He wasn’t sure where to stand, hell, he didn’t even know where to put his hands, so he shoved them in his pockets and stared at the grungy walls decorated with pictures of dogs and cats in mismatched frames. Some of the pictures were crooked, probably not by design, while others were leaning as though the nail had finally given up its effort to stick around.
Adrianne continued to flip through the stack of papers hurriedly, not paying him any attention.
Aaaaannnnnddddd now Sawyer was self-conscious.
What the hell?
Ok, so maybe Sawyer wasn’t known much for his volunteering nature, so he couldn’t necessarily blame Adrianne for being surprised that he’d called, much less shown up, but he was here so shouldn’t she be paying him at least a little bit of attention?
Insecure much?
Sawyer knew he needed to get a grip.
Yes, maybe he had ulterior motives, which had led him to call Adrianne Reade to see what he could do to help out at the animal shelter. But it wasn’t like Adrianne knew what he’d been thinking when he called her.
He couldn’t blame his quest to do a good deed on the Christmas spirit, or even his selfless need to give back, although Sawyer considered himself a pretty all right guy.
No, this was actually entirely selfish on his part. He knew that any minute now, Kennedy Endsley was going to walk through the front door for her bi-weekly date with the animal shelter. Now her actions were selfless, but Sawyer’s were geared more toward trying to get close to the woman.
It was either that or get a dog. Not that the latter was a terrible idea, but for the time being, Sawyer was holding off. After all, he wanted to start out small. Getting a dog was going to require a commitment, even if he would do it just to get closer to the one woman who had erected an invisible barrier that kept her as far away from him as possible. It was common knowledge that Sawyer didn’t do well with commitments. At least not of the relationship variety.
“Come on,” Adrianne called as she turned and headed for the lone door that he assumed led to the main part of the kennels.
Falling into step with her, Sawyer glanced in the cages, checking out the animals, the sad puppy dog eyes, the eager kittens with their little toys who stopped to stare at him as he passed by. Hell, he could do this. How hard could it be to spend the day hanging out with a bunch of animals? He liked animals. If nothing else, he’d get the chance to make them happy for a few hours and he’d get to see Kennedy. It was a win-win situation for him.
Adrianne led the way through another door, but this one led into a sterile white room that wasn’t much bigger than the main front office. The only difference was that instead of battered pictures on the wall, this one had a drain in the middle of the floor and a sturdy table in the center. There was a wash basin on one side with grungy faucets above them.
“What’s this?”
“You wanted to work, right?” she asked.
He couldn’t very well say no, so Sawyer nodded his head.
“Well, then this is your job. I’ve got four dogs out there who need a bath.” Adrianne pointed around the room as she continued to speak. “Over there is the shampoo. On this side, you’ve got the sprayer. There’re some towels beneath the counter. Just holler if you need anything else,” she said, but then disappeared before he could say anything more.
Sawyer stood in the tiny room, staring at the white walls and the stainless steel cabinets, wondering just how he was going to achieve his goal of seeing Kennedy if he was stuck in here all day.
The door opened, and he turned back around just as Adrianne was walking in with a huge, shaggy dog whose multi-colored hair was in need of a trim, or perhaps a buzz cut might help more because the poor animal probably couldn’t see all that well through the frizzy hair that covered both eyes. Sawyer wasn’t quite sure that a bath was going to help the dingy mutt, but what did he know.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“This is Hercules,” she told him, reaching down to pat the dog’s enormous, flat head. “He’s new here, but from what I can tell, he’s fairly sociable.”
Fairly? Sawyer wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that.
At that moment, there was a knock on the door and to his surprise, Kennedy pushed open the door and stuck her head just inside. She studied him for a moment, then glanced back at Adrianne before meeting his eyes once more. Sawyer smiled, hoping like hell she was there to save the day. Maybe she wanted to help him bathe the dog. That would certainly get him closer to her.
When she smiled back, his hopes soared, and that’s when he noticed the mischievous twinkle in her lovely gray eyes.
“Mr. Walker,” she greeted way too formally for his taste.