“Yeah, sure.” He loaded a plate for her. She grabbed it and hugged him. Riley whined as she turned and blew through the door, big sunglasses back on her face, designer tote swinging from her arm.
The dog ran after her, jumped up and hit the screen door, his paw catching the latch. The next thing Ryan knew, he was out the door, running after Celeste as she drove away.
“Riley!” Ryan yelled. “Come back here.”
Celeste wasn’t even down the street and he’d already lost her dog. He ran back into the house, grabbed the leash lying on the table, and tore out the door after him.
…
Carrie pulled into the driveway of her duplex, her backseat full of art supplies. She’d spent all afternoon walking the aisles of her favorite art stores, buying whatever pulled at her creative heartstrings. She was loaded up with canvases and oils and watercolor crayons. She couldn’t wait to get started. First things first—she’d have to set up her easel and organize her paints and brushes. It had been so long since she pushed work aside and did something just for herself, and it was about time.
As she turned off the car, a giant dog ran down the sidewalk in front of her house, long reddish-brown fur glinting copper in the sunlight. She watched it go by as a man came tearing out the front door of the duplex beside hers, chasing after him.
New neighbors, apparently. Mrs. Donaldson had been Stu’s tenant for years. Had something happened to the older woman? She pushed the thought out of her mind. Who her ex-husband rented his half of the duplex to was none of her business.
“Did you see a big dog run by?” the man yelled.
She pulled her head out of the back seat, her arms full of art supplies. “Yes. He went that way.” She gestured with her head in the direction of the park across the street, staring after him as he took off in that direction. He was gorgeous, the tailored cut of his slacks showing a tight ass tapering up to wide strong shoulders as he ran away from her toward the park. Straight blond hair whispered across the collar of his shirt. A touch too long for the standard idea of professional, but sexy as hell. Obviously what had happened at the wedding the other night had left her sexually frustrated and lusting after any man who ran by.
In fact, from behind this guy did look an awful lot like her almost-hookup from the wedding reception. Ryan. Her heart gave a little jump at the thought of him and blood rushed to her cheeks. Surely that couldn’t be him chasing a dog in front of her house?
Nah. That was crazy.
Feeling bad for the poor man and his dog, she dropped her bags back in the car and ran after them into the park. The dog couldn’t have gotten too far, could he? Apparently, he could.
“Riley!” the man yelled. “Get back here now.”
The dog turned and looked back, then ran in a wide arc through the bushes, circling around. In an effort to cut him off, Carrie ran to the right, jumping through a large hedge of fragrant rose bushes and coming right up on him. She dropped to a crouch, her fingers sinking into the damp grass. “Hey, Riley, what ya doing?” she called sweetly.
He stopped and stared at her, his head tilted to one side. This dog was the canine equivalent of a Thoroughbred horse—lean, tall, gorgeously formed, intelligence radiating from his wide brown eyes.
“It’s all right. Come here, boy.” She held out her hand, palm down. “You sure are pretty with all that red fur.” He took a step toward her, his eyes teeming with curiosity. “You are a handsome fellow,” she cooed. He’d almost reached her when the man pushed through the bushes beside them, red-faced, a leash swinging from his hand.
“There you are,” he called, startling them both.
Riley jumped back then loped away. Hoping he wasn’t a biter, Carrie lunged to the right, grabbed him by the collar, and held tight. “I got you, boy,” she said and bent down to stroke his head and shoulders.
“Thank you!” The man ran up to them. He tried to attach the leash to the dog’s collar, but the dog would have none of it. As she struggled to hold on, she fell to her butt just as the leash clicked into place.
“Success!” she called, laughing as the dog surrendered.
“Thank you!” The man held out his hand to help her up.
She took his hand and looked up. “No prob—” Her heart dropped.
It was him.
Heat burned her cheeks as she stood upright. She yanked back her hand. “You!”
He looked just as surprised as she was.
“Do you really live…” she couldn’t finish. Did he really live in the duplex right next door to hers? She swallowed.
“It would appear so.” His words were stilted, his back stiff.
She turned and took a step away, trying to process the fact that the stranger she almost got naked with, that she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about, was sharing a wall with her house. Her mind raced. The only thing that made what happened the other night palatable was the fact that he had no idea who she was. In fact, she’d never even told him her name. But now… She took several deep breaths, then stopped herself before she hyperventilated.
“Where did you go the other night?” he asked. “I came back and you were gone.” His eyes were boring into hers.
She winced. “I uh, I didn’t feel well. Sorry to leave you hanging like that.” She cringed again at her choice of words. “I’m afraid I had too much to drink. Wasn’t quite, uh, myself.” That was putting it mildly. What must he think of her?
He took a step toward her and held out his hand, a suspiciously charming smile filling his face. The same deadly smile from the other night, and it still had the effect of weakening her knees. “How about we start over? I’m Ryan. Your next-door neighbor.”
“Carrie.” She stared at his hand, almost afraid of what would happen when she touched it. Reluctantly, she took it once again. It was warm, comforting. Memories surged to her mind—his touch grazing her skin, lighting her nerves and setting her on fire. Even now a slight tickle jumped across her palm. She pulled away and rubbed it against the back of her jeans, trying desperately to stop the sensations prickling her skin.
He took a step closer and her gaze settled on the fine stubble lining his neck. She remembered what it felt like to kiss him there, the slight male roughness, the taste of his skin. “It’s nice to officially meet you, Carrie.” His smile was still wide and devastating, and she went a little wobbly. Unfortunately, she had a feeling he knew exactly the kind of effect he was having on her. “Thanks for the help. You be sure to have a good night.” He turned and, with his dog by his side, headed out of the park.
Carrie sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes to steady herself. How was it possible that just standing next to that man could make her go weak in the knees? And that of all the people, in all the world, she would have to live next door to him?
Chapter Three
Ryan barely got any sleep. He kept going over and over everything that had happened with Carrie, both the night of the wedding and today in the park. Carrie. He finally knew her name. He’d thought about her a lot since that night in the closet. And today, he hadn’t been able to stop staring at her as she chased Riley, dark curls flying in her face. Her smile wide, her eyes twinkling. Just like he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her at the wedding. Or his hands. And it wasn’t just him, the feeling had been mutual. The chemistry between them was…overwhelming. They had gone way too far, and yet not far enough. And now she was just on the other side of the wall. Way too close for him to easily forget about her, and he couldn’t afford another complication right now. He tried to push her out of his mind and instead focused on Celeste’s dog.
Riley was miserable, wandering through the house, looking for Celeste and whining. He finally jumped up onto Ryan’s bed, took up more than half of it, and made little whimpering sounds until he fell asleep. Ryan tried more than once to get the dog to sleep in his own bed, but finally gave up. He’d had no idea dogs could be so emotionally attached. He loved Celeste, but he was going to give her hell for bre
aking Riley’s heart like this. The dog was a mess.
In the morning, things only went from bad to worse. He put Riley, his bed, food and a huge bowl of water outside in the backyard, but the big guy just stared at him and howled, pawing the door. The desolate look in his big brown eyes was heartbreaking. He finally relented and opened the door, took out his cell, and called his sister.
“Where did you keep him all day?” Ryan asked once Celeste finally answered the phone.
“In his room,” she answered on a yawn.
“His room?”
“Yes, you need to give him his own space with his pillow, his teddy bear, and his food.”
“His teddy bear?”
Riley looked up at him, his ears perked.
“Ryan, did you not look in the bag of stuff I brought you?” Celeste asked.
“What bag?”
“That large bag by the sofa.”
Ryan looked over by the sofa, behind a stack of opened boxes where yes, there was a large bag of stuff. Riley’s stuff. He rubbed a hand down his face. “All right. I’ll give him his teddy bear, but he’s going to have to stay in the backyard while I’m at work.”
“Big mistake, brother. Riley doesn’t like it outside by himself. Trust me, you don’t want to do that.”
“Are you shitting me? How could you have raised such a pansy dog?” His patience was thinning.
Riley looked at him and whined. Loudly.
“He isn’t a pansy, he’s sensitive. And smart. And he doesn’t like it when people yell. If you put him out there, you better at least give him his bed and toys.”
“All his toys?” He stared at the bag, which looked like it was full of every kind of dog toy imaginable.
“Absolutely.”
“I’ll give it a try. Thanks, gotta go.” He hung up the phone, picked up the bag, and carried it toward the back door. “Riley, come on, boy!”
Riley didn’t come. In fact, he was nowhere to be found.
“Riley!” He dumped the bag of toys onto the patio and went back into the house looking for the dog. “You can’t hide, you’re bigger than a person! Where are you?”
He found Riley lying on his bed, looking at him with those wide eyes that said, ‘I’m not moving’. He should have known.
“Riley, I have to get to work, and you have to go outside. Come on.” He slapped his leg. “Come on, boy.” He slapped it again.
Riley still didn’t move.
Ryan didn’t want to have to do this, but the dog wasn’t giving him any choice. He walked over to the bed, picked up Riley—who immediately went limp in his arms—and carried the pathetic dog out the back door. As he set Riley down on his pillow, the dog looked up at him and howled. It was the most pitiful sound Ryan had ever heard.
“Good God. Dogs belong outside. They don’t belong in bed all day. Especially my bed,” he told him.
Riley’s eyes could soften the hardest heart. Ryan sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “I tell you what. I’ll come back and check on you at lunchtime, okay? I’ll even bring you a hamburger, if you don’t tell your mommy.”
The dog dropped his head to his paws. Ryan took a deep breath, turned and went into the house. Five minutes later he was headed out the front door, muttering as he climbed into the car. He drove as fast as he could to the Steinhem offices. Only fifteen minutes late. Not too bad, considering the morning he’d had. He hated jobs that demand he be there at 8:00 am. He wasn’t one to live by a clock and he never had been. And Stu Steinhem’s 8:00 a.m. meetings were enough to put him in a coma.
“Whoa, there he is, the man of the hour,” Paul said as he walked into the room. “You’d better hurry, everyone is in the conference room and Stu’s been asking for you.”
Stu liked to torture his employees and contractors by always scheduling his meetings first thing. And no matter how many times Ryan told him it wasn’t necessary or productive, he couldn’t get the man to change his ways. He strode into the big room at the end of the hall and slipped into a chair at the long oval conference table.
“Glad you’re finally here,” Stu Steinhem, CEO, and his unforgiving client, said. “Costas wasn’t happy with the ideas we gave them last week. They want something fresh, something new and innovative. So everyone, give me what you got. It’s going to be a long day.”
Ryan pulled out the Costas file filled with ideas he’d been working on all weekend and laid it on the table. Time to get to work.
…
Carrie woke at 6:00 a.m. just as she had for the past five years, but this time she didn’t have to pop out of bed. There was nowhere she had to be. Nothing she had to do. She didn’t have to rush into the office and live on an IV drip of caffeine just to make it through her day. In fact, there wasn’t a Mountain Dew in the entire house. Life was good.
She’d spent hours the night before setting up her art supplies in the dining room, positioning her easel in front of the window, getting her new artist’s chair set to exactly the right height. Her black glossy bookshelf displayed all her different paints and brushes. She even had a few inspirational prints from Monet and van Gogh hanging on the wall, and a huge stack of blank canvasses awaited her. Life was damn good.
Today, she was going to find her bliss.
Carrie stretched her arms above her. Rolled out of bed and walked into her kitchen to pour a tall glass of water. She quickly scrambled up some eggs with spinach, mushrooms, and sundried tomatoes. Did the dishes, and then meandered into the living room. Clicking on her soothing Hemi-Sync meditation music, she pulled out her yoga mat and laid it flat across her wooden floor and started her stretching exercises.
Meditation. Yoga. Deep breathing. These were all high on the list for relaxation. And she was determined to do it. Unfortunately, she had only gotten ten minutes into her program when she heard a strange, pitiful moaning. She listened for a moment, realized it must be that dog from next door, then picked up the remote to crank up the music and continued on. She wouldn’t be thwarted that easily. Twenty minutes later, she finished her yoga. She could check that one off her doctor-prescribed list.
A high-anxiety life had given her sleepless nights, skyrocketing stress levels, and a constant, pounding headache. Be deliberate about controlling your stress, her doctor had said, or you’ll have long-term health problems.
Next, meditation. She turned down the music, switched it to something softer, and pulled her legs into the lotus position as she started her deep breathing for morning meditation. But even as she concentrated on relaxing her muscles, clearing her mind, and finding her center, the whining started up again.
Even louder than before.
She tried to ignore it, tried to focus on the music, her breathing, her visualizations, but the more she ignored it, the louder it got.
What the hell? What was Ryan doing to his poor dog? She jumped to her feet and stormed through the back of the house. She looked out the bedroom window. If she stood on the bed and looked down at just the right angle, she could see into the neighbor’s backyard. Correction, into his backyard.
That pitiful giant dog of his was just sitting there, head lifted up in the air, howling at nothing. She knocked on the window until he quieted enough that she got his attention. “Riley, what’s the matter?”
The dog looked up at her, caught her eye and howled even louder.
“Quiet down out there,” she called to him, but he only cried more. In fact, now that he’d seen her, he was on a rampage, barking and yapping and howling. Was he too hot? Sick? Did he have shade? Food? Water? She tried to stop worrying about what could be wrong with him and went back into the living room to finish her meditation, but how could she with all that noise?
She ran next door and knocked on the front door. “Ryan!” she called. Surely he could hear the poor thing.
No answer. Ryan wasn’t home.
She hurried back inside and called the rental agency she hoped Stu still used. “This is Ms. Steinhem. The neighbor’s dog is barking up a sto
rm. I don’t know how to get hold of the new tenant, and I’m afraid something could be wrong with the poor thing,” she said when the property manager came on the line.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Steinhem. According to our records, your neighbor does not have a dog.”
“Well, he does now.”
“I’ll call him right away.”
“Thank you.” Carrie hung up the phone and jumped into the shower. She needed to stop worrying over the dog. Let things go, her doctor had said. If she didn’t start taking care of herself, her mind and body would pay the price.
The poor creature would be fine, she thought as she shampooed her hair and lathered her body. She would be fine. Everyone was going to be fine. But once she got out of the shower, Riley was still crying that piercing, sing-song howl. She almost laughed out loud. Who was she kidding? That dog sounded like he was dying out there. Nothing was fine. She had to do something if she was ever going to be able to work on her de-stressing plan today.
She quickly redressed and hurried around the back of Ryan’s house, opening the gate to the yard. She was just going to check on him. That was all, make sure he had shade and water. But as soon as the gate opened, Riley ran straight toward it. She froze, trying not to panic as the big dog hurled toward her. “Please don’t knock me flat and keep going,” she prayed. If he did, if he got past her and ran, then what would she do? Ryan would never forgive her, and she wouldn’t blame him. She tried to back up, to shut the gate but couldn’t get out of her own way fast enough.
Thankfully, the dog stopped in front of her, tail wagging as he nuzzled her leg. She eased further into the yard and immediately saw the pillow and big bowl of water sitting in the shade on the back deck. He was fine; there was no reason for all his theatrics.
She sighed. She was not a dog person. She wasn’t a pet person. Her family hadn’t had a dog since she was little, and after college, it just hadn’t seemed fair to keep one in an apartment. But Riley laid down in the grass by her feet, head pathetically between his paws, still whimpering. “You poor guy, are you lonely?” Animals could be lonely, too, right? “Okay. Come on, let’s go inside.”
Going All the Way (Kiss the Bride #1) Page 3