Page 95 of Finding Gideon

“I missed you so, so much,” she whispered, loud enough that I could still hear her from ten feet away. “You’ve got hero legs, Toastie. And a snoot that snorfles. I drew you, but it’s on Zuri’s fridge so you can’t see it yet.”

I smiled. Couldn’t help it.

Her moms—Nia and Rachel—made their way up the path, both of them greeting Gideon and me warmly. Junie didn’t forget her manners either. She glanced up from Toast longenough to say a quick, polite, “Hi, Dr. Jones. Hi, Mr. Gideon,” before returning to whispering secrets into Toast’s ear.

This moment. Right here. This was why I did what I did.

But it was different now.

Everything was different since Gideon showed up in this town with eyes that saw straight through the mess I tried to keep under wraps and a heart too big for his own damn good. I wasn’t just running a clinic anymore. I was building something—something real. Something lasting.

And for the first time in longer than I could remember, I didn’t feel like I was doing it alone.

I stepped forward, hands tucked into the pockets of my scrubs. “Toast’s officially cleared,” I said to the moms, who both looked relieved. “He’s in great shape. His appetite’s solid, and his mobility’s excellent. He adapted a long time ago, so there’s no rehab needed. He’s ready.”

Junie gasped so hard I thought she might swallow her own joy. She didn’t ask if I meant it—didn’t doubt. Kids like her, with that kind of heart, they knew how to love with both feet off the ground.

Nia knelt beside her daughter and kissed the top of her head. Junie tilted her head so Toast’s nose could nuzzle under her chin, still holding him like he might vanish.

Rachel crouched beside me. “Do you think he’ll be okay with the change? With us?”

“He’ll be okay,” I said. “He trusts her. That’s more than enough.”

She smiled, but I saw the shimmer in her eyes.

This was more than just an adoption. This was healing. Connection. Love.

It was also the start of something I hadn’t dared to dream too big about before.

A sanctuary.

It’d been Gideon’s idea, really. Not the exact plan, but the spark. The way he looked at animals the world had written off. The way he believed they still had something to give.

We’d been talking late one night—me half-asleep and him pacing like he did when his brain was moving too fast for his body. He’d said, “What if we didn’t just patch them up and send them off? What if we prepared them—trained them—and gave them to people who really needed them?”

At the time, I’d said something like, “That’s a lot.”

But in my chest, something had bloomed.

And now here we were.

I glanced at him, standing a few feet away, grinning at the scene, his heart laid out plain across his face.

This man.

I didn’t know I could want a life like this until he walked into mine. But now I did. Desperately.

I used to think I had a good life. Predictable. And for a while, that had been enough. But standing here now, watching a little girl press her cheek to the side of a three-legged dog like he was the greatest thing in the world, I knew better.

It wasn’t just that Gideon had walked into my life. It was what he’d brought with him—light, energy, chaos sometimes—but mostly this… this clarity. Like I’d been seeing in grayscale before, and he’d flipped the world into color.

Junie’s little hand stroked Toast’s fur like she’d been doing it her whole life. He leaned into it and sighed, long and low, like he’d been waiting for her.

I glanced at Gideon. He was already moving.

He knelt next to her and for a second, Junie froze. Her gaze locked onto him like she was holding her breath, trying to decide if she was about to be given the world or told to let it go.

“I’ve never seen a better match,” Gideon said, voice tender. “He’s yours—if you promise to keep loving him like this. To keep helping him feel safe. Do you think you can do that?”