Chapter 25
ZINA
Over the next few days I found myself relying more and more on Alex.
He’d made it clear he wouldn’t be around for the long haul, but I needed help and he was there, so it made sense to let him pick up the slack.
After the vet had gone over all of the dogs we’d seized from the puppy mill, he we tried to find other shelters to take in as many as we could.
But even after a few volunteers drove some of them as far away as Kansas and Nebraska, I still had too many dogs on my hands.
At least I wasn’t in it alone. Alex had been right by my side the entire time, doing everything he could to help right a very wrong situation.
We hadn’t had time to talk much since we’d brought the puppy mill dogs back, but I had let him back into the bedroom so at least when we fell into bed at the end of a nonstop day, we had each other to curl into.
With that thought in mind, I rolled over in bed and set my feet on the floor. Alex groaned and reached for me. “Just a few more minutes?”
I leaned over to brush the hair off his face. He wrapped an arm around my back and tugged me over. “Hey, we’ve got to get down to the warehouse.”
“I know.” He pulled me in for a kiss, and for a moment I was tempted to crawl back under the covers and get reacquainted with the parts of him that I hadn’t had the luxury of enjoying for the past couple of nights.
“Later, okay? We’ll make it an early night. I’ve got some volunteers coming in to do the night routine.”
“Really?” He perked up, lifting his arm from over his head.
I almost laughed at the instant enthusiasm. “Really. We can order in and eat in bed and—”
“I don’t even need food if you’re promising you and me, a night with no interruptions.” He propped himself up and nibbled on my neck.
“Trust me, you’re going to need to eat something. You’ll need your strength for what I’ve got in mind for later.” I waggled my brows.
He flung the covers away and hopped off the bed. “By all means, let’s get to it then.”
My heart pitter-pattered as he stalked toward the bathroom.
I’d love nothing more than to climb back into bed and run my fingers over every sculpted inch of him.
But duty didn’t just call, it was yelling and screaming at me.
We only had a couple of weeks left before the wedding party came to town, and I needed to do everything I could to get the rest of the dogs relocated before the bride and groom found out their wedding venue was being used as a temporary dog rescue shelter.
I tamped down the hunger pangs for Alex’s touch and pulled on my clothes. As I clambered down the stairs to the kitchen, a new voice rang out. Who the hell was that? I paused outside the kitchen door. Maybe Morty had the television turned up too loud again.
Before I could push open the swinging door to the kitchen, it sprang toward me. I barely jumped out of the way before the door opened wide and an explosion of color poured through.
“When did you say Mr. Sanders will be back?” A woman wearing a hot-pink fedora on top of her light pink hair strutted through the formal living room on three-, no, four-inch heels.
Morty followed. “Any minute. Let me give him a call and find out where he’s at.”
I cleared my throat, not quite able to speak yet from my close call with the door.
Morty and Pinkie turned toward me. Morty’s face immediately relaxed. His shoulders slumped slightly and a smile of relief drifted over his mouth. “Oh, Zina. Meet Ms. Chyna. She’s here to talk to Alex about the wedding.”
My gaze bounced back and forth between Morty’s relieved grin and the expectant look on Pinkie’s face.
No, not Pinkie. Chyna. This was Chyna of wedding planner fame.
Why in the world would she be standing in the front room of the Phillips House?
She lived in California. LA, if I remembered correctly.
That was over a thousand miles away. Yet, for some reason, I knew deep down that the petite woman with the shocking-pink hair was none other than the infamous wedding planner.
“Zina?” Chyna reached a hand toward me. “Are you helping Alex with the wedding?”
“Um, yes.” Instinctively, I took her hand. “I mean, no.”
“Well, which is it?” Chyna let her hand fall, then reached into the small clutch she’d tucked under her arm and sprayed something on her palm. “No offense, I’ve heard the allergies here are awful so I’m taking every precaution.”
“No offense taken.” Did she seriously feel the need to sanitize her hands after a simple handshake?
I struggled not to react to Chyna’s sudden appearance.
All I could think about was the state of the warehouse.
How would Alex handle it? Surely Chyna would want to check in on the penguins.
My mind raced trying to come up with either an explanation for why the penguins were sharing their space or a solution to how to hide the dogs.
Before I could come up with anything, the man in question sauntered down the stairs.
“You know, I think maybe I need an appetizer this afternoon and then we can finish up the main course later on tonight. What do you say about—” He stopped in his tracks as he noticed the three of us watching his approach. “What’s going on?”
“Alex, meet Chyna. The wedding planner from LA you’ve been working with.” I sounded like a robot, even to my own ears.
Chyna offered her freshly sanitized hand. “Mr. Sanders, it’s nice to meet you.”
Alex took her hand in his, but his gaze searched for me. What did he expect me to do? I gave a slight shrug and tilted my head toward the front door, trying to signal that I was going to head to the warehouse.
“It’s nice to meet you, too. What do we owe the pleasure of this visit to?” He put his hands on his hips as Chyna pulled out the sanitizer and repeated the process of covering every square millimeter of her palm with the gel.
“I wanted to make sure we’re on track for this wedding, so I took a red-eye to come check for myself.”
“Well, that explains the early hour.” Alex glanced at his watch. I could have told him it was just after seven. Too damn early to be entertaining an unwanted out-of-state visitor. “I wish you’d given us some notice. We would have been better prepared—”
“That’s why I didn’t call ahead.” Chyna waved a hand in the air. The smell of artificial lemons wafted over to irritate my nose. “I don’t want you to prepare. I need to make sure you’re prepared without having to prepare.”
Alex nodded like that made sense. Clear as mud. Mud that had been stepped in by a herd of Herefords and baked dry by the Texas sun.
“My flight leaves at two so I’d like to cut through the niceties and examine the venue. Can you lead the way?” She moved her gaze from Alex to the front door.
“Certainly.” He glanced to me.
I lifted my shoulders, looking for guidance.
Alex pulled the door open and held it open for Chyna. She passed through first, giving us a moment to whisper between us.
“Hell, what do we do about the dogs?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know. If we’d had some warning . . .”
“I know.” Alex’s hand gripped my shoulder. “We’ll figure something out. Why don’t you go do the breakfast routine and see if you can move some of them to the back while I stall her out front?”
I nodded. We’d constructed a temporary fence around a patch of grass behind the warehouse since we couldn’t keep taking the dogs out on leashes. I could get most of the dogs outside while Alex took Chyna inside. It was worth a shot. Maybe the only shot we had to avoid her canceling the whole thing.
While Alex led Chyna around the porch, talking about the history of the building and property, I made my way to the warehouse.
“Wait up.” Morty ambled after me.
I slowed my pace so he could catch up. “How long has she been here?”
“Not long, thank goodness. She just showed up on the front porch, so I let her in and offered her a cup of coffee.”
I smiled. Morty brewed his coffee strong enough that it would “put hairs on your chest,” his words, not mine. “How did she like that?”
“Took one sip, got the cup covered in that red shit she’s got on her lips, then turned up her nose. I don’t know how Alex is going to be able to handle her. She’s not his kind.”
“Not his kind?” I pressed ahead, Morty on my heels.
“Nah. The makeup, the attitude, the snappiness.”
“Yeah, she seems like she’s used to getting what she wants, all right.
” Which made it even more imperative that her visit went well.
Alex’s job was riding on it and if that fell through, then my chance to get money to fix up the shelter would be gone and I’d have to figure out what to do with the poor dogs.
Not coming through for Chyna’s visit wasn’t an option.
“What do you want me to do?” Morty paused, his breath labored, as we reached the door to the warehouse.
“We need to get as many dogs out back as we can. Hold back the troublemakers.” Morty had been helping enough that he knew which dogs wouldn’t get along with the others.
Morty nodded as he disappeared through the door.
I followed. A chorus of barks broke out as we moved toward the kennels.
The dogs kept better time than Alex’s watch.
They knew they should have had breakfast fifteen minutes ago.
By the time I’d let all of them out and filled up their dishes, Alex and Chyna were at the front door.
I held my breath as the door creaked open and the typical barks sounded.
The jig was up. Chyna would realize we’d been using the wedding venue as a dog rescue and would pull the plug.
No way was some oil baron’s socialite daughter going to want to get married in a warehouse that smelled like sardines and wet dogs.