Page 47 of Eye of the Hurricane (Weathering Doves Harbor #2)

Ares

I’m getting ready to meet Katherine at Roman and Audra’s house. They say they have wedding updates to give to all of us. Katherine also says she wants to talk to me when we have a minute to sneak off.

I don’t know if I should be nervous or horny in anticipation of it. Nervous seems to be winning over though. Hopefully, it’s a happy surprise.

When I walk into Audra and Roman’s house I’m the last one there. Which makes no sense because Luna is late to everything.

“How the hell did I make it here after Luna?” I ask, finding the seat next to Katherine.

She looks as beautiful as ever. Her hair is curled, perfectly framing her face. She’s got on a long-sleeved dress. It’s blue with orange flowers all across the fabric. With one leg crossed over the other, her heel bounces lightly in the air.

“They tricked me!” Luna exclaims.

“They tricked you?” I ask with a laugh.

“Yep. We told her to be here an hour before all of you. Thought that way she might be on time.”

“Just mean, you’re cramping my style,” Luna pouts.

“Cramping your style? What are you, sixty?”

“I just enjoy being fashionably late. You stole it from me.” Luna crosses her arms tightly over her chest and turns her nose up at all of us.

“I sure hope you’ll make it,” Ravyn teases, giving her an artificial pout of sympathy.

“Yeah, try being the one who had to get her to Audra’s party on time,” Sebastian chimes in with a defeated huff. If looks could kill he’d be dead. Luna’s shooting him daggers.

“You could have just told me where we were going.” She shrugs.

“I was actually under specific instruction to not do that,” Sebastian counters.

“Okay, okay. Can you all quit the bickering? I brought you here for a reason,” Audra scolds. Everyone goes quiet like she’s our angry mother. “Thank you.”

“I wanted to tell you all that we set a date for our wedding,” Audra announces.

Everyone is attentive and listening now. Especially the girls who seem to be ten times more invested in the wedding than the guys. The girls are all practically bouncing in their seats and leaning forward, waiting on what she has to say.

“We’re going to get married on May 2nd of next year.”

“Ah yes, the famous spring wedding,” I say. Audra laughs .

“Shut up. We’re celebrating,” Ravyn jokes, shushing me. I roll my eyes but I let them enjoy their moment.

“Do you have a venue?” Sebastian asks.

“Yes, do you guys want to see it?” Everyone including myself says yes despite the fact I’ve looked through the pictures of this specific venue a hundred times. She’s known her venue since before she knew her groom.

I don’t give her a hard time because she deserves it after everything she’s been through this past year. The things her ex, Tyler, put her through were horrible. She deserves her peace and to plan the wedding she’s dreamed of.

When things settle and we get a chance to sneak off, Katherine takes my hand and drags me down to the beach. Okay, fine, drag is a strong word for someone who willingly would follow her anywhere she wants to take me.

We walk hand in hand to the beach. We leave our shoes at the end of the boardwalk and walk through the sand barefoot.

She takes us down into the most shallow point of water where only our feet and the ends of her dress are getting wet. The water is freezing, much colder than it is in the summer. We both step out of it and back to the sand.

There are far fewer people walking the beach than usual this time of year. It’s only us and a handful of other people as far as the eye can see.

Katherine stops once we’re a decent way away from the house and reaches into her purse. She pulls out a small box.

When she opens the box there’s a small key inside. I recognize it as her house key immediately. I’ve unlocked her house enough times to know.

This is huge for her. I know how serious this is and how hard being super serious about relationships can be for her. And still, here she is .

“You’re giving me a key to your house?” I ask, looking to confirm my assessment of the situation.

“No.” Rejection and a slight pang of embarrassment settle in. More so, confusion. Because what other key could it even be?

“Oh,” is all I can respond with. Her smile grows and for the split second she’s not speaking, it feels like salt in the wound.

“I’m giving you a key to our house. I’m asking you to come move in with me,” she corrects.

This moment feels like the start of forever. It feels like being asked to move for the last time, take a chance on love for the last time, and start something for the last time. And I have zero hesitation saying yes to all of those things.

“Are you sure?” I don’t even know why I say it. Shock maybe? It’s not like I want to give her an out, but here I am offering one. She just giggles.

“Yes, baby, I’m sure. You’re there every night anyway. The best part of all my days is coming home to you. I think I’d like to do it every night.”

“Of course, I’ll move in. One condition though,” I say sticking my hand in the air. Funny thing is, I know even if she told me no, I’d still go to my mom’s house and pack my bags tonight.

“What’s your one condition?” she asks, dropping the key into my pocket. I hadn’t realized I was so surprised by her question that I forgot to take the key.

“A dog. Bells needs a big strong friend,” I tell her.

“Do you want to go to the shelter now?”

“What? Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. I’m all in on this—on you. If your condition is a dog, let’s go get a dog. ”

“Honey, I was kidding. I don’t have conditions. I would live with you no matter what,” I assure her. She just laughs, turning the other way to walk back toward the house.

“I know.”

Three different shelters.

We’ve tried three different shelters and this is our fourth.

“Kat, maybe we just aren’t meant to find our dog today,” I suggest. She shakes her head firmly.

She doesn’t even entertain the sentiment with a response, she just walks through the glass doors of Paws and Pals Rescue.

It’s bigger than the others, which makes sense considering we drove two hours to a bigger city hoping for a wider selection.

A tall woman with electric blue hair walks up to us and greets us. Despite everything about her attire and face leading me to think she’d be rude, her smile is warm and welcoming. Reminds me of Audi.

“Hi! Are we looking to foster, adopt, or just browse today?” she asks.

“Hopefully adopt, if we find the right fit,” Katherine answers.

“Can you tell me what you’re looking for?”

“We’re thinking a puppy but open to adult dogs who can live with cats.

I have a three-year-old black cat at home, her name is Bellatrix…

I guess her name doesn’t matter,” Katherine laughs at herself before picking back up.

“Anyways, I just love her and don’t want her to be scared or in danger in her own house. ”

“Okay, we can look at some puppies and if no one feels like a great match, we’ll check out some of the others.”

“Sounds good,” I agree. Katherine and I follow her down the hall, past the cats and kittens. Then we reach the dogs, which is a much louder section.

“This is our puppy we’ve had the longest, still, she’s only been here a few weeks. Her name is Millie. She’s just under a year old.” She looks to be some kind of pit mix. She’s adorable.

“Can I ask why she’s been here the longest?” Katherine asks.

“She’s had some health issues, she’s had a couple of different types of worms,” the worker tells us. Katherine scrunches her nose up.

“I can’t bring worms home to Bellatrix,” she says. The worker nods her head and takes us to the next. Inside the cage is what I assume to be a shepherd mix.

The worker then goes on to tell us that she is bonded with another dog who is aggressive to all men. Maybe she could have led with that.

Dog by dog we go through and all have some major setback. Not that I think a dog has to be perfect to be deserving of a home, but when there is another animal involved, it makes it harder to take chances.

Even once we move on to the adult dogs, it’s one thing or another. It starts to feel like we’ve wasted several hours of our lives on this. That is—until we see a Siberian husky with one blue eye and one chocolate. Instead of the usual black and white coat, it’s got red and white.

“This is Rose. She’s nine years old, good with cats and kids, and healthy as a horse,” the worker tells us. I’m so in love with the dog immediately that I’m questioning why this wasn’t the first one introduced to us.

“What’s the catch? I mean why is she still here?” I ask, skepticism rearing its head. Probably because of the hundreds of others we’d looked at.

“Because she’s nine. She’s a senior dog. Because of the blue eye, she is likely to lose sight in it as she gets closer to the end. She could have five more years in her. We can’t guarantee that though. It could be one or two.”

I look to Katherine, trying to gauge where she is on it. She looks like the personification of the heart-eye emoji.

“What do you think, honey?” I ask.

“I think… If we got a puppy there would be no certainty that it wouldn’t get sick in the next year or two. I think she’s perfect.”

Her tail is going a mile a minute and she keeps biting at the air out of excitement.

“Can we meet her?” Katherine asks excitedly. I know without a doubt we’re going home with this dog by the way Katherine is looking at her.

“Of course, we’ll take her out to the yard,” the worker tells us. She opens the metal door on the cage and clips a leash onto her yellow collar.

She’s running around in circles as soon as we’re out in the yard. Every couple of laps is met with a million licks to our hands.

I sit down on a clean patch of grass and she climbs into my lap. Tail wagging and licking at my cheeks.

Katherine meets me on the ground. Rose is now frantically attempting to split her attention between the two of us. This might be the happiest dog I’ve ever met.

“I want to take her home, Kat,” I tell her .

“Me too,” she admits through giggles and attempts to avoid dog kisses on her face. She turns her head to face the worker. “Can sign the papers for her today?”

“We can go sign them now if you’d like.”

“Yes please.”

We take Rose back to her cage temporarily so we aren’t trying to fill out paperwork with a dog running between us. Paperwork surprisingly doesn’t take as long as I had anticipated.

Before I know it, we’re loading her up into the car. A two-hour drive home with a nine-year-old dog is less than ideal but she does about as good as you could hope. We even stop at the pet store on the way home to get all the essentials.

Pink bowl, pink collar, pink leash, pink dog bed. Katherine leans down to Rose.

“No more crates, okay? But you have to hold up your end of the deal and not piss on my floor. Deal?” she asks as if the dog will answer her in some way.

When we finish up at the pet store we finally take her home.

“Okay, this is your new home, Rose. You get to stay forever. You have to be nice to Bells,” I tell her. She looks up at me with big eyes and her tail going crazy. I’ll take that as the closest thing to confirmation a dog can give.

We walk through the front door and I hear the jingle of Bells’ collar. I expect her to jump in fear when she sees a full-sized dog standing in the entryway. Instead, she prances up to us without hesitation.

Ironically it’s the big husky that cowers and climbs between my leg and Katherine’s. She whimpers slightly when Bells rubs against her leg .

The first couple of hours are pure chaos. But then it all falls together perfectly when they’ve worn themselves out.

Katherine and I are cuddled up on the couch, her leaned into me with her head on my chest. Rose curls up into a ball by Katherine’s feet and Bells saunters across both me and Katherine to lay with Rose.

In that moment, it doesn’t feel like Katherine’s house anymore. It feels like our home. Despite none of my things being here yet.

“I hope she likes her forever home,” Katherine says looking up at me.

“It looks like she loves our forever home,” I assure her.