Page 29 of The Wisdom of Bug

“Ms Crawford?”

Evelyn jumped a little at the sound of her name. “Right, right, um…yes…sorry.”

Nicely handled, Evie.

“Can I?…” Ms Fox pointed to the seat in front of Evelyn’s desk.

“Sure, yeah.” Evelyn replied, watching the little dog who’d caused all the trouble in the first place wander over to the windows, sigh, and promptly fall asleep.

“Ms Crawford.”

Evelyn snapped her attention back to Ms Fox. “Please call me Evelyn.”

“Okay, Evelyn. Please let me say how sorry I am for the way I reacted this morning.”

“I should apologise too, Ms Fox—”

“Alyssa.”

“Alyssa. Yes, as I was saying,Alyssa. I shouldn’t have let my bad mood out on you.”

“How about we start again?” Evelyn watched as Alyssa leaned over the desk, offering her hand to shake.

“That sounds good,” Evelyn replied, taking the proffered hand. Holy moly, Alyssa had soft skin. “So, now we’re back at square one. Could you tell me about the partnership you formed with my father? I have tried to call him, per your request.” Evelyn gave Alyssa a little smile. In return, she got a smirk. Alyssa had a very sexy smirk. “However, he is unreachable and God knows when he’ll return my calls.”

“Fair enough. Okay, so I run Four Paws Dog Sanctuary—”

“Oh, I know that place. My next-door neighbour got a beautiful little terrier from there last year.”

“Monty?”

“Yes, how did you know that?”

“I remember every dog that has been in the centre. Last year we had two terriers. One female and one male. The little girl got adopted by a woman in Scotland. So that left Monty.”

“Wow, impressive.” Evelyn really was impressed.

“So, this year I closed the centre from November to the beginning of January.”

“That’s risky business,” Evelyn commented, earning a nose flare from Alyssa. Oops, she’d said something wrong already.

“It would be if the sanctuary was a business. It’s not.”

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“It’s fine. You weren’t to know. Anyway, once I decided to close, I contacted your father.”

“Can I ask why you closed it?”

“I was sick of dogs being adopted for Christmas and returned in the New Year once their shine had worn off.”

“That happens a lot?”

“More than you realise. Two-thirds of the dogs adopted last year were returned.”

Two-thirds—that was an outrageous amount. “That’s awful,” Evelyn murmured.

“Yes, it is. Even though we spend an absurd amount of time drilling home the reality that owning a dog is hard work, and requires time and patience…” Evelyn watched Alyssa huff out a frustrated breath. The woman was too worked up to even finish her sentence.