Diamond in the Ruff (Matchmaking Mamas Book 13) (8 page)

“For that to get underway, we can’t be out here,” he told her. “We’d have to work with him at your home. Jonny can’t be taught to observe his boundaries if one of those boundaries is missing,” he pointed out.

“Can’t argue with that,” she agreed. And then she glanced at her watch.

Christopher saw something that resembled an apologetic expression on her face. Had he missed something? “What’s the matter?”

“I feel guilty that you’re spending all this time helping me train Jonathan when you could be doing something else with your time. I wouldn’t feel so bad if you were letting me pay you for your time, but you’re not.”

“I’m not about to charge you for something I volunteered to do.” He could see that wasn’t going to assuage her guilt. He thought of the other day—and went with that. “However, if you feel compelled to make some more pastries anytime soon, well, I couldn’t very well refuse those, now could I?”

“How about dinner?” She was as surprised as he was to hear her make the suggestion. It seemed to have come out all on its own. For a second, she lapsed into stunned silence.

The sentence was just hanging there between them, so he took a guess at what she was saying. “You mean like going out to dinner first?”

You put it out there, now follow up on it before the man thinks he’s spending time with a crazy woman.

“No, I mean how about if I make you dinner before the dessert? Like a package deal,” she concluded with a bright, albeit somewhat nervous smile.

For just a heartbeat, he found himself mesmerized by her smile. Some people had smiles that seemed to radiate sunshine and make a person feel the better for being in its presence. Lily had such a smile.

“I wouldn’t want you to go to all that trouble,” he finally said when he recovered his ability to make coherent sentences. But he uttered it without very much conviction.

“Not that it’s any actual trouble,” she countered, “but why not? It seems to me like you’re going through a lot of trouble helping me train Jonathan.”

There were two people running around the perimeter of the park with their whippets. Moving out of their way, Christopher waited until they were out of earshot before continuing their verbal dueling match.

“I don’t consider working with a dog as any sort of ‘trouble.’ To be honest, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be a veterinarian,” he told her. “My dad died when I was very young and my mother thought that having a dog—or two—around the house would somehow help fill the void in my life that his death left. Without knowing it, she inadvertently set me on a career path that shaped the rest of my life. I really appreciated what she tried to do, but to be honest, you can’t miss what you don’t remember ever having, can you?”

“Actually, you
could
miss it if you find yourself imagining what it would have been like to have a father and then realize that no matter what you do, it was never going to be that way.”

There was a sadness in her voice that caught his attention. “You sound like someone who’s had firsthand experience with that.”

Ordinarily, she would have just glossed over his observation, shrugging it off and simply saying no, she didn’t. But lying—which was what it amounted to from her point of view—just didn’t seem to be right in this situation. Even a little white one would have troubled her.

“I do,” she admitted. For a moment, as she brought her childhood into focus, she avoided his eyes. “I never knew my dad. He took off before I was born. The story went that he told my mother he wasn’t cut out to be a father and that then he proved it by just taking off,” she concluded with a shrug that was way too careless to be what it portrayed.

He wanted to put his arms around her, to not just comfort her but to silently offer her protection against the world, as well. Until this moment, those reactions in him had been strictly confined to dealing with creatures in the animal kingdom. This was a whole new turn of events. But even so, he kept his hands at his sides, sensing that he might just scare her off if he did something so personal so early in their acquaintance.

So he restricted his response to a verbal one. “I’m sorry.”

“Yes, I was, too—for my mother.” Her father had abandoned the person she had loved the most in life—her mother. And for that, she could never forgive the man. “She could have used a little help juggling raising me and paying the bills. Life was a constant struggle for her.”

“That’s the way I felt, too,” he admitted. “But my mother never complained. I don’t think I
ever
heard her even say a cross word against anyone. She just plowed through life, doing what she had to do.”

“Mine held down two jobs trying to do the same thing.” It felt almost eerie the way their lives seemed to mirror each other when it came to family life. She didn’t normally seek details, but she did this time. “You have any siblings?”

Christopher shook his head. It was the one area that he wished had been different. “None. You?”

“Same,” she answered. “None.”

It should have felt eerie to her—but it didn’t. Instead, she realized that it made her feel closer to this outgoing man. She knew the danger in that, but for now, she just allowed it to be, taking comfort in the warm feeling that was being generated inside of her.

Chapter Seven

H
e walked Lily to her car, which was parked not that far from his own.

As he stood to the side and waited for her to coax the Labrador into the backseat, Christopher realized that he wasn’t quite ready for their afternoon to come to an end.

His reaction surprised him. He hadn’t felt any real interest in maintaining any sort of female companionship since his less-than-amicable breakup with Irene a few months ago. Maybe he was finally ready to move on with his life in every sense.

Watching Lily now, Christopher decided he had nothing to lose by suggesting that perhaps they could just continue with Jonathan’s training session in a different setting.

As she turned away from the dog and closed the rear passenger door, Christopher pretended to glance at his watch.

Looking up again, he said to her, “Listen, I have nothing scheduled for the rest of the day. Why don’t I just follow you to your place and we’ll get a head start in housebreaking your houseguest?”

“Really?”

“Really,” Christopher answered. He didn’t, however, want her having any unrealistic expectations about what they were going to accomplish this afternoon. “Remember, though, I did say ‘get a head start.’ This isn’t a relatively quick process, like getting Jonny to come or stay. Or even getting him to do something trickier like rolling over or sitting up and begging. This,” he warned her, “is going to take a while. With some luck and a lot of vigilance, best-case scenario, you might be able to get him completely housebroken in two weeks.”

“But I work and the hours aren’t always regular,” she told Christopher. Looking at Jonathan in the backseat, she lamented, “How can I keep up a regular schedule with him?”

“That is a problem,” Christopher conceded. “But it’s not impossible.”

She found herself clinging to those words like a drowning woman to a life preserver. If she was going to wind up actually keeping Jonathan, she would be eternally grateful that Theresa had sent her to this veterinarian. He was a godsend.

“Okay, I’m listening.”

“You take him out every hour on the hour when you
are
home. When you’re not, you can leave him in a puppy crate.”

“A puppy crate?” she repeated, not knowing if she was just stunned or actually horrified by the suggestion. She had to have misunderstood him. “You’re telling me to stick Jonathan in a crate?” she asked in disbelief. “That’s cruel.”

“No, actually, it’s not cruel at all. Puppy crates come in different sizes to accommodate the different breeds. They’re airy and specifically designed to make the puppy feel safe. Puppies are placed in puppy crates for the same reason that they tightly bundle up newborn babies in a hospital. They actually like small spaces. An added bonus is if they only spend part of their time there each day—such as when you’re away at work—they won’t mess the crate up because they won’t go to the bathroom where they sleep.”

“What about in the pet stores?” she countered. She’d seen more than one employee in a pet store having to clean out the cages that the animals were kept in.

“That’s because the animals are kept in their cages all the time. They have no choice but to relieve themselves in the same place that they sleep. Those conditions make it harder to train an animal, but not in the case I’m suggesting,” he pointed out.

She could tell by his tone when he described conditions in a pet store that the veterinarian didn’t really approve of them. Still, the idea of forcing Jonathan to spend part of his time in a crate didn’t exactly sit well with her.

“Not that I’m doubting what you just said about puppy crates, but isn’t there any other way to housebreak him? I really don’t like the idea of sticking Jonathan in a cage—or crate—unless I have no other choice.” She looked at the dog, sympathy welling up inside of her. “It just seems too much like making him spend time in prison to me,” she confessed.

He liked the fact that despite her attempts at projecting bravado, Lily was a pushover when it came to animals. “Well, there is one other alternative,” he told her.

Lily second-guessed him. “Taking him to work with me, the way I did the first day.”

“Or you could drop him off at my animal hospital when you go to work and then I could drop him off with you in the evening. Unless you were leaving earlier than I was, and then you could just come and get Jonny. And in between, I can have one of the animal techs make sure our boy here doesn’t have any embarrassing ‘accidents.’”

That really sounded as if it was the far better choice in her opinion, but again, she felt as if it would definitely be putting him out.

“Wouldn’t they mind?” she asked, adding, “Wouldn’t
you
mind?”

“No and no,” Christopher answered. He leaned against the side of her vehicle as he laid out his new plan for her. “I passed around those pastries you dropped off the other day and if you’re willing to supply the staff with them, say once a week or so, I
know
that they’d be more than happy to pitch in and get Jonny here potty trained,” he guaranteed.

Since they were still talking, he opened the front passenger door to allow air to circulate through the vehicle for the Labrador. At the same time, he placed his body in the way so that the puppy couldn’t come bounding out and escape.

“You’re serious?” Lily asked.

She could feel herself growing hopeful again. This last idea was infinitely appealing—and it meant she wouldn’t have to feel guilty about putting the puppy into a cage just to keep her house from turning into one giant puppy latrine.

“Completely,” Christopher replied with no reservations.

“Then it’s a deal,” she declared.

“Great. I’ll alert the staff to start looking for new clothes one size larger than they’re wearing right now,” he said with a straight face. Only his eyes gave him away.

“You don’t have to do that,” Lily told him, waving away the suggestion.

To which he asked, “You’ve changed your mind about baking?”

There was no way that was about to happen. She absolutely loved baking, especially for an appreciative audience.

“Oh, no, it’s not that,” she said, dismissing his suggestion. “But I can duplicate the recipe and make a low-fat version—they’ll never notice the difference—and nobody will need bigger clothing.”

He appreciated what she was trying to do, but in his opinion, “lighter” was never “better.” For that matter, it wasn’t even as good as what it was supposed to be substituting.

“You say that now, but I can always tell the ‘light’ version of anything,” he told her. “It never tastes the same.”

Lily studied him for a long moment. Her expression was unreadable. And then he saw humor overtaking the corners of her mouth, curving it. “Are you challenging me?”

Christopher took measure of her. She meant well, but as an opponent, she was a lightweight.

“Not in so many words but, well, yes, maybe I am,” he conceded.

Lily squared her shoulders. For the first time since she had come into his animal hospital, she looked formidable. It surprised him.

“Okay,” Lily said with a nod of her head, “you’re on. I’ll bake my usual way, and then arbitrarily I’ll make a batch of substitutes, and I defy you to definitively say which is which.”

“You have a deal,” he readily agreed, confident he’d win. He took her hand and shook it.

It was done as a matter of course, without any sort of separate, independent thought devoted to it. But the moment his strong fingers enveloped hers, she could have sworn she felt some sort of current registering, a shot akin to electricity suddenly coursing through her veins from the point of contact.

Her breath caught in her throat for the second time that day.

Out of nowhere, she suddenly caught herself wondering if he was going to kiss her.

The next second, she hastily dismissed the thought, silently asking herself if she was crazy. People didn’t kiss after making what amounted to day boarding arrangements for their pet. That wasn’t how these situations played themselves out.

Was it?

Clearing her throat, as if that somehow helped her shake off the thoughts swarming through her brain and turning up her body temperature to an almost alarming degree, Lily dropped the veterinarian’s hand. She took a step back. She would have taken a few more, but her car was at her back, blocking any further retreat on her part.

“Do you still want to come over?” she heard herself asking in an almost stilted voice. “To start housebreaking him?”

Her mouth had gone completely dry by the end of the sentence.

“Unless you’ve changed your mind,” Christopher qualified. He’d felt it, too, felt the crackle of electricity between them, felt a sudden longing in its wake that had left him a little shaken and unsteady. He was definitely attracted to this woman, but it was more than that. Just what, he wasn’t sure.

Yet.

“No, I haven’t,” Lily heard herself saying.

Her own voice echoed in her head as if it belonged to someone else. Part of her, the part that feared what might be ahead of her, wanted to run and hide, to quickly thank him for his trouble and then jump into her car in order to make a hasty retreat.

But again, that would be the coward’s way out.

What was she afraid of? Lily demanded silently. She was a grown woman who had been on her own for a while now, a grown woman who knew how to take care of herself. There was no one else to step up, no one else to take up her cause or fight any of her battles for her, so she had to stick up for herself. She was all she had to rely on and so far, she’d managed just fine—with a little help from Theresa.

Making up her mind, she decided that yes, she did want him to come over. She wanted his help—and if anything else developed along the way, well, she’d face it then and handle it.

“Let me give you my address in case we get separated,” Lily said to him, taking a very small notepad out of her purse. Finding a pen took a couple of minutes longer, but she did and then she began to write down her address.

“Separated?” he questioned. “How fast do you intend to be driving?” he couldn’t help asking.

“Not that fast,” Lily assured him. “But there are always traffic lights turning red at the most inopportune time, impeding progress. I might make it through a light, but you might not, that sort of thing.” Finished, she handed the small piece of paper to him. “Can you read it?” she asked. “My handwriting is pretty awful.”

He looked down at the paper—and laughed. “You think this is bad? You should see the way some of my friends write—it’s enough to make a pharmacist weep,” Christopher told her with another laugh.

Glancing one last time at the address she’d written down for him, he folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “Just let me get to my car before you start yours,” he told her. “I’ll take it from there.”

“Okay,” Lily answered gamely.

She rounded the back of the vehicle—Jonathan eyeing her every move—and got in behind the steering wheel. Buckling up, she not only remained where she was until Christopher got to his car but waited until he started the vehicle and pulled out of the row where he had been parked, as well.

Only then did she turn her key in the ignition, back out and head for the exit. Within less than a minute, she was on the thoroughfare leading away from the dog park.

Lily glanced in her rearview mirror to make sure that Christopher was following her.

He was.

Meanwhile, Jonathan had taken to pacing back and forth on the seat behind her as she drove them home. Each time she came to a stop at an intersection light, even when she rolled into that stop, Jonathan would suddenly and dramatically pitch forward.

After emitting a high-pitched yelp that sounded like it could have easily doubled for a cry for help, the puppy apparently decided it was safer for him to lie low, which he did. He spread himself out as far as he could on the backseat and seemed to all but make himself one with the cushion.

“It’s not far now,” Lily promised the Labrador, hoping that if he didn’t understand the words, at least the sound of her calm voice would somehow help soothe him.

If it did—and she had her suspicions that it might have because he’d stopped making those strange, whiny noises—the effect only lasted until she pulled up in her driveway some fifteen minutes later.

The second she put the vehicle into Park and got out, Jonathan was up on all fours again, pacing along the backseat—when he wasn’t sliding down because of a misstep that sent his paws to the floor.

Since she had kept the windows in the back partially open, she didn’t immediately open the rear door to let him out. Instead, she waited for Christopher to pull up alongside of her vehicle. She felt that he could handle the Labrador far better than she could. For one thing, the man was a lot stronger.

The minutes began to slip away, banding together to form a significant block of time.

When Christopher still didn’t show up, she began to wonder if he had somehow lost sight of her. She’d stopped looking in the rearview mirror around the time when Jonathan’s head was in her direct line of vision, blocking out everything else.

And then she realized that it didn’t really matter if Christopher had lost sight of her car or not. She’d given him her address, so even if he had lost sight of her vehicle he still should have been pulling up in her driveway by now.

Since he wasn’t, she took it as a sign that he’d changed his mind about coming over.

The more the minutes ticked away, the more certain she became that she was right. Somewhere along the route, he had obviously decided that he had given her enough of his time.

She felt a strange sensation in her stomach, as if it was puckering and twisting.

Why his sudden change of heart left her feeling let down, she didn’t know. After all, it wasn’t as if this was a date or anything. The man had already been extremely helpful, getting her started on the proper way to train her dog, and she was very grateful for that. No reason to be greedy, Lily silently insisted. The man had already gone over and above the call of duty.

Jonathan began to whine, bringing her back to her driveway and the immediate situation. She was allowing her disappointment to hijack her common sense.