Diamond in the Ruff (Matchmaking Mamas Book 13) (16 page)

Her voice was emotionless as she said, “Why aren’t you still engaged?”

Christopher lifted a shoulder and let it fall in a careless shrug. “We wanted different things. She wanted me to change, to be someone else, someone who fit into her blue-blooded world. I didn’t want to change.”

Lily was struggling to understand, to come to grips with what she’d just stumbled across. Trying to tell herself that it didn’t matter when every fiber of her being told her that it did.

“Did the engagement just disintegrate on its own?” she asked.

What could he say to make this right? To fix what he seemed to have broken? “It probably would have in time.”

Her eyes held his. “But?”

He had no choice. He had to tell her the truth and pray that he wasn’t going to regret it. “But with everything going on, losing my mother, I just wanted to get away and be done with it.”

Her expression gave him no indication what she was thinking. “So you broke it off?”

Christopher nodded. “Yes.”

She needed to get this absolutely straight in her mind. “You made a commitment to someone you loved and then you broke it off?” she pressed.

He wanted to deny it, to deny that he had ever loved Irene. But he
had
loved her, and if he lied about it he knew it would backfire on him, if not now then someday. That damage would be irreparable.

“Yes.”

The sadness that washed over her with that single word was almost overwhelming. She couldn’t stay here any longer, not without breaking down. “I have to go,” she said abruptly. “Jonathan!” she called, her voice growing edgy. “Jonathan, come!”

After a moment, the Labrador appeared at the bottom of the stairs, barking at her. Lily practically ran down the stairs. Not wanting to waste time looking for his leash, she grabbed the dog’s collar and as quickly as possible guided him toward the front door.

Christopher flew down the stairs right behind her. “Wait, I thought we agreed that I’d take him to the animal hospital for you this morning.”

Lily didn’t even turn around. “There’s no need. He’s coming with me.”

“Lily—” Her name echoed of all the hurt, the concern that was ricocheting through him.

“I’ve change my mind, okay?” she snapped, afraid that she would start to cry at any second. She had to get out of there before it happened. “You changed yours, right? Why can’t I change mine?”

Wanting to sweep her into his arms, to hold her against him until she calmed down, Christopher took a step back instead. His instincts told him not to press. “Sure, you can change your mind,” he told her quietly. “Will I still see you tonight?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she told him crisply.

Lily found she had to all but drag Jonathan away—the Labrador seemed reluctant to leave both his canine friends and the man who had treated him so nicely. When he resisted, Lily pulled his collar harder, said his name in a very authoritative voice followed by a command that Christopher had taught her. After a second, Jonathan followed her.

The training had worked out well, she thought, fighting back tears as she crossed the threshold. The trainer, however, had not.

“Lily,” Christopher called after her. “I don’t want you to leave.”

It took a great deal for him to put himself out there like that after he had promised himself not to even think about having a relationship with a woman until he had gotten over his grieving period. Telling himself that his mother would have really liked Lily hadn’t exactly tipped the scales in Lily’s favor—but it hadn’t hurt, either.

“Now,” she said, aiming the words over her shoulder as she hurried to her car. “You don’t want me to leave
now.
But you’ll change your mind soon enough,” she said between clenched teeth. She had to clench them or risk beginning to sob.

Served her right for allowing herself to connect with a man so quickly. Lily could feel tears aching in her throat.

* * *

Two weeks passed.

Two weeks that moved with the torturous pace of a crippled turtle. Every minute of every day seemed to register as time dragged itself from one end of the day to the other. He felt as if he was going crazy. His work, rather than being his haven, became his trial instead.

He had trouble concentrating.

He tried to move on, he really did. Following his breakup with Irene, after the initial hurt subsided and after he stopped feeling as if he’d been a colossal fool for missing all the signs that had been right there in front of him, Christopher had actually experienced a sense of relief. The kind of relief survivors experienced after learning that they had just narrowly managed to dodge a bullet. The young woman he had thought he had fallen in love with wouldn’t have been the woman that he was supposed to end up marrying. Avoiding that was the part where the relief came in.

But in this case, with Lily, there was no sense of relief. There was only a sense of loss, a sense that something very special had somehow managed to slip right through his fingers and he was never going to be able to recover what he had lost.

Consequently, life had progressively become darker for him. It felt as if the light had gone out of his world and he had no way to turn it back on. Resigned to this new, grimmer view of life, he found his whole demeanor changing.

* * *

Theresa had alerted her that something was definitely up. She’d said that Lily had become very quiet and withdrawn these past two weeks and that the young woman had taken to bringing the puppy to work with her instead of leaving Jonathan with Christopher. But atypically, Theresa had added, Lily wasn’t talking. The pastry chef had told her that everything was “fine” every time she’d asked if something was wrong.

Maizie decided to find out some things for herself.

Which was why she popped into the animal clinic the following Tuesday, when things had slowed down in her own real estate office.

She came armed with one of Cecilia’s remaining puppies, telling the receptionist that she had recently acquired this pet and was going to give it to her granddaughter as a gift. Erika had managed to fit her in between scheduled appointments.

“Hi,” Maizie said cheerfully, popping into the last exam room where she’d been told she’d find the object of her visit. “Your receptionist—lovely girl, Erika,” she commented before continuing, “said you were back here and that it was all right for me to bring Walter to you. I hope you don’t mind my just dropping by. But Walter’s going to be a gift for my granddaughter and I just want to be sure he’s healthy before I give him to her,” she said.

Christopher stared at the puppy. It looked almost exactly like Jonathan. But it couldn’t be—could it?

“Where did you get him?” he asked Maizie.

“I know a breeder up north, around Santa Barbara,” Maizie replied innocently. “Why do you ask?”

Christopher tried to sound casual as he explained, but just the thought of Lily put longing in his voice. “Someone I know has a dog just like that. She said he just turned up on her doorstep a couple of months ago.”

Maizie pretended to take the story in stride. “I hear that Labradors are popular these days because they’re so friendly. That’s why I got one for my granddaughter.” She looked closely at Christopher as he proceeded to examine the puppy. “Is something wrong, dear?”

“The puppy seems to be fine,” he said as he continued with his exam.

“I was talking about you, Christopher,” Maizie said gently.

He shrugged, wishing the woman would just focus on the puppy she’d brought in and not ask him any personal questions. He couldn’t deal with them right now.

He’d left numerous messages on Lily’s phone. She hadn’t called back once. When he went by her house, there were never any lights on and she didn’t answer the door when he rang the bell.

“I’m fine,” he told Maizie again.

Maizie placed her hand on his shoulder—she had to reach up a little in order to do it. “You know, Christopher, I feel that I owe it to your mother to tell you that as an actor, you’re not very convincing. What’s bothering you?” she asked. “I might not be able to help, but I can certainly give you a sympathetic ear.”

He didn’t want to talk about it. Concluding his exam, he looked at her. “Walter’s very healthy. And as for me... Mrs. Connors, I know you mean well—”

Maizie took the puppy off the exam table and placed him on the floor. “You can call me Maizie at this point and hell, yes, I mean well.” Her eyes locked with the young veterinarian’s. “When my daughter looked like you do right now, it was because something in her relationship with the man she eventually married—wonderful son-in-law, by the way—had gone wrong. Now, out with it. You need an impartial third party to tell you if you’re overreacting or if you should give up—and since your mother’s not here to listen, I’ll be that party in her memory.”

Crossing her arms before her, Maizie gave him a very penetrating look that all but declared she was
not
about to budge on this. “Now, you might as well talk to me because I’m not leaving until you do. If you plan on seeing any more patients today, you had better start talking, young man.”

Chapter Fifteen

H
e wound up telling her everything.

It was against his better judgment, against anything he’d ever done, but he gave Maizie a condensed version of what had transpired, right up to Lily discovering the photograph of Irene and him, the one he had since thrown out.

Christopher secretly hoped that, in saying the words out loud, it would somehow help him purge himself of this awful deadness he was experiencing and
had
been experiencing ever since Lily had walked out.

It didn’t. It just made it feel worse, if that was possible.

Desperate, he tried to describe to Maizie what he was feeling.

“It’s like someone just sucked the very life force out of me.” He shrugged, embarrassed. He was being weak and that just wasn’t like him. “I’m sorry, I’m not explaining this very well and you didn’t come here to hear me carry on like some twelve-year-old schoolboy, lamenting about his first crush.” He sighed, resigned to his present state as he squatted down to the puppy’s level to scratch the animal behind his ear. “I suppose you do remind me of my mother and I guess I just needed a sympathetic ear.”

“Well, I’m very flattered to be compared to Frances, Christopher,” Maizie assured him. “Your mother was a very warm, wonderful lady.” Touching his arm, she coaxed him back up to his feet. “You know what she’d say to you if she were here?”

He doubted that the woman had the inside track on his late mother’s thoughts, but since he’d unburdened himself to Maizie, he did owe her the courtesy of listening to what she had to say. Besides, he really did like the woman.

“What?”

“She’d ask you if you really cared about this Lily you just talked about and then, if your answer was yes, she’d tell you to not just stand there and grieve, but
do
something about it.”

The laugh that Christopher blew out had no humor to it. “I think they call that stalking these days, Mrs. Connors.”

In contrast, Maizie’s laugh was light, airy and compassionate. “I’m not talking about standing beneath this young woman’s bedroom window, reciting lines from
Romeo and Juliet
or
Cyrano.
I’m suggesting doing something creative that would allow your two paths to cross—initially in public,” she added for good measure.

Maybe the woman did have something up her sleeve. At this point, he was willing to try anything. He felt he had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

“Go on,” he urged.

“What does your young lady do for a living?” Maizie asked innocently as she stroked the Labrador. “Is she an accountant, or a lawyer, or—”

“She works for a catering company.”

“A catering company,” Maizie repeated, seeming very intrigued. “In what capacity?” she pressed, knowing very well that Lily was Theresa’s pastry chef. “Cooking? Serving?”

“Lily bakes,” he answered, although the word was hardly adequate to describe just what she could do. “Creating delicacies” was closer to the actual description, he thought.

Maizie made sure she appeared properly delighted. “Ah, perfect.”

Christopher didn’t understand. At his feet, the puppy who was Maizie’s accomplice in this was beginning to chew the bottom of the exam table. Christopher took out a hard rubber bone and offered it to the teething puppy.

Walter took the bait.

“Perfect?” he asked Maizie.

“Yes, because I just thought of a plan. Every so often, the Bedford animal shelter has Adopt a Best Friend Day. The local businesses contribute donations or their time to help out.”

Since he volunteered at the shelter, they had taken to sending him their newsletters. “I’m aware of those events, but I don’t see—”

He never knew what hit him as Maizie went into automatic high gear. “I could pull a few strings, make a few suggestions, get this event up and running in, say, a week—two, tops—but probably a week.”

How was this supposed to get Lily back into his life? “I still don’t see how this has anything to do—”

Maizie held up a finger, about to make a crucial point. “Think how many more people might be attracted to come see the animals in the shelter if they knew that there were pastries being offered, the proceeds all going to keep the shelter operational? ‘Come sample the pastries and go home with a best friend,’” Maizie said, coming up with a slogan right on the spot.

Then she eyed Christopher thoughtfully. “Didn’t you say that you sometimes volunteer at the shelter, check out the animals, make sure they’re healthy?” She knew the answer to that, as well.

His face lit up as his mind filled in the blanks, padding out what his mother’s friend was telling him. “You know, that’s just crazy enough to work,” he agreed. “And Lily makes the most exquisite pastries.” Christopher stopped short. He looked at her, slightly puzzled. “How did you know that?” he asked. “How did you know that Lily makes pastries?”

That had been a slip, but one that Maizie was quick to remedy. “I didn’t. It was just a lucky guess,” she told him. “I have a weakness for pastries.”

“Well, if this gets her talking to me, Mrs. Connors, I’ll make sure you get a pastry every day for the rest of your life,” he promised, getting into the spirit of the thing.

“Which is guaranteed to be short if I start indulging like that,” she told him with a laugh. Bending down, she picked up the puppy she had brought as a prop. “So, you’re sure that Walter here is healthy?”

“Absolutely in top condition,” he assured her. Christopher paused and regarded the Labrador thoughtfully as he scratched the dog’s head. “He really does look like Lily’s puppy,” he told her.

“Then this Lily’s puppy must be a very fine-looking dog,” Maizie speculated with a wink.

She was quick to turn away and walk out before Christopher had a chance to see how broad her smile had become.

* * *

When she first heard about it, Lily’s first inclination was to beg off. She knew that if she gave Theresa some excuse as to why she couldn’t go to the catering event to serve her pastries, the woman would believe her and say it was all right.

But that would mean lying to someone who had been like a second mother to her. Not only that, it would be putting Theresa in a bind since she already found herself shorthanded. At the last minute, two of her regular servers, Theresa told her, had both come down with really bad colds, making them unable to work.

Lily didn’t mind working, didn’t mind being in the middle of things and hearing people rave about her desserts. But this particular event had to do with an adoption fair for the city’s animal shelter. And that meant that Christopher might be there.

She knew that he volunteered his services at the shelter, that he periodically treated some of the animals that were left there. Funny how the very same thing that had made her love him now just made her feel uneasy.

It had been over two weeks since she’d walked out. Two weeks she’d been functioning—more or less—without a heart. She hadn’t taken any of his calls since that night.

The night that had been by turns one of the best and then worst nights of her life.

For a brief, shining moment, she had thought that she’d finally found the man she’d been looking for all her life. She and Christopher seemed to be of one mind when it came to so many things.

She had wound up running toward him when what she should have done was walked—slowly. Walked slowly and gotten to know the man.

But she hadn’t, and then that bombshell had dropped, shattering her world.

Not only hadn’t he told her that he’d been engaged, but he’d been the one to break off the engagement—and so recently. That meant he wasn’t serious enough about his commitment. If he could break an engagement, walk out on a promise once, well, what was to keep him from doing it again? From bringing her up to the heights of joy only to let her fall onto the rocks of bitter disappointment somewhere down the line? Even if he could put all that behind him and change, that would take time for him to work out. He couldn’t be ready for something so solid so soon after breaking off his engagement. He had to see that and once he did, he’d back away from her on his own.

She wasn’t going to risk that, risk having her heart ripped out of her chest, risk tumbling down into the abyss of loneliness and despair. She just wasn’t built like that. It was better not to dream than to have those dreams ripped up to pieces.

She hurt now, but she would hurt so much more later if she continued seeing Christopher—continued loving him—only to be abandoned in the end.

“You are a lifesaver,” Theresa was saying to her, the woman’s very words of praise sabotaging any hope of remaining behind. “I am so shorthanded for this event, I might just have to put out a call to my children to have them come and help. This Adoption Fair promises to be huge.” Theresa slanted a look at her protégée. “You are all right with doing this, aren’t you, Lily?”

Lily forced a smile to her lips. There was no way she was going to let Theresa down—even if she spent the whole time there looking over her shoulder.

“I’m fine.”

“This is for a good cause,” Theresa said by way of a reminder. “But I don’t have to tell you that. Once you take a pet into your home and into your heart, you see the other homeless animals in a completely different light. You outdid yourself, by the way.” Theresa looked over to the boxed-up pastries that were all set to be transported. “Everything smells just heavenly, even through the boxes.” Theresa beamed, then asked, “Are you ready?”

Lily snapped out of her mental wanderings. “You mean to go? Sure,” she answered a bit too cheerfully.

She was ready to transport the pastries she’d made, ready to do her job. But as far as being ready to see Christopher again, the answer to that was a resounding no.

The best she could hope for was that he didn’t show up. After all, it wasn’t as if there were going to be any sick animals at the event. The object of this fair was to get as many of the shelter’s residents adopted as possible. That guaranteed that only the healthy ones would be on display.

He probably wouldn’t be there.

* * *

Lily was still telling herself that more than an hour later.

The adoption fair had gotten underway and it seemed as if at least a quarter of Bedford’s citizens had turned out to check on the available animals and, as an afterthought, the food, as well.

Her pastries were going fast. She could only hope that some of the people doing all that eating were also seriously considering going home with one of the cats, dogs, rabbits, hamsters and various other species the shelter had on display.

“Your pastries are certainly a major attraction,” Theresa said as she passed by the table where Lily was set up. “I think that by the end of the day, your ‘contribution’ will have raised the biggest amount of money for the animal shelter,” Theresa told her with warm approval. In keeping with it being a charitable event, Theresa had charged only half her regular fee. “You should be very proud of yourself.”

Although Lily did like receiving compliments, they always made her feel somewhat uncomfortable. She never knew what to say, how to respond, so she usually said nothing, only smiled. This time was no different. After smiling her thanks, Lily pretended to look off toward a group of children who were having fun with a litter of half Siamese, half Burmese kittens that had been born at the shelter. The mother, she’d been told, had been left at the shelter already pregnant.

Patting her hand, Theresa murmured something about seeing how the others were doing and wove her way into the crowd.

No sooner had she left than Lily heard a voice behind her. “How much for that raspberry pastry?”

Lily stiffened. She would have recognized that voice anywhere. It was the voice that still infiltrated her dreams almost every night. The voice that made her ache and wake up close to tears almost every morning.

“Two dollars,” she replied formally.

“Very reasonable.” Christopher came around the table to face her. He handed her the two dollar bills and she pushed the paper plate with the aforementioned raspberry pastry toward him. Christopher raised his eyes to hers. “How much for five minutes of your time?”

“You haven’t got that much money,” she told him crisply.

More than anything, she wanted to flee the premises, to just take off and leave him far behind in her wake. But there was no one to cover for her and she couldn’t let Theresa down after she’d agreed to be here.

She was just going to have to tough it out, she thought, hoping that she could.

“I’ve called you every day, Lily,” he told her in a low voice so that they wouldn’t be overheard. “You haven’t returned any of my calls.”

She looked at him sharply. Ignoring each call had been agony for her, especially the ones that came while she was home. The sound of his voice, leaving a message on her answering machine, would fill her house. Fill her head. He made it so hard for her to maintain her stand.

“I didn’t see the point, Christopher. It wasn’t going to work anyway. Please just accept that,” she told him as calmly as she could.

Now that he had her in front of him, he wasn’t about to let this opportunity get away. “Lily, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Irene, especially since it happened not too long ago. You have every right to be angry about that. I shouldn’t have kept it from you.”

“I’m not angry that you didn’t tell me. I’m not denying that it didn’t hurt, finding out that way, but that’s not why I haven’t returned your calls.”

He looked at her, completely at a loss. “Then I don’t understand,” he confessed.

“
You’re
the one who broke off the engagement. And how could you be ready to be with anyone yet?” she asked. “You made a commitment, Christopher. A
lifelong
commitment,” she stressed. “And then you backed out of it just like that. Suddenly I come along, and who’s to say you wouldn’t drop me, just like that, too?” She snapped her fingers to underscore her point.

Unable to remain in the same space as Christopher any longer, she threw up her hands in despair and started to walk away. But she couldn’t outpace him and she had a feeling that if she began to run, he’d only catch up. She didn’t want to cause a scene, so she stopped moving. Maybe if she heard him out,
then
he’d go away.