But despite the fact she felt better, she knew she couldn’t go through another broken heart. Taylor’s work came first. She suspected it always would. And based on the texts from Deborah and Felicia, she had competition. She couldn’t go through it again. She wouldn’t.
But, the worst part—the part she wouldn’t share with her friends, was deep down, she wanted to. She wanted to call Taylor and ask him to come over, her heart be damned, because she’d never felt the way he made her feel. Strong, smart, desirable. But she couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
“Okay,” Jane said, finally. “I get your reluctance now.”
Fiona sighed and patted her knee. “Too bad Gary screwed you over so bad. Taylor seems like a great guy.”
He was a great guy. Maybe the best. “He’s leaving,” she said again, more to herself than her friends.
“Yeah, you’ve said that,” Jane said.
“About a thousand times,” Fiona added.
A man in running clothes with a poodle wearing a rhinestone harness strode into the waiting room, door jingling in their wake. All three women stood.
“Hi, Mr. Perkins. Please sign in,” Jane said, taking her place behind the counter.
Fiona crouched down to scratch the perfectly groomed puffball of a poodle. “Hello, Brutus. How’s the ear infection?”
“Seems to be better,” the man said.
“We’re all about making things better.” Jane pushed a sign-in sheet toward the man while staring straight at Caitlin.
“Thank you,” Caitlin mouthed as she passed by her to go back to the kennel to fetch Beauregard for a walk. Her life may have turned upside down over the weekend, but dogs needed walking and she needed to stay busy. Otherwise, like last night, her mind would return to the weekend and her decision to cut it off cleanly with Taylor, which, at that moment, felt like as big a mistake as running off with Gary—and that said something.
…
Taylor grimaced at his rumpled, unshaven reflection in the elevator door and pushed the button. He’d dropped Beauregard off at Animal Attraction to make it easier on Caitlin, but regretted it already. Maybe if they’d seen each other again, she’d change her mind.
But where would that get him? Laid a few more times? He shook his head. No. It would get him in a tough place. He’d finally found someone he wanted to spend time with right as he was leaving. Maybe she was right and cutting it off cold turkey was the best way. It sure didn’t feel right. It felt fucking horrible.
He smelled his grandmother’s perfume the second the doors slid open on his floor. Shit. This was the last thing he needed right now. He turned to re-enter the elevator right as his apartment door opened. He froze.
“Don’t you dare,” his grandmother said. “Don’t you dare run from this.”
The elevator door slid shut and whirred to life as it sped away from him. She knew.
“You look surprised. It would take a fool—or your parents—not to notice.”
Like a kid about to be grounded, he shuffled into his apartment and went to the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee Grams had brewed. It was way too early for this.
“You look awful,” she remarked as he took a seat across from her at the dining table. The ring was in the center next to the wooden bowl where he’d left it last night. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“So am I.”
He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. He’d never lied to her before, and even though his intentions had been good, his fake engagement to Caitlin was still an outright lie.
“So, what are you going to do about it?” she asked.
He slid the ring across the table to her. “Give this back to you.”
There was a long, painful silence as she took a sip of coffee and stared at him over the lip of her cup. She didn’t touch or even look at the ring. She set her cup down into a saucer with a clink of china. She always drank her coffee out of frilly painted teacups. Delicate, beautiful, and timeless, like her marriage to his grandfather had been. Staring at his own cheap NFL commemorative mug, his stomach churned. He shouldn’t have lied to her. Not about love, anyway.
She rotated her cup so that the little pink flowers on one side faced her. “You can’t possibly be that stupid,”
Evidently, he could, because he didn’t have a clue in hell what she meant.
“Where’s Beauregard?”
“I dropped him off at Animal Attraction so Caitlin wouldn’t bump into me again.”
She leaned back in her chair and glared at him. “Okay. I take it back. You are that stupid. Off-the-chart stupid. Obviously somebody switched you at birth, because there’s no way you’re related to me.”
“She said she didn’t want to see me again.”
“And people always say exactly what they mean. She couldn’t possibly have said that to protect herself.”
“She said no. No is no. She didn’t want to see me.”
She stood. “You are full of prunes, Taylor. So is she. Have you called her?”
“No.”
“Texted?”
“No. She said she didn’t want to see me.”
“Is texting seeing?”
He ran a hand though his hair. “It’s not that simple.”
“See, but it is. You’re the one making it complicated. I watched the two of you all weekend. She’s crazy about you and you’re one step off of in love with her.”
He slumped against the back of his chair. He was pretty sure he’d closed that step sometime during the last night in the cabin, or maybe the following morning. Or maybe it was when she opened up to him about her asshole of an ex on the train and he got a good glimpse into who she really was. “I’m moving this weekend.”
“So what? Your grandfather and I were from different parts of the country when we met at Rock and Attie’s wedding. We made it work. And that’s before Skype, or the internet, or sexting.” She grinned. “We would have had a lot of fun with today’s technology.”
Taylor couldn’t help but smile. Still, she was wrong. Caitlin needed someone who was present. Someone who would put her first. “I’m not at a point in my life where I can do a relationship, Grams, no matter how awesome she is. I just got a promotion.”
She leaned forward in her chair and wagged a finger at him. “Step one, admit you have a problem. Step two, find a way to solve the problem.”
“I don’t have a problem.”
“Yes, you do.”
“What? A pain-in-the-butt nosey grandmother?”
“That’s your best asset, not a problem. Your problem is the trees.”
“Senile much?”
She laughed and threw a wadded-up napkin at him. “You can’t see the forest for the trees. All you see is your job and your immediate future. Look around. Look at the forest, Taylor. There’s a woman who loves you and a life that’s more than whirlybird propellers and money. What’s the point of all that hard work if you don’t have somebody to share the good times with? Hell, at this rate, boy, you won’t even have any good times.”
The weekend with Caitlin had been good. Really good.
“You know what I think?” she asked.
He didn’t answer because he knew she’d tell him what she thought whether he wanted to hear it or not.
She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “I think you’re scared, and you’re using that job as an excuse to not get attached.”
No way. That’s… His gut churned with unease. Well, fuck. That’s not far from the mark.
Her voice softened. “Do you like Caitlin?”
“Yes.”
“Wanna see her again?”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts. Find a way, Taylor. Trust me on this one. Find a way or you’ll regret it the rest of your life.” She stood and pushed her chair in. “I know special when I see it. What I saw between you two was special. You can always get another job. You can’t get another�
�special.” She shoved the ring back toward him. “Stop being stupid.”
Stunned, Taylor watched her put on her coat and leave, locking the door behind her with a decisive, metallic snick.
For the longest time he sat very still. The only sound was his breathing and the ticking of the clock in the kitchen. The apartment seemed abandoned and hollow without Beauregard. He looked over at his empty leash hook by the door, and his eye was caught by the ridiculous, glitter covered broom pole he and Caitlin had won. He folded his arms on the table and put his head down with a groan.
“Special,” he muttered under his breath. “Stop being stupid,” he said in a high-pitched imitation of Grams.
His phone by the coffee pot and his computer dinged simultaneously. His heart surged, hoping it was Caitlin. Squinting, he stared across the room at his computer screen. The text was from Jane.
Who the hell is Felicia?
Chapter Twenty-One
The week had passed in a blur. Caitlin had thrown herself completely into her CPA Exam prep course and her job. She’d spent her free time with Beau, who didn’t seem to mind boarding but didn’t enjoy playing with the other daycare doggies as much as she’d hoped. He had no clue what to do with them in the playroom. He was great when she took him to the large breed dog park, but the little yappy dogs boarded with him were foreign and too much. Caitlin totally got that. Jane and Fiona had taken on the energy of terriers for the last few days as they prepared for tonight’s fundraiser, yapping and jumping and whirling in a frenzy. It was exhausting. And she wasn’t sleeping well. Even though she was keeping her mind and body active all the time, thoughts of Taylor wove their way into her head at the worst times, like when she was trying to sleep. Or when she was asleep. Or…okay, when she was doing anything. She’d be relieved when this fundraiser was over and her scheduled, ordered life could go back to normal.
She opened the door of Animal Attraction, hoping things were calmer today than yesterday, since she and Fiona had finally finished the centerpieces for the fundraiser dining tables.
Her hopes for peace were dashed the second she stepped inside the waiting room. Boxes were stacked along the wall and pet carriers full of noisy animals stood in the middle of the room. At the counter, Jane was talking with Fiona, who wore jeans and a T-shirt instead of her vet scrubs and lab coat. Caitlin couldn’t hear what they were saying over all the meowing, barking and…clucking? Really? Yep. That was clucking coming from the carriers.
“Oh, Caitlin. Thank goodness you’re here. I need you to help Fiona take these crates to the venue,” Jane called over the animals.
“Fiooooona!” a nasal voice screeched from inside one of the pet carriers.
“A truck should pull up in ten minutes,” Jane yelled over the racket. “The venue was locked when the people from the shelter arrived to deliver the animals this morning, so they left them here instead.”
Caitlin surveyed the crates. There were only a dozen or so. Nothing she and Fiona couldn’t handle.
“Lemme go put my stuff down and say hello to Beau. I’ll be right back,” Caitlin said, heading around the counter. Jane held up a finger and said something, but Caitlin couldn’t hear her over the animal noises, which were mercifully muffled when the door shut behind her.
“Hey, big guy,” she said over her shoulder in the direction of the kennels. “Ready for a morning cuddle?” She hung her bag on the hook inside the door, then headed back to Beauregard’s kennel.
Everything stopped. Even the squawking and barking and meowing from the waiting room out front seemed to fade away as she stared at the empty kennel. Beau’s name was no longer on a card in the slot by the door.
Gone. He was gone and she hadn’t gotten to say goodbye. To either of them.
A horrible vice-like ache seized her chest. They’d moved to another city and there would never be a chance of bumping into each other now. She wrapped her fingers in the chain link of the empty kennel and pressed her palm to her aching chest. “It’s best this way,” she said to herself for the billionth time that week.
Liar, a tiny voice inside answered.
…
Taylor wiped a hand over his three-day stubble and knocked on Will Anderson’s office door.
“You look like shit,” Will said as Taylor stepped inside.
“Thanks.” He felt like shit, too. It was a good thing the new pilot they’d hired to take over the New York flights had stepped in, because Taylor hadn’t slept more than a few hours all week. For a moment, he lurked just inside the door, studying his friend. Will looked exactly like he had back when they’d served together. In fact, his hair was still in a military cut.
“You gonna stand there and stare at me, or do you plan to tell me what the hell is going on?” Will said. When Taylor didn’t respond, he gestured to a chair. “Sit down before you fall down.”
Taylor sat in one of the two wing chairs facing Will’s large, cluttered desk. Will ran security for Anderson Enterprises, which was a big job with all the pies their various companies had fingers in. One of them even dealt with the acquisition and sale of rare antiques and museum pieces. Most of the times he’d flown Michael Anderson around in the middle of the night had been for antique or art deals for that company.
He pulled the letter he’d written yesterday out of his pocket and placed it on the desk. As he withdrew his hand, he noticed his fingers were shaking. A quick glance at Will revealed he’d noticed, too. Shit. He’d eaten less than he’d slept, and it was clearly catching up with him.
His friend didn’t take the paper, but stared holes through him instead. After what felt like forever, Will leaned forward over his desk. “Talk,” he said. “Because I have no interest whatsoever in what’s on that piece of paper. I’m only interested in you, because buddy, something’s clearly fucked you up.”
Grams’s words ran through Taylor’s head as it had on continuous loop for days now. “You can always get another job. You can’t get another…special.” And she’d been right. Walking away from Caitlin right now was a much bigger risk than walking away from this job.
Taylor took a deep breath and launched into a much more detailed explanation than he’d planned. In fact, once he began, it snowballed into a nonstop monologue. It started with “There’s this woman,” and covered every reason he had to leave his job, including ridiculous hours, endless interruptions, and the need to stay in the city, circling right back around to “There’s this woman,” which seemed to be the center of everything right and wrong with him.
When he finished his speech/rant/embarrassing soul-baring, he looked across the desk to find Will with a weird expression on his face that Taylor read to be surprise, maybe? At least he wasn’t pissed.
Then, the corners of Will’s mouth turned up almost imperceptibly. “Okay. Now it makes sense,” he said. “Listen—”
Taylor stood. “No. Please, man. There’s nothing to talk about.” He gestured to the resignation letter on the desk. “Just let this stand.”
Will didn’t move for a moment as he studied him as if debating something. Then, he stood and circled out from behind his desk. “We’re still on for racquetball on Tuesday mornings, right?”
Taylor gave a relieved sigh. “Sure.”
“Cool. That gives you some time to get some sleep before I thrash you on the court.” He held out his hand and when Taylor shook it, he clapped him on the shoulder.
A few minutes later, on his way down to the lobby, Taylor leaned against the wood-paneled wall of the elevator and studied his reflection in the reflective brass doors. Will had been right. He did look like shit, but he didn’t feel like it anymore. He’d lost his job, but he hadn’t lost his friend. And maybe, if he was lucky, he hadn’t lost his chance for special.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The first guests for the animal shelter fundraising ball arrived five minutes early dressed in evening wear, but the Animal Attraction employees and volunteers were ready for them. Gorgeous, mismatched chandeliers fro
m Anderson Auctions had been loaned for the event and hung over each table, suspended from the ceiling of the warehouse on long chains shrouded in black velvet sleeves. The gauzy centerpieces Caitlin and Fiona had made from silver mesh and candle globes full of fairy lights looked perfect with the crisp, white tablecloths. A local hotel had donated servers, the catering, and table settings.
When Jane had announced that the event would be held in this empty warehouse, everyone, including the sponsors, thought she was crazy. As usual, her plan had been perfect. The dark floor, black walls, and high, black ceiling made the bright white and silver tables look magical under the sparkly chandeliers and gave a feeling of floating in space.
After a final walk-through of the dining area and dance floor, Caitlin took up her post near the room that housed the animals. They couldn’t be in the same room as the dinner because of some health code rules, but had been okayed since the room had a separate entrance and was apart from where food was served.
The animals had been transferred from their carriers to wire crates so that guests could get a good look at them. They weren’t here for the purpose of adoption, but for promotion and to inspire donations. Not that they wouldn’t accept offers to adopt.
“The dark-haired guy and woman in the gold gown are Michael and Mia Anderson,” Jane said from right next to her. “The couple that came in with them are Michael’s brother, Chance, and his wife, Gen. The Andersons donated—”
“The warehouse, tables, and chandeliers, I know,” Caitlin said with a smile. Jane talked when she was nervous. She also tended to trip and knock stuff over—an odd trait for someone so put-together. Fiona, on the other hand, shutdown completely in social situations, which is why she’d volunteered to babysit the animals from the shelter. At that moment, she was sitting on an empty crate playing a game on her phone, shutting all the commotion out. Caitlin envied her.
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