TAKE A CHANCE ON ME

by Susan Donovan

  "She got out under the fence again," the woman said. "We called and called, then went out searching and found her by Frederick Road

  . There's so much traffic there."

  "Do they have her in surgery now?"

  She nodded. "The vet already told us not to keep our hopes up. There was a lot of…" The woman's voice broke and she began sobbing. Her husband's arm went around her and he completed her sentence.

  "Internal injuries, you know."

  Emma knew all too well what happened when a Shih Tzu met a Subaru. She gripped the woman's hand while she cried.

  She'd seen countless people grieve for their pets over the years, from macaws to Mastiffs. When a pet died, the sense of loss was profound, pure, and uncomplicated. The intensity of the bond between animal and human would forever awe her.

  "I know the vets here will do whatever they can to save Leonora." Emma made eye contact with both the woman and her husband. "But when an animal's injuries are so severe that there's no chance for any quality of life—I'm afraid the most humane thing to do is to stop the suffering."

  The man nodded grimly.

  "She must be a very special dog," Emma said.

  The woman's back straightened and she smiled. "Oh, yes! Leonora's the most wonderful dog we've ever had! She's our third Shih Tzu—only two years old."

  The husband reached for his wallet and flipped it open. "Here she is."

  He placed a worn brown wallet in Emma's palm, open to a professional studio portrait of a happy little ball of gray fluff. She couldn't help but smile.

  "She's a cutie—and I bet feisty, too. Shih Tzus can be a real handful."

  The couple began to laugh in agreement, just as Thomas returned.

  Emma watched him pass silently through the door and stop, posing like a Viking god in Nikes with no socks, his trusty wheezing sidekick tucked against his side.

  Thomas scanned Emma's face, dragged his eyes to where her hand grasped the old woman's, then locked his eyes on hers.

  And it happened.

  Emma inhaled sharply. Time slammed to a halt. Tectonic plates shifted. Because Thomas Tobin just grinned at her.

  He obviously tried to suppress it, but the smile lasted long enough to make his eyes glitter like Christmas tree tinsel and create two deep, heart-stopping dimples at either side of his mouth.

  No, this was not exactly the way she'd always imagined it would be—and she'd certainly pictured herself better dressed for the occasion—but who was she to complain?

  Emma Jenkins had just officially been swept off her feet.

  * * *

  There was something way too intimate about this, he decided. It felt foolhardy. Dangerous.

  It must be because it was the middle of the night, and as he'd seen often enough, the night could conjure up a false sense of intimacy between complete strangers.

  Why else would he be sitting in an empty diner drinking coffee and eating blueberry pancakes with a woman he hardly knew, listening to her share details about her life? Why else would he be lulled into telling her anything about his own life? He'd never do that sort of thing in the daylight.

  Day or night, in fact, Thomas couldn't remember ever having a conversation like this with a woman he'd just met. He and Emma had been all over the map in the last two hours—college, family, hobbies, work (he'd managed to be sufficiently vague about his job so far), and now she was laughing nervously and explaining that just when she'd decided to separate from her husband, her best friend out in California died and left her kid to Emma to raise.

  She tucked a shiny section of hair behind an ear, wiped a drop of coffee off her upper lip with the tip of her finger, and he couldn't take his eyes off her even if he wanted to—even if she had a kid and was on the rebound from a divorce. He simply couldn't stop looking at her.

  He'd decided she was more than pretty—she was beautiful. Her hair was thick and straight and fell loose over the top of her shoulders and gleamed under the light fixture above their booth, browns and golds and reds moving in waves, almost as if her hair was alive, breathing when she breathed.

  Her eyes were the most delicate blue he'd ever seen. It struck him as ridiculous, but her eyes reminded him of the fuzzy zip-up baby thing he bought for Jack when he was born. Pam put Petey in it when he came along two years later, and the color kept getting softer with all the washing. He remembered how his nephews had felt solid but fragile tucked into his arms, how sweet they smelled after a bath, how new.

  Thomas tore his gaze away and stared out the dark window, his heart beating too fast, his chest hollowed out with a sudden sense of emptiness. He looked at Emma again, because he had to.

  Her lashes and brows were an almost-black brown, a strange and striking contrast with her light, sleepy eyes. Her nose and cheeks were splattered with faint freckles. As she talked, he studied her mouth, the slight crooked overlap of her two front teeth that struck him as intensely sexy, the way her dark red bottom lip was plumper than the top, the little dip at the center of her upper lip that disappeared when she smiled—which seemed to be all the damn time.

  He knew she wasn't wearing lipstick—there wasn't a trace of it on the rim of her white coffee cup. She wasn't wearing any makeup at all, in fact. No fingernail polish. No jewelry. No perfume, just a baseline floral scent that probably came from her shampoo.

  She was all natural. All real. And he'd like to rub his hands all over her.

  "So, financially, it was a total mess. We invested in the practice as a couple and I guess he deserved his piece, but now I'm in debt up to my armpits and carrying a good portion of the patient load we used to share. Some of the patients did follow Aaron to Annapolis, though."

  Her voice was rich with occasional low tones that sounded soothing to Thomas.

  "Do you see him often?" he asked.

  Emma shrugged. "I saw him Monday—at the lawyer's office. We signed the divorce papers." She waved a hand as if to clear the air. "And occasionally we talk on the phone about cases because we're the only two behaviorists in the region right now. It's kind of a new field—only thirty board-certified practitioners in the country."

  "Do you miss him?"

  She grimaced, then nodded. "Sure. Sometimes a lot, but there were things that I…" she looked away, not finishing her thought.

  Thomas waited. He knew exactly what was coming next.

  Emma turned back and smiled. "It was for the best. Let's just leave it at that."

  Now that was a surprise. It was clear that this Aaron guy was a real dick-head, but Emma hadn't said one bad thing about him. Nothing. He'd assumed the name-calling was about to start. He'd prepared himself to hear Emma's particular take on the standard male offenses: he was a player; he was unable to communicate; he was a lying, cheating idiot; he did nothing but watch televised sports; he used me as a sex object.

  But all Emma had done so far was smile and recite the essentials: they met in an undergraduate zoology course, dated through college, lived together all through vet school, got married in residency, and planned to build a practice and a life together.

  Then it fell apart.

  The fact that she'd spared him the gory details was so grown-up—and showed such a sense of basic decency—that it was damn near startling.

  "What's your little girl's name?" he asked.

  Emma's face blossomed with the most perfect smile Thomas had ever seen. "Her name is Elizabeth—we call her Leelee. She's twelve, and she's the smartest and bravest kid on the planet."

  The intensity of her response—of her love—startled him. It embarrassed him. He looked away.

  That's when he noticed the flutter of a pointy pink ear under Emma's elbow, the only indication that Hairy had accompanied them. The dog had been perfectly silent, tucked down into the well of Emma's baggy sweatshirt, nestled up just below her breasts, sleeping against her belly.

  He swallowed hard. Damn dog—how'd he get there first?

  "And what about you, Thomas?" Emma tilted her hea
d and grinned, her heavy hair swirling with the movement. "You haven't said much about your job, but right now I've got to tell you, I'm not buying the consultant story. I'm thinking Secret Service, maybe. I can just see you skulking around the White House Rose Garden whispering into your lapel."

  "My lapel?"

  "Yeah, you know, 'Sector Four Clear, sir!'" She tossed back her head and laughed, her eyes closing in enjoyment.

  Thomas took another swig of his coffee and stared at her, amused, then suddenly annoyed. What was he doing here with this woman? He should say goodbye right now, before he spent any more time with her, before he started thinking crazy thoughts. Before he started liking her.

  Besides, he was going to be dragging if he didn't get at least a couple hours of sleep. In just five hours he had one of those Saturday-morning "bagel bashings" at the office. Shit. And he had a match later in the afternoon. Shit. He was thirty-seven years old—way too old to stay up all night and then try to play rugby. It was a sure way to get himself killed.

  Those were real good reasons to call it a night. But he couldn't. He wanted to look at Emma's smile, hear her laugh, fantasize that maybe she was as decent as she seemed. He needed to live the lie just a little longer. Maybe just a few more minutes.

  "And what makes you say that, Emma?" He watched her hand go unconsciously to Hairy's head, where she caressed the dog's little Don King clump of hair.

  She had the sweetest hands, tapered and smooth and sure. He remembered the sight of her with the old couple in the waiting room, so kind when the vet broke the news that their dog had died. Her voice had been comforting and soft. She'd held the old woman's hand.

  "I'm an animal behaviorist, Thomas, and human beings are animals just like Hairy, here. So I've gotten pretty good at reading people."

  You and me both, babe, he thought. "Like you're reading me now?"

  She gave him a Mona Lisa smile and tilted her head. "A lot of times I have to start with the pet owner before I can help the pet, so yes, I've been observing you."

  "And how do you do that?"

  Emma grinned at him again. He wished she'd stop doing that because her grin had a hypnotic effect on him, making him feel like he was falling down some kind of spinning vortex.

  "Mmm." Emma leaned back in her booth, still cradling Hairy against her. "Have you ever read any Agatha Christie? Do you know the character Miss Marple?"

  "I think so."

  "Well, when I was a kid, I couldn't read those books fast enough—I just inhaled them one after another. And the thing that intrigued me the most was how Miss Marple could peg a person just by watching their mannerisms."

  Thomas was starting to sweat a little. They had more in common than she could possibly know. "Really?"

  "Facial expressions. Body postures. Tone of voice—all the indirect ways people communicate with each other. Sometimes the words being said and the posturing taking place are at opposite extremes—but it's the indirect communication that always tells the truth." She shrugged softly, still stroking Hairy. "As it turned out, I ended up being the Miss Marple of the dog and cat world—an expert in animal communication—which never relies on words."

  As she spoke, Thomas analyzed how he was sitting. He tried to relax his shoulders and listen attentively but not too enthusiastically. He mentally calculated the position of his hands, eyebrows, chin.

  She laughed again, her powder-blue eyes glittering. "But don't let me scare you, Thomas."

  Vortex time again. Thomas lowered his eyes to Emma's baggy Penn sweatshirt in an effort to avoid her gaze. That turned out to be a mistake, because her body nearly screamed out that she was soft and round and female and within arm's reach. The arch of her throat was graceful. Her wrists were small and elegant. He could see her substantial, firm breasts move with each breath. If she was trying to hide, she'd failed. Maybe it was impossible to hide something so lovely.

  Just then, Emma reached under the shiny fall of hair to rub the back of her neck and roll her head around. Thomas peeked up to watch, and began to imagine what it would be like to cup her head in his hands when she did that, maybe while she writhed beneath him, moaning his name.

  He needed to regain control of this conversation, which should not be a problem, since it was his forte.

  "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not a Secret Service agent or a spy or anything even remotely glamorous. I'm just a lawyer who specializes in human resources—your basic paper pusher."

  Emma narrowed her eyes and Thomas could see the doubt behind the pretty blue irises—she wasn't falling for it. This woman was beautiful, sweet, funny, and smart as hell. Thomas was afraid he might be hyperventilating.

  "Uh-huh. Just like it says on your new-patient questionnaire." She took a sip of coffee. "So, do you like your work?"

  Thomas shrugged casually, trying not to picture the last few times he'd posed as a killer for hire. He tried not to see the pimply seventeen-year-old who gave him six dollars in change and a PlayStation II game to kill his chess team nemesis. Or the guy who needed his wife's fifty-thousand-dollar life insurance policy to buy a Camaro with a sunroof and drive his new girlfriend to Disney World. Or the housewife who got down on her knees in front of his chair and began to unzip his pants, saying she didn't have the money for a hired killer but knew another way she could pay him for his services.

  Emma's question echoed in his ears—do I like my job? Sure he did—what's not to like? He prevented the loss of human life. He got scum off the street and behind bars. And the dozen or so people in the world who knew how he made a living told him he was at the top of his game.

  "I absolutely love my job."

  "And what do you like best about it?"

  "The people," Thomas said. "I get to meet fascinating people."

  "Of course." Emma took another sip and peered at Thomas over the rim of her cup, clearly amused. "So do you have your own company or do you work with a group?"

  Thomas remembered that she was wearing shorts with that sweatshirt and that she had nice legs—not particularly long, but strong and smooth and shapely. No chicken legs on this woman. She said she rode horses—he could picture it. He could picture her riding a lot of things, like the front of his hips.

  "A group. We all have our specialties."

  "And what's your specialty, Thomas?" Her mouth quirked up provocatively.

  He felt a warm tingle shoot through his extremities, hitch a ride along his spine, and settle with a thud in his groin. He had to struggle to recall the details of his standard cover story. "Uh, whatever the situation calls for, really. But mostly I deal with downsizing decisions."

  "You axe people." It wasn't a question.

  "So to speak."

  Emma's eyebrows went up. "You're the guy they call in to do the boss's dirty work. A hired gun."

  At that pronouncement, Thomas laughed outright, a sound that shocked him as much as it did Emma. He couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed like that. It was so loud it woke up Hairy, and the dog's pointy little face popped up over the edge of the table and he yawned.

  "That's exactly right, Emma. I'm a hired gun."

  She frowned at him. "God, that sounds perfectly awful. No wonder you're so grumpy. I'd be in a bad mood too if I had to do that for a living."

  Thomas rubbed a hand over his mouth to wipe away his smile. "Yeah, I guess I'm a little rusty at being the life of the party. My best friend tells me that I've been about as much fun as nail fungus lately."

  She laughed, reaching across the table to touch Thomas's fingers where they clasped his coffee cup. She stroked him.

  Thomas stopped breathing. He stared down at his fingers under hers, his flesh changed yet unchanged, jumping from the contact yet perfectly still. He hadn't wanted her to do that, had he? He hadn't somehow asked her to touch him using some kind of damned indirect communication, had he?

  Emma probably touched everyone—the old woman in the waiting room for instance—and it didn't mean anything special. He raised
his eyes from their fingers to her face, and he nearly groaned at the tenderness in her expression. She couldn't possibly know how long he'd gone without this. She couldn't possibly know how much he wanted her.

  Dear God—he wanted her.

  Emma pulled her hand away and leaned back again, meeting his steady gaze. Her face was the loveliest thing he'd ever seen. He really needed to get the hell out of this restaurant.

  "Nail fungus?" Her smile was full of mischief. "You do know there's a cure for that, don't you?"

  Oh, God. Hell, yeah. He knew exactly what would cure him.

  "So what's the whole story of how you ended up with Hairy?" she asked. "I'm just dying to know about the 'flamboyant' guy and why he gave you his dog."

  Thomas cringed and finished off his coffee with one big gulp, looking around for the waitress. She was perched on a red vinyl stool at the empty lunch counter, her nose in a romance novel. "He was a friend," he answered, willing the waitress to look his way. She didn't. "He died and I took Hairy."

  "And do you plan to keep him?"

  When Thomas turned back to her, Emma was waiting for him. Her gaze was direct—no judgment, no criticism, just curiosity.

  "I can help you find a home for him if that's what you want to do," she said.

  Thomas stared at the top half of Hairy's face, now visible over the edge of the tabletop. The dog's perfectly round eyeballs looked as if they could pop from his bony skull at any, moment. But at least he wasn't wheezing anymore. Emma had been right about that—it was the cigar smoke. Back at VetMed, Hairy got a steroid shot and Thomas got a lecture about smoking cigars around the dog and a hundred and twenty-five bucks later they were merrily on their way.

  "…because I know a nice woman in Richmond who might be willing to…"

  Thomas was halfway listening to Emma, halfway looking at her breasts under the sweatshirt, halfway noticing how he was more than halfway hard just sitting across the table from her, wondering what the hell he was going to do with Hairy.

  The dog was a train wreck. A disaster. And he didn't even like dogs, let alone ugly, shrimpy, psychologically challenged ones. And now he couldn't even smoke his Cohibas in his own damn house because the dog had respiratory problems?