He didn’t trust himself to speak with his distant relative again, so soon. Her invitation to meet the family had been too damned tempting.
“If you trust me to be in your home without you there,” Dana finished.
“Of course I trust you in my home.” It wasn’t as though there was a lot there for her to steal. He’d sold anything of real value. “But I can’t ask you to give up your day for me.”
This was his new life. He was supposed to be doing things for others. Or at the very least, not imposing on others.
“I’m not doing it for you,” Dana said with a matter-of-fact tone. “I’m doing it for Little Guy. He needs a home and I don’t have the space here to keep him.”
That was all right, then.
“Do you really have time?”
“I’ve got breaks in between classes,” she said. “It won’t take anything at all for me to run out there. Besides, I miss him. I’d look forward to a little puppy playtime.”
The woman was...intriguing. “What about work?” he asked her. Little Guy was chewing on his shoe. The pair he’d peed on.
“Just volunteer stuff,” she said. “My scholarship provides for living expenses. And I worked for several years out of high school and have money saved,” she continued, refreshing in her openness. Her honesty.
“What are you studying?”
“General business,” she said and, muffling the phone, said goodbye to someone. What had she been doing when he’d called? What had he interrupted?
He should let her go. “You don’t seem like the business type.”
That was his world. Cold and calculating and nothing at all like a woman who got excited at the prospect of helping pets find good homes—helping people become good pet owners.
“My dream was to be a vet,” she told him. “But I couldn’t...afford...college right away, and it takes grad school in addition to a bachelor’s degree. When this scholarship fell in my lap, for a bachelor’s degree only, and knowing that I’d be thirty by the time I was in the job market, I figured it would be best to get a degree in something that would provide a good living rather than wishing on stars.”
“I don’t think being a veterinarian is wishing on stars.” Cassie certainly wouldn’t think so. Josh’s mind rushed ahead of him. Maybe he should talk to her. See if there was something she could do to help Dana with some kind of monies for graduate school when the time came. There he was, thinking like a Redmond again. So easy to give out handouts when you didn’t feel, in any way, the loss. Hell, what it would cost Dana to go to graduate school he’d spent on a week’s vacation. More times than he could count.
“Maybe not,” Dana said with a chuckle. “But I’m too practical to commit to so many years without a steady income.”
“What about your family? They can’t help?”
“No.”
When she didn’t say any more, Josh didn’t push, figuring that her parents were probably strapped for cash, like most of the nation.
Shoving his hand in his pocket, he itched to pull out a wad of bills. To trade grad school for pet-sitting help. He pulled out two twenties instead, and pushed them back in his pants.
They were going to buy him lunches for the week.
“Anyway, I can stop by around ten in the morning,” she said, her voice infused with its usual energy. “If you’re there around noon, and I’m back at two, we should have him covered until you get home.”
“And you’re sure that doesn’t interfere with your classes?”
“Positive. Believe me, I’m not going to mess up this chance to finally get a college degree,” she said. “Classes come first. Always.”
He believed her. To a point. He figured that if someone was in need, she’d put her own aspirations aside to help out.
His landlord had given him two keys to the house. He offered to drop the spare one off to Dana later that evening.
And smiled when she gave him her address. He had plans for the evening. Life in Shelter Valley was looking up.
And if any of his old buddies could see him now, they’d laugh so hard they’d piss themselves.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DANA TOLD HERSELF to go about her normal afternoon and evening. Josh Redmond was going to be stopping by for the two seconds it would take him to drop his key into her outstretched hand. It amounted to almost nothing.
She cleaned the hamster cage and the kitty litter box, anyway. And then a shower and change of clothes was in order.
The yoga pants and long, form-fitting gray sweater she put on were comfortable enough for Sunday evening lounging around.