Olivia finished signing the last few papers, and when she was done, Tess did a two-handed, double-gun point in her direction. “Now for the fun part. You get to pick a shirt from the gift shop, then we’ll head to the dogs. Because so many volunteers are coming and going every day, we ask everyone to wear name tags, but most end up wearing shelter T-shirts too.”

Olivia followed Tess over to the gift shop and took in the bright array of colorful shirts. A few had the shelter logo, and others had moving sayings. Two of her favorites read “Adopt” with a dog paw print in place of the O and “Until there are none, rescue one.”

After a bit of debate, she chose a cornflower-blue short-sleeved logo T-shirt and a long-sleeved purple “Adopt” one after sorting through to find her size. “I’m assuming it’s okay if I buy one too?”

“No complaints here. Most of us end up with a closetful of High Grove apparel. And both those will go great with your hair—which is beautiful, by the way. When I was a kid, I was under the impression that with the right combination of lemon juice and sunlight, I’d end up a redhead. It was a bit of a disaster, actually.”

“If it helps,” Olivia said, laughing, “I was once under the delusion that if I suntanned long enough, I’d freckle evenly enough to look really tan.”

Tess shook her head. “That’s usually how it goes, isn’t it?”

For the next half hour, Tess led Olivia around, detailing some of the ins and outs of being a volunteer, like how and where to sign up for special events, where to put her things when she was working, and where the small break room was. Olivia loved the fridge inside the break room that was covered in magnets from places all over the world where the staff and volunteers had traveled, including a few places she’d always dreamed of going, like Rome and the Australian outback.

Trina, the resident cat, was in the room as Tess had guessed, napping in a cozy bed atop the fridge. With a bit of cajoling, the senior-aged cat woke up and joined them for a bit of petting. Olivia was surprised to see how dexterous she was for being a three-legged cat.

“Do you know what happened to her back leg?” Olivia asked, giving the striking cream and silver-gray cat a thorough scratch along the side of her chin and atop her spine when she arched her back.

“No, but it was an accident of some sort when she was a kitten. She was found with her mom and several other kittens floating on debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. She was young enough when it happened that she doesn’t know the difference.”

“Wow, what a story.”