Waiting for Your Love (Echoes of the Heart) (2 page)

“Don’t scold me,” she said into her smartphone. “I could take that right now from anyone but you.”

Conrad had known her the longest. Since before she and Nicole had swapped lunches in first grade. Or she and Bethany had met in middle school art class.

Clair and Conny’s mothers had become close when they were pregnant. He and Clair had spent most summer mornings as toddlers playing in her palatial sandbox, beneath the shady magnolia tree that had grown even more massive in the last twenty-five years.

Since those safe, early moments of their memories, he’d remained an unfiltered, nonjudgmental witness to her family’s well-bread, genteel dysfunction. Lately she’d been there for him in return, when he’d needed someone the most. Their friendship was eternal. The most important of her life. And that would just have to be enough for her.

What was she saying?

It was already everything.

He inhaled, long and loud. “I’m sure by the time you present yourself at your parents’
casa
on the eighteenth green, you’ll be spiffed up and putting the rest of the shiny, happy Summervilles to shame.”

“Damn straight.” Clair gave Matilda’s head a cathartic pet, running her fingers through warm, damp fur.

Poignant memories sparked of her long-deceased Winston, a West Highland terrier that had followed Clair home from school one day and owned her heart from that moment on. The doberman Clair was boarding for the night—if that’s what you could call the custom, one-on-one care she and her ALL PAWS associates provided through her wildly popular PAWSMatch app—offered a companionable lick that Clair would miss tomorrow when she returned Matilda to her owner.

She grew too attached to her charges. It was an occupational hazard of caring short-term for an ever-revolving menagerie of other people’s creatures. Still, her business surrounded her daily with unconditional love. Without her needing to own as many of the furry, feathered, scaled, and slithering creatures as she’d want to otherwise.

And now ALL PAWS and PAWSMatch could be her exciting future. A total do-over, once she got her head around the idea of building a life away from Chandlerville. And away from Conrad.

Assuming she didn’t let herself be sidetracked by her mother’s misgivings over the business deal that had dropped into Clair’s lap a little over a month ago. A too-good-to-be-true offer that she’d so far shared only with her family.

“I need to go.” Before she dumped the whole mess in Conrad’s lap, and kept him up all night obsessing over what she should do. “I have to take Tilda home in the morning before I can break free for the barbecue. My crew’s keeping the rest of the business going while I’m off for the day. But Janie York only trusts Tilda with me. When she PAWSMatched me last-minute, she said she was fine with wherever I was going tonight. As long as Tilda could tag along, while Janie last-minute watches her deathly-allergic-to-dogs granddaughter.”

And of course Clair had said yes.

Her business had expanded now to four pet-service storefronts, in as many North Georgia counties. Plus three kennel locations where pets that were less high-maintenance than Matilda could be boarded. Each ALL PAWS location, plus the bonded, insured, and carefully trained associates providing PAWSMatch services to clients looking for more customized care, were running at maximum capacity. It had been exhilarating the last few years, watching her vision for her company soar beyond her wildest expectations. Exhilarating, all-consuming,
and
exhausting.

“Lord,” she said, knowing Conrad would listen and understand, even if she hadn’t found a way yet to let him in on the full scope of what she was dealing with. “I don’t think I remember what
not
being tired feels like.”

Conrad started rustling around.

“Hang tight,” he said. “Let me get Harper into his car seat. We’ll be there in fifteen.”

“Don’t wake him, Conny.” She could hear her friend stumbling about, presumably pulling clothes on. She swallowed at the unintended visual. “I’m sorry about all this. Really, I’ll be fine.”

“You bet you will be”—keys jangled—“because you’re staying put until we get there.”

“But—”

“No worries. I may want to wring your neck sometimes. But I’ll always have your back, Summerville. There in ten.”

“But I can call someone el—” She was arguing with herself. The cell connection had dropped.

She tossed her phone into her purse.

“No worries,” she repeated to Matilda.

As long as on the short ride home with Conrad, Clair managed not to make even more of a mess of her Independence Day.

“No pining for a future with a guy who’s never going to pine back,” she reminded her four-legged companion. “It’s time to move on.”

It had
been
time, since Conrad had returned to Chandlerville. He’d needed their friendship. And she’d have done anything to help him—including hiding how increasingly difficult it was to protect her heart whenever he was around. But it had been three years now, he still had no idea that her feelings for him had changed, and she was exhausted keeping up the charade.

Things were finally settling down for him and his little boy. Now it was her turn to get her life situated.

Even if that situation turned out to be several hundred miles away.

“Pretty,” Harper announced.

He was squished into the backseat of Conrad’s four-door Jeep Wrangler, next to the soggy Matilda. The pooch had refused to settle herself in the back. She’d instead perched like a Queen on the passenger seat behind Clair, and hadn’t stopped barking until Conrad rolled down her window so she could hang her regal head out.

He smiled at the drenched goddess settled beside him in the front.

“Beautiful,” he concurred from behind the wheel.

“Puppy, Daddy. Puppy! Keep him?”

“We can visit her again in the morning, buddy, before Clair takes her home.”

No matter how many times Harper and Matilda met—whenever Clair kept the full-bred doberman for Janie, and Clair made a point of inviting Harper over—Conrad never managed to convince his five-year-old that the enormous dog was a female.

Clair turned her head and showered the backseat with the smile that had been turning men to mush for decades.

“Come anytime before ten,” she chirped, with hardly a trace of slush in her voice. “I’ll have to give Tilda a bath before I take her home, and you know how much messy fun that can be.”

“Yay!” Harper cheered in Conrad’s rearview mirror.

“Yay,” Conrad mimicked with less enthusiasm. He kept his focus on navigating back across the Millers’ night-darkened Bermuda-grass field. “And who exactly is going to help
me
bathe my offspring, once you two are done having you fun?”

Clair waved away his crankiness and thudded her head against the backrest, her eyes closing.

“Just take him to the park for the rest of the morning, the way you always do on Saturday. He’ll fit right in with the other munchkins. I’ll make an appearance at my mom’s”—she groaned—“and then I’ll swing by and help get Harper spick-and-span. I’ll even bring my dog brushes for those extra-grubby nooks and crannies.”

Harper giggled at the prospect.

“I’ll stay as long as you need me tomorrow afternoon…” Clair promised, her voice trailing off.

How about staying forever?
Conrad barely stopped himself from asking out loud.

“Assuming,” she added, “that I don’t do myself an injury dealing with my family.”

“It’s a barbecue,” he reminded her, “not a date with the devil.”

The truth was, Clair’s family meant everything to her, even if her mom and sister didn’t understand the choices she’d made for her life. Even if her father, president of Chandlerville Community Bank, was never around enough to care much what any of them did.

She stuck by, and stuck close to the ones she loved. Which made her as beautiful to Conrad on the inside as she was on the surface to everyone else. Clair loved and wanted to care for every creature that crossed her path. Two- or four-legged.

Case in point—the way she’d been there for him and Harper since Amanda’s death.

“I really am sorry about this.” She sighed into the breeze streaming through her own open window. The rain had let up. Her smile of apology tugged at his heart. “I’m heinous, waking you guys up.”

She was a jewel he’d gladly drag himself out of bed to help every night of his life. Even when the bedrock of their friendship seemed to be shifting in a precarious way he couldn’t get a handle on.

“I’m not sure who needs to be de-grimed with a garden hose more,” he commiserated. “You or puppy-breath back there.”

Matilda the magnificent took up more of the backseat than Harper. She was currently licking her manicured, flamingo-pink toenails.

“Me.” Clair’s sweet scent reached for Conrad. “Though I suspect you’d need a fire hose instead.”

He grinned. “Happy to oblige.”

“No doubt.” She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, facing him as she curled up. “Just not tonight. Any other night I’ll let you humiliate me to your heart’s content. But you’ll only get one free shot before I retaliate.”

“Darlin’, one’s all I’ll need.”

Her breathing evened out. Harper’s, too. By the time Conrad headed down the rural highway that would take them back to Chandlerville, every creature in the car but him was dozing. He brushed his fingers across the downy softness of Clair’s cheek, indulging himself.

She’d feel like rot in the morning. She almost never drank enough to lose control. She had too much to do each day to tussle with a hangover, too.

She was miraculous with animals—grooming, exercising, entertaining, training, and generally loving them all with such genuine enjoyment, the poor creatures couldn’t help but adore her back. And their owners were whipped, too. PAWSMatch, Clair’s brainchild, was a runaway successful digital app that matched owners and pets with chosen, go-to sitters and caregivers. And any time Clair had free from running ALL PAWS, she happily filled with providing one-on-one concierge services to select “clients” like Matilda.

She loved it. She thrived on the constant pace of it. But no matter how easy she made it look, or how much she enjoyed her career, she worked as many grueling hours as he did in his four eighteen-hour shifts a week as an ER attending—putting in his time mostly at night, so his days were free to be with Harper.

Matilda barked in her sleep, jolting Clair, who surfaced while the backs of Conrad’s fingers were still stroking her face. Cornflower-blue eyes widened. He covered by wiping a smudge of dirt off the bridge of her nose. Then he glued his attention to the road.

“You’re a mess, Clair Bear,” he said with an easy chuckle.

“Only with you,” she murmured.

He liked the sound of that. He liked it even better when she leaned over to snuggle against his side and drifted back to sleep.

They needed to talk. Things had gotten entirely too strained between them the last few weeks. Something was going on with her. And it wasn’t just that Barbara Summerville was on even more of a wacky matchmaking tear than usual.

Clair was clearly upset and trying to shoulder it alone, the way she handled everything. She hadn’t even wanted his help tonight, beyond babbling to him over the phone. Well, this time he was going to insist that she fill him in. Tomorrow. When he was clearheaded enough not to want to pull his no-serious-relationships-
EVER
friend close, and suggest that maybe
alone
wasn’t right for either of them anymore.

He glanced from the road to the rearview mirror.

Matilda’s head now rested in Harper’s lap. Conrad’s son looked as if he’d fallen off a cliff: arms and legs spread wide, his head turned at an odd angle, his mouth open. He was sleeping the sleep of happy kids who were all go, all the time. Until the switch flipped and they seemingly dropped wherever they stood or sat, dead to the world.

Savoring the microblip harmony of the moment, Conrad reached for Clair’s hand and willed his own drooping eyelids to stay open. They sped down the highway just shy of Chandlerville’s city limits. In no time he’d pulled to the curb of Clair’s quaint, fifties-era midcentury ranch.

The modest-size place was perfect for her, she’d proclaimed when he’d first moved back to town and commented on how tiny her home was compared to the palace she’d grown up in. She’d insisted there was just enough space for one person to spread out without feeling claustrophobic. With a generous enough backyard that she could keep a dog or two kenneled overnight, when her PAWSMatch clients needed it.

Meanwhile Conrad and his son were rattling around in a two-story brick colonial that was starting to feel more like a mistake than the haven he’d hoped it would be. It was exactly the sort of place Amanda would have loved. But it was too big from him and Harper alone. Especially when the kid would rather spend every waking moment at Clair’s.

“You’ve arrived, my queen.” He nudged her with the arm that had fallen asleep beneath her slight weight.

Pinpricks shot through him. From fresh blood flow.
Not
from the sweet friction of her snuggling in tighter against him.

“Mfgrhmp…” she groused.

He put more effort behind tugging his arm away. “Clair.”

She clung like the burrs that had attached themselves to his and Clair’s clothes when they’d played out in the Millers’ meadow as children. He smoothed back her almost-dry bangs and kissed her forehead, meaning it as a friendly gesture. Another zing of sensation shot down his torso to a region of his anatomy undeniably eager to be friendly.

He cursed softly.

“Summerville!” he whispered, checking to make certain Harper was still out. “Don’t make me go all caveman on you. Wake up. I’ll cart you inside if I have to.”

“Don’t go, Conny.” She gifted him with a dreamy smile, but her eyes never opened.

He frowned.

Had she snuggled like this with Don, with Travis?

None of which was Conrad’s concern.

She’d called tonight for help, and he’d grabbed at the chance to be there for her. But his feeling jealous of either of the recent men in her life—Travis especially, who’d been a lifelong friend—wasn’t going to warm her up to the idea of opening up to Conrad about what the heck had been bugging her.

He gazed down at the woman who, even muddy, was entirely too adorable for his peace of mind. He didn’t have the heart to shake her until she was awake enough for him to steer inside. He kissed the top of her head instead, his lips lingering on the blond curls flowing around her perfect features like cool, living silk.

Unaware of what he was doing until it was too late—at least, that was the story he’d tell himself in the morning—he deposited a second kiss on the plump curve of her upper lip, a third at the corner of her mouth, and a final offering on her cheek. She inched closer, free and open in her sleep, her lips branding his neck with the softness of a butterfly’s wings.

“It’s a good thing we have an understanding, beautiful girl,” he whispered. “Or I’d have fallen for you years ago.”

Friends forever
, they’d promised each other when they were little older than Harper.
No matter what.
And ever since he’d returned to town after his wife’s death, romantic entanglements had been the last thing Clair had wanted in her life. Or so she kept insisting.

She settled more fully against his chest now, practically in his lap. And he let her. Leaning back, looking up through the Jeep’s open sunroof, he stared at the still-cloudy night.

He was a pragmatist, the later-in-life son of a retired Marine coronel, an ex–Special Forces hero who’d lived hard and hadn’t made it to Conrad’s second birthday. For years afterward, Conrad had dreamed of being just like the father he couldn’t remember.

He’d read every book on the military and watched every documentary he could find, determined to become the kind of warrior his dad would have been proud of. And maybe he had, even after medicine became his passion. Now his early study of combat tactics served other areas of his life—never more so than after he’d lost Amanda to a fast-moving cancer that had left her only a few short months after it was discovered.

Steady as the mountain
, Sun Tzu proclaimed in
The Art of War
.

From boyhood onward, that’s what Conrad had taught himself to be: steady. He’d conquered insurmountable things over the years—like surviving his wife’s death and making a new life on the other side of it for their son. He’d stayed focused on what was real and important, and had navigated himself and those he cared about through whatever challenges stood between them and where they needed to be.

Cuddling Clair closer, he’d never been more certain that his
next
test was figuring out whatever was going on between the two of them. Her hand settled trustingly over his heart. He covered it with his own. He closed his eyes as the warmth of her body soaked through his T-shirt. He told himself to ignore the riot of awareness scorching him from head to toe.

When he felt himself dozing, he figured what harm would it do—catching a short nap before rousting the lot of them?

“Tomorrow,” he measured out in a soft voice.

Tomorrow was soon enough to push for answers. Maybe even to ask Clair if she’d felt the same alarming, exciting things he had, shifting their relationship into uncharted territory. He had no way of knowing until he asked her. And even then, she might continue to put him off and pretend everything was fine. But regardless of what she said, there was one thing he’d always make certain she knew.

“I’ve got your back, my beautiful Clair Bear,” he promised as everything but her touch slipped away. “Nothing’s going to change that, ever.”