“I have to go deliver these and then my dog and I will be out of here.” I stood up, glaring at the damn man who still had that dimpled smile that I was trying not to stare at.
“But we will see you again at the next city council meeting.”
He laughed. “I look forward to it.”
Chapter 3
The papers may have been full of dog hair and not in the right order when I dropped them off to the wide-eyed, blue haired lady at the desk, but I didn’t care.
I was still running on adrenaline as Luka and I ran back to the shelter where a smiling Aubrey was waiting for us in her office.
Pixy barely looked up from his perch where he was sleeping at the corner of her desk, but as soon as I came in, Aubrey raised her head, a small gasp emitting from her lips.
That was when Pixy let out a little snort and Aubrey sprang into action.
“Is everything okay? Did Luka get hurt?” She rounded the large oak desk, Pixy barely stirring and Luka already making himself comfortable by curling up on one of the many pet beds littered across the floor.
“He’s fine. But city council man Adrian Chase is anything but.”
Aubrey’s shoulders relaxed as she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against her desk. “I may be married, but I do know the man is more than fine, even with those Dwight glasses.”
Heat flushed in my cheeks, my heart still pounding in my ears. Now was not the time to talk about how incredibly good that man’s body felt when I was pressed against him.
“Attractiveness doesn’t make him any less of a jerk. Did you know he wants to build a strip mall a block from here? Exactly where the park proposal is?”
She blinked hard, pushing off the desk. “That’s where the strip mall is going? I thought it would be near the highway. When the hell did that happen?”
Each word blended into the next as she talked, pacing in front of her desk.
NOW she finally got it.
“I have no clue; I just know that stupid Adrian Chase said that was where his new strip mall was going. I mean, that spot is literally perfect for a dog park. Why would we need another coffee shop or nail salon when we could keep a beautiful green space?” I shook my head, my heart thumping in my ears.
Maybe a few days ago if someone told me we’d have a closer Starbucks to the house I might have done a little dance and forgot about the fact that there was one only a five-minute drive into the city.
But now it was personal.
This was MY project and I wasn’t going to let some guy ruin it. Just because he had a smile that belonged on a dental commercial.
Nope. Wasn’t even going to think about how long it had been since I got laid and what that one little look was doing to the butterflies in my stomach.
“Okay, we need to go over our options. Come up with a plan.” Aubrey nodded, her eyes focused on the floor and I swore I could see smoke coming out of her ears.
“Yes, exactly. What’s the plan?”
She raised an eyebrow, slowly looking up. “I didn’t say I had one, yet. But we can do it. We just...”
She glanced around as if the answer would somehow be in the framed photos of her kids in their matching soccer uniforms or one of her diplomas.
“You know what?” Her head jerked up and she grabbed her purse off the desk. “Let’s go for a walk, clear our heads, and see the park for ourselves so we can come up with some points to bring up to city council.”
I pulled my shoulders tight to my neck.
If this guy was on the city council and had his mind made up, how the hell were we going to change that?
I sighed.
This was also the internship that could open future doors for me, if I failed at this, what did that say my future resumes and employment?
I’d be back working at that new Starbucks down the road, living in my parents’ pool house forever.
Not. Going. To. Happen.
“Okay. A walk it is.”
“Come on, Pix.” Aubrey grabbed a leash from the desk and the goat immediately hopped up from his bed, stretching like a cat that just got into the sunlight.
“We’re bringing Pixy?” I asked, even though it was a silly question since she was already hooking a harness over his torso.
“Well, yeah, he needs a walk too and he’ll be the best judge of things. An animal always gives the best opinion of their surroundings.”
I couldn’t argue with someone with ten years’ experience and a law degree, but the logic on that one was far from making sense.
Still, we needed to figure this out, so I reluctantly followed her out the back door and down the sidewalk.
“See the yard back here?” Aubrey pointed her free hand toward the small are of chain-length fence.
It was a small square with a swatch of grass lining one side, cracked cement, and a small patio cover on the other part. If it were for rent it would probably get a few million in the city, but outside here? It looked more like a sad driveway in a back-alley bodega.
“That’s the only real play yard we have for the dogs. Sometimes we have as many as forty dogs in the shelter, all using that same little play area.”
I blinked hard, trying to imagine even more than one dog squatting on the dying grass.
“Aside from the conference room, it’s the only place we have to do introductions when people want to adopt dogs, too. Unless we want to walk the dogs a mile or two in the heat to the nearest park, but even then, it isn’t fully fenced so we can’t let the dogs run around.”
“So, what do you do if this park doesn’t pass?” I asked the question that was weighing heavily on my chest.
She shrugged. “Keep doing what we’re doing and hope maybe we can eventually add on.”
As we rounded the corner, I glanced at the buildings surrounding the shelter.
There were a few grassy areas, but mostly those were to pretty up the store fronts for a dentist office or esthetician. Nothing that would work to take a dog out to have them roam around.
My parents’ two little chihuahuas could probably eat the grass in a matter of a few hours if they really wanted to.
“Can’t Mr. Chase just put the strip mall somewhere else? There’s enough infrastructure and he doesn’t need the grass.” I threw my hands up, as if it could encompass the rows of buildings we passed along each palm-lined sidewalk.
“That’s what we have to convince him of.”
Aubrey finally stopped in front of a rusted metal gate, a vinyl sign read ‘Keep out, property of Parks and Recreation’.
The lot behind it was a square dirt mound, surrounded by more sidewalk, leading up to a neighborhood of quaint bungalows.
There were a few patches of grass and a smattering of trees, but nothing else that jumped out and said, ‘ideal location for something that the Parks and Recreation Department would need to put a fence around’.
“So, this is the spot. It used to be a large pit, but then too many kids started daring each other to jump into it, got injured, and the city covered it up.”
“This...is where you want the park?” I asked, trying to imagine any bit of green in this area, aside from the weeds.
She pointed a manicured finger through the fence. “I mean, we’d need to obviously raise some funds for a new fence and sod, but just imagine all of the space. We wouldn’t even need to fence it all in and keep part of it as a dog park, add a nice little swing set for kids, some benches, and tables for picnics. It could be a real little oasis in the middle of the city.”