“Of course I do,” Felicity said, and smiled. “It’s me you’re dealing with now. Remember that.”
“Oh, I will.” Cooper looked half dazed and a whole lot amused as she headed out the door for work.
* * *
Felicity marched into Living Ruff just before lunchtime, her mind whirring. She’d sorted out Cooper’s entire life in just three hours. The woman’s existing filing system was a menace but had been hugely satisfying to untangle. Felicity had texted her a few times throughout the morning, supplying photos showing the piles getting smaller and querying whether she’d intended to file a wedding invitation from 2009 under Bills.
Cooper’s replies had been three smiley faces and one “Oops. That wedding was for one of my exes—probably a Freudian move filing it there.”
Of more concern was the vet-tech trainee program file. Not for what was missing but for what was in it: everything. Cooper had forgotten to mention she’d apparently thrown herself into the project with enthusiasm. She’d fully costed it out, including every local college offering vet-tech qualifications, their responses to her queries about her scheme, deans ranked from “helpful” to “useless,” and suggestions involving clearing out the storeroom on Living Ruff’s ground floor to make temporary accommodation for the applicants in case the college insisted on them having a fixed address before applying. Duties and ideas for how to further train vet techs in a Living Ruff apprenticeship scheme were listed in exhaustive specificity. It was astonishing in detail, even if it wasn’t the slightest bit organized.
The moment she went through the folder, Felicity knew that if Cooper had conveyed all her findings and research to Harvey, there was no way he’d need to spend more than few days working out whether to go ahead on the program. It was already done. It was all here. So why the delay? He’d been sitting on Elena’s donation since September 2 of last year. It was now March 17. What did he need to think about when he had all this work at his fingertips and $1.4 million to fund it? That was the question.
Cooper was talking to Gabriel Mendoza, the other vet, when Felicity entered Living Ruff’s office.
“Ms. Simmons,” he said with a small smile. “We meet again! And this is Felix, my chinchilla.”
Felix peeked at her from Dr. Mendoza’s shoulder. The tiny gray creature had huge round ears and a fluffed-up tail. Adorable! Felicity hoped her aching need to stroke the little thing hadn’t turned into a meeping noise or anything embarrassing. “Felix,” she repeated, her voice strained. “Okay.”
Cooper eyed her closely, a smile tugging at her lips. “You’re dying to pet him, aren’t you?”
“She is?” Dr. Mendoza asked in surprise. “She looks like she’s dying to flee the room.”
Felicity gave them both grim looks and folded her arms.
“You can pet Felix, if you’d like,” Dr. Mendoza said kindly, “if you’re gentle and slow with your movements.”
“I don’t think so,” Felicity said. That way there be dragons. Although knowing her, she’d want to pet the dragons, too. “Can we get down to business, please?” She glanced around. “Where’s your director?”
“About that…” Cooper sighed. “I told Harvey you wanted a meeting. He said he had to duck out for a little while. He apologized.”
“Well, that’s annoying.” Felicity sighed. “When will he be back?”
“He didn’t say.”
Dr. Mendoza glanced at his watch. “I’m due for rounds. It is wonderful to meet a potential donor of your standing, Ms. Simmons,” he said before leaving with a wave.
“He knows who I am now?” Felicity asked once he’d left.
Cooper rolled her eyes. “Your fact-finding visit is all Mrs. Brooks is talking about.” She waved to the woman in question, who was just putting down the phone.
“You make me sound like a gossip hound,” Mrs. Brooks said reproachfully. “Why shouldn’t I let the staff know who to impress?” The edges of her eyes crinkled. “Be glad I didn’t suggest Mitch roll out a red carpet for you, Ms. Simmons. He’d have dragged one out of God knows where. He’s a very resourceful young man.”
Cooper laughed. “He’d find one, all right. Okay, so I agree. We must show Ms. Simmons a good time.” She grinned at Felicity over the double entendre.
Felicity absolutely refused to meet her eye in case she blushed.
“Not too good a time,” Mrs. Brooks said dryly. “I’m a happily married woman. And don’t act like I can’t hear you dripping with innuendo.” She arched an eyebrow at Cooper. “I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Cooper said primly.
“Sure you don’t. By the way, just so you know, Dr. Mendoza treated one of your regulars in here yesterday. Norma came in to see if there was a tumor in her cat”—she paused to tap a few keys—“Lucille. It turned out to be the kidneys you noticed that felt irregular. Lucille was given blood and urine tests, which came up clean. Everything else was fine. The cat’ll probably outlive us all.”
“That is wonderful news,” Cooper said, then turned to Felicity. “Sometimes kidneys can feel weird in animals and get mistaken for a growth. So Lucille’s fine. This is great!”
Felicity gave a stiff nod to hide her enormous relief, which earned an incredulous look from Mrs. Brooks.
“You and animals,” the older woman muttered, so low she probably thought Felicity wouldn’t hear. “What does Brittany see in you?”
At the mention of her name, the dog lying beside Mrs. Brooks’s chair picked her head up, realized who was here, and bounded over to them with a series of delighted woofs.
“I don’t know why you’re so excited to see me,” Cooper said, giving her a thorough pat. “I went through your joy of a reunion with me three hours ago. And two hours ago. And twenty minutes ago. I swear, the life of a dog must be fantastic, getting to greet their favorite humans repeatedly, as if they haven’t seen them for weeks.”
Felicity smiled at that until Brittany headed her way, looking up at her with a loving expression that just begged to be met with pats. “Don’t look at me like that,” Felicity said, sliding her hands in her pockets out of temptation’s way. “We’re not friends.”
Brittany sat at her feet, bumping her thigh with her head. Felicity whimpered internally.
“Unfortunately,” Cooper said with a gleeful look, “your bond was sealed the moment you fed her on Monday.”
“Lucky me.” She sighed and stared down at Brittany, offering her most imperious stare. “I apologize for giving you false expectations with the ham. I didn’t want it to go to waste.”
“Do you really dislike animals so much, Ms. Simmons?” Mrs. Brooks asked askance.
Cooper laughed. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen her yesterday at the open day. She was up to her chin in cats, looking like she was in heaven, snuggling them all.”
“I am fairly sure you mistook me for someone else,” Felicity protested.
“That seems more likely,” Mrs. Brooks said, disbelief clear in her eyes.
