Diamond In The Ruff
Marie Ferrarella
A FUR-EVER FAMILYBaker Lily Langtry isn't one to commit to anything more than her mouthwatering pastries. So when a puppy appears at her door, she's stunned at her new responsibilities…and how quick she is to fall for the adorable creature. But Lily gets more than she bargains for when she takes the cute canine to visit strikingly handsome town vet Christopher Whitman.Unaware of the Matchmaking Mamas' scheme to bring them together, Lily and Christopher give in to an immediate attraction. The good doctor shows her the ropes–or leash–in pet ownership…among other things, which causes Lily to question her fear of love. Can this shy beauty take a chance on the strong, steadfast man of her dreams?
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to take advantage of you like that,” he told her, still cupping her cheek with the palm of his hand.
Her voice felt as if it was going to crack at any second as she told him, “You didn’t. And there’s nothing to be sorry about, except …”
“Except?” he prodded.
Lily shook her head, not wanting to continue. She was only going to embarrass herself—and him—if she said anything further. “I’ve said too much.”
“No,” he contradicted, “you’ve said too little. “‘Except’ what?” he coaxed.
Lily wavered. Maybe he did deserve to know. So she told him.
“Except maybe it didn’t last long enough,” she said, her voice hardly above a whisper, her cheeks burning and threatening to turn a deep pink.
“Maybe it didn’t,” he agreed. “Let’s see if I get it right this time,” he murmured just before his mouth came down on hers for a second time.
* * *
Matchmaking Mamas: Playing Cupid. Arranging dates. What are mothers for?
Diamond in the Ruff
Marie Ferrarella
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
A USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author, MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two hundred books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com (http://www.marieferrarella.com).
To
Rocky and Audrey
who made my life so much richer
in their own unique way.
Contents
Cover (#u7f70db06-c368-5ca0-8b71-f682a12cc11e)
Excerpt (#u7c27a900-d3bd-5ff4-a67f-3d71b69fcf0a)
Title Page (#u137d1092-a589-503a-b88e-e8353ad0e1cf)
About the Author (#ufa2ec142-bc40-5379-8f84-b20e1c3a9af8)
Dedication (#u9ee08263-f525-5cab-b8d3-86ec1d70e5b1)
Prologue (#ulink_96e7fbb4-2593-5fab-8304-c33d4c2bc13d)
Chapter One (#ulink_bde45817-e8da-524f-9b40-f7f1903fe107)
Chapter Two (#ulink_b0c161a7-b500-58a5-b918-2a5050d712d6)
Chapter Three (#ulink_0f85a4b8-0cd3-50c0-a598-daf3041e80e7)
Chapter Four (#ulink_2648dd06-66bb-53d6-b70a-186bead4a2b7)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#ulink_9233a2e8-8601-55ba-bc85-72b83e1d5bed)
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
Maizie Connors, youthful grandmother, successful Realtor and matchmaker par excellence, looked at the tall, handsome, blond-haired young man standing in the doorway of her real estate office. Mentally, she whizzed through the many faces she had encountered in the past handful of years, both professionally and privately. Try as she might to recall the young man, Maizie came up empty. His smile was familiar, but the rest of him was not.
Ever truthful, Maizie made no attempt to bluff her way through this encounter until she either remembered him or, more to the point, the young man said something that would set off flares in her somewhat overtaxed brain, reminding her who he was.
Instead, Maizie shook her head and admitted, “I’m afraid I don’t.”
“I was a lot younger back then and I guess I looked more like a blond swizzle stick than anything else,” he told her.
She didn’t remember the face, but the smile and now the voice nudged at something distant within her mind. Recognition was still frustratingly out of reach. The young man’s voice was lower, but the cadence was very familiar. She’d heard it before.
“Your voice is familiar and that smile, I know I’ve seen it before, but...” Maizie’s voice trailed off as she continued to study his face. “I know I didn’t sell you a house,” she told him with certainty. She would have remembered that.
She remembered all of her clients as well as all the couples she, Theresa and Cecilia had brought together over the past few years. As far as Maizie was concerned, she and her lifelong best friends had all found their true calling in life a few years ago when desperation to see their single children married and on their way to creating their own families had the women using their connections in the three separate businesses they owned to find suitable matches for their offspring.
Enormously successful in their undertaking, they found they couldn’t stop just because they had run out of their own children to work with. So friends and clients were taken on.
They did their best work covertly, not allowing the two principals in the undertaking know that they were being paired up. The payment the three exacted was not monetary. It was the deep satisfaction that came from knowing they had successfully brought two soul mates together.
But the young man before her was neither a professional client nor a private one. Yet he was familiar.
Shrugging her shoulders in a gesture of complete surrender, Maizie said, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to take pity on me and tell me why your smile and your voice are so familiar but the rest of you isn’t.” Even as she said the words aloud, a partial answer suddenly occurred to her. “You’re someone’s son, aren’t you?”
But whose? she wondered. She hadn’t been at either of her “careers”—neither the one involving real estate nor the one aimed at finding soul mates—long enough for this young man to have been the result of her work.
So who are you?
“I was,” he told her, his blue eyes on hers.
Was.
The moment he said that, it suddenly came to her. “You’re Frances Whitman’s boy, aren’t you?”
He grinned. “Mom always said you were exceedingly sharp. Yes, I’m Frances’s son.” He said the words with pride.
The name instantly conjured up an image in Maizie’s mind, the image of a woman with laughing blue eyes and an easy smile on her lips—always, no matter what adversity she was valiantly facing.
The same smile she was looking at right now.
“Christopher?” Maizie asked haltingly. “Christopher Whitman!” It was no longer a question but an assertion. Maizie threw her arms around him, giving him a warm, fond embrace, which only reached as far up as his chest. “How are you?” she asked with enthusiasm.
“I’m doing well, thanks.” And then he told her why he’d popped in after all this time. “And it looks like we’re going to be neighbors.”
“Neighbors?” Maizie repeated, somewhat confused.
There’d been no For Sale signs up on her block. Infinitely aware of every house that went up for sale not just in her neighborhood, but in her city as well, Maizie knew her friend’s son was either mistaken or had something confused.
“Yes, I just rented out the empty office two doors down from you,” he told her, referring to the strip mall where her real estate office was located.
“Rented it out?” she repeated, waiting for him to tell her just what line of work he was in without having to specifically ask him.
Christopher nodded. “Yes, I thought this was a perfect location for my practice.”
She raised her eyebrows in minor surprise and admiration.
“You’re a doctor?” It was the first thing she thought of since her own daughter was a pediatrician.
Christopher nodded. “Of furry creatures, large and small,” he annotated.
“You’re a vet,” she concluded.
“—erinarian,” he amended. “I find if I just say I’m a vet, I have people thanking me for my service to this country. I don’t want to mislead anyone,” he explained with a smile she now found dazzling.
“Either way, you’ll have people thanking you,” Maizie assured him. She took a step back to get a better, fuller view of the young man. He had certainly filled out since she had seen him last. “Christopher Whitman,” she repeated in amazement. “You look a great deal like your mother.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said with a warm smile. “I was always grateful that you and the other ladies were there for Mom while she was getting her treatments. She didn’t tell me she was sick until it was close to the end,” he explained. It was a sore point for him, but under the circumstances, he’d had to forgive his mother. There hadn’t been any time left for wounded feelings. “You know how she was. Very proud.”
“Of you,” Maizie emphasized. “I remember her telling me that she didn’t want to interfere with your schooling. She knew you’d drop out if you thought she needed you.”
“I would have,” he answered without hesitation.
She heard the note of sadness in his voice that time still hadn’t managed to erase. Maizie quickly changed the subject. Frances wouldn’t have wanted her son to beat himself up over a decision she had made for him.
“A veterinarian, huh? So what else is new since I last saw you?” Maizie asked.
Broad shoulders rose and fell in a careless shrug. “Nothing much.”
Habit had Maizie glancing down at his left hand. It was bare, but that didn’t necessarily mean the man wasn’t married. “No Mrs. Veterinarian?”
Christopher laughed softly and shook his head. “Haven’t had the time to find the right woman,” he confessed. It wasn’t the truth, but he had no desire to revisit that painful area yet. “I know Mom would have hated to hear that excuse, but that’s just the way things are. Well, when I saw your name on the door, I just wanted to drop by to say hi,” he told her, adding, “Stop by the office sometime when you get a chance and we’ll talk some more about Mom,” he promised.
“Yes, indeed,” Maizie replied.
As well as other things, she added silently as she watched Christopher walk away, anticipation welling in her chest. Wait until the girls hear about this.
Chapter One (#ulink_b7cb47b2-0168-5f29-9c04-cc9026030be3)
Okay, how did it get to be so late?
The exasperated, albeit rhetorical, question echoed almost tauntingly in her brain as Lily Langtry hurried through her house, checking to make sure she hadn’t left any of her ground-floor windows open or her back door unlocked. There hadn’t been any break-ins in her neighborhood, but she lived alone and felt that you could never be too careful.
The minutes felt as if they were racing by.
There was a time when she was not only on time but early for everything from formal appointments to the everyday events that took place in her life. But that was before her mother had passed away, before she was all alone and the only one who was in charge of the details of her life.
It seemed to her that even when she was taking care of her mother and holding down the two jobs that paying off her mother’s medical bills necessitated, she had usually been far more organized and punctual than she was these days. Now that there was only one of her, in essence only one person to be responsible for, her ability to be on top of things seemed to have gone right out the window. If she intended to be ready by eight, in her mind she had to shoot for seven-thirty—and even that didn’t always pan out the way she hoped it would.
This morning she’d told herself she would be out the door by seven. It was now eight-ten and she was just stepping into her high heels.
“Finally,” she mumbled as she grabbed her bag and launched herself out the front door while simultaneously searching for her keys. The latter were currently eluding detection somewhere within the nether regions of her oversize purse.
Preoccupied, engaged in the frantic hunt that was making her even later than she already was, Lily wasn’t looking where she was going.
Which was why she almost stepped on him.
Looking back, in her defense, she hadn’t been expecting anything to be on her doorstep, much less a moving black ball of fur that yipped pathetically when her foot came down on his paw.
Jumping backward, Lily’s hand went protectively over her chest to contain the heart that felt as if it was about to leap out of it. Lily dropped her purse at the same time.
Containing more things in it than the average overstuffed suitcase, the purse came down with a thud, further frightening the already frightened black ball of fur—which she now saw was a Labrador puppy.
But instead of running, as per the puppy manual, the large-dog-in-training began to lick her shoe.
Since the high heels Lily had selected to wear this morning were open-toe sandals, the upshot was that the puppy was also licking her toes. The end result of that was that the fast-moving little pink tongue was tickling her toes at the same time.
Surprised, stunned, as well as instantly smitten, Lily crouched down to the puppy’s level, her demanding schedule temporarily put on hold.
“Are you lost?” she asked the puppy.
Since she was now down to his level, the black Labrador puppy abandoned her shoes and began to lick her face instead. Had there been a hard part to Lily’s heart, it would have turned to utter mush as she completely capitulated, surrendering any semblance of control to her unexpected invader.
When she finally rose back up to her feet, Lily looked in both directions along the residential through street where she lived to see if anyone was running up or down the block, frantically searching for a lost pet.
It was apparent that no one was since all she saw was Mr. Baker across the street getting into his midlife-crisis vehicle—a sky-blue Corvette—which he drove to work every morning.
Since it wasn’t moving, Lily took no note of the beige sedan parked farther down the block and across the street. Nor did she notice the older woman who was slouched down in the driver’s seat.
The puppy appeared to be all alone.
She looked back at the puppy, who was back to licking her shoes. Pulling first one foot back, then the other, she only succeeded in drawing the dog into her house because the Labrador’s attention was completely focused on her shoes.
“Looks like your family hasn’t realized that you’re missing yet,” she told the puppy.
The Lab glanced up, cocking his head as if he was hanging on her every word. Lily couldn’t help wondering if the animal understood her. She knew people who maintained that dogs only understood commands that had been drilled into their heads, but she had her doubts about that. This one was actually making eye contact and she was certain that he was taking in every word.
“I have to go to work,” she told her fuzzy, uninvited guest.
The Labrador continued watching her as if she was the only person in the whole world. Lily knew when she’d lost a battle.
She sighed and stepped back even farther into her foyer, allowing the puppy access to her house.
“Oh, all right, you can come in and stay until I get back,” she told the puppy, surrendering to the warm brown eyes that were staring up at her so intently.
If she was letting the animal stay here, she had to leave it something to eat and drink, she realized. Turning on her heel, Lily hurried back the kitchen to leave the puppy a few last-minute survival items.
She filled a soup bowl full of water and extracted a few slices of roast beef she’d picked up from the supermarket deli on her way home last night.
Lily placed the latter on a napkin and put both bowl and napkin on the floor.
“This should hold you until I get back,” she informed the puppy. Looking down, she saw that the puppy, who she’d just assumed would follow her to a food source, was otherwise occupied. He was busy gnawing on one of the legs of her kitchen chair. “Hey!” she cried. “Stop that!”
The puppy went right on gnawing until she physically separated him from the chair. He looked up at her, clearly confused.
In her house for less than five minutes and the Labrador puppy had already presented her with a dilemma, Lily thought.
“Oh, God, you’re teething, aren’t you? If I leave you here, by the time I get back it’ll look like a swarm of locusts had come through, won’t it?” She knew the answer to that one. Lily sighed. It was true what they said, no good deed went unpunished. “Well, you can’t stay here, then.” Lily looked around the kitchen and the small family room just beyond. Almost all the furniture, except for the TV monitor, was older than she was. “I don’t have any money for new furniture.”
As if he understood that he was about to be put out again, the puppy looked up at her and then began to whine.
Pathetically.
Softhearted to begin with, Lily found that she was no match for the sad little four-footed fur ball. Closing the door on him would be akin to abandoning the puppy in a snowdrift.
“All right, all right, all right, you can come with me,” she cried, giving in. “Maybe someone at work will have a suggestion as to what I can do with you.”
Lily stood for a minute, studying the puppy warily. Would it bite her if she attempted to pick it up? Her experience with dogs was limited to the canines she saw on television. After what she’d just witnessed, she knew that she definitely couldn’t leave the puppy alone in her house. At the same time, she did have the uneasy feeling that the Labrador wasn’t exactly trained to be obedient yet.
Still, trained or not, she felt as if she should at least try to get the puppy to follow her instructions. So she walked back over to the front door. The puppy was watching her every move intently, but remained exactly where he was. Lily tried patting her leg three times in short, quick succession. The puppy cocked its head, as if to say, Now what?
“C’mon, boy, come here,” Lily called to him, patting her leg again, this time a little more urgently. To her relief—as well as surprise—this time the puppy came up to her without any hesitation.
Opening the front door, Lily patted her leg again—and was rewarded with the same response. The puppy came up to her side—the side she’d just patted—his eager expression all but shouting, Okay, I’m here. Now what?
Lily currently had no answer for that, but she hoped to within the hour.
* * *
“Hey, I don’t remember anyone declaring that this was ‘bring your pet to work’ day,” Alfredo Delgado, one of the chefs that Theresa Manetti employed at her catering company, quipped when Lily walked into the storefront office. She was holding a makeshift leash, fashioned out of rope. The black Lab was on the other end of the leash, ready to give the office a thorough investigation the moment the other end of the leash was dropped.
Theresa walked out of her small inner office and regarded the animal, her expression completely unfathomable.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Lily apologized to the woman who wrote out her checks. “I ran into a snag.”
“From here it looks like the snag is following you,” Theresa observed.
She glanced expectantly at the young woman she’d taken under her wing a little more than a year ago. That was when she’d hired Lily as her pastry chef after discovering that Lily could create delicacies so delicious, they could make the average person weep. But, softhearted woman that she was, Theresa hadn’t taken her on because of her skills so much as because Lily’s mother had recently passed away, leaving her daughter all alone in the world. Theresa, like her friends Maizie and Cecilia, had a great capacity for sympathy.
Lily flushed slightly now, her cheeks growing a soft shade of pink.
“I’m sorry, he was just there on my doorstep this morning when I opened the door. I couldn’t just leave him there to roam the streets. If I came home tonight and found out that someone had run him over, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
“Why didn’t you just leave him at your place?” Alfredo asked, curious. “That’s what I would have done.” He volunteered this course of action while bending down, scratching the puppy behind its ears.
“I normally would have done that, too,” Lily answered. “But there was one thing wrong with that—he apparently sees the world as one giant chew toy.”
“So you brought him here,” Theresa concluded. It was neither a question nor an accusation, just a statement of the obvious. A bemused smile played on the older woman’s lips as she regarded the animal. “Just make sure he stays out of the kitchen.”
Lily gestured around the area, hoping Theresa would see things her way. This was all temporary. “Everything here’s made out of metal. His little teeth can’t do any damage,” she pointed out, then looked back at Theresa hopefully. “Can he stay—just for today?” Lily emphasized.
Theresa pretended to think the matter over—as if she hadn’t had a hand in the puppy’s sudden magical appearance on her pastry chef’s doorstep. After Maizie had mentioned that their late friend’s son was opening up his animal hospital two doors down from her real estate office and went on to present him as a possible new candidate for their very unique service, Theresa had suggested getting Christopher together with Lily. She’d felt that the young woman could use something positive happening to her and had been of that opinion for a while now.
The search for a way to bring the two together in a so-called “natural” fashion was quick and fruitful when, as a sidebar, Cecilia had casually asked if either she or Maizie knew of anyone looking to adopt a puppy. Her dog, Princess, had given birth to eight puppies six weeks ago, and the puppies needed to be placed before “they start eating me out of house and home,” Cecilia had told her friends.
It was as if lightning had struck. Everything had fallen into place after that.
Theresa was aware of Lily’s approximate time of departure and had informed Cecilia. The latter proceeded to leave the puppy—deliberately choosing the runt of the litter—on Lily’s doorstep. Cecilia left the rambunctious puppy there not once but actually several times before she hit upon the idea of bribing the little dog with a large treat, which she proceeded to embed in the open weave of the welcome mat.
Even so, Cecilia had just barely made it back to her sedan before Lily had swung open her front door.
Once inside the catering shop, the puppy proceeded to make himself at home while he sniffed and investigated every inch of the place.
Lily watched him like a hawk, afraid of what he might do next. In her opinion, Theresa was a wonderful person, but everyone had their breaking point and she didn’t want the puppy to find Theresa’s.
“Um, Theresa,” Lily began as she shooed the puppy away from a corner where a number of boxes were piled up, “how old are your grandchildren now?”
Theresa slanted a deliberately wary look at the younger woman. “Why?”
Lily smiled a little too broadly as she made her sales pitch. “Wouldn’t they love to have a puppy? You could surprise them with Jonathan.”
Theresa raised an eyebrow quizzically. “Jonathan?” she repeated.
Lily gestured at the Labrador. “The puppy. I had to call him something,” she explained.
“You named him. That means you’re already attached to him,” Alfredo concluded with a laugh, as if it was a done deal.
There was something akin to a panicky look on Lily’s face. She didn’t want to get attached to anything. She was still trying to get her life on track after losing her mother. Taking on something new—even a pet—was out of the question.
“No, it doesn’t,” Lily protested. “I just couldn’t keep referring to the puppy as ‘it.’”
“Sure you could,” Alfredo contradicted with a knowing attitude. “That you didn’t want to means that you’ve already bonded with the little ball of flying fur.”
“No, no bonding,” Lily denied firmly, then made her final argument on the matter. “I don’t even know how to bond with an animal. The only pet I ever had was a goldfish and Seymour only lived for two days.” Which firmly convinced her that she had absolutely no business trying to care for a pet of any kind.
Alfredo obviously didn’t see things in the same light that she did. “Then it’s high time you got back into the saddle, Lily. You can’t accept defeat that easily,” he told her.
Finding no support in that quarter, Lily appealed to her boss. “Theresa—”
Theresa placed a hand supportively on the younger woman’s shoulder. “I’m with Alfredo on this,” she told Lily. “Besides,” she pointed out, “you can’t give the dog away right now.”
“Why not?” Lily asked.
Theresa was the soul of innocence as she explained, “Because his owner might be out looking for him even as we speak.”
Lily blew out a breath. She’d forgotten about that. “Good point,” she admitted, chagrinned by her oversight. “I’ll make flyers and put them up.”
“In the meantime,” Theresa continued as she thoughtfully regarded the black ball of fur and paws, “I suggest you make sure the little guy’s healthy.”
“How do I go about doing that?” Lily asked, completely clueless when it came to the care of anything other than humans. She freely admitted to having a brown thumb. Anything that was green and thriving would begin to whither and die under her care—which was why she didn’t attempt to maintain a garden anymore. The thought of caring for a pet brought a chill to her spine.
“Well, for starters,” Theresa told her, “if I were you I would bring him to a veterinarian.”
“A vet?” she looked at the puppy that now appeared to be utterly enamored with Alfredo. The chef was scratching Jonathan behind the ears and along his nose, sending the Labrador to seventh heaven. “He doesn’t look sick. Is that really necessary?”
“Absolutely,” Theresa answered without a drop of hesitation. “Just think, if someone is looking for him, how would it look if you handed over a sick dog? If they wanted to, they could turn around and sue you for negligence.”
Lily felt hemmed in. The last thing she wanted was to have to take care of something, to get involved with a living, breathing entity.
Eyeing the puppy uncertainly, Lily sighed. “I should have never opened the door this morning.”
“Oh, how can you say that? Look at this adorable little face,” Theresa urged, cupping the puppy’s chin and turning his head toward Lily.
“I’m trying not to,” Lily answered honestly. But Theresa was right. She didn’t want to chance something happening to the puppy while it was temporarily in her care. Emphasis on the word temporarily, she thought. “Okay, how do I go about finding an animal doctor who’s good, but not expensive? I wouldn’t know where to start,” she admitted, looking to Theresa for guidance since the woman had been the one to bring up the matter of a vet to begin with.
Theresa’s smile bordered on being beatific. “Well, as luck would have it, I happen to know of one who just opened up a new practice a few doors down from one of my best friends. She took her dog to him and told me that he performed nothing short of a miracle on Lazarus.” The fact that Maizie didn’t have a dog named Lazarus, or a dog named anything else for that matter, was an unimportant, minor detail in the grand scheme of things. As a rule, Theresa didn’t lie, but there were times—such as now—when rules were meant to be bent if not altogether broken. “Why don’t I call her to get his phone number for you?” she suggested, looking at Lily.
That sounded like as good a plan as any, she supposed. “Sure, why not?” Lily replied with a vague shrug, resigned to this course of action. “What do I have to lose? It’s only money, right?”
Theresa knew that times were tight for the younger woman. She saw what she was about to propose as an investment in Lily’s future happiness.
“I tell you what. We’ve had a great month. I’ll pay for ‘Jonathan’s’ visit,” she offered, petting the eager puppy on the head. The dog stopped roaming around long enough to absorb the head pat and then went back to sniffing the entire area for a second time. “Consider it my gift to you.”
“How about me?” Alfredo said, pretending to feel left out. “Got any gifts for me, boss?”
“I’ll pay for your visit to the vet, too, if you decide you need to go,” Theresa quipped as she retreated into her office.
Once inside, Theresa carefully closed the door and crossed to her desk. She didn’t care for cell phones. The connection was never as clear as a landline in her opinion. Picking up the receiver, she quickly dialed the number she wanted to reach.
Maizie picked up on the second ring. “Connors’ Realty.”
“Houston, we have liftoff,” Theresa announced in what sounded like a stage whisper to her own ear.
“Theresa?” Maizie asked uncertainly. “Is that you?”
“Of course it’s me. Who else would call you and say that?”
“I haven’t the vaguest idea. Theresa, I mean this in the kindest way, but you’ve definitely been watching too many movies, woman. Now, what is it that you’re trying to say?”
Impatience wove through every word. “That Lily is bringing the puppy to Frances’s son.”
“Then why didn’t you just say so?”
“Because it sounds so ordinary that way,” Theresa complained.
“Sometimes, Theresa, ordinary is just fine. Is she bringing the puppy in today?”
“That’s what I urged her to do.”
“Perfect,” Maizie said with heartfelt enthusiasm. “Nothing like being two doors down from young love about to unfold.”
“I don’t see how that’s any different from Houston, we have liftoff,” Theresa protested.
“Maybe it’s not, Theresa,” Maizie conceded, not because she thought she was wrong, but because she knew Theresa liked to be right. “Maybe it’s not.”
Chapter Two (#ulink_0f4dbe30-ca4a-5f54-b422-cd5181c61ccb)
The first thing that struck Christopher when he walked into Exam Room 3 was that the woman was standing rather than sitting. She was clearly uneasy in her present situation. The puppy with her appeared to have the upper hand.
Smiling at her, he made a quick assessment before he spoke. “This isn’t your dog, is it?”
Lily looked at the veterinarian, stunned. “How can you tell?” she asked.
All she had given the receptionist out front was her name. The dark-haired woman had immediately nodded and told her that “Mrs. Manetti called to say you’d be coming in.” The young woman at the desk, Erika, had then proceeded to call over one of the veterinary aides, who promptly ushered her and Jonathan into an exam room. As far as she knew, no details about her nonrelationship to the animal she’d brought in had been given.
Maybe she was wrong, Lily realized belatedly.
“Did Theresa tell you that?” she asked.
“Theresa?” Christopher repeated, confused.
Okay, wrong guess, Lily decided. She shook her head. “Never mind,” she told him, then repeated her initial question. “How can you tell he’s not mine?” Was there some sort of look that pet owners had? Some sort of inherent sign that the civilian non–pet owners obviously seemed to lack?
Christopher nodded toward the antsy puppy who looked as if he was ready to race around all four of the exam room’s corners almost simultaneously. “He has a rope around his neck,” Christopher pointed out.
He probably equated that with cruelty to animals, Lily thought. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” she told him, then explained her thinking. “I made a loop and tied a rope to it because I didn’t have any other way to make sure that he would follow me.”
There was a stirring vulnerability about the young woman with the long, chestnut hair. It pulled him in. Christopher looked at her thoughtfully, taking care not to allow his amusement at her action to show. Some people were thin-skinned and would construe that as being laughed at. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
“No leash,” he concluded.
“No leash,” Lily confirmed. Then, because she thought that he needed more information to go on—and she had no idea what was and wasn’t important when it came to assessing the health of a puppy—she went on to tell the good-looking vet, “I found him on my doorstep—I tripped over him, actually.”
The way she said it led Christopher to his next conclusion. “And I take it that you don’t know who he belongs to?”
“No, I don’t. If I did,” Lily added quickly, “I would have brought him back to his owner. But I’ve never seen him before this morning.”
“Then how do you know the dog’s name is Jonathan?” As far as he could see, the puppy had no dog tags.
She shrugged almost as if she was dismissing the question. “I don’t.”
Christopher looked at her a little more closely. Okay, he thought, something was definitely off here. “When you brought him in, you told my receptionist that his name was Jonathan.”
“That’s what I call him,” she responded quickly, then explained, “I didn’t want to just refer to him as ‘puppy’ or ‘hey, you’ so I gave him a name.” The young woman shrugged and the simple gesture struck him as being somewhat hapless. “He seems to like it. At least he looks up at me when I call him by that name.”
Christopher didn’t want her being under the wrong impression, even if there was no real harm in thinking that way.
“The right intonation does that,” he told Lily. “I’ll let you in on a secret,” Christopher went on, lowering his voice as if this was a guarded confession he was about to impart. “He’d respond to ‘Refrigerator’ if you said it the same way.”
To prove his point, Christopher moved around the exam table until he was directly behind the puppy. Once there, he called, “Refrigerator!” and Jonathan turned his head around to look at him, taking a few follow-up steps in order to better see who was calling him.
His point proven, Christopher glanced at the woman. “See?”
She nodded, but in Christopher’s opinion the woman appeared more overwhelmed than convinced. He had been born loving animals, and as far back as he could remember, his world had been filled with critters large and small. He had an affinity for them, something that his mother had passed on to him.
He was of the mind that everyone should have a pet and that pets improved their owners’ quality of life—as well as vice versa.
“Just how long have you and Jonathan been together?” he asked. His guess was that it couldn’t have been too long because she and the puppy hadn’t found their proper rhythm yet.
Lily glanced at her watch before she answered the vet. “In ten minutes it’ll be three hours—or so,” she replied.
“Three hours,” he repeated.
“Or so,” she added in a small voice. Christopher paused for a moment. Studying the petite, attractive young woman before him, his eyes crinkled with the smile that was taking over his face.
“You’ve never had a dog before, have you?” The question was rhetorical. He should have seen this from the very start. The woman definitely did not seem at ease around the puppy.
“It shows?” She didn’t know which she felt more, surprised or embarrassed by the question.
“You look like you’re afraid of Jonathan,” he told her.
“I’m not,” she protested with a bit too much feeling. Then, when the vet made no comment but continued looking at her, she dialed her defensiveness back a little. “Well, not entirely.” And then, after another beat, she amended that by saying, “He’s cute and everything, but he has these teeth...”
Christopher suppressed a laugh. “Most dogs do. At least,” he corrected himself, thinking of a neglected dog he’d treated at the city’s animal shelter just the other day, “the healthy ones do.”
She wasn’t expressing herself correctly, Lily realized. But then, communication was sometimes hard for her. Her skill lay in the pastries she created, not in getting her thoughts across to people she didn’t know.
Lily tried again. “But Jonathan’s always biting,”
“There’s a reason for that. He’s teething,” Christopher told her. “When I was a kid, I had a cousin like that,” he confided. “Chewed on everything and everyone until all his baby teeth came in.”
As if to illustrate what he was saying, she saw the puppy attempt to sink his teeth into the vet’s hand. Instead of yelping, Christopher laughed, rubbed the Labrador’s head affectionately. Before Jonathan could try to bite him a second time, the vet pulled a rubber squeaky toy out of his lab coat pocket. Distracted, Jonathan went after the toy—a lime-green octopus with wiggly limbs.
High-pitched squeaks filled the air in direct proportion to the energy the puppy was expending chewing on his new toy.
Just for a second, there was a touch of envy in her eyes when she raised them to his face, Christopher thought. Her cheeks were also turning a very light shade of pink.
“You probably think I’m an idiot,” Lily told him.
The last thing he wanted was for her to think he was judging her—harshly or otherwise. But he could admit he was attracted to her.
“What I think,” he corrected, “is that you might need a little help and guidance here.”
Oh, God, yes, she almost exclaimed out loud, managing to bite the gush of words back at the last moment. Instead, she asked hopefully, “You have a book for me to read?”
Christopher inclined his head. He had something a little more personal and immediate in mind. “If you’d like to read one, I have several I could recommend,” he conceded. “But personally, I’ve always found it easier when I had something visual to go on.”
“Like a DVD?” she asked, not altogether sure what he meant by his statement.
Christopher grinned. “More like a P-E-R-S-O-N.”
For just a second, Lily found herself getting caught up in the vet’s grin. Something akin to a knot—or was that a butterfly?—twisted around in her stomach. Rousing herself, Lily blinked, certain that she’d somehow misunderstood the veterinarian.
From his handsome, dimpled face, to his dirty-blond hair, to his broad shoulders, the man was a symphony of absolute charm and she was rather accustomed to being almost invisible around people who came across so dynamically. The more vibrant they were, the more understated she became, as if she was shrinking in the sunlight of their effervescence.
Given that, it seemed almost implausible to her that Christopher was saying what it sounded as if he was saying. But in the interest of clarity, she had to ask, “Are you volunteering to help me with the dog?”
To her surprise, rather than appearing annoyed or waving away the question entirely, he laughed. “If you have to ask, I must be doing it wrong, but yes, I’m volunteering.” Then he backtracked slightly as if another thought had occurred to him. “Unless, of course, your husband or boyfriend or significant other has some objections to my mentoring you through the hallowed halls of puppy ownership.”
Her self-image—that of being a single person—was so ingrained in her that Lily just assumed she came across that way. That the vet made such a stipulation seemed almost foreign to her.
“There’s no husband or boyfriend or significant other to object to anything,” she informed the man.
She was instantly rewarded with the flash of another dimpled grin. “Oh, well then, unless you have any objections, I can accompany you to the local dog park this weekend for some pointers.”
She hadn’t even been aware that there was a dog park anywhere, much less one here in Bedford, but she kept that lack of knowledge to herself.
“Although,” the vet was saying, “I do have one thing to correct already.”
Lily braced herself for criticism as she asked, “What am I doing wrong?”
Christopher shook his head. “Not you, me,” he told her affably. “I just said puppy ownership.”
She was still in the dark as to where this was going. “Yes, I know, I heard you.”
“Well, that’s actually wrong,” he told her. “That phrase would indicate that you owned the puppy when in reality—”
“The puppy owns me?” she guessed. Where else could he be headed with this? She could very easily see the puppy taking over.
But Christopher shook his head. “You own each other, and sometimes even those lines get a little blurred,” he admitted, then went on to tell her, “You do it right and your pet becomes part of your family and you become part of his family.”
For a moment, Lily forgot to resist experiencing the exact feelings that the vet was talking about. Instead, just for that one sliver of time, she allowed herself to believe that she was part of something larger than just herself, and it promised to ease the loneliness she was so acutely aware of whenever she wasn’t at work.
Whenever she left the people she worked with and returned to her house and her solitary existence.
The next moment, she forced herself to lock down and pull back, retreating into the Spartan world she’d resided in ever since she’d lost her mother.
“That sounds like something I once read in a children’s book,” she told him politely.
“Probably was,” Christopher willingly conceded. “Children see the world far more honestly than we do. They don’t usually have to make up excuses or search for ways to explain away what they feel—they just feel,” he said with emphasis as well as no small amount of admiration.
And then he got back to the business at hand. “Since you can count the length of your relationship with Jonathan in hours, I take it that means you have no information regarding his rather short history.”
She shook her head. “None whatsoever, I’m afraid,” she confessed.
Christopher took it all in stride. He turned his attention to his four-footed patient. “Well, I’m making a guess as to his age—”
Curious about the sort of procedures that involved, she asked, “How can you do that?”
“His teeth,” Christopher pointed out. “The same teeth he’s been trying out on you,” he added with an indulgent smile that seemed incredibly sexy to her. “He’s got his baby teeth. He appears to be a purebred Labrador, so there aren’t any stray factors to take into account regarding his size and growth pattern. Given his teeth and the size of his paws in comparison to the rest of him, I’d say he’s no more than five or six weeks old. And I think I can also safely predict that he’s going to be a very large dog, given the size of the paws he’s going to grow into,” the vet concluded.
She looked down at the puppy. Jonathan seemed to be falling all over himself in an attempt to engage the vet’s attention. No matter which way she sliced it, the puppy was cute—as long as he wasn’t actively biting her.
“Well, I guess that’s something I’m not going to find out,” she murmured, more to herself than to the man on the other side of the exam table.
Christopher watched her with deep curiosity in his eyes. “Do you mind if I ask why not?”
“No.”
“No?” he repeated, not really certain what the answer pertained to.
Her mind was really working in slow motion today, Lily thought, upbraiding herself. “I mean no, I don’t mind you asking.”
When there was no further information following that up, he coaxed, “And the answer to my question is—?”
“Oh.”
More blushing accompanied the single-syllable word. She really was behaving like the proverbial village idiot. Lily upbraided herself. What in heaven’s name had come over her? It was like her brain had been dipped in molasses and couldn’t rinse itself off in order to return to its normal speed—or even the bare semblance of going half-speed.
“Because as soon as I leave here with Jonathan, I’m going to make some flyers and post them around town,” she told the vet. She was rather a fair sketch artist when she put her mind to it and planned to create a likeness of this puppy to use on the poster. “Somebody’s got to be out looking for him.”
“If you’re not planning on keeping him, why did you bring him in to be examined?”
She would have thought that he, as a vet, would have thought the reason was self-explanatory. She told him anyway.
“Well, I didn’t want to take a chance that there might be something wrong with him. I wouldn’t want to neglect taking care of something just because I wasn’t keeping it,” she answered.
“So you’re like a drive-by Good Samaritan?”
She shrugged off what might have been construed as a compliment. From her point of view, there was really nothing to compliment. She was only doing what anyone else in her place would do—if they had any kind of a conscience, Lily silently qualified.
Out loud, she merely replied, “Yes, something like that.”
“I guess ‘Jonathan’ here was lucky it was your front step he picked to camp out on.” He crouched down to the dog’s level. “Aren’t you, boy?” he asked with affection, stroking the puppy’s head again.
As before, the dog reacted with enthusiasm, driving the top of his head into the vet’s hand as well as leaning in to rub his head against Christopher’s side.
Watching the puppy, Lily thought that the Labrador was trying to meld with the vet.
“Tell you what,” Christopher proposed after giving the puppy a quick examination and rising back up again, “since he seems healthy enough, why don’t we hold off until after this weekend before continuing with this exam? Then, if no one responds to your ‘found’ flyers, you bring Jonathan here back and I’ll start him out on his series of immunizations.”
“Immunizations?” Lily questioned.
By the sound of her voice, it seemed to Christopher that the shapely young woman hadn’t given that idea any thought at all. But then she’d admitted that she’d never had a pet before, so her lack of knowledge wasn’t really that unusual.
“Dogs need to be immunized, just like kids,” he told her.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, a stray fact fell into place. She recalled having heard that once or twice. “Right,” she murmured.
Christopher smiled in response to her tacit agreement. “And,” he continued, “if you don’t get a call from a frantic owner by this weekend, why don’t we make a date to meet at the park on Sunday, say about eleven o’clock?” he further suggested.
“A date,” she echoed.
Given the way her eyes had widened, the word date was not the one he should have used, Christopher realized. It had been carelessly thrown out there on his part.
Very smoothly, Christopher extricated himself from what could potentially be a very sticky situation. “Yes, but I have a feeling that Jonathan might not be comfortable with my advertising the situation, so for simplicity’s sake—and possibly to save Jonathan’s reputation,” he amended with a wink that had her stomach doing an unexpected jackknife dive off the high board—again, “why don’t we just call the meeting a training session?”
Training session.
That phrase conjured up an image that involved a great deal of work. “You’d do that?” she asked incredulously.
“Call it a training session? Sure.”
“No, I mean actually volunteer to show me how to train Jonathan—provided I still have him,” she qualified.
“I thought that part was clear,” Christopher said with a smile.
But Lily had already moved on to another question. “Why?”
“Why did I think that was clear?” he guessed. “Because I couldn’t say it any more straightforwardly than that.”
She really did need to learn how to express herself better. “No, I mean why would you volunteer to show me how to train the dog?”
“Because, from personal experience, I know that living with an untrained dog can be hell—for both the dog and the person. Training the dog is just another name for mutual survival,” he told her.
“But aren’t you busy?” she asked him, feeling guilty about taking the vet away from whatever he had planned for the weekend. Grateful though she was, she wondered if she came across that needy or inept to him.
Christopher thought of the unopened boxes that were throughout his house—and had been for the past three months—waiting to be emptied and their contents put away. He’d moved back into his old home, never having gotten around to selling it after his mother had passed away. Now it only seemed like the natural place to return to. But the boxes were taunting him. Helping this woman find her footing with the overactive puppy gave him a good excuse to procrastinate a little longer.
“No more than the average human being,” he told her.
“If the dog is still with me by the weekend,” she prefaced, “I still can’t pay you for the training session. At least, not all at once. But we could arrange for some sort of a payment schedule,” she suggested, not wanting to seem ungrateful.
“I don’t remember asking to be paid,” Christopher pointed out.
“Then why would you go out of your way like that to help me?” she asked, bewildered.
“Call it earning a long-overdue merit badge.”
She opened her mouth to protest that she wasn’t a charity case, but just then one of his assistants knocked on the door.
“Doctor, your patients are piling up,” she said through the door.
“I’ll be right there,” he told the assistant, then turned to Lily. “I’ll see you at the dog park on Sunday at eleven,” he said. “Oh, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to call. I can be reached here during the day and on my cell after hours.”
“You take calls after hours?” Lily asked him, surprised.
“I’ve found that pets, like kids, don’t always conveniently get sick between the hours of eight and six,” he told her, opening the door.
“Wait, how much do I owe you for today?” she asked, forgetting that there was a receptionist at the front desk who would most likely be the one taking care of any and all charges for today’s visit.
Christopher started to head out. He could hear his next patient barking impatiently from all the way down the hall. Without breaking stride, he told Lily, “I don’t charge for conversations.”
He was gone before she could protest and remind him that he had given Jonathan a cursory examination.
Chapter Three (#ulink_e0b120f9-c37f-5c4b-ac11-0ba2a387a4be)
Lily was certain she hadn’t heard the man correctly. Granted, Jonathan hadn’t received any shots or had any specimens taken for a lab workup, but the veterinarian had spent at least twenty minutes talking to her about the puppy and he had looked the Labrador over. In her book, that sort of thing had to constitute an “office visit.”
Didn’t it?
While she was more than willing to do favors for people, Lily had never liked being on the receiving end of a favor because it put her in the position of owing someone something. She was grateful to the vet for taking an interest in the puppy that was temporarily in her care and she was happy that he’d offered to instruct her on how to maintain a peaceful coexistence with the ball of fur while the puppy was in her care, but she wasn’t about to accept any of that for free.
It wouldn’t be right.
Taking a breath, Lily extracted her checkbook from her jumbled purse and then braced herself for her next confrontation with the puppy.
Doing her best to sound stern, or at least authoritative, she looked down at Jonathan and said, “We’re going out now, Jonathan. Try not to yank me all over this time, all right?”
If the puppy understood what she was asking, then he chose to ignore it because the minute she opened the door, he all but flew out. Since the rope she had tethered to the Labrador was currently also wrapped around her hand, the puppy, perforce, came to an abrupt, almost comical halt two seconds later. He’d run out of slack.
The puppy gave her what seemed to Lily to be a reproving look—if puppies could look at someone reprovingly.
Maybe she was reading too much into it, Lily told herself.
Still, she felt compelled to tell the puppy, “I asked you not to run.”
Making her way out to the front of the clinic, Lily saw the receptionist, Erika, looking at her. She flushed a little in response. “You probably think I’m crazy, talking to the dog.”
Erika’s dark eyes sparkled. “On the contrary, most pet owners would think you’re crazy if you didn’t. They understand us,” she explained with easy confidence, nodding toward Jonathan. “They just sometimes choose not to listen. In that way, they’re really no different than kids,” Erika added. “Except that pets are probably more loyal in the long run.”
“I’m not planning for a ‘long run,’” Lily told the receptionist. “I’m just minding this puppy until his owner turns up to claim him,” she explained. Placing her checkbook on her side of the counter, she opened it to the next blank check, then took out her pen. All the while, Jonathan was tugging on the rope, trying to separate himself from her. “Okay, how much do I make the check out for?” She flashed a somewhat shy smile at the receptionist. “I warn you, it might be slightly illegible.”
Jonathan was tugging on his makeshift leash, desperately wanting to escape from the clinic—and in all likelihood, from her, as well. Legible writing under those circumstances went out the window.
Erika glanced at the paperwork that had just been sent to her computer monitor a moment ago. She looked up at the woman on the other side of her desk. “Nothing,” she answered.
That couldn’t be right. Could the vet really have been serious about not charging her? “For the visit,” Lily prompted.
“Nothing,” Erika repeated.
“But Dr. Whitman saw the dog,” Lily protested.
Erika looked at the screen again.
“Well, he’s not charging you for seeing the dog,” Erika told her. “But now that I look, I see that he does have one thing written down here,” the receptionist informed her, reading the column marked “special instructions.”
Lily could feel her arm being elongated by the second. For a little guy, the Labrador was uncommonly strong in her opinion. She tugged him back. “What?” she asked the receptionist.
Instead of answering her immediately, Erika said, “Just a minute,” and opened the large side drawer. She started rummaging through it. It took her a minute to locate what she was searching for.
“Dr. Whitman wants me to give you this.”
“This” turned out to be not one thing but two things. One item was a small, bright blue braided collar made to fit the neck of a dog just about the puppy’s size and the other was a matching bright blue braided leash.
Erika placed both on the counter in front of Jonathan’s keeper.
“It’s a collar and leash,” Erika prompted when the woman with Jonathan continued just to look at the two items. “Dr. Whitman has a ‘thing’ against ropes. He’s afraid that a pet might wind up choking itself,” she confided.
Given the Labrador’s propensity for dashing practically in two directions at the same time, getting a sturdy leash that wouldn’t bite into his tender throat did make sense to her, Lily thought. She certainly wasn’t about to refuse to accept the collar and leash.
“Okay, so what do I owe you for the collar and leash?” she asked.
The answer turned out to be the same. “Nothing,” Erika replied.
She’d heard of nonprofit, but this was ridiculous. “They have to cost something,” Lily insisted.
All of her life, she’d had to pay, and sometimes pay dearly, for everything she had ever needed or used. Taking something, whether it involved a service that was rendered or an item that was given to her, without the benefit of payment just didn’t seem right to Lily. It also offended her sense of independence.
“Just pennies,” Erika told her. When she looked at the young woman skeptically, the receptionist explained, “Dr. Whitman orders them practically by the crate full. He likes to give them out. Just think of it as a gesture of goodwill,” Erika advised.
What she thought of it as was a gesture of charity placing her in debt, however minor the act seemed to the vet.
Lily tried one last time. “You’re sure I can’t pay you, make a contribution to your needy-dog fund, something?”
“I’m sure,” Erika replied. She pointed to her monitor as if to drive the point home. “It says right here, ‘no charge.’” The woman hit two keys and the printer on the stand behind her came to life, spitting out a hard copy of what was on her monitor. She handed what amounted to a nonreceipt to the puppy’s keeper. “See?” Erika asked with a smile.
Lily took the single sheet of paper. Unable to pay for either the office visit or the two items now in her possession, all she could do was say thank you—which she did.
“No problem,” Erika replied. She got up from her desk and came around to the other side, where the Labrador stood fiercely yanking against the rope.
“Why don’t I put the collar on him while you try to hold him in place?” Erika suggested. “This way, he won’t make a break for it.”
“You’re a godsend,” Lily said with a relieved sigh. She’d been wondering just how to manage to exchange the rope for the collar and leash she’d just been given without having the puppy make a mad dash for freedom.
“No, just an animal clinic receptionist who’s been at it for a while,” Erika corrected modestly.
She had the collar on the puppy and the leash connected to it within a couple of minutes. Only at that point did she undo the rope. The next moment, the rope hung limp and useless in Lily’s hand.
Lily was quick to leave it on the desk.
Standing up, Erika told her, “You’re ready to go.” The words were no sooner out of her mouth than Jonathan made an urgent, insistent beeline for the front door. “I think Jonathan agrees,” Erika said with a laugh. “Here, I’ll hold the door open for you,” she offered, striding quickly over to it.
The instant the door was opened and no longer presented an obstacle, the dog made a break for the outside world and freedom. Lily was nearly thrown off balance as he took her with him.
“Bye!” she called out, tossing the words over her shoulder as she trotted quickly in the dog’s wake, trying hard to keep up and even harder to keep from falling. Jonathan seemed oblivious to any and all attempts to rein him in.
Erika shook her head as she closed the door and went back to her desk. “I give them two weeks. A month, tops,” she murmured to herself.
* * *
The second she and her energetic, furry companion returned to Theresa’s catering shop, Lily found herself surrounded by everyone she worked with. They were all firing questions at her regarding Jonathan’s visit to the new animal hospital. He was the center of attention and appeared to be enjoying himself, barking and licking the hands that were reaching out to pet him.
To her amazement, Lily discovered that of the small band of people who worked for Theresa’s catering company, she was the only one who had never had a pet—if she discounted the two-day period, twenty years ago, during which time she had a live goldfish.
Consequently, while keeping Jonathan out of the kitchen area for practical reasons that in no small way involved the Board of Health’s regulations, the puppy was allowed to roam freely about the rest of the storefront office. As a result, Jonathan was petted, played with, cooed over and fed unsparingly by everyone, including Theresa. He became the company’s mascot in a matter of minutes.
Because their next catering event wasn’t until the next evening, the atmosphere within the shop wasn’t as hectic and tense as it could sometimes get. Alfredo and his crew were still in the planning and preparation stages for the next day’s main menu. Zack Collins, Theresa’s resident bartender, was out purchasing the wines and alcoholic beverages that were to be served at the celebration, and Lily was in the semifinal preparation stage, planning just what desserts to create for the occasion.
Checking on everyone’s progress, Theresa observed that Lily was doing more than just planning. She was also baking a tray of what appeared to be lighter-than-air crème-filled pastries.
“Did you decide to do a dry run?” Theresa asked, coming up to the young woman.
“In a manner of speaking,” Lily replied. Then, because Theresa was more like a mother to her than a boss, Lily paused for a moment and told the woman what was on her mind. “You know that vet you had me bring Jonathan to?”
Theresa’s expression gave nothing away, even as her mind raced around, bracing for a problem or some sort of a hiccup in Maizie’s plan.
“Yes?”
“He wouldn’t let me pay him for the visit,” Lily concluded with a perturbed frown.
“Really?” Theresa did her best to infuse the single word with surprise and wonder—rather than the triumphant pleasure, laced with hope, she was experiencing.
“Really,” Lily repeated. “I don’t like owing people,” she continued.
“Honey, sometimes you just have to graciously accept things from other people,” Theresa began. But Lily interrupted her.
“I know. That’s why I’m doing this,” she told Theresa, gesturing at the tray she’d just taken out of the oven. “I thought that since he was nice enough to ‘gift’ me with his knowledge by checking out Jonathan, I should return the favor and ‘gift’ him with what I do best.”
By now, Theresa was all but beaming. Maizie had gotten it right again, she couldn’t help thinking.
“Sounds perfectly reasonable to me,” Theresa agreed. She glanced at her watch. It was getting to be close to four o’clock. Maizie had mentioned that Christopher closed the doors to the animal clinic at six. She didn’t want Lily to miss encountering the vet. “Since we’re not actively catering anything today, why don’t you take a run back to the animal clinic and bring that vet your pastries while they’re still warm from the oven?” Theresa suggested.
Lily flashed her boss a grateful smile since she was perfectly willing to do just that. But first she had to take care of a more-than-minor detail.
Lily looked around. “Where’s Jonathan?”
“Meghan’s keeping him occupied,” Theresa assured her, referring to one of the servers she had in her permanent employ. In a pinch, the young, resourceful blonde also substituted as a bartender when Zack was otherwise occupied or unavailable. “Why?” She smiled broadly. “Are you worried about him?”
“I just didn’t want to leave the puppy here on his own while I make a run to the vet’s office.” She didn’t want to even begin to tally the amount of damage the little puppy could do in a very short amount of time.
“He’s not on his own,” Theresa contradicted. “There are approximately eight sets of eyes on that dog at all times. If anything, he might become paranoid. Go, bring your thank-you pastries to the vet. Sounds as if he might just have earned them,” the older woman speculated.
At the last moment, Lily looked at her hesitantly. “If you don’t mind,” Lily qualified.
“I wouldn’t be pushing you out the door if I minded,” Theresa pointed out. “Now shoo!” she ordered, gesturing the pastry chef out the door.
She was gone before Theresa could finish saying the last word.
* * *
When the bell announced the arrival of yet another patient, Christopher had to consciously refrain from releasing a loud sigh. It wasn’t that he minded seeing patients, because he didn’t. He enjoyed it, even when he was being challenged or confounded by a pet’s condition. Plus, his new practice took all his time, which he didn’t mind. It was paperwork that he hated. Paperwork of any kind was tedious, even though he readily admitted that it needed to be done.
Which was why he had two different receptionists, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, to do the inputting and to keep track of things.
However, on occasion, when one or the other was away for longer than ten minutes, he took over and manned the desk, so to speak.
That was what he was currently doing because Erika had taken a quick run to the local take-out place in order to buy and bring back dinner for the office. He looked up from the keyboard to see just who had entered.
“You’re back,” Christopher said with surprise when he saw Lily coming in. The moment she stepped inside, she filled the waiting area with her unconscious, natural sexiness. Before he knew it, he found himself under her spell. “Is something wrong with Jonathan?” It was the first thing that occurred to him.
And then he noticed that she was carrying a rectangular pink cardboard box. Another animal to examine? No, that couldn’t be it. There were no air holes punched into the box, which would mean, under normal circumstances, that it wasn’t some stray white mouse or rat she was bringing to him.
* * *
“You brought me another patient?” he asked a little warily.
“What?” She saw that he was eyeing the box in her hand and realized belatedly what he had to be thinking. “Oh, this isn’t anything to examine,” she told him. “At least, not the way you mean.”
He had no idea what that meant.
By now, the savory aroma wafting out of the box had reached him and he could feel his taste buds coming to attention.
“What is that?” he asked her, leaving the shelter of the reception desk and coming closer. He thought he detected the scent of cinnamon, among other things. “That aroma is nothing short of fantastic.”
Lily smiled broadly. “Thank you.”
He looked at her in confused surprise. “Is that you?” he asked, slightly bemused.
Was that some sort of new cologne, meant to arouse a man’s appetites, the noncarnal variety? He could almost feel his mouth watering.
“Only in a manner of speaking,” Lily replied with a laugh. When Christopher looked even further confused, she took pity on him and thrust the rectangular box at him. “These are for you—and your staff,” she added in case he thought she was singling him out and trying to flirt with him—although she was certain he probably had to endure the latter on a regular basis. Men as good-looking as Christopher Whitman never went unnoticed. From his thick, straight dirty-blond hair, to his tall, lean body, to his magnetic blue eyes that seemed to look right into her, the man stood out in any crowd.
“It’s just my small way of saying thank you,” she added.
“You bought these for us?” Christopher asked, taking the box from her.
“No,” Lily corrected, “I made these for you. I’m a pastry chef,” she explained quickly, in case he thought she was just someone who had slapped together the first dessert recipe she came across on the internet. She wasn’t altogether sure what prompted her, but she wanted him to know that in her own way she was a professional, too. “I work for a catering company,” she added, then thought that she was probably blurting out more details than the man wanted to hear. “Anyway, since you wouldn’t let me pay you, I wanted to do something nice for you. It’s all-natural,” she told him. “No artificial additives, no gluten, no nuts,” she added, in case he was allergic to them the way her childhood best friend had been. “It’s all perfectly safe,” she assured him.
“Well, it smells absolutely terrific.” He opened the box and the aroma seemed to literally swirl all around him. “If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought I’d died and gone to heaven,” he told her.
“I’m told it tastes even better than it smells,” she said rather shyly.
“Let’s see if they’re right.” Christopher took out a pastry and slowly bit into it, as if afraid to disturb its delicate composition. His eyes widened and filled with pleasure. “Heaven has been confirmed,” he told her before giving in and taking a second bite.
And then a third.
Chapter Four (#ulink_8b8e1491-7882-5f26-ab51-56a2b3208ff2)
Despite the fact that she really was enjoying watching the veterinarian consume the pastry she’d made, Lily did feel a little awkward just standing there. Any second now, someone would either come in with a pet that needed attention, or one of the doctor’s assistants would emerge and the moment she was experiencing, watching him, would vanish.
It would be better all around if she left right now.
“Well, I just wanted to drop those off with you,” Lily said, waving a hand toward the contents of the opened pink box. With that, she began to walk out of the clinic.
Christopher’s mouth was presently occupied, involved in a love affair with the last bite of the pastry that he’d selected. Not wanting to rush the process, he also didn’t want Lily to leave just yet. He held up his hand, mutely indicating that he wanted her to stay a moment longer.
“Wait.” He managed to voice the urgent request just before he swallowed the last bite he’d taken.
Lily stopped just short of the front door. She shifted slightly as she waited for the vet to be able to speak, all the while wondering just why he would ask her to remain. Was he going to tell her that he’d changed his mind about charging her for today? Or had the man had second thoughts about his offer to meet her in the dog park on Sunday?
And why was she suddenly experiencing this feeling of dread if it was the latter?
“You really made these?” Christopher asked once he’d regained the use of his mouth.
“Yes,” she answered slowly, her eyes on his as she tried to fathom why he would think that she would make something like that up.
Unable to resist, Christopher popped the last piece into his mouth. It was gone in the blink of an eye. Gone, but definitely not forgotten.
“They’re fantastic,” he told her with feeling. Executing magnificent restraint, he forced himself to close the rectangular box. “Do you do this professionally?” he asked. “Like at a restaurant? Do you work for a restaurant?” he rephrased, realizing that his momentary bout of sheer ecstasy had temporarily robbed him of the ability to form coherent questions.
“I work for a caterer,” Lily corrected. “But someday, I’d like to open up a bakery of my own,” she added before she could think better of it. The man was only making conversation. He didn’t want her to launch into a long monologue, citing her future plans.
Christopher nodded and smiled warmly as he lifted the lid on the box just a crack again. There was a little dab of cream on one side. He scraped it off with his fingertip which in turn disappeared between his lips as he savored this last tiny bit.
He looked like a man who had reached Nirvana, Lily couldn’t help thinking. A warm, pleased feeling began to spread all through her. Lily forgot to be nervous or uncomfortable.
“You’d have standing room only,” Christopher assured her. “What do you call these?” he asked, indicating the pastries that were still in the box.
She hadn’t given the matter all that much thought. She recalled what Theresa had called them the first time she’d sampled one. “Bits of Heaven.”
Christopher’s smile deepened as he nodded his approval. He turned to face her completely as he said, “Good name.”
That was when she saw it. The tiny dot of white cream just on the inside corner of his lips. Obviously not all of the dessert had made it into his mouth. She thought of ignoring it, certain that the more he spoke, the more likely that the cream would eventually disappear one way or another.
But she didn’t want him to be embarrassed by having one of his patients’ owners point out that his appearance was less than perfect.
“Um, Dr. Whitman,” she began, completely at a loss as to how to proceed. She’d always felt out of sync pointing out someone else’s flaws or shortcomings. But this was because she’d brought in the pastries so technically the remnants of cream on his face was her fault.
“Your pastry just made love to my mouth, I think you can call me Chris,” Christopher told her, hoping to dismantle some of the barriers that this woman seemed to have constructed around herself.
“Chris,” Lily repeated as she tried to begin again.
He liked the sound of his name on Lily’s tongue. His smile reflected it. “Yes?”
“You have a little cream on your lip. Well, just below your lip,” she amended. Rather than point to the exact location on his face, she pointed to it on hers. “No, the other side,” she coached when he’d reversed sides to start with. When Christopher managed to find the spot on his second try, she nodded, relieved. “You got it.”
Amused, Christopher was about to say something to her, but he was stopped by the bell over the door. It rang, announcing the arrival of his next patient: a Himalayan cat who looked none too happy about being in a carrier, or about her forced visit to the animal hospital for that matter.
The cat’s mistress, a rather matronly-looking brunette with a sunny smile, sighed with relief as she set the carrier down on the floor next to the front desk. “Cedrick is not a happy camper today,” she said, stating the obvious. Then, before Christopher could turn to the cat’s file, the woman prompted, “Cedrick’s here for his shots.”
That was definitely her cue to leave, Lily thought. She’d stayed too long as it was. Theresa’s people were watching Jonathan, but she had a feeling that she was on borrowed time as far as that was concerned.
“Well, bye,” she called out to Christopher as she opened the door for herself.
She was surprised to hear his voice following her out of the office as he called, “Don’t forget Sunday.”
The butterflies she’d just become aware of turned into full-size Rodans in a blink of an eye.
Lily darted out of the office and hurried to her vehicle.
* * *
“You look like someone’s chasing you,” Theresa observed when she all but burst through the front door of the catering shop. “Is everything all right?” the older woman asked.
“Fine. It’s fine,” Lily answered a little too quickly.
Theresa opted to leave her answer unchallenged, asking instead, “How did he like your pastries?” When Lily looked at her blankly, her expression not unlike that of a deer caught in the headlights, Theresa prompted helpfully, “The vet, how did he like the pastries that you made for him?”
“Oh, that. He liked them,” Lily answered. “Sorry, I’m a little preoccupied,” she apologized. “I’m thinking about the desserts for tomorrow night’s event,” she explained. Because she always wanted everything to be perfect—her way of showing Theresa how grateful she was to the woman for taking such an interest in her—she was constantly reviewing what she planned on creating for any given event.
This time it was Theresa who waved a hand, waving away Lily’s apology. She was far more interested in the topic she had raised.
“Well, what did he say?” she asked. “Honestly, child, sometimes getting information out of you is just like pulling teeth.” Drawing her over to the side, she repeated her request. “Tell me what he said.”
She could feel her eyes crinkling as she smiled, recalling the exact words. “That he thought he’d died and gone to heaven.”
Theresa nodded in approval. “At least he has taste,” she said more to herself than to Lily. Maizie had come up with a good candidate, she couldn’t help thinking. “It’s an omen,” she decided, giving Lily’s hand a squeeze. “We’ll go with Bits of Heaven for the celebration tomorrow night.” And then, because Lily didn’t seem to be inclined to say anything further about Christopher for now, she changed topics. “By the way, if you’re wondering where Jonathan is, Meghan took him out for a walk. Until he gets housebroken, one of us is going to have to take him out every hour until he finally goes,” Theresa advised.
Utterly unaccustomed to anything that had to do with having a pet, Lily looked at her, momentarily confused. “Goes? Goes where? You mean with his owner?” she guessed.
Theresa suppressed a laugh. “No, I meant as in him relieving himself. Unless made to understand otherwise, that puppy is going to think the whole world is his bathroom.”
Lily looked at her in complete horror. “Oh, God, I didn’t think of that.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Lily,” Theresa told her kindly, putting her arm around her protégé’s shoulders. “You’ve never had a pet before.” Then, to further ease the young woman’s discomfort, Theresa told her, “There were always dogs around when I was growing up. This is all like second nature to me.”
If she felt that way, maybe there was a chance that she could convince her boss to take the puppy if no one came forward to claim him. Lily gave it one more try. “Are you sure that you don’t want to—”
Immediately aware where this was going, Theresa deftly headed it off. “Not a chance. My Siamese would take one look at Jonathan and scratch his eyes out, then go on strike and not eat her food for a week just to make me suffer. As long as that prima donna resides with me, I can’t have any other four-footed creatures coming within a yard of the house.” Theresa gave her a sympathetic smile. “I’m afraid that until you find his owner, you and Jonathan are going to be roomies.”
Lily nodded, resigned—for the moment. “Then I’d better get started trying to find his owner,” she told Theresa.
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