open up your shop? Or did you have your friend open for you?”

      “Midweek isn’t a problem. I left a sign on my door that I’d be back by two o’clock. I don’t get much business in the mornings, especially during the middle of the week, so I’m not losing any sales to speak of.”

      “Then it’s fine with me. Allison told me to take as much time as I needed at the shelter.” Although she hadn’t said anything about having lunch with Chase.

      Buckling her seat belt, Vivian felt a tickle of pleasure that she’d be spending more time with him.

      He started the car and shifted into Reverse to back out of the parking place. “Someday soon, if and when my business picks up a bit, I’m going to have to hire someone part-time so I can be away from the store when I need to leave. The Save Our Streets committee is putting together a list of local folks who are looking for work. They want us to hire from that list if we can. I’m thinking that as Christmas gets closer, I’ll take a look. I’m told there are some hard workers on the list.”

      “Yes, you should have someone to help, and it would be wonderful if you could hire someone local. With me helping at the bookshop, Allison has some flexibility she wouldn’t have otherwise.”

      There weren’t many cars on the two-lane country road that led to the highway. Once Chase had to go around a slow-moving tractor, the farmer probably planning to disk his fields for the winter so they’d be ready for planting