Page 75 of Captivating Anika
Well, I guess that answers that question.
Anika immediately crouches down, and is promptly rewarded by getting knocked on her ass by the two rambunctious pups. The two immediately take advantage of the situation by jumping up on her and bathing her face with their tongues. She doesn’t seem to mind.
“Do they have names?” she asks Annie, who is grinning down at the tangle of wriggling dog bodies.
“The one with the cropped tail is Zeke, and the one-eyed boy is Ryder. But they’re not attached to their names yet, so feel free to change those.”
Both brothers are black and tan, almost identical in appearance if not for the missing tail and eye. Annie mentioned those were fairly fresh injuries and not deformations that happened in utero. Some sick fuck had tortured these poor pups, but it doesn’t seem to have damaged their sweet nature.
“I like Zeke and Ryder,” Anika comments, with a side-eye on me.
I was in the market for one dog, but I have a feeling Anika would have something to say about that. Not that I’d be able to pick one over the other anyway.
“They’re good names,” I concede, earning a bright smile from her.
She can read between the lines.
Two dogs. Fuck, I might’ve been able to talk the chief into letting me bring one dog to the firehouse, but I’m not so sure he wants the station turned into a kennel.
Obviously, she can read my mind too, because the next thing Anika says is, “They can always come with me to the salon. I can put a dog bed in my office. I’m just two blocks from the riverside so I can take them for walks during my lunch break.”
Annie snorts. “You sound like me when I try to convince Sumo what a great idea it is to add yet another dog to our menagerie.”
“How many do you have now?”
“Five, but…” she quickly adds. “Two of them are seniors and barely take up any room. A Yorkie and a Chihuahua. No one wanted to adopt a dog with a fast-approaching expiration date, and I couldn’t just leave them when I had the power to give them a loving home for whatever time they had left.”
“Tell me, does anyone ever manage to walk out of here without adopting?” I ask her.
She grins at me unapologetically as Anika snickers.
“Rarely,” she admits.
“Doesn’t surprise me.”
“Just so you know, these boys have a date with the vet at eight on Monday morning. Both of them had infections and have been on antibiotics since they came in. They seem fine, but he has to sign off on them before we can send them home with you.”
Presumptuous of her, but of course, I end up signing the damn adoption papers. Even after Annie belatedly warns us these guys may grow to be big boys, since she suspects they have Bernese mountain dog in them.
Great. That’s going to mean a fuck load of hair.
“There will be no sleeping in bed,” I warn Anika.
My bed is king-sized, but I don’t want to be cramped with two big-ass dogs taking up space. Anika’s is just a queen, so that would be even worse.
“Of course not,” she replies, her eyes fixed forward on the road through the windshield.
We don’t even have the dogs yet, but something tells me I’ve already lost that battle.
It’s a good fucking thing the new house has no stairs.
We have at least one more run to do after this one and already I’m feeling my age. It’s that damn heavy, oak bedroom furniture my mom loved so much. She inherited it from her parents and I remember the day my father and I hauled it up the stairs.
I was probably fourteen or fifteen, was already a big boy, and I recall my father threatening more than once to chop the “goddamn” furniture up and use it for firewood if we couldn’t get it up the stairs. It was a pain back then, and it’s a pain now, but it was my mother’s prized possession and I’ll be damned if I leave it behind.
“Tell me you don’t have another fucking oak dresser or armoire floating around up there that has to come down, because I’m out,” Bodhi grumbles.
Sumo comes down hauling the footboard, and cursing under his breath.