by Judy Duarte
“And that someone is me?” She stroked one of the puppy’s ears.
Good, she was beginning to warm and, hopefully, to bond. “Leif’s sister is a real estate agent, and she’s going to search the MLS listing for something in my price range.”
Of course, even if the agent found something that Mike liked, escrows took time. So he was hoping Simone wouldn’t mind puppy-sitting for quite a while.
“Here.” Mike handed Wags to Simone. “What do you think? My options are limited, and I can’t just dump him at a pet-boarding place when he’s so young.”
Okay, so that wasn’t entirely true. Mike did have other options. He could find the puppy another home, maybe with one of the firefighters at the department. Surely someone would want him. After all, a puppy as cute as Wags stood a heck of a lot better chance at being adopted than Woofer. But there was no need to mention that to Simone. Not when Mike was hoping she’d take the fluffy, black-and-white pup and allow him to visit her regularly.
Wags gave Simone a wet, loving lick on the chin, softening her even more.
“All right,” she finally said. “He can stay. But only until you find another place. I have no idea how Woofer is going to feel about having him here, and I could be making a big mistake.”
“You said Woofer doesn’t even know that he’s a dog,” Mike said. “He thinks he’s human. And all kids need a pet. Woofer will probably love having this little guy to pal around with.”
“I hope so.”
Mike knew so. Finding Wags hadn’t been an accident. Fate had stepped in to give him and Simone another helping hand.
“Where are his things?” Simone asked.
“His things?”
“You know, puppy food, toys…”
Simone’s pretty brown eyes grew large and luminous. “All you brought is a puppy and an empty cardboard box?”
Oops. He’d been in such a hurry to bring Wags to Simone that he hadn’t thought about her not having everything the puppy would need. Last night, he’d knotted up an old sock for him to chew on, although he’d left it at home. And then he’d fed him some leftover steak that had been chopped up. This morning, he’d given Wags scrambled eggs and bacon. So it wasn’t as if he’d neglected to take care of him. But a shopping trip was definitely in order.
He could do it on his own, but maybe it would be in his best interests to feign ignorance. “I’ll be happy to purchase whatever he needs, but you’d better come with me. I’m not sure what to buy.”
She looked at him in disbelief, and he suspected she might decline to go with him.
But then again, fate seemed to be working in his favor when she handed Wags back to him. “All right. You take the puppy to the car and I’ll meet you there.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I need to go to the bathroom and grab my purse.”
“Your purse is in the bathroom?”
She shot him a frown that suggested she didn’t find his joke funny. “Just give me a minute, will you?”
Sure. He’d give her all the time she needed.
At thirty-two, he was ready to get married. And if it took her a bit longer to get used to the idea, then so be it.
Her arguments would soon go by the wayside.
So what if she was older than he was? Or if she wasn’t used to big, happy families?
And so what if she wasn’t ready to settle down?
Mike was a focused competitor and believed that there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do or have—once he set his mind to it.
And he’d set his mind—and his heart—on Simone.
Chapter Two
Simone handed little Wags back to Mike. She hoped and prayed he wouldn’t ask to use her bathroom before she got rid of the testing apparatus. If he did, she’d have to race him there.
She crossed her arms and waited for him to head for his Jeep, yet he merely stood in the living room, studying her with expressive green eyes and a dimpled grin.
“I really appreciate this,” he said.
She supposed he did, but she wasn’t keen on taking care of Wags for him, no matter how cute either Mike or the puppy was.
Nor was she up for a shopping trip.
But agreeing to go with him seemed to be the quickest way to get him out of her house. And the sooner he went outside, the better.
“I won’t be long,” she said. “You can even go out to the car and start the engine, if you’d like to.”
“That’s all right. I’ll just wait for you here.” Mike glanced at Wags. “We don’t mind, do we, buddy?”
The longer her one-night lover remained in her house, the more uneasy she became.
She doubted that he suspected anything, though.
How could he?
“Okay,” she finally said. Then she turned and hurried to the bathroom, where she locked herself inside.
With her secret safe for the time being, she rested her back against the door and blew out a ragged sigh. Then, feeling only slightly relieved, she quickly scooped up the plastic apparatus that still displayed evidence of the baby they’d created and shoved it into the back of the cupboard, behind a stack of towels.
As soon as she returned home, and Mike was no longer around, she would double-bag the test kit in two plastic grocery sacks and throw it away.
Of course, she’d have to level with him sometime and tell him she was pregnant, but she was still processing the news herself.
So, some other day, when the time was right, she’d let him know that it was her problem, not his. And that she wouldn’t need anything from him. She would also tell him she’d decided to give up the baby for adoption, which was the best thing she could do for everyone involved, especially her child.
Adoption was the decision she’d wished her mother had made when she’d been pregnant with Simone. Instead, her mom had botched up the whole mother/daughter thing, something that continued to plague them both to this day.
Simone flushed the toilet, just to make Mike think she’d had the usual reasons for locking herself in the bathroom, then washed her hands and dried them on a white, fluffy towel reserved for guests.
Not that she and Woofer had many of them.
Dr. Ella Wilder stopped by sometimes. So did Isobel Suarez, the hospital social worker who’d become a friend.
Of course, Mike was here now—and waiting for her.
She looked in the mirror, caught the frumpy, pale image looking back at her.
Her hair, which had been put into a just-hanging-out-at-home ponytail earlier, had come loose. And she wasn’t wearing any makeup whatsoever.
Dressed in her favorite pair of well-worn jeans and a Rosie the Riveter T-shirt, she was a mind-boggling contrast to the chic, sexy woman who’d invited Mike into her house and into her bed five weeks ago.
But she didn’t feel like putting on makeup or a happy face. Nor did she want to draw attention to herself in a feminine sense.
After all, look what had happened when she’d dressed up for that cocktail party and had pretended to be someone she wasn’t.
But she couldn’t very well go out looking like a total frump, although she wouldn’t change her clothes. How could she when she wore a shirt with Rosie the Riveter rolling up a sleeve and proclaiming, “We can do it!”
So trying to draw upon Rosie’s confidence and determination, she removed the rubber band and ran a brush through her hair, leaving it down. Then she dug into her makeup drawer and pulled out a tube of lipstick. But after taking off the cap, she paused.
She really didn’t want Mike to think she was getting dolled up for his benefit. Of course, the sexy paramedic didn’t need that kind of encouragement.
The first time he’d come on to her—more than a year ago—had been in the hospital doctors’ lounge, where she’d been pouring herself a cup of overbrewed coffee. She was wearing a pair of blue scrubs and was close to finishing up a long, grueling twelve-hour shift.
“Hey,” he’d said. “I’ve got tickets to
a concert at the Stardust Theater on Thursday. And I’ve asked around. We’re both off that night.”
She’d caught him looking at her several times in the past, and the intensity in his gaze had always spiked her pulse. Mike O’Rourke was a handsome man, and any woman would be flattered to know she’d caught his eye.
But Simone hadn’t expected his interest in her to take a romantic turn, and her senses had reeled.
“I…uh…I’ve already got plans,” she’d lied, scrambling to come up with an excuse.
And she’d been putting him off ever since, even though he told her he was prepared to wait until she was ready to give “them” a try.
He’d never been pushy, but now that they’d slept together, his determination seemed to have grown stronger.
So she re-capped the lipstick without using it and put it away. Then she slid the bathroom drawer shut and headed to her bedroom for her purse and a light sweater—just in case. The New England weather was always a bit unpredictable in April, although the past few days had been remarkably pleasant.
When she returned to the living room, Mike was standing by the door, ready to go.
He held Wags in the crook of his arm and opened the door for her with his free hand. Then he waited on the sidewalk while she made sure Woofer had fresh water and locked up the house.
“Where do you suggest we go to find dog supplies?” he asked.
“There’s a pet store on Lexington, across from Prudy’s Menu. It’s called Tails a Waggin’, and they’ll have everything we’ll need.”
“All right. I know where that is.” He opened the passenger door of his Jeep Wrangler, and after she climbed into the seat, he handed Wags to her. “He hates that box if he’s awake. Why don’t you hold him.”
Simone took the squirming pup. She had to admit, it was a cute little thing. But she needed another dog around the house like she needed a hole in the head, and she couldn’t help wondering what she’d gotten herself into.
Wasn’t her life going to be complicated enough for the next seven or eight months?
“Thanks for coming with me,” he said. “I don’t want to forget anything.”
“No problem,” she said, although she wasn’t being entirely truthful.
She really wasn’t in the mood to go anywhere. Not when she had a stack of laundry to do at home. She’d also planned to clean out the refrigerator and wash the windows, chores she saved for her day off. And she’d told Woofer she would take him for a long walk this afternoon.
Not that the dog would hold her to it, she supposed. But some things easily became habits that were hard to break.
And speaking of habits, she couldn’t even imagine the effect a new puppy was going to have on her normal routine.
Of course, a baby would really shake things up.
Thank goodness she knew better than to open herself up to that.
Mike backed his Jeep out of Simone’s driveway and drove through Riverdale, an older part of town, where the houses near the river had been built in the 1940s. With only a few exceptions, the yards and structures had been kept up throughout the years.
“I’ve always liked this neighborhood,” he said, thinking it had a Norman Rockwell appeal.
“Me, too.” Simone glanced out the window, as though appreciating the maples, sycamores and the occasional hemlock that shaded the sidewalks and the street on which she lived.
When Mike and his brothers were in high school, they’d worked summers for their uncle, who was a building contractor. As a result, each of the boys could do just about anything—electrical, plumbing, drywall, painting—skills that could turn an old house into something special.
A lot of people might prefer to buy newer homes, but Mike was drawn to the quaint, nostalgic ambience of this particular neighborhood. In fact, he’d told his Realtor that he was looking for a fixer-upper but wouldn’t mind purchasing anything in Riverdale, should one of the properties become available.
“Did you have to do a lot of work after you moved in?” he asked, thinking about the cozy, two-bedroom brick structure she’d purchased.
“Yes, but it was actually fun to roll up my sleeves and watch things change before my eyes. I even took some of those home-improvement classes they offer at Hadley’s Hardware Store. I couldn’t afford to do everything at once, but I started by working on one room at a time. The first thing I did was to tear up the carpeting and refinish the original hardwood flooring. Then I painted.”
Overall, he had to say he liked what she’d done to the place, although his focus had been on more than beige walls and white crown molding the night he’d taken her home.
In fact, as they’d left the cocktail party, he’d stolen a kiss while the two of them stood next to his Jeep, and his hormones hadn’t given him or his brain cells a free moment until dawn.
He’d known their lovemaking would be good, but it had been better than either of them could have imagined, and they’d awakened like a pair of spoons, completely spent and sated.
Yet one night hadn’t been enough.
He slid a sidelong glance across the seat and saw that she was staring straight ahead and biting her bottom lip. Then she glanced at him, lips parting.
Had her thoughts gone in a sexual direction, too? Was she thinking about the pleasure they’d given each other in the antique bed in her candlelit room?
He suspected so, because her words seemed to have dissipated in the cab of the Jeep.
But he didn’t let the silence get to him. “I told Karen, Leif’s sister, that I’d be interested in buying something in this part of town, especially if it needed some work.”
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ll keep my eyes and ears open. Mark Griffith, who lives with his wife and son on Ash, might have to be transferred to another office out of state. If so, he might be interested in selling.”
“That would work out great for me.” Since Simone didn’t comment either way about the possibility of them being neighbors, he let it drop.
Minutes later, he pulled the Jeep into a parking spot on Lexington, two spaces down from the pet shop, and turned off the ignition.
“How’d you know about this place?” he asked.
“Originally, Ella Wilder mentioned it to me.”
“She has animals?”
“Yes, a cat named Molly. She found the poor little thing injured and lying on the side of the road. A lot of people might have put her to sleep since she lost a leg, but Ella nursed her back to health.”
Mike never figured the young orthopedic surgeon as an animal lover, but then again, he hadn’t suspected Simone to be one, either. Not until he’d seen her with Woofer.
“One day, after shopping, I stopped at Prudy’s Menu to place a take-home order, and I noticed it across the street. Ella had said it was a mom-and-pop–type store and that it could almost be entertaining at times. So I decided to check it out. And that’s the day I met Woofer.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding. I thought pet stores only sold animals with pedigrees.”
“Actually, the Baxters allow several different pet-rescue organizations to hold adoption days at the store on weekends. And that’s exactly what was going on the first time I stopped in to visit.”
“Wait a minute.” Mike slid her a crooked grin. “You mean that you make a point of visiting the pet store even when you don’t have anything to buy?”
“Yes, I do that every once in a while. Millie and Fred Baxter are nice people. I first met them a year or so ago when Fred was brought into the E.R. after suffering chest pains.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Simone had always told him that she tried not to get attached to her patients, which is why she enjoyed working in the E.R. Most of the patients were just passing through. But obviously, she got attached to some of them.
“Fred had suffered a major heart attack,” she said.
“Obviously, he pulled through.”
Simone nodded. “Millie was trying to be tough for
his sake, but I could see the fear in her eyes. They were pretty young to be going through something like that, and for some reason, I was drawn to her. So when I was off duty that evening, I picked up a cup of coffee in the doctors’ lounge, then offered it to her. I sat with her for a few minutes, and we started chatting.”
Mike had seen Simone with her patients, and while she was good to all of them when they were in her care, she was able to detach when they were either admitted or discharged.
And she didn’t normally spend her free time visiting with them.
“What was so special about Millie?” he asked. There had to have been something that appealed to Simone, and he was curious to know what it was. To know what drew her to certain people.
Simone shrugged, then focused her attention on the puppy in her lap, her thoughts appearing to drift somewhere else.
When she glanced up, her gaze snagged his, tugging at his heart in that way only Simone could do. “I’m really not a romantic person, so you’ll probably think this is weird coming from me, but I think Fred and Millie are soul mates—if there is such a thing.”
There was. Mike suspected he and Simone were, too, but she hadn’t quite figured it out yet.
“Anyway,” Simone continued, “Millie was worried about losing Fred, which was understandable. But she mentioned they’d been trying to…” Simone paused and glanced out the passenger side of the window, as though distracted and drifting off topic.
“Trying to what?” Mike asked, steering her back to the conversation they’d been having.
She cleared her throat. “They’d been trying to have a baby for years and had finally given up. In vitro and other expensive fertility treatments are out of the question, since they’re new business owners and have poured their savings into the store. They’d just started the adoption process when Fred was brought into the E.R. However, Millie realized that his heart condition might make it more difficult for them to adopt.”