A New Leash On Love. Melissa Senate

our animals.” She shook her head. “Old fool.” Tall and strong, her short silver hair gleaming in the afternoon sunlight, Birdie grabbed the mop, dunked it in the cleaning solution and went at the floor of the kennel until it met her satisfaction.

      “I already miss Annie Jo,” Bunny said, taking out the bed, blanket and toys in the next kennel and stuffing them in the huge laundry bin. Bunny looked a lot like Birdie but was shorter and plumper, her silver curls soft against her sweet face. “I love what her family renamed her—Peaches. Back in the day, a beau called me that,” she added, wiggling her hips.

      Claire smiled. The shelter always named the strays and those left on the doorstep. Every now and then, adopters kept the shelter names—most recently a cat named Princess Leia, who’d been there for months. Birdie and Bunny loved naming the incoming animals, and whenever they couldn’t come up with a name, they held a meeting with the staff—the full-time employees, such as the shelter director, foster director and vet technician—and the volunteers, like Claire.

      “Who was that very handsome man here a little while ago?” Bunny asked with a sly smile as she started sweeping out the kennel, reaching over for a stray piece of kibble that Annie Jo—Peaches—had missed. “My, he was nice to look at.”

      “I’m surprised you didn’t rush over to ask how you could help him,” Birdie said to her starry-eyed sister, wringing out the mop in the big bucket.

      “Well, I would have,” Bunny said, “but I saw Claire come back in with Dempsey and decided to leave him for her. Trust me, if I were even ten years younger...”

      Claire laughed as Birdie shook her head again, her trademark move. Neither Whitaker sister had ever married, though Claire did know that Bunny had been engaged in her early twenties until her fiancé had tragically died. Birdie never talked about her love life, and though Claire had tried a time or two to get Bunny to spill about Birdie’s romantic life, the sisters were clearly loyal to each other’s secrets. As they should be.

      But no matter how much or how little experience the Whitaker sisters had in the romance department, they were both wise—Birdie in common sense and Bunny in keeping an open mind and heart. Talking to the two always set Claire straight, or at least made her feel better.

      Which was why she was going to be honest right now.

      “That was the guy who broke my heart into a million pieces after high school graduation,” she said. “Matt Fielding. I cried for six months straight.”

      “And then married the first guy who asked you out,” Birdie said with an uh-huh look on her face.

      “Yup,” Claire said, spraying disinfectant on the bars of the last kennel and wiping them down with a clean rag. “But there’s hope for me. Guess who has a blind date tonight? My sister and her husband set me up.”

      “Ooh,” Bunny said, her blue eyes twinkling. “How exciting. To me, blind dates are synonymous with ‘you never know.’ Could be the man of your dreams.”

      Birdie wrinkled up her face. “Blind dates are usually the pits.” She glanced at Claire, instantly contrite, then threw her arms up in the air. “Oh, come on. They are.”

      Claire laughed. “Well, if the date takes my mind off the fact that my first love is back in town? Mission accomplished.”

      “Oh boy,” Birdie said, pausing the mop. “Someone is still very hung up on her first love.”

      “Oh dear,” Bunny agreed.

      And before Claire could say that of course she was—you did see him, after all—that cute little springer spaniel she’d shown Matt started howling up a storm.

      “Someone wants her dinner now,” Bunny said with a laugh.

      “I’m on feeding duty for the dogs,” Claire said, putting the disinfectant back on the supplies shelf and the rag in Bunny’s laundry basket. “If I don’t see you two before I leave for the day, congrats on a great Sunday. Five adult dogs adopted plus the puppies and cats.”

      “It was a good day,” Bunny said. “Good luck on that date tonight.”

      Claire smiled. “Who knows? Maybe he will be the man of my dreams.”

      She was putting on a brave front for the sisters—not that she needed to, since she could always be honest with them. But sometimes Claire reverted to that old need to save face, to not seem like she cared quite so much that she was single, when she wanted to be partnered, to find that special someone to share her life with, to build a life with. She loved Dempsey to pieces, but most nights, unless she had book club or a social event like someone else’s engagement party or birthday, it was her and the boxer mix snuggled on the sofa in her living room, watching Dancing with the Stars or a Netflix movie, a rawhide chew for Dempsey and a single-serve bag of microwave popcorn for her.

      There was room on that couch for a man.

      But in any case, Matt Fielding was not the man of her dreams, whether she was “hung up or him” or not. Seventeen-year-old Claire had been madly in love. Now, she was a thirty-five-year-old divorced woman staring down her biological clock. “Man of her dreams” was silly nonsense. Hadn’t the supposed man of her dreams dumped her almost two decades ago as if she’d meant nothing? Ha, like that was part of the dream?

      Matt Fielding was not the man of her dreams.

      If she said it enough, she might believe it.

      And if there was no such thing, then what was she looking for in a partner?

      She’d never put much stock in checklists, since she could rattle off a list of adjectives, like kind, and nonnegotiables, like doesn’t rip apart his exes or his mother on the date, but everything came down to chemistry. How you felt with someone. How someone made you feel. If your head and heart were engaged. She’d never experienced chemistry the way she had with Matt Fielding. But her motto ever since she’d started volunteering for Furever Paws was: Everything is possible. The most timid dog, the hissiest cat, could become someone’s dearest treasure. Everything is possible. Including Claire finding love again. At thirty-five.

      She peeled off her waterproof gloves and tossed them in the used-gloves bin, then headed toward the door to start filling bowls with kibble and sneaking in medicines where needed.

      “Oh, Claire,” Birdie said. “Some advice. In the first five minutes, ask your date if he likes dogs. If he says no, you’ll know he’s not for you.”

      Bunny tilted her head. “Now, Birdie. Not everyone loves animals like we do.”

      Apparently, the entire Whitaker family loved animals to the point that all their nicknames were inspired by animals. Birdie’s real name was Bernadette. Bunny’s was Gwendolyn. There was a Moose—Doug—who’d sadly died long ago. And a Gator, aka Greg, who advised the sisters on financial matters.

      “The man of Claire’s dreams will love dogs,” Birdie said. “That’s nonnegotiable. If her blind date says dogs slobber and bark and are a pain in the neck, she can tune him out the rest of the night.”

      Claire smiled. As usual, Birdie Whitaker was right.

       Chapter Two

      Matt held his niece’s hand as they entered the Main Street Grille later that night, the smell of burgers and fish and chips reminding him how hungry he was. His sister, Laura, and her husband, Kurt, had insisted on taking him out to dinner to celebrate his homecoming.

      “His homestaying!” Ellie had said, squeezing him into one of her famous hugs.

      He adored the eight-year-old. He barely knew her—had rarely seen her since she’d been born because of his tours—but the moment he’d arrived yesterday, she’d latched on to him like he was the fun, exciting uncle she’d missed out on, and of course,