by Shirley Jump
The dog—a boxer mix with a friendly tail, lunged as far forward as the leash would allow, nosing into Matt’s pant leg. Carolyn let out an oomph, and stood, trying to rein the dog back in, but he was stronger than her and she skidded several steps forward, while the dog plowed into Matt’s legs.
“Sorry.” Carolyn let out a gust. “That dog is…disobedient. And stubborn.”
Matt grinned. “Sometimes the dog takes his cue from the owner.”
“I’m not his owner. Well, I am, but…” She let out another gust and brushed her bangs back. “It’s complicated.”
Complicated. What did that mean and why was he spending any mental energy trying to figure that out? Ancient history, he reminded himself again.
Matt bent down and gave the dog an ear rub. The dog’s tail went into happy frenzy mode, and he gave Matt’s hand a lick. “Hey there, buddy. What’s the problem?”
Much easier to deal with the dog than whatever history still existed between him and Carolyn.
The little girl stood next to her dog, a protective hand on his collar. “Roscoe’s sick. He doesn’t want to eat. I think he has a tummy-ache.”
“And he’s about as obedient as a two-year-old,” Carolyn muttered. She was still trying to wrangle the dog, but Roscoe pulled away, twining his leash around Matt’s legs.
Matt glanced at the little girl. Worry filled her face and furrowed her brow. “I’m sure Roscoe’s just fine, but I’m gonna take a look at him and make sure. Okay?”
“Uh-huh,” the little girl said. “My name is Emma and I’m four.”
Matt chuckled. He put out his hand. “I’m Dr. West, but you can call me Dr. Matt. Nice to meet you, Emma.” She gave him a serious little handshake. Cute kid.
He was still shocked Carolyn had a child. Matt had always wanted kids. Wendy, his ex-wife, had talked about having them, too, then a year into their marriage she’d changed her mind. The divorce was two years in the past, and although Matt was relieved the marriage had ended, he still wished he’d become a father.
Given how polite and well-mannered Emma was, Carolyn must be a good mother. He’d always thought she was more driven by her career than by family, and that she had been clear she never wanted to settle down and have kids. Maybe he hadn’t known her as well as he thought. Or maybe she just hadn’t wanted to settle down with him.
“All right, Roscoe, let’s get started.” Matt stepped deftly out of the leash loop, then opened the door that led to the exam rooms and ushered Carolyn, the dog, and Carolyn’s daughter into the hall. “Exam Room One, the first door on your right.”
Roscoe led the way, dragging Carolyn behind him. When the dog found the rear second exit of the exam room blocked by a closed door, he stood in the center of the small exam space, panting and wagging his tail. Carolyn put a hand on Emma’s shoulder and steered her into a seat. “Emma, you need to sit down and be quiet, okay? So the doctor can look at that dog.”
“But…but…I got questions. About Roscoe.”
“Questions are great, Emma,” Matt said. “They help you learn.”
“My mommy says I’m smart.” Emma beamed.
“Emma, please sit down,” Carolyn said. “Let the doctor do his job.”
Strange. He’d expected Carolyn to brag about Emma or agree that she was smart.
“Okay.” Emma sank onto the bench, and propped her chin up on her hands. Carolyn took off her winter coat, and set it on the bench beside Emma. Matt did his best not to check Carolyn out.
And failed.
“All right, Emma. Let’s see how Roscoe is doing.” Matt bent down, and hoisted the dog up and onto the stainless steel table. As he did, he couldn’t help but notice Carolyn’s legs: long and lean, defined by a pair of blue jeans that still hugged all the right places. She had on short black leather boots with a little bit of a heel. Hot and sexy. Damn.
The dog scrambled a bit against the cool, slippery surface, but Matt ran a hand down his neck and whispered a few soothing words. “It’s okay, buddy, just chill.” Roscoe quieted into complacency, not entirely happy about the foreign surface below his paws, but not fighting it anymore either.
“How do you do that?” Carolyn said. “I haven’t been able to get that dog to sit still for a week.”
“You just gotta know how to handle him. How to send out the vibes that it’s okay to relax, and that you’re the boss.”
Carolyn scoffed. “Easier said than done, apparently, because he doesn’t listen to me. At all.”
Matt swung his stethoscope around and pressed it to the dog’s heart. Nice, strong heartbeat. He palpated the dog’s belly, checked his teeth and eyes. All good. As much as he wanted to ask Carolyn why she was back in town, he kept on focusing on the dog. Then he wouldn’t notice Carolyn’s deep green eyes, or the graceful curve of her neck, or the fact that his own heart was racing a bit right now.
“Whatcha doing?” Emma asked, getting to her feet.
Carolyn waved at the little girl. “Emma, sit down; you don’t want to get in the doctor’s way.”
“She’s okay. I’m checking his belly, Emma. And listening to his heart. Here, you want to try it?” He waved her over, and put the stethoscope into her ears, then pressed the other end to the dog’s chest. “Hear that? It’s Roscoe’s heartbeat.”
Emma’s eyes widened. Matt always loved seeing that little moment of discovery and joy when he got kids involved with his work. “It’s really fast,” Emma said.
“Yup. And that’s good. Dogs’ hearts beat about twice as fast as ours do. Wanna see?”
Emma nodded. Matt bent down and pressed the stethoscope to Emma’s chest. “Do you hear your heart?”
Emma nodded. “Roscoe’s is faster!”
“Pretty cool, huh?” He straightened again, then turned to Carolyn, keeping his demeanor the same as he would with any other owner. “Tell me what’s making him get sick.”
“I don’t know.” Carolyn shrugged. “I bought him dog food and all he does is throw it up.”
“Did you buy the same kind he always ate?”
“I don’t know what kind he always ate.” She shrugged again. “I forgot to bring it with me, and there was no way I was driving back to Wyoming when there was Alpo at the store.”
He kept on looking at the dog, because every time his gaze went to Carolyn, his heart did that same skip-beat. She had let her hair grow longer, and it curled around her shoulders. She still had the same elegant features he remembered. He knew if she put her hair up, that he would be able to see the long lines of her neck, the curve of her shoulders. When they’d been together, his favorite place to kiss her was in that small divot at the base of her neck. Just thinking about that sent his mind down some southern paths.
Matt cleared his throat. Focus on the dog, not on her, or why she was back in town. “Uh, sometimes a big change in food will cause a dog to get sick. The best thing you can do is mix the new food in gradually with his old food. You don’t remember the brand he ate?”
“He’s not even my dog. And I can’t ask his owners.”
“I’m sure you could text them or—”
“I can’t.” Tears welled in her eyes but she steeled herself and they disappeared. She put a protective hand on Emma’s shoulder. “So please just tell me what to do to get him to stop puking all over the house, and to listen better.”
What was that about? Why was Carolyn teary? He wanted to ask, but the days when he could do that had passed long ago. Something was off with Carolyn, something was upsetting her, but he had lost the right to ask why ten years ago.
“I, uh, can put Roscoe here on an easy-digestion diet,” Matt said. “That should help. As for the training, if you work with him, you can get him to curb his behaviors. I can give you a great book on training.”
Carolyn blew a lock of hair out of her eyes. “I am not a dog person. At all,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning closer to him. That gave him a view of the swell of her breasts beneath the V of her coral T-shirt.
>
And he forgot to breathe.
“I’m a chef,” she went on. “I can cook or bake anything, but I can’t train a dog. So if you could point me in the direction of the nearest professional trainer…”
Matt chuckled. “This is Marietta. You know how small this town is. It’s not like we are overrun with dog trainers.”
“He’s chewed up my shoes, dug a tunnel to China in the backyard, and when I say come, he runs the other way. I spent the better part of yesterday going up and down the streets looking for him. I need someone to give this dog a little law and order.”
A part of him felt bad for Carolyn. She was clearly stressed, and needed some help with the dog. He wondered where the dog had come from, how Carolyn had ended up with it, and why she was back in town with a four-year-old. He hadn’t seen her in ten years, but she still looked beautiful. That, and the clear need in her voice, spurred him to want to help.
Clearly, he was a glutton for punishment.
“Let me draw a little blood, rule out anything else with his tummy issues, and see where we go from there. Okay?” He turned to grab a needle out of the drawer, then swabbed a spot on Roscoe’s front leg, inserted the needle, and withdrew some blood.
“Is that gonna hurt Roscoe?” Emma asked.
“Nope. He won’t even notice it,” Matt said, then pulled the needle out, held a fresh gauze pad on the leg for a moment to stop the bleeding, and gave Roscoe another ear rub. The dog leaned into his touch, groaning. “This dog is a pushover. Maybe a little rambunctious because he’s young, but still a total marshmallow.”
Carolyn scoffed. “Pushover? Marshmallow? It’s like he’s a whole other dog with you,” she said. “Maybe he hates me.”
Emma parked her fists on her hips. “Roscoe loves everyone, Aunt Carolyn.”
Aunt Carolyn? As in maybe Sandy’s daughter, not Carolyn’s? Matt remembered Carolyn’s older sister well. She’d been a couple years ahead of them in high school, more easygoing and sociable than headstrong, driven Carolyn, but always nice to him in those days when he’d pretty much camped out on Carolyn’s doorstep.
He wasn’t surprised Sandy had children. She’d been in Girl Scouts and 4-H and had always seemed the type who would settle down with a nice banker or something and raise a family in a little white picket fence house. Of course, there was always the possibility of Emma being an in-law niece, but Matt didn’t think so. The family features were too similar.
And that thought brought him right back to Carolyn’s eyes and her smile, and all the things he was trying not to think about. Still, he found himself checking her left hand for a wedding ring—none. Didn’t mean Carolyn wasn’t married but did up the odds that she was still single.
Ancient history. Stop thinking about it.
“Let me go get that dog food for you,” Matt said. Focus on his job, not on whatever was going on in Carolyn’s life. “Blood test results will be back tomorrow, but I don’t think there’ll be anything other than a change in diet that got Roscoe a little off-kilter.”
He lowered Roscoe back onto the floor and handed the leash to Carolyn. When he did, their hands brushed, and a little electric thrill ran through him. Damn. All these years apart, and she still affected him.
Carolyn’s eyes met his. “Thanks, Matt.”
“No problem,” he mumbled, then headed out of the room. He dropped the syringe into the testing bin, then darted into the storage room, and retrieved a bag of dog food. Down the hall, two of the dogs being boarded for the week started to bark.
On the other side of Exam Room One’s back entrance door, Matt could hear Roscoe joining in on the barking with deep, throaty woofs. He opened the door, his arms full with the dog food bag, and Roscoe lunged forward, squeezing past Matt’s legs and taking a quick left down the hall. Carolyn was right behind Roscoe, a death grip on the other end of the leash. She tried to skid to a stop, but ended up slamming into Matt’s chest.
He dropped the bag to the floor, reached out and caught her around the waist, and for one brief second, they looked at each other, surprised, breathless. In the space of a heartbeat, he remembered everything from their relationship. The way she smiled. The way she used to lean into him at the end of the day. The way she made him laugh. Then Carolyn stepped back and Matt let go, and Roscoe made a break for it, charging down the hall toward the kennels.
Carolyn cursed. “That dog—”
“I got him. Don’t worry.” Matt broke into a light jog, caught up to Roscoe just as he reached the kennels. Matt grabbed the leash, gave it a slight tug. “Roscoe, no.”
The dog looked back at Matt, tail wagging, his features saying, please, please let me go see these new friends.
Instead Matt turned on his heel, patted his leg, and gave the leash another gentle tug. “Come, Roscoe.” The dog gave the kennels one last longing look, then obeyed.
Emma was peeking around the door of Exam Room One. She broke into a run when she saw Roscoe approaching, and buried her face in his neck. “Don’t run away, Roscoe. ’Kay?”
Carolyn shot Roscoe an irritated glare. “I swear, that dog is going to be the end of me. Thank you.”
“No problem. He just wanted to make some new friends.” Matt held the leash out to her but she didn’t take it. Instead, she leaned against the jamb and crossed her arms over her chest.
“I have an offer for you.”
Matt arched a brow. “Offer?”
“I saw this on the counter when you were gone.” She held up the Bake-Off flyer. “If I remember right, you can barely make a grilled cheese sandwich.”
Even his grilled cheese abilities were sketchy at best. Matt had takeout and microwave reheating mastered, though. “It was a good cause, to help honor the memory of a first responder who died recently. Do you remember Harry Monroe? He was killed in a hit and run on Highway 89 on Labor Day.”
“That’s terrible. He was such a nice guy.” Carolyn shook her head. “I’m glad the town is doing something for him.”
“All the money raised is going to renovate a house near the Chamber of Commerce to make it into a youth center. Something Harry would have loved.” Matt took off his stethoscope and put it on the counter. “Anyway, my business is sponsoring the first night of the Bake-Off, and somehow that got me roped into baking too. I was hoping I could fake it.”
Carolyn laughed. “You can’t fake baking. But what you can do is a little…quid pro quo.”
A smile twitched on his lips. Despite everything, Matt was intrigued. “Quid pro quo?”
“You train this incorrigible dog and I’ll teach you how to bake.” She flashed him a smile, a smile he knew as well as his own. Ten years later and that smile still had the power to affect him. “You have a week to learn how to create a dessert, and I have a week to figure out what I’m going to do with that dog and my job. So how about a little partnership?”
It was a crazy deal. Being around her for hours on end would be painful. Difficult. Impossible. So he said, “Sounds like a great idea.”
Apparently some old dogs didn’t learn their lessons.
Chapter Two
What had made her propose such a crazy idea?
Desperation. That was the only possible answer. There was no other way she would have voluntarily signed up to work with Matthew West. Ten years ago, she’d thought the sun rose in his eyes every day. She’d dreamed of them being together forever.
Then he’d told her he had no intention of ever leaving Marietta. And she’d realized that all the plans she had would disappear if she stayed in that town, became the perfect little housewife until she rotted away in some rocking chair on her front porch. She’d wanted a bigger life than that, more than a little house in a quiet neighborhood. So she’d packed her bags and headed for New York the next day, vowing never to return to the small town that had always suffocated her.
Until now.
“Aunt Carolyn, that doctor was very nice.” Emma said as she climbed into the booster seat in the back of Carolyn’s
SUV. Roscoe scrambled up beside Emma and settled on the seat, shaking fur and slush all over the black leather and ignoring the blanket Carolyn had laid on the floor. Yet another battle with the dog Carolyn had lost before she even crossed the Wyoming state line.
“Yes, he was.” Very nice, and very handsome still. Matt had barely aged, and had the same lean, muscular frame she remembered. A little taller, a little broader, but with the same dark hair, brown eyes, and unforgettable smile. He was the quintessential small-town vet—friendly and well known, casual and involved.
He’d become exactly what he’d set out to be. She should have been happy for him. Should have said congratulations or something. Instead, she’d stood there, watching his hands as he calmed the dog, listened to its heartbeat, drew the vial of blood. She’d always liked his hands—they’d been the first thing she noticed when she’d sat beside him in art class in high school. Once, she’d drawn them, hung the sketch over her bed and kept it there until the edges of the paper curled and yellowed.
When they were dating, those same hands had awakened parts of Carolyn she never knew existed. She’d spend her days craving his touch, thinking about him. Even now, a part of her remembered those moments and felt the same simmer of desire.
Not a productive thought at all, especially since she had just agreed to work side by side with the man this week. No thinking about his hands—
Check.
No thinking about the past—
Double check.
No lying to herself that she was definitely thinking about both those things—
Carolyn pled the Fifth on that one. She buckled Emma’s booster seat, checked the latch, checked it again, then checked the tension on the seat belt. “You all set in there?”
Emma nodded. “Can I have a snack?”