Dare to Stay (Puppy Love Romances Book 3)

by Georgia Beers

  Mostly one, she thought as they pulled into a parking spot at Junebug Farms. Mixing her work and her personal life was just bad judgment. Unprofessional, not to mention unethical. A reporter had to stay neutral. And yes, it was just a telethon, not a damning or exonerating interview, but still. Someday it would be hard-hitting journalism, and she didn’t want her behavior on some fluff piece from her past to come back to haunt her. Neutral was key. She’d let it go further than she should have last night, but the bottom line was that she’d stopped it. Right? That was the important part. Not how much she’d wanted that kiss—God, had she wanted that kiss—but that she’d stopped it before things went way beyond complicated. Determined that she’d made the right decision, she slid out of the Channel Six van and saw Anna St. John entering the front door of Junebug Farms. Luckily, Anna didn’t see her, and that was a good thing because Sydney wasn’t quite ready to deal with her yet. Not on top of everything else.

  “How do I get myself into these situations?” she asked softly.

  “What situations?” Connor asked, his eyes never leaving his tablet. “Telethons? News vans? Having a near-debilitating crush on your producer?” He looked up then and winked at her, the lenses of his glasses showing a subtle mist.

  “Ha ha. Not quite.” Sydney shouldered her bag and turned to walk with Connor toward the shelter, the crew to follow behind.

  “Okay, today we’ll rehearse the live stuff, give Jessica a few chances to wing it, see how she feels. Yeah?”

  Sydney nodded her agreement and let out a small sigh.

  “Everything all right?” Connor asked and Sydney genuinely appreciated his concern. She did her best to give him a small smile.

  “Yes. Everything’s fine.” Business. This is business. Three more days and she would be done with this. But the real question remained: could she get Jessica out of her head? Last night had surprised her. They seemed like a different pair of women when they weren’t talking about work or dealing with work or stuck in their work roles. Here at the shelter, Jessica was authoritative, in charge, formidable. Nobody with half a brain would mess with her when it came to the good of her shelter. But last night she’d been charming. And funny. And super sexy. And no matter what other complications factored in, she’d wanted to kiss Sydney last night. Sydney was sure of it.

  “Hey there, gorgeous.”

  Anna St. John seemingly appeared out of nowhere with her cheerful voice and bouncy ponytail, interrupting Sydney’s train of thought—which was probably a good thing. “Hi, Anna. How are you this morning?”

  “I’m great. I see it’s still misting out there.” She reached a hand toward Sydney and fussed with her hair before Sydney had a chance to duck out of the way. “I hope you brought Bridget with you,” she said with a wink. “The mist made your hair a little frizzy.”

  “It’s okay,” Sydney said, stepping back—she hoped—subtly. “We’re just rehearsing today.” She saw a tiny dimming of Anna’s smile before the wattage kicked back up again.

  “Oh, well that’s good. Less formal.” Anna’s eyes raked over her. “Not that you’d know it by this”—she lowered her voice—“really sexy outfit.”

  Sydney looked down at her navy slacks and navy-and-white striped short sleeved-sweater and sexy was not a word that came to mind. Professional, yes. Neat, yes. Classy, yeah. Sexy? No. “That’s not exactly what I was going for, but thank you,” she said politely, looking over Anna’s shoulder to see where Connor had walked off to, if somebody needed her. Hell, she’d even take Jessica at this point, knowing how awkward they might be, over trying to walk this very, very thin line Anna had her on.

  “You’re very welcome,” Anna said, her eyes twinkling like she and Sydney shared a secret. She laid a warm hand on Sydney’s upper arm, just below her sleeve, but before more could be said, Connor approached them.

  “Okay, here’s the list of things I’d like to run through today with Jessica.” He showed them a list of timed segments on his screen. “I sent this to you both last night. Anna, I’d like to showcase this one company a little bit.” He pointed to an organization that gave the shelter sizable amounts of money each year. “Can you clear that for me? Get me somebody to talk to? I figure as public relations head, you probably have contacts with most of the donors.”

  “I do.” Anna nodded, but her expression had hardened just a bit. “You’ll want to talk to Emily Breckenridge.” She said nothing more, even as Sydney and Connor waited expectantly.

  “All right, well I’ll let you lead me on that one. Sydney, let’s go over this stuff with Jessica.” He made a show of looking around the lobby. “Anybody seen her?”

  This was her chance and she snagged it. “I’ll get her,” Sydney said, heading off in the direction of Jessica’s office before anybody could offer an alternative. This was good. This would give them a few moments to maybe clear the air about last night, touch on a few issues, fix things so the entire day wasn’t awkward. She wasn’t sure what to expect. After all, she didn’t know Jessica very well at all, so she had no idea how she handled uncomfortable things. At the closed office door, she knocked three times.

  “Jessica? It’s Sydney. You in there?”

  “Come in.” Jessica’s voice was cheerful. Sydney pushed the door open. Inside, Jessica was nowhere to be seen, but her voice issued from the corner where Sydney believed the bathroom was. “Just fixing my hair. Be right there.”

  “No problem,” Sydney said. She stood in the middle of the office, hands clasped in front of her, then on her hips, then behind her back. She hated that feeling of not knowing what to do with them. She settled on clasping them in front when Jessica came out of the bathroom, looking nothing short of amazing.

  Sydney’s brain started sifting through its own internal thesaurus. Jessica looked stunning. Astonishing. Beautiful. Striking. How does she manage to do that in jeans? Granted, the jeans were apparently tailored to her body, but they were neat, almost refined. On top, she wore a simple, royal blue T-shirt with a deep V-neck, white tank visible underneath. Also visible was a healthy glimpse of cleavage and a nice length of collarbone and what the hell was it about Jessica’s skin that Sydney couldn’t take her eyes off it? Any of it? Her long arms looked so smooth, a white plastic watch buckled around her left wrist, face turned in. Silver ballet flats finished off the outfit, giving it a hint of sophistication. Jessica’s rich auburn hair was pulled back in a ponytail, which hung in a corkscrew from the rubber band. Her makeup was perfect and Sydney was envious to see no telltale signs of a lack of sleep. No dark circles. No puffy face. No red-rimmed eyes.

  I hate her a little bit right now. It’s true. Can’t help it.

  “Good morning,” Jessica said with a wide smile. “How are you?”

  “Good.” Sydney furrowed her brow a bit. “I’m good. You?”

  “I’m great. Ready to do this thing.” She laughed, then picked up a sheet of paper. “Connor e-mailed me the segments you guys want to rehearse today.”

  “Oh. Good. That’s good.”

  Jessica seemed to study her. “You okay?”

  Sydney looked at her for a beat before saying, “Yeah. I’m fine. I just…I wanted to say something about last night is all.”

  “Last night? I had a great time. I hope you did, too.” Jessica glanced down at the paper in her hand, seemingly done with the subject.

  “Oh, I did. I did. A great time. I…when I left, though…it was a little…” Sydney had no idea what to say or what she wanted to say or even what she was trying to say, so she let her voice just trail off.

  Jessica waved a dismissive hand and made a sound like steam coming out of a pipe. “Please. No big deal. We had a nice time. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Well, that went better than she’d expected. It made sense, really, Jessica’s immediate dismissal of the whole thing. “Okay,” she said again. “Let’s get to work then, shall we?” She watched as Jessica smiled—a smile that Sydney understood because it seemed slight
ly…brittle?—walked past her without a second glance, and headed out to the lobby. When she approached the crew, she greeted Connor loudly and actually hugged the man. Over her shoulder, Connor looked at Sydney with raised eyebrows, his face clearly radiating, WTF?

  Sydney shrugged and shook her head at him, wanting to say, Sorry, dude, totally my bad, but staying quiet instead. Okay. If this was the way it had to be, with the two of them pretending nothing had happened, then this was the way it had to be. Sydney worked to reprogram her mind, to wipe last night, the almost-kiss, and anything related to Jessica Barstow that was not work-related right out of her brain. It’s better this way. She had to tell herself that more than once. Believing it proved to be a challenge.

  *

  Jessica had spent the night with her brain doing its best impression of a tornado, whipping her thoughts around in circles, blowing her feelings all over the place. When she woke up this morning, she decided the best course of action would be to ignore everything that had happened—or almost happened—last night. Sydney had obviously wanted to address it, but Jessica had been more than humiliated enough, so she decided to play the game of Don’t Be Silly, That Was Nothing. And it had worked for hours now.

  Had her face cracked yet?

  That was the main question in Jessica’s head for the majority of the day because having to display this fake smile the whole time, pretending everything was magical as a Disney movie, was very nearly killing her.

  Why?

  That was the other big question. Why had this affected her so and why was she having such a hard time shaking it? So, she’d been embarrassed last night. It wasn’t the first time and she was reasonably sure it wouldn’t be the last. Why did she allow Sydney Taylor to hold so much power over her? Jessica was no pushover. She wouldn’t be where she was today if she were. No, she was tough. She was no-nonsense. She was a bit of a control freak. So who the hell was Sydney Taylor and why did she make Jessica feel like such a discombobulated mess? This was unfamiliar and Jessica didn’t like it. At all.

  Maybe she’d simply had a much better time than Sydney had. That was possible, right? They’d had interesting, stimulating conversation, but maybe it was one-sided. Maybe Sydney had been bored. Though…she hadn’t hesitated to come back to Jessica’s place…

  God, this was going to drive her insane.

  Forcing herself to focus, she did her best to shove everything else aside and work.

  The segments they rehearsed went off without a hitch, and Connor and Sydney made sure to constantly tell her what a pro she was in front of the camera. It really wasn’t hard when you knew what you were talking about, and if there was one subject Jessica was literally an expert on, it was this shelter. She knew everything about it, how it ran, why it worked, what had to be done each day to keep it successful, and how to get money. This was her baby and nobody knew it like she did. Luckily, she was a decent enough speaker that those facts came shining through as clear as a sunrise on a July morning.

  It was after six again by the time they finished up for the day. Both Connor and Sydney seemed very happy with the direction things were going.

  “This is going to be a piece of cake,” Sydney said, her television smile firmly in place. Jessica could recognize it now; she’d been around Sydney long enough to notice. It was slightly different than her actual smile, and the fact that Jessica was getting the fake one made all the insecurities she’d shelved early come tumbling down around her.

  “I hope so,” Jessica replied as she glanced around the lobby, watching the crew tweaking the set, wondering if she could help them. She’d much rather swing a hammer than stand here next to Sydney feeling uncomfortable.

  “I have no doubts.”

  “Good. Well.” Jessica looked around to make sure her volunteers had things under control. She saw Lisa and Catherine talking near the dog wing doors. The phones had quieted and only Regina was left working behind the front desk, but she’d be heading home soon. They’d closed to visitors at six, so there was nobody milling around other than employees of the shelter or the television station. Glancing back toward Sydney, but not able to keep her gaze there, Jessica said, “I’ve got a ton of work to catch up on, so I’m going to get to it.” Without waiting for a response, she turned and took the path to her office, so relieved to be away from Sydney, she almost cried.

  She hadn’t been kidding about the work. Two full days of rehearsal had put her very far behind on paperwork, e-mails, and phone calls, and she spent the next three hours doing her best to catch up. Or at least get close. She’d seen the Channel Six crew leave when she’d glanced out the window, but Sydney hadn’t stopped in to say goodbye and for that, Jessica had been grateful.

  Now, eyes scratchy and head beginning to ache from fatigue, Jessica finally dropped her pen and mentally called it quits. There was no way she could read one more word. Her eyes couldn’t see them. Her brain couldn’t comprehend them. She was done.

  With a defeated sigh, she pushed away from her desk and crossed to the corner mini fridge where she found a Diet Coke. With a pop, she opened it and took several swallows, then headed out into the lobby of the shelter.

  Even Bill was gone, the nighttime lighting casting a soft glow along the faux marble flooring and glass windows of Paws & Whiskers. Farther in, the cat wall reflected her in its clear squares, several of the cats awake and watching her. She smiled at them, then pulled open the door to the dog wing.

  This was as quiet as the dog wing ever got, which was not to say it was quiet. There was always a dog or two whining or whimpering or barking, even in the dim lighting of the night. Most were curled up in balls on their beds, doing their best to get some sleep, but many sprang into action any time the doors opened. Jessica honestly wasn’t sure how Lisa managed to sit at her desk with all the chaotic noise every single day and not go completely out of her mind. Junebug was lucky to have her—that was for sure.

  Jessica didn’t do this often…only when she was feeling particularly vulnerable or if she ached emotionally, or a dog did. And it had been a while now, so she was due. She wandered slowly down the aisle until she found the right one for tonight and opened the door to the kennel.

  The dog was a mix but had that super distinctive look of a pit bull. With her big square head, her wide-set eyes, and her barrel of a chest, Millie looked like she could tear the arm off just about anybody with a minimum of effort. She was strong and intimidating and she scared a lot of people.

  “If they’d just take a minute to look,” Jessica said quietly as she closed the kennel door behind her and moved toward Millie, whose stump of a tail was wagging with glee. “They’d see that all you need is a comfy couch and lots of snuggles. Isn’t that right?” She sat down next to the worn dog bed and Millie did that thing that all excited dogs did: her body literally vibrated with joy. She stayed quiet—Lisa had noted on her chart that she rarely barked—but she sidled as close to Jessica as she could get before depositing herself halfway into her lap. With a contented sigh, she settled her head against Jessica’s stomach, happy as can be.

  For the first time that day, Jessica felt herself relax a bit as she kicked off her shoes. Her muscles finally unclenched; she hadn’t even realized she’d been tensed up. Her stomach stopped its incessant sour churning, though she really did need to eat. Her heart rate slowed a bit and her lungs seemed to calm their frantic in-and-out pace, instead pulling air in slowly, letting it out just as slowly. Her hand stroked Millie’s short, white fur, traced the black spot on her side and another on her rump. The dog was warm and soft and Jessica, like Millie, let out a contented sigh. Though she wasn’t a woman who felt the need to hunt for peace very often, she knew that this was it. When she sat with an abandoned dog late at night, in the dark quiet of the shelter, that was when she felt true peace. Her grandmother had told her the same thing, but Jessica hadn’t experienced for herself until she’d run the place alone for the better part of a year. Since that moment, “going to the dogs” had
taken on a whole new meaning for her. She came to the dogs whenever she felt the need for solace. They never failed her.

  Continuing to stroke Millie’s velvety fur, Jessica leaned her head back and closed her eyes, wishing to leave the day behind her.

  The next thing she knew, Millie was lavishing warm kisses on her face and the red of the early morning sun was streaking through a window. Jessica blinked rapidly, then winced as her muscles and spine cried out in anguish from having spent so many hours on a concrete floor. A quick glance at her watch told her it was not quite 6 a.m.

  “Shit,” she muttered, and as soon as she moved to stand, the cacophony of barking and howling began. Lisa and at least one volunteer were usually there by seven to take care of breakfast, so that meant Jessica had time to get to her office and use the personal bathroom her grandfather had installed for her grandmother, complete with a shower. Thank God she kept a change of clothes handy.

  Grabbing up her shoes, she stooped to give Millie a kiss on the head. “Thanks for keeping me company,” she said, then let herself out of the kennel and hurried down the hall to the double doors. She had her hand out to push one open when it opened on its own. Both Jessica and Lisa jumped at the sight of one another.

  “Oh, my God,” Lisa said, pressing a hand to her chest. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Yeah, well, right back at you.” Jessica, too, had a hand over her heart as she worked to catch her breath. “You’re here early.”

  “And you never left.”

  “It’s not the first time,” Jessica said, with a shrug.

  “True. Let me guess. Millie?”

  With a smile, Jessica nodded. “She’s such a sweetheart.”

  “For God’s sake, take that little girl home already. You want to. I mean, I made the decision for Catherine. I can make it for you, too, you know.” Jessica chuckled as she recalled how Catherine had fallen in love with the little stray escape artist. Any time he managed to slip away from his handler—and it was often—he found his way to Catherine. Nobody knew how or why he’d become so attached to her, but he had, and he’d made his way to her over and over again until she’d finally given in and adopted him as her own. She named him Geronimo because he leaped before he looked, and he adored her more than life itself. Jessica was pretty sure the feeling was mutual.