mind. Let’s just get this over and done with.” The deputy pushed himself to his feet and started toward the back of the building, nabbing a set of keys on the way. She followed him, straining to get a better view of the holding cell beyond his rigid silhouette.
Her heart leapt as she glimpsed the Newfoundland busily scratching at the wall to the cell next door, a worried look in those big brown eyes, as if Clancy knew something was wrong with the drunk on the other side. There was no way to tell the dog the human’s problems were self-inflicted. Or that, at the moment, she and Clancy had enough trouble of their own. Still, she couldn’t help but be grateful to the deputy—asshole though he was—for releasing her dog in the end.
“You won’t regret this, Deputy Lawless,” she said, itching to throw her arms around the Newfie.
“I already do.”
Rowena swallowed hard. What could she say? “You’ll never see either one of us again.”
“Ms. Brown, I’m just not that lucky. In fact—wait.” He pressed his fingertips to his temples, closed his eyes in a mock trance. “I’m peering into the future…I see…”
“I don’t see into the future,” Rowena cut in. “I just feel—” She stopped, cursing herself for a fool. Why did she even bother to attempt to explain her gift? She’d tried it before. But that was what had started the whispering behind her back, triggered the abrupt silences when she walked into a store or passed someone on Whitewater’s streets.
“You don’t know anything about me,” Rowena said, trying hard not to hurt.
“Let’s try and keep it that way.”
“Deputy Lawless, I promise that Clancy—”
Lawless whipped around to face her, his features grim, the keys jangling in his hand. “Listen, lady, I don’t care how many aliases you give that dog. He’s still the same fence-breaking, tire-chewing, steak-stealing juvenile delinquent he always was.”
“He is not!”
“Destroyer!” the deputy called sharply.
In the holding cell, the Newfoundland wheeled away from the wall and leaped up to plant his plate-sized paws on the bars. Eager canine eyes fastened on Lawless, the dog’s bearlike body quivering in excitement as if to say Here I am! Yeah, that’s me, boss! The Newfie’s tongue lolled out of his cavernous mouth in a goofy grin, his giant tail wagging so hard it could have knocked someone out.
Lawless crossed his arms over his broad chest and pinned Rowena with his pointed glare. “I rest my case.”
CHAPTER TWO
ELVIS WAS PRACTICING his pick-up lines again. Not a good idea, when the after-school crowd was due to burst into the pet shop at any moment. The irascible African Gray parrot’s vocabulary wasn’t exactly G-rated, and the last thing Rowena needed was for a mob of angry parents to storm into Open Arms, ready to burn the local witch at the stake.
If they made up their minds to do it there wouldn’t be any problem finding a public official in Whitewater to light the fire. Deputy Lawless would be happy to donate a whole book of matches to the cause of ridding his town of an unsavory element.
Rowena grimaced. Fortunately for her, even the deputy would have a hard time getting a blaze going today. A miserable cold drizzle had been falling all day, leaving the world beyond her front window soggy and gray. That meant there would be an hour of mopping muddy footprints before she closed up for the night. One could hardly expect kids charging in to see puppies and kittens to stop to wipe their feet.
But while they were leaving all of those damp patches on her floor, she’d just as soon they didn’t pick up any colorful language, courtesy of the store’s most incorrigible rogue. She left off cleaning the gecko aquarium and went to fetch the black drape she used to throw over Elvis’s cage to shut him up temporarily. Not that she had much hope her technique would work any better than her efforts to drive Cash Lawless out of her head.
Time and time again in the three days since she’d left the ill-tempered deputy’s office his chiseled features flashed into focus just when she’d least expected it. Those heavy brows, the arrogant jut of his nose, his mouth drawn into a sneer that almost—almost—negated the sexy shape of his lips. Too bad the man had such rotten things to say to her. Her cheeks heated as she remembered him taunting: Wait…just a minute…I’m peering into the future…
Jerk face.
The name a freckle-faced sixth grader had called his classmate in the shop the day before rose in her mind, the label not particularly eloquent, but describing Lawless to perfection, nonetheless.
He’d made it plain what he thought of her. He’d taken all of ten minutes to form his opinion. Less than that, really. He’d had his mind made up even before he met her. But then her “crimes” against Whitewater’s social order reached even deeper than opening a pet shop across from the school, as far as Lawless was concerned. Like far too many of the people in this small town, he would’ve been happy to deem just being different a crime. And if Rowena was anything, she was different.
Rowena swallowed hard, her fingers tightening in the folds of the cage drape. A familiar awkwardness settled over her, inescapable as the plaster dust when Open Arms was a construction site. Self-doubt crowded her.
What if her move here had been exactly the reckless mistake her mother and sisters had predicted? She’d invested every cent of the legacy her godmother had left her, the money that was supposed to be her nest egg. Knowing that safety net existed had been the only thing that had comforted her mother when Rowena had dropped out of vet school last spring.
She closed her eyes, remembering how the painful scene had ended in the wee hours of the morning, once Nadine Brown had realized there was no budging Rowena from the course she’d chosen.
Gray-faced with exhaustion, bordering on tears the cool and capable Dr. Brown never shed, Rowena’s mother had surrendered.
At least you’ll always have your inheritance to rely on, Nadine had said a week after Maeve’s funeral.
About my inheritance, Mom. While Auntie Maeve was in the hospital, we talked about how I should use it. She said it would help me find my destiny.
Your what?
My destiny. She didn’t dare say “soul mate” as the irrepressible Maeve had. Just listen, Mom. I’ve thought this whole plan out. You and Bryony and Ariel are right. I can’t save every stray I run across. But just think how many I could place if I used that money to work in tandem with a shelter, helping rehabilitate rescue dogs and cats, finding them homes.
And you’re going to support yourself how?
I could design all kinds of stuff—collars and bowls—and, well, sell fun pet supplies for ready cash, and I’d keep the pets I’m working with at the shop all day, so I can match them with owners. I know it’s a little unorthodox, but—
A little? her mother had exclaimed. Rowena, I’m trying to understand this. I really am. But it bewilders me that a young woman as bright and talented as you are would fling away
