A New Leash on Love

by Debbie Burns

  The idea of why the shelter was going to be in such a funding crunch was sickening. She could envision Tom Lanford interviewing her and having to admit she’d let a ball—no, a boulder—drop.

  Knowing that if she sat still any longer she’d go berserk, Megan stood and flung open her door. Standing on the opposite side of the threshold, raising his hand to knock and looking just as striking as ever, was Craig Williams.

  Craig Williams.

  Because of course.

  Just last night she’d gone to bed hoping she’d redeemed herself a bit with a successful tour. He’d laughed. He’d been fully engaged. More than a few times, he’d shaken his head in sympathy. Before he left, he’d shaken her hand. And maybe sent chills down her spine.

  “Hi.” Her voice sounded small and broken and tearful, she realized as she smoothed back the mess she’d made of her hair. She’d been crying and didn’t know it.

  His smile fell, and a crease formed in his forehead. “What happened?”

  She swiped away the tears clinging to her cheeks. Kelsey and Fidel were around the corner talking. She wasn’t ready to tell them. Not until she had a definitive plan of action. “It’s just not been a good day.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” He pulled back his sleeve to look at his watch. “Fortunately, it’s not even ten o’clock. There’s still time to turn it around.”

  If he only knew. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for an optimist.”

  “That’s because I’m not. However, when I see an eternal romantic such as yourself sinking like this, I’m usually spurred to action. You in the mood for a cup of coffee?”

  She put a hand on her stomach. “I don’t think I could handle coffee right now.”

  “Tea then?” One eyebrow raised slightly, playfully.

  She would’ve bet it impossible, but somehow he was helping her feel better. “Maybe if it comes with a scone.”

  His laugh was soft and low. “Then it’ll come with a scone. I have about an hour. How about you?”

  She glanced back at the crate in the corner. She could see the tips of the puppies’ noses poking out of the blanket. They were sleeping peacefully, and Dr. Washington wouldn’t be here for a while yet.

  Wes had told her a hundred times to pay attention to what he called the flow. He said life sent you what you needed when you most needed it. Sometimes she agreed with him; other times she absolutely didn’t.

  She said a little prayer that this could end up being one of the times she did. She stepped in for her purse and frowned at her reflection in the glass of a framed picture. It was no use. He’d seen her pink, splotchy cheeks already.

  “Do you have some place in mind?” she asked as she checked the floor of the crate to make certain it wasn’t too warm over the heating pad.

  “I know of one or two, but I’ll happily defer to you since this is your stomping ground.”

  “With animals, I try not to play favorites, but that doesn’t apply to coffeehouses. I know exactly where we should go.”

  * * *

  Craig had to admit the Sipperie was more to his liking than he might’ve guessed. Its clean, modern look was warmed by an impressive stone fireplace and cozy leather couches. He and Megan shared a small sofa that was paired with an antique wooden coffee table.

  As soon as they sat down, Megan slipped off her shoes and curled up, facing him. It was hard to tell she’d been crying, though a part of him still wanted to brush his thumb over her cheek to make certain it was dry.

  “Any chance you’re British by heritage?” Unlike her, he’d ordered a coffee. The tea she’d chosen was something mixed with mango. She’d added a bit of milk and honey.

  “A bit, actually. From what I’ve been told, representatives from most European countries stepped up at one point or another to contribute to the Anderson bloodline. I guess that makes me a run-of-the-mill mutt like most of the dogs we take in. I’m just a foodie, and scones have it all.”

  She was right about the scones. He hadn’t had one in forever. He remembered them as dry and wanting. They’d ordered Megan’s two favorites, and she’d asked for them to be cut into halves. One was a triple berry; the other, orange. They were rich, dense, and buttery. “They are really good. And this place is nice. Though I’ve never had a steak drawn in the foam of my coffee.”

  She laughed as she balanced her mug on her thigh. “I’m pretty sure that was a heart, not a steak.”

  “Wouldn’t that be overkill paired with those chocolate heart candies they’re giving out?”

  “That sort of thing happens on Valentine’s Day.”

  “Just to set expectations, I’d not made that connection when I asked you to coffee.”

  She laughed again, warm and inviting. She was wearing jeans and a soft, green sweater that complemented her eyes. “If you haven’t noticed, it happens every fourteenth of February.”

  “I tend to ignore things that don’t pertain to me. It’s a coping mechanism, but a fault, I know. So about your morning. Would you like to talk about it, or just put it behind you?”

  “Unfortunately, it’s not something I can put behind me. I haven’t told Kelsey or Fidel yet, but I messed up really bad last week. Catastrophically bad.” Her voice pitched at the last few words. She focused on her mug, running her thumb along the rim.

  “Want to tell me?” His need to make whatever happened right again was surprisingly strong.

  She gave a one-shoulder shrug. He sensed it wasn’t because she didn’t care, but because she cared immensely. “We survive on donations and grants—obviously—and there are some we tend to get every year that we count on to keep the doors open. I’m the grant writer…” She paused and tucked her free hand under her knee. “Last week was the deadline for a really important grant, and I missed it.”

  “I can see why you were upset. Who was it with? And how much?”

  “Maclind Pharmaceutical. Just over a hundred thousand. We’ve gotten it the last nine years. It’s paid for our dog food all that time.”

  “You said the deadline was just last week? Right in the wake of that ice storm. Have you contacted them? I’m betting they’d understand.”

  She swallowed hard and set her cup on the table. “That’s the first thing I did. I got through to one of the head accountants. He invited me to try again next year.”

  “But it wasn’t John Benchley?”

  A hint of a smile crossed her lips. “He’s the CFO, and it’s a billion-dollar company. I don’t think there’s anything I could say to get a call through to John Benchley.”

  Craig considered consoling her before pulling out his phone, but he’d lived so long using sarcasm and indifference to get by that the idea felt foreign. He flipped through his contacts and hit Send. “Is John busy?” he asked when John Benchley’s assistant answered his personal line. She must have read the caller ID because she explained he was in a conference most of the day and promised to leave a message. “That’s fine. Just have him call me when he’s free.”

  He slipped his phone into his pocket and broke off a bite of scone. “Do you have a favorite? I’d have guessed berry myself, but the orange is surprisingly good.”

  The bewildered look Megan had gotten during his call remained. Little peaks formed over her eyebrows. “It depends on the day.” She sounded mystified. He fought back the smile tugging at his mouth. “It was just a coincidence that you called someone named John immediately after bringing up John Benchley, right?”

  “Like most people, when I know someone well enough, I never use their last name. So back to that grant. Did you finish it? Is it sent?”

  “No, I remembered it minutes before you came in. Why?” She bit her lip, drawing his attention to her mouth before he noticed the tension suddenly making her rigid.

  “How quickly can you wrap it up? Can you FedEx it this afternoon?”

&nbs
p; She blinked. “Did you seriously just call the John Benchley?”

  “The John Benchley? As names go, Benchley’s not altogether uncommon, and there’s a John everywhere you turn. I’m betting there are a few at least.” Craig took a sip of coffee to keep from laughing.

  “You’re not funny.”

  “I kind of think I am. But yes,” he relented, chuckling, “I did. We belong to the same country club. We golf together sometimes. Though he takes the sport a bit more seriously than I do.”

  Megan sat up straight. Her eyes brimmed with fresh tears. “Do you seriously think we still have a chance?”

  A wave of guilt washed over him for messing with her in the first place. “I do. John owes me a favor, but he’s a softie for dogs anyway. Get it wrapped up today if at all possible, and regardless of what the guidelines say, send it to his attention. I’ll let his assistant know to look for it.”

  She crumpled over and buried her face in her hands. Before he realized it, Craig’s hand was halfway to her shoulder. Silky waves of chestnut hair spilled over it, calling him. The desire to comfort her was a whole-body one, deep and nearly overpowering. So of course there was nothing else to do but pull his hand away. He made a fist and forced his attention to one of the baristas passing out roses to the customers.

  He wouldn’t touch her. He didn’t touch anyone anymore. Sophie was the only one who proved an easy exception to that rule. Reese was too much like him to accept affection in this world after Andrew.

  Megan sat upright and brushed away a few tears. She cleared her throat and took a sip of tea. “Why did you come today?” Her words were lined with tension.

  He hadn’t expected her to be defensive, but it appealed to him. If she’d been overly thankful and gushing, it wouldn’t have felt sincere. “Not,” he said, “for one of those.” He let his gaze settle on the barista who’d just reached them with a smile and an extended rose before she eyed Megan’s tears.

  His comment brought a hint of a smile back to Megan’s face. She shook her head politely at the barista who walked away faster than she’d come over.

  “Is sarcasm your armor?” she asked, somehow cutting through everything all at once.

  “We had a bargain,” he said when he recovered, returning to her earlier, safer question. “Only I forgot to leave you a check yesterday after that successful tour in which neither of us got heated in the slightest. I told you I’d double Sophie’s program fee.”

  “Then she’s decided?” Megan’s voice turned up hopefully. “She wants to be in the program?”

  “Sophie? Are you kidding? You had her at woof. She’s all set for the Saturday walk. I’m sorry I can’t join her this weekend. I have a previous commitment.”

  “That’s great! I’m glad. She’s sweet.”

  “She is sweet. As sweet as they come.”

  “Do you have other kids?”

  He looked away and at the flower-bearing barista who was giving the last two roses to two women seated by the door. They accepted them with smiles and words of appreciation he couldn’t hear over the solo guitar music coming out of the speakers.

  Did he have other kids? Andrew always felt impossibly far away and close at the same time at moments like this. Like he’d never existed and had also somehow never left. Sometimes Craig could say it, say he’d had two identical twin boys, but one was living and one wasn’t. Other times he couldn’t.

  “I have a son. Reese. He’s nine and not the lover of animals that his sister is.” He just couldn’t go there. Not with her. She was already tearing down his defenses.

  “There’s still time for that, though he’s too young for our program for a few more years.” Megan paused and pulled in a deep breath. “I wish I’d gotten to this sooner so it doesn’t seem insincere with you making that call, but I’m sorry for the way I treated you the day you came in with Hershey.”

  “There’s nothing you should be sorry for.”

  She held up a finger. “We see worse all the time. Hershey was healthy and loved and fed. I shouldn’t have treated you the way I did. This morning, some woman dropped off two puppies who were severely neglected. There are two of them, little beagle mixes. Boys. Maybe they’ll live, and maybe they won’t. We’ll do our absolute best. And I guess I’m telling you this because this won’t be the first or last time we bring dogs through our doors in this kind of shape. I’ll try to keep Sophie from seeing it though. We do with all the junior protectors.”

  “I thank you for that. She’s, ah…she’s dealt with enough.” Andrew and his story were on the tip of Craig’s tongue, but his tongue turned to cement at the thought. “It goes back before the divorce” was all he could make himself say.

  Megan nodded, her bright-green eyes searching his, waiting for more. Waiting for what he wasn’t able to give.

  “We should probably get you back.” He set his mug on the table and stood up. “You have a grant to finish and puppies to save.”

  He dropped a tip on the table and headed for their coats. He helped her with hers, and her delicate scent filled his nostrils, then his lungs, calming him better than aromatherapy.

  Megan was exceptionally quiet in the car. He pulled into the shelter lot, noticing the faded sign and thinking how it would be nice to help them—help her—develop a new logo and a new sign. He could do it easily. He owned his own marketing company after all.

  It wasn’t until she unbuckled that she finally spoke. “The suits you wear. This car. I guess it should’ve been easier for me to believe that it was Maclind’s John Benchley you called. Only why’d you ask me out for coffee?”

  Craig slipped his car into Park. “Careful. It almost sounds like you’re saying people with connections don’t drink coffee.”

  She shook her head, cutting through his bullshit once again. “I suspect you wouldn’t give me an honest answer anyway. But thank you all the same for giving me this second chance with the grant. You have no idea what it means to me. What it’ll mean for the shelter.”

  He was pretty sure what it would mean for the shelter. And for her not to carry the guilt of forgetting, of not following up. Guilt of any kind was hard to carry. He could tell her that, tell her something real. It was clearly what she wanted from him. “It’s my pleasure. You have my cell. Call me if you need anything.”

  She looked from him to the shelter and back again. She studied him openly, not blushing or looking away this time. “You have mine too,” she said finally. “If you need anything.” Then she got out and headed into the shelter without looking back.

  Chapter 8

  Megan pulled her RAV4 into the empty shelter parking lot and was reminded of the way it felt when a wild roller coaster rumbled to a stop at the end of the ride. If there’d been a day with as many ups and downs as this one in recent months, she couldn’t remember it.

  She grabbed the FedEx receipt off the passenger seat and headed inside the empty building. It was a quarter to six, and the sun was sinking low on the horizon. Inside, the fading light shone through the west windows, casting a soft yellow glow around the front room.

  Chance trotted over, wagging his tail. It still amazed her how he knew her by the everyday sounds she made or by her smell. He didn’t greet visitors or volunteers this way. He saved his warmest hellos for the small group of people who cared for him daily. She dropped her things on the counter and sank to the floor. “Hey, boy.” She scratched behind his left ear where he seemed to like it most. “Well, I can’t promise you everything’s going to be just fine, but at least we’re not ending this day in certain disaster.”

  Just after lunch, Dr. Washington had examined the puppies and put them on a special diet for the next week. He’d been hesitant to commit to their odds, which bothered her, but she could swear they were already more alert. To help get their strength up, they’d need to be fed every four hours. Tonight they were going home with Megan, which he
r no-dogs landlord wasn’t going to be happy about. They’d hardly be out of their crate though.

  After Dr. Washington left, she’d locked herself in her office to finish the grant, which was a feat. She made it to the nearest FedEx just before closing, sending it off as directed.

  Chance rolled onto his back. She rubbed his belly, happy to pass a few minutes simply relaxing. Now that she wasn’t inundated by the grant, her thoughts kept returning to Craig. Was it crazy to have felt a connection with him? Crazy to think he felt it too? They were different in so many ways.

  And even though Ashley kept telling her enough time had passed, Megan hadn’t thought twice about a guy since she and her ex-fiancé had broken off their engagement. Their breakup had happened so close to Wes’s heart attack that it had been easy to immerse herself in work and forget about men entirely.

  But something about Craig—and not just his looks—got her blood pulsing. It was a whole-body feeling, the way she wanted to break through the obvious barriers and get to know him. Intimately. When he made jokes but his eyes said something else entirely, the desire to know what he was thinking felt primal.

  She found Chance’s favorite spot and was scratching away, his back leg thumping on the floor like a rabbit, when her cell chirped. She rose to her knees and dug it from her purse just before it went to voice mail. She said hello without looking at the number.

  “What exactly did you mean by need anything?”

  It was Craig. She’d know his voice anywhere. Her palms started to sweat. So the point she’d made to him as she was leaving must’ve gotten through.

  She sank to the floor, and Chance crawled onto her lap. She was almost certain Craig’s greeting was his typical sarcasm, not fishing for any real depth of conversation.

  Two could play that game.

  “Tit for tat, of course,” she replied playfully. “Like by offering to connect you to notable innovators in conservation and animal welfare.”

  A low, easy laugh rumbled out of him.

  “Only something tells me you have all the connections you need.”