Golden Retriever Puppies. Ten Weeks Old.
‘We don’t-’ she gasped.
‘Yes, you do,’ he said, and somehow he knew enough of this woman to realise his gut instinct was right. ‘You had four dogs. You and Rusty have had six months by yourselves, and that’s long enough. I have colleagues with dogs and I know how big a part of their lives they are. And I’ve met golden retrievers. They smile. You live in a place where pets are welcome-yes, I saw the sign-so why not?’
Then, as he saw her face, a mixture of distress and despair, he cut the engine, tilted her chin with his finger and said, ‘Tori, you need something warm and alive and new, something not scarred by what’s gone before. If Rusty hates it…if you hate it, then okay, but I do want you to think about it.’
She still looked distressed. He hesitated, unsure what to say, unsure what his feelings were. Last night this woman had moved him as no one had ever done. If he had longer… If it was possible, maybe she’d even penetrate the armour he’d built up around himself.
But for now, he couldn’t leave her like this. Despite the colour and the flowers, he couldn’t leave her in her strange little relocatable. Relocatable… Even the name seemed wrong.
This woman needed a home. Home was a strange concept for Jake, who’d always regarded home as where he could crash with least effort, but there was something about Tori that said home was much more.
‘Last night changed things,’ he said softly. ‘They say men can take sex as it comes, and maybe they’re right, most of the time, but they’re not talking about what we had last night. It’s bound me to you in some way I can’t begin to figure. It made me feel like part of you is part of me. Whether that’s dumb or not, that’s the way you make me feel. Our lives don’t connect. Not now. Not yet. But I can’t walk away and leave you and Rusty without something of me.’
He glanced again at the sign. Maybe this was a cop-out, he thought, but for now it was all he could do. Anything else scared him stupid. ‘So can I buy you and Rusty a puppy?’ he asked again. ‘From me to you.’
‘So we get to hug a puppy in the middle of the night instead of you,’ she whispered, in a voice that wasn’t quite steady.
‘Instead of nothing,’ he said, and he heard bleakness but he couldn’t help it. He hesitated, and then, because it seemed right, he kissed her, gently on the lips, and forced a smile. ‘Though you can pretend it’s me if you like. I hear golden retrievers make great tongue kissers.’
‘Eww!’
He grinned. The distress on her face faded and the tension between them lessened a little. The kiss seemed to have made things better. It had made them seem…friends as well as lovers?
Friends instead of lovers.
Tori was smiling a little now, but she was chewing her bottom lip, looking at the sign, looking at him, looking at the sign again. Focusing on a puppy.
It was no small thing, he thought, to lose three beloved dogs and then to move forwards.
‘Should I call him Jake?’ she asked, and he blinked.
‘Jake.’
‘Big and warm and a bit shaggy.’
‘Hey!’
‘It fits.’
‘I don’t believe I’m shaggy.’
‘You could be,’ she said. ‘If you loosened up a little. If you forgot to be a Manhattan millionaire.’
‘I’m not!’
‘Rob says you are.’
‘Rob talks too much. I’m just-’
‘A doctor doing his best,’ she said, laughter fading. ‘And your best has been wonderful. You saved Doreen’s life last night. In a way, you’ve saved Glenda’s. You’re wonderful.’
The depth of sincerity in her voice was unmistakable. You’re wonderful. He’d never been given such a compliment-by such a woman. And suddenly the light kiss he’d just given her was no longer enough. He desperately wanted to kiss her again-only this time deeply and long-but she was looking at the sign again, and there was a furrow between her eyes that told him her focus was no longer on him.
He had to back off.
‘I guess…’ she said slowly. ‘I’m not working yet. It’d be a good time to get a pup. And it could really help Rusty.’
Okay, forget the kiss. Concentrate on what was important. ‘It’d be a great time to get a pup, and I’d love to buy one for you.’
‘I’d pay,’ she said quickly.
‘No,’ he said, and he tugged her round to face him again. ‘Manhattan millionaire, Tori. My gift.’
She smiled, a little bit wobbly but a smile for all that. ‘If he’s from a Manhattan millionaire, then he should have a diamond-studded collar.’
‘He’d think it was girlie.’
‘Then,’ she said, her smile widening as she climbed out of the car, ‘let’s see if they have a girl. Jake might need to become Jackie. A golden retriever who doesn’t sniff at diamonds. Jake or Jackie. Let’s see what they have.’
She didn’t choose a Jake. She chose a female and she chose a runt. Or Rusty chose a runt and Tori agreed.
He might have known. There were six pups as big as one another, as energetic as one another, as healthy as one another. There was one bigger than the rest, a male who obviously spent his life trying to round up his litter mates, growing more and more exasperated as his siblings didn’t do what he wanted. And then there was a tiny female who tried gamely to join into the family romp and got knocked over every time. Rusty went straight to her, nose to tail, tail to nose, and they started, tentatively, to play.
‘We nearly put her down,’ the breeder told them, as Tori scooped up the pup in one hand and Rusty in another. ‘My husband wanted to-she’s such a runt-only she kept on fighting for her place at a teat and she has such courage that I couldn’t bear to. But she’s not right,’ she confessed as Tori snuggled her under her chin. ‘Her left ear is weird. It sort of sticks up when it’s supposed to flop. And her tail’s supposed to be long and feathery and I can tell already that it’s not. The older she’s getting the worse it’s looking. If you want her, she’s cheap.’
Neither of them was thinking of money. Jake watched Tori snuggle the little girl to her; he watched her with two dogs in her arms, and he felt great. This was going to work.
Then he got distracted. The biggest pup had been tearing round in circles. He had his litter mates rounded up, but then one of his sisters made a break for it. He darted after her, the others scattered and he had to start the whole process again. He practically beamed as he proceeded to bounce around the circle again.
He didn’t know dogs. His mother had hated them, and now he spent his life at work. A dog was out of the question. But he watched Tori cuddle her two and he thought… He thought…
‘Would you like two pups?’ he asked her. ‘I think the round-up guy’s great.’
Tori’s arms were full of wriggly dog. For a runt the little one had plenty of bounce, and Rusty was wriggling, too. They were practically turning inside out to reach each other.
‘Two,’ Tori gasped. ‘Are you trying to drown me?’ She sank onto the floor and was pounced on by a sea of pups. ‘Oh, Jake, I shouldn’t even think about one.’
She was half laughing, half crying. This was a huge thing for her, Jake thought, as he watched her hug armloads of pups. She’d lost three dogs in the most dreadful of circumstances, and she’d lost so much more. For her now to move on… To learn to love again…
‘It feels like a betrayal,’ she whispered but she hugged her runt closer.
‘Grief has to let you go sometime,’ Jake said softly. ‘What did Auden say? Stop all the clocks? They did stop for you, Tori, but now they need to start again. Nothing is worth stopping the clocks for the rest of your life. And if that means loving again…’
‘Says the man who doesn’t do loving.’
‘How did-’
‘I can guess,’ she whispered, smiling up at him through tears. ‘I’m guessing your parents stuffed you so badly you’ve never got over it. So why don’t you get a pup?’
&n
bsp; ‘I work fourteen hours a day,’ he said shortly. ‘I can hardly leave one of these guys in a corner of the operating room while I work.’
‘I guess you can’t,’ she said sadly, but then a tiny smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. ‘As opposed to me. I’m a vet. I could take these guys to work. I could manage two dogs.’
‘Not three?’ He was still eyeing the round-up king, circler extraordinaire.
‘Can you imagine that guy in my shoebox?’ she demanded, following his gaze. ‘My yard’s the size of a pocket handkerchief. Even one’s stupid. Maybe I shouldn’t…’
Okay, he needed to focus. Forget the round-up king, he told himself, and he crouched among the puppies so he was right in front of her.
‘It would be my pleasure to buy one of these pups for you,’ he said. ‘Please let me.’
Her gaze met his. Her eyes were glimmering with unshed tears, but she was trying to smile.
‘A birthday gift?’
‘When’s your birthday?’ he demanded, stunned.
‘Today.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘Sort of,’ she admitted. ‘But that’s what it feels like. My birthday. Like yesterday was one life and today’s the beginning of another. Jake, last night…’
The breeder was watching, a big, broad woman in wellingtons and overalls, waiting for them to make a decision on the puppies. This was hardly the time to talk about last night. But…
‘Last night was great,’ he told her. ‘And tonight…’
‘Not tonight,’ she said, fast. Her puppy wriggled to get down. She released him and the king immediately took it as a personal affront that his huddle of pups had been interfered with. He yapped and started circling again.
‘Jake, last night was last night,’ she said. ‘It was the most wonderful gift. It’s just made me feel alive again, like there’s life still to come. So now… As you said, it’s time to start the clocks again. So yes, Jake, I’d love you to buy me a birthday gift. My lopsided puppy. Itsy, I think, after a song my mother taught me.’
‘Itsy bitsy spider?’ he asked, bemused.
‘That’s the one.’
‘My guy could be Bitsy.’
‘Nice try,’ she said and grinned and lifted up her puppy and held her, only this time it was almost as a shield. ‘One pup. No more.’
There were so many conflicting emotions in his head he didn’t know where to start. Business, he thought, and he grabbed his wallet and made a play of finding his credit card. For suddenly he couldn’t look at her. This woman with her arms full of pup. This woman whose life had been destroyed and was now starting again-while he went back to Manhattan. He need never see her again, he thought, and he felt suddenly, unutterably bleak.
Which was nonsense. He didn’t do relationships, and he surely didn’t do relationships with vets who lived on the far side of the world to him.
And he didn’t do relationships with women he might just end up falling in love with.
But he looked at the play of emotions on her face as Itsy licked and licked. He looked at the errant curl that had escaped the knot she’d tied. Last night those curls had been down. He’d run his fingers through them. Soft as silk…
He wanted her.
‘You want her or not?’ the breeder demanded.
The dog. She was talking about the dog.
‘I think we do,’ he said, still watching Tori. ‘Don’t you, love?’ She blinked. ‘Love?’
‘Figure of speech,’ he said hastily. ‘Don’t you, um…’
‘Tori,’ she said and smiled, and it was as if she could read his thoughts. ‘Dr. Nicholls.’ Her smile held the memory of the night before. It was the smile of a woman who’d taken her man, who knew what he was…
Her man?
He belonged in New York, he thought, trying desperately to ground himself.
Remember relationships, he told himself. They never last. His mother had drilled it into him over and over until it was almost a mantra. ‘Depend on yourself and only yourself. You fall in love and you start being stupid.’
Only his mother had lied. If she’d lied about his father, what else had she lied about?
But maybe in this she was right. Stupid would be taking Tori into his arms right now, and holding her, and…
And what? Carrying her back to New York? He surely couldn’t see Tori in his sleek Manhattan apartment. She’d have to walk Itsy in Central Park.
He’d known her for, what, two days? So maybe in this at least his mother was right. You fall in love and you start being stupid.
He concentrated on payment. He felt Tori look at him for a long moment, and then she turned her attention back to Itsy.
Bitsy was chewing his shoelaces. He glanced down at the little dog and he thought Bitsy was the stupid side of him as well.
The breeder scooped him up and put him back into the pen. Bitsy looked out through the bars as if he’d just been put in solitary confinement.
‘Will he sell?’ He couldn’t help asking.
‘Oh, yeah,’ the breeder said confidently. ‘He’s the best of the litter. I’m thinking, though, that I’ll keep him myself for stud. Look at those bones…’
Bones? All he could see was eyes, looking out through the bars as if he’d personally betrayed him.
He glanced at Tori, who was also looking wistfully at Bitsy-while clutching Itsy and Rusty.
‘I can’t,’ she whispered.
She couldn’t. He could see that. They had to get out of here before they had the whole litter.
‘Just Itsy,’ he said.
‘Just Itsy,’ Tori whispered. ‘Two is enough.’
Two dogs?
That was what she meant. She had her house now. She had her dogs. She’d start a new job, a new life…and he’d go back to New York.
What was wrong with that?
They made a fast visit to a pet shop to buy Itsy supplies. Then they headed back to the shoebox to drop off the flowers. They also did two medical consultations. It seemed that word had already spread that Dr. Nicholls had moved into Shoebox Mansions. They arrived back to find a border collie with a grass seed in its paw, and a corgi with flatulence, dogs and owners waiting patiently at her front door.
To Jake’s surprise Tori took it in her stride-in fact, she even seemed pleased. While Rusty and Itsy explored their miniscule backyard Tori sat on the doorstep and turned into a vet again. While Jake and the owner held the big, docile collie still, she carefully tweezed out a cruel-looking hayseed. She cleaned the paw and disinfected it.
She then told the corgi’s owner where to buy charcoal tablets, and to add a little yoghurt to her meals. Both owners went away happy.
‘You’ll be inundated,’ Jake said, thinking of his mother; of the way she’d hated patients’ demands.
‘I like it,’ she said simply. ‘It makes me feel like I belong.’
He thought of his work; of the careful distance he kept. He worked long hours, but to have someone approach him out of context, a neighbour, someone in his gym…
This wasn’t his world.
Tori wasn’t his world, he thought. But how could he leave her?
Maybe he couldn’t.
It was a bit after five before they arrived back at the hospital to pick up Rob and Glenda.
‘We’re a wee bit late,’ Tori said, starting to apologise, but then Glenda spotted Itsy and no apologies were necessary.
Glenda was beaming. The new painkillers were obviously working. The tight lines of pain around her eyes had eased and, even though she was still cradling her arm, there was a huge sense of relief about her. Doreen had gone through the surgery with flying colours. The cardiologist had spoken to her and had been completely reassuring and Rob had promised to take her to see her tonight.
‘And the hand therapist is wonderful,’ she told them. ‘He didn’t do very much-he says I need really good pain control first and he’s only going to work within the limits of what doesn’t hurt-but he massaged really gently
and I did tiny exercises, and already it’s feeling better. He’s given me a sheet of exercises to do at home, but I’m to come here every day because he says if we hadn’t caught it now there might be long-term loss of function.’
There might already be a little, Jake thought, but he watched Glenda’s shining eyes and thought a little loss of function would be nothing now that the pain was relieved.
‘So we’re both going to be okay,’ Glenda said happily. ‘But Dr. Fulton says we have to persuade you to stay here. She says anaesthetists make great pain specialists, and this valley needs a pain specialist so badly and if you’re anything like your father you’d be wonderful. She says there’re so many burns victims with long-term problems, long-term pain, that we all need you.’
And suddenly they were all looking at him. Glenda, Rob, Tori…even Rusty and Itsy.
‘No,’ he said, really fast, and Glenda’s face fell. Tori’s face didn’t change, but he thought he saw the smallest quiver…
Don’t go there.
‘We need to get back to the lodge,’ he said, still too fast, and Glenda took the hint and turned her attention back to Itsy.
‘Is Itsy coming to stay?’
‘I’m only coming back to get my car,’ Tori told them. ‘I’ve moved into my new house. Itsy and Rusty and I need to go home.’
Home. There was that word again.
‘Oh, my dear, that’s a shame,’ Glenda said, throwing Jake a reproachful look-as if somehow he could have persuaded her to stay but had chosen not to. ‘Oh, and Itsy would have made the lodge much more fun.’
‘Where’s your cat?’ Tori asked her. ‘Pickles?’
‘In the cattery on James Street,’ Glenda said. ‘But-’
‘Then let’s go spring him and take him back with us.’ Tori grinned happily at them all. ‘Rob says the rule is no animals but I’m thinking he’s the manager and Jake’s the owner. Jake, your stepmother set the lodge up as an indulgence for the wealthy. That’s gone out the window. What it needs now is to be a place people can come to recover. If I were you I’d think about pushing that aspect hard. Even when the fire’s forgotten there’ll always be people who need an interim place, between hospital and home. Pets are the first thing. Rob could make individual runs attached to the bedrooms. Guests can contain their own pet as much as they like, but still take it for runs or cuddle it in bed at night.’ She hugged Itsy and Rusty. ‘Like I do. It’ll be great.’
Dating The Millionaire Doctor Page 10