But, as always, stronger still was her utter disdain for behaving like a coward. It didn’t matter whether no one knew or not. She would know and that was all that really counted. Once she began going off in that direction, there would be no end to the things she would find excuses to run from.
She didn’t want to live like that, didn’t want fear to get the upper hand over her or to govern any aspect of her life.
If she allowed it to happen once, then it would be sure to happen again. And next time, it would be easier to just back away from something. Before she’d know it, her individuality would be forfeited, buried beneath an ever-growing mountain of things for her to fear and to avoid because of that fear.
At that point, she wouldn’t be living, merely existing. Life, her mother had always told her, had to be relished and held on to with both hands. It wasn’t easy, but it was definitely worth it.
Conquering this fear of involvement because she feared being left alone had to be on the top of her to-do list. Otherwise, she was doomed to be lonely right from the beginning.
* * *
The receptionist, Erika, looked up, a prepasted smile on her lips as she said, “Hello.” And then recognition set in. Once it did, the woman’s smile became genuine.
“Hi, Dr. Whitman said you might stop by.” Coming out from behind the desk, Erika turned her attention to Jonathan. “Hi, boy. Have you come to spend the day with us?”
“I guess I’m boarding him,” Lily said, handing over the leash to the receptionist.
“Not technically,” Erika told her. “If you were boarding him, there’d be a charge. Dr. Whitman said there’d be no charge, so Jonathan’s just visiting,” she concluded with a warm smile.
While she was grateful, that didn’t sound quite right to Lily. “Do you often have pets come by who are just visiting?”
“Jonathan’s our first,” the receptionist answered honestly. Then, sensing that the Labrador’s owner might be having second thoughts about leaving him for the day, Erika told her, “Don’t worry, Jonathan will be just fine here. We could stand to have a mascot hanging around the place. Right, Jonathan?”
The dog responded by wagging his tail so hard it thumped on the floor.
“I’m not worried.”
Truthfully, Lily wasn’t having second thoughts about leaving Jonathan. The second thoughts involved her running into Christopher. She wondered if he was already here, and if he was, why hadn’t he come out?
Maybe it was better if he didn’t, she decided in the next moment.
Right, like that’s going to change anything about your reaction to the man.
She pressed her lips together and blocked out the little voice in her head that insisted on being logical. It was time for her to say goodbye to the puppy and get going.
Yet for some reason, her feet weren’t getting the message. They remained planted exactly where they were, as if they were glued to the spot.
She allowed herself just one question—and then she was going to leave, she insisted. Really.
“How’s Rhonda?”
Holding on to Jonathan’s leash, Erika looked at her in surprise. “You know Rhonda?”
Serves you right for saying anything.
“Not exactly,” Lily admitted. “But Chris—Dr. Whitman,” she amended quickly, “mentioned that she was his neighbor’s dog and that she’d been hit by a car the other day. I was just wondering if she was doing any better now.”
Erika actually beamed.
“Oh, she’s doing much better. Would you like to see her?”
The response, followed by the question, didn’t come from Erika. It came from the veterinarian who had come out of the back of the clinic and was now standing directly behind her.
Lily turned around to face him, trying to act as if her heart hadn’t just given up an extra beat—or maybe three.
“Oh, I don’t want to put you out any more than I already have—” She saw the puzzled expression on Christopher’s face, so she explained, “By leaving Jonathan here.”
“You’re not putting anyone out leaving Jonny here,” he assured her. He ruffled the dog’s head before pushing open the swinging door that led to the back of the clinic. “Rhonda’s back here,” Christopher told her.
He stood, holding the rear door open with his back, waiting for her to cross the threshold and come follow him.
Lily had no choice but to do as he asked. To do otherwise would have been rude.
Christopher led the way to where the Irish setter was recuperating from her second surgery. The dog was dozing and looked almost peaceful—except for the bandages wrapped around part of her hindquarters. The dog was in a large cage.
“Isn’t she cramped, staying in there?” Lily asked, looking at him. Her voice was filled with sympathy.
“Right now, I don’t want her moving around too much,” he explained. “If I think she’s responding properly to the surgery and her stitches are healing well, I’ll have her transferred to the run before I have my neighbor take her home with him.”
“The run?” Lily echoed.
Rather than explain verbally, Christopher quietly took her by the hand and drew her over to another area of the hospital.
There were three wide enclosures all next to one another. All three were sufficiently wide for a large animal to not just stretch out, but to literally run around if it so chose.
Christopher stood by silently, letting her absorb it all, then waved his hand at the enclosures. “Hence the term,” he explained.
It began making a little more sense, she thought, taking everything in. And then she looked at Christopher again.
“You sure you don’t mind my leaving Jonathan here all day?” she asked again.
“I’m sure,” he answered. And then he smiled. “Besides, it’ll give you a reason to come back.”
Why was it that the man could instantly make her heart flutter with just a glance. After all, she wasn’t some freshly minted teenager with stars in her eyes. She was an adult who’d endured death and lived life on her own. Heart palpitations over a good-looking man were definitely not in keeping with the way she envisioned herself.
There was no one to give her any answers.
Just then, the receptionist popped her head in. Lily noticed that Jonathan was no longer with the woman. “Doctor, Penelope is here for her shots. I put her in Room 3.”
“Tell Mrs. Olsen I’ll be right in, Erika,” he told his receptionist. And then he turned to Lily. “Penelope is a Chihuahua. Giving her injections is a challenge. The needle is almost bigger than she is. Poor thing shakes uncontrollably the minute I walk into the room and she sees me. I hate having any animal afraid of me,” he confided as they left the area.
He paused by the swinging door that led to the reception desk. “We’re open until six,” he told her. “If you need to leave Jonny here longer than that, I’ll just take him home with me,” he offered.
“Thank you, but that really won’t be necessary. I’ve got a very understanding boss and she’ll let me take off to pick up Jonathan,” she told him. “I’ll see you before six,” she promised.
And with that, Lily hurried out of the animal hospital, moving just a little faster than she might have under normal circumstances.
But even as she reached her vehicle and slid in behind the steering wheel, she had to come to terms with the very basic fact that no matter how quickly she moved, there was no way she was going to come close to outrunning her own thoughts.
Chapter Eleven
Lily felt as if she had never been busier.
Theresa’s catering company had not one but two catering events going on, with both taking place that evening.
One event was a fund-raiser for a local charity. It entailed a full seven-course meal and the guest list was for
a hundred and fifty-eight people. The other was a celebration on a smaller scale. It was a bridal shower and the only things that were required were champagne and a cake that could feed a group of thirty guests, give or take a few.
Lily worked almost nonstop from the moment she entered the shop until the last dessert was carefully boxed up and sent off on its way.
Without being fully aware of it, she breathed a long sigh of relief. It felt as if she’d been on her feet for at least eighteen hours straight and, although she loved to bake, it was really good to be finished,
“You outdid yourself today,” Theresa told her as she oversaw the last of the food being placed in the catering van. Turning from the vehicle, she took a closer look at her pastry chef. “You look really tired, Lily.”
Concern elbowed its way to the surface. No matter what else she did or accomplished with her life, Theresa was first and foremost a mother with a mother’s sense of priorities. “Do you need someone to drive you home, dear? I don’t want you falling asleep behind the wheel. I’d drive you myself but I already have to figure out how to be in two places at once. Three is completely beyond my limit—for now,” the older woman added with a twinkle in her eye.
“I’m fine, Theresa,” Lily assured the older woman. She didn’t want Theresa worrying about her. “Besides, I’m not going straight home.”
Halfway out the front door, ready to drive over to the fund-raiser first to make sure that all would go well there, Theresa turned back to her. It was obvious that her interest was piqued.
“Oh?” Her bright eyes pinned Lily in place. “Do you have a date?”
“With the dog,” Lily quickly informed her boss with a laugh. “I left Jonathan at the animal hospital before coming here this morning.”
“Oh, is he sick?” Since this was partially her idea, to unite Lily with the puppy, she couldn’t help feeling responsible for this turn of events.
Lily immediately set her straight. “Oh, no, nothing like that. Christopher, um, Dr. Whitman,” she quickly amended, “said I could drop Jonathan off at his office so that he’d be properly looked after while I was gone. Otherwise, he might cause havoc in the house and I really didn’t have the heart to stick him into one of those crates.”
Theresa cocked her head, still regarding her intently. “You are talking about the dog and not the veterinarian, right?” the catering company owner wanted to verify.
Lily couldn’t help laughing. Thanks to that, she felt close to rejuvenated as she answered, “Yes, but just for the record, I wouldn’t want to put Dr. Whitman into a crate, either.”
Theresa inclined her head, agreeing. “I’m sure that he’ll be happy to hear that. And now,” she announced as the catering van’s driver honked to remind her that she had to get going, “I’m overdue getting out of here and have to fly. Enjoy yourself.”
Lily felt the instruction was completely misplaced. “I’m only picking up my dog.”
A rather ambiguous, mysterious smile graced Theresa’s lips. “No reason you can’t enjoy that,” the older woman tossed over her shoulder just before she finally hurried out the door.
That was definitely a very odd thing to say, Lily thought, staring at the closed door.
But she didn’t have any time to puzzle it out. She had a dog to pick up and—Lily glanced at her watch—only half an hour to do it in. The animal hospital closed at six o’clock.
She could make it there in twenty, Lily thought confidently.
* * *
She didn’t.
Under ordinary circumstances, she could have easily made it to the animal hospital in the allotted amount of time left. However, ordinary circumstances did not involve a three-car collision that caused several blocks to be shut down to through traffic as two ambulances and three tow trucks were dispatched and made their way through the completely clogged area.
Utterly stressed out, the last of her patience all but stripped from her, Lily finally arrived at the Bedford Animal Hospital sixteen minutes after its doors had closed for the evening.
Even so, ever hopeful, Lily parked in the first space she could find, jumped out of her vehicle and ran to the animal hospital’s front door. Lily tried turning the knob, but it was securely locked and the lights inside the office were turned off.
Everything was dark.
Now what? Christopher was going to think that she deliberately left the dog with him and wasn’t coming back for Jonathan.
That was when she finally saw it.
There was a business envelope with the hospital’s return address in the corner taped to the side of the doorjamb. Her name was written across the front in bold block letters.
She lost no time in pulling off the tape and opening the envelope. Inside was a single sheet of paper.
It read: “Lily, had to close up. Couldn’t reach you by phone so I’m taking Jonny home with me. If you want to pick him up tonight, here’s the address.”
Just like the rest of the note, the address on the bottom was printed in block letters, but even bigger than the previous part so that there was no chance that she would have trouble reading it.
Staring at it, she realized that the address was close to her own house. If she wasn’t mistaken, the veterinarian’s house was just two developments away.
It really was a small world.
With her GPS turned on and engaged to make sure she didn’t accidentally go off in the wrong direction, Lily lost no time in driving over to the address in Christopher’s note.
She didn’t know why, maybe because of his practice, but she had just naturally assumed that Christopher would be living in one of the newer homes that had recently gone up in the area. Once a homey small town built around a state university, Bedford had grown and was still continuing to grow. A thriving city now, it still managed to maintain its small-town feel.
Her GPS brought her to one of the older, more mature neighborhoods. Looking at the address that matched the one in the note, she judged that the house had to be around the same age as the one she lived in. That made the building approximately thirty years old.
After her mother had died, Lily found that she couldn’t bear to sell the house. The thought of having another family move in and change everything around had just been too hard for her to cope with at the time. There were just too many memories there for her to part with so easily.
As she slowed down and approached the house, she saw Christopher’s car in the driveway. Parking at the curb, Lily got out and made her way to the massive double front doors. The moment she rang the doorbell, she heard barking.
Jonathan.
But the very next moment Lily thought she made out two distinct barks—or was that three? There was definitely another dog there besides Jonathan. Had her dog learned to play with other dogs? The thought raised other questions in her mind, all having to do with the energetic puppy’s safety.
Worried, Lily was about to ring the doorbell a second time when the door suddenly swung open. Christopher was standing inside, one hand on the door, the other holding off not one dog, but three.
The second he realized it was her, he grinned. “So you made it.” The way he said it sounded as though congratulations were implied. “I wasn’t sure if you’d see the note.”
He shouldn’t have had to post the note, Lily thought, feeling guilty that he’d had to go to extra trouble on her account. She should have been at the hospital to collect her pet before he’d ever left the place.
Her apology came out in a rush. “I’m sorry. We had two big events going on at the same time then there was a three-car collision and—”
Somewhat overwhelmed by the words and her speed in offering them, Christopher held his hand up as if to physically stop the flow of explanation.
“That’s okay, no harm. I would have kept him here overnight if you could
n’t come to pick him up for some reason. I did try reaching you before we closed up,” he told her. All three attempts went directly to voice mail. Usually there was only one reason for that. “Is your phone off?”
She would have been the first to admit that this had not been her best day. “My cell phone battery died,” she said, chagrinned but owning up to her oversight. “I left it on overnight and forgot to charge it.”
Christopher looked amused rather than fazed. “I do the same thing,” he told her.
Lily doubted it. She had a feeling the man was only saying that to make her feel better, and he had a tiny bit.
“Jonathan’s been making friends with Leopold and Max,” he told her, gesturing toward the two Great Danes that were on either side of her puppy like two huge, somewhat messy bookends. “I think they think he’s a toy I brought home for them.”
“As long as they don’t think he’s a chew toy or try to bury him in the backyard,” Lily quipped, then became serious. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she began. “Except to just grab his leash and get out of your way.”
“No need to hurry off,” he countered. His eyes swept over her, backing up his statement. “I’m having pizza delivered. You can stay and have some if you like. There’s more than enough to share.”
“Pizza?” Lily repeated.
He wasn’t quite sure why she looked at him uncertainly. “Yes. You know, that round thing with sauce and cheese. People usually have more things put on top of it.”
“I know what pizza is.” She looked around at the towering boxes that seemed to be just about everywhere. “Are you having that for dinner because you’re busy packing up to move?”
“I’m not packing up,” he told her, then asked, “What makes you think I’m moving?”
“There are boxes stacked up all over the place,” she said, gesturing toward the nearest cardboard tower. “You’re not moving?” she questioned. Then why were all these boxes here?
Diamond in the Ruff (Matchmaking Mamas Book 13) Page 12