Shit. It was just more proof that he needed to find another place to stay.
Lance slowly stood and made a clicking noise with his mouth as he walked toward Leah’s house in hopes that the dog would follow. He glanced over his shoulder as he started to walk up her driveway and saw the dog was still standing in the same position staring at him.
“Good boy, I’ll be right back.”
Once he was out of the dog’s sight he rushed in the house and grabbed some of leftover meat from the fajitas and the leash that hung in Leah’s front closet. When he walked back out to the sidewalk, his heart sank when he didn’t see the dog. He walked back to where he’d been and looked around. He headed back down to the river and scanned the area.
The only thing he saw was a woman who looked to be in her eighties power walking toward him in neon pink sweats.
“Morning, have you seen a dog around?”
“A white dog?” The woman asked.
“Yes,” Lance confirmed as his heart sparked with hope.
“Yes, I have.”
“Where did he go?”
She pointed the direction of where he’d just come. “Up the road, but it was yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” Lance repeated, deflated by the timeframe.
“That’s right. I told Susan. Have you met Susan?”
“No, I haven’t.” Lance once again scanned the area, looking for any sign of the dog.
“Well, I told Susan that she should keep an eye out because little Mason is always playing in the front yard. If you ask me, I think she should put that boy on a leash. He’s an escape artist, that one. One second he’s there, the next he’s gone.”
Lance was only half-listening and wasn’t sure if the escape artist she was talking about was the dog or the little boy. “Okay, well you have a nice day.”
He started to jog the opposite direction.
“You’re Doc and Kitty’s grandson, aren’t you?”
Small towns are a trip, he thought as he turned back. “I am.”
“I knew it. You are the spitting image of Miles.”
Kitty had said the same thing, but he’d thought that might’ve been because she was high on pain meds. “You knew my dad?”
“Oh yes, I used to babysit him when Kitty was working down at the vet office.”
“You did?” Lance wanted to ask what he was like, but the woman answered before he had the chance.
“Oh, yes. He was a mischievous one, that Miles. Always getting into something. But I could never stay cross at him. No one could. He was a charmer.”
A charmer. Mischievous. That was the first time he’d ever heard his father described like that.
“Well, I’d better get going before my heart rate slows. Nice to meet you, Lance.” And with that, the woman was off.
“Nice to meet you,” he replied but realized that he hadn’t, really. He had no idea what the woman’s name was, and there was no sign of the dog anywhere.
But he knew more about his dad, and that was something.
* * *
Leah held her heels as she stuck her key in the front door. It was six-thirty in the morning and she doubted that Lance was still asleep. She hoped that he was in the shower, and not just because the thought of him naked with water streaming over his body was so hot.
She wanted to get to her room undetected. Even though she knew she was being ridiculous, she didn’t want Lance to know that she’d been out all night. He would get the wrong idea about her.
Not that her being out all night was the wrong idea, per se. She’d done the walk of shame plenty of times. But this particular morning, that was not the case. After going over to Bea’s house and downloading the disaster of a date she’d had, she’d asked her sister if she could stay at her house. Bea, of course, had agreed and Leah’d spent the night in her bed with the man she’d had the longest relationship in her life with: Indy. His dog breath left a little to be desired, but the morning kisses were worth it.
She’d told Bea about Brock and they’d had a good laugh, and both agreed that she’d been totally justified in kneeing him in the balls.
But she hadn’t told her sister anything about her conversation with Lance. And she told her sister everything.
She wasn’t sure why she’d kept it to herself. Normally, she discussed every detail of her life with her twin.
The important stuff anyway. And she couldn’t fool herself into thinking that this didn’t qualify. Leah might not fully understand what the conversation she’d had with Lance the night before meant, but she knew it was important.
There were some moments in her life that she knew she’d always remember. The time her dad told her Bea’d had complications in her surgery and was being moved to the ICU. When she got the phone call from Bea saying that her fiancé had been killed. When she and Bea had decided to move to the Midwest and open up a pet store and grooming business.
Last night felt like one of those “milestone” conversations.
It had been too much to handle in the moment, but all night she’d laid awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about it—and Lance was right. This entire plan to take attraction out of the equation was insane…or at least misguided.
Lance had been right about everything he’d said to her; she just hadn’t been ready to admit it at the time. All of it had hit home but the one thing that he’d said that she couldn’t stop replaying was, “I know that you should never settle for anyone less than someone who makes you blush and takes your breath away.”
Damn straight! And although she still maintained that there was a very good possibility he might be a sociopath that was manipulating her, she couldn’t stop thinking that Lance was the right man for the job.
Too bad he didn’t seem all that interested in applying. He’d been confused when she’d said that she’d had a date, but he hadn’t seemed jealous. Which, if she were being totally honest, kind of got under her skin.
And when he’d seen her in her outfit right before she left, as much as she’d secretly wished he would stalk across the kitchen, pick her up, throw her over his broad shoulder, and carry her back to her room, caveman-style, and then ravish her…he hadn’t.
All he’d said was, “You’re just showing off.”
Which, screw it, she was still taking as a compliment even if she wasn’t sure that’s how he’d meant it. Either way, she was ready to address whatever was going on between them.
All she needed to do was make it to her room, take a shower, have a cup of coffee, and then she’d feel him out to see if what she was feeling was one-sided. If she timed it just right, she might even be able to get some pancakes, or whatever delicious breakfast he might cook this morning, out of the deal.
Leah slowly opened the door and crept inside. It was dark in the house, other than the dim light from the rising sun coming in through the slats of the venetian blinds. She was tiptoeing across the wooden floors when she heard, “Morning.”
The deep voice rumbled from the kitchen area and she felt like a teenager who’d been caught sneaking into her house after curfew. Which she’d also done plenty of times. That was how she’d recognized the feeling.
Leah glanced up and saw Lance leaning against the counter, drinking a tall glass of water. A tall, clean glass, since he’d done all the dishes. Again.
His hair was damp, either from a shower or his morning run. Either way, Leah wanted to run her fingers through it. He was wearing a white T-shirt and gray sweats, and both clung to him in all the right places. It had been less than twelve hours since she’d seen him last and somehow he’d become even sexier in that time.
Her mouth instantly started watering, but she gulped down the excess saliva. Her lips quivered as the corners lifted in a nervous grin.
Nerves, speechlessness, butterflies…these were all things she’d never had to deal with before meeting Lance. In fact, she’d never truly believed they existed. Whenever her friends would describe any of those things happening to them, she
thought they were being dramatic and wanted to pretend their lives were a rom-com. But now she knew that they were telling the truth.
Forcing herself to speak, she finally managed to say, “Morning.”
“Fun night?”
Her first instinct was to lie and say yes. Not because she was a big liar—in fact, she prided herself on her honesty.
And that was the problem: her pride. More than dishonesty, she detested being proven wrong. Lance had said that it wasn’t going to work out with Brock and he’d been right. Although, in fairness to her, he wasn’t right about why things hadn’t worked out. It had nothing to do with the lack of attraction and everything to do with the guy being a total tool.
Another thing that was holding her back from disclosing just how awful the “date”, if you could even call it that, had been was that she didn’t want him to think that she was only interested in him because things hadn’t worked out with Brock.
It was quite the conundrum she found herself in.
“It was fine.”
He stared at her and she had a quick mental flash of her nose growing, Pinocchio style. Yeah. Pretty accurate.
It was as if he could see right through her and she didn’t like it. At all. Why did everything with Lance have to feel so…intense? It made her wonder what it would be like if all that energy was focused in a much more sexual direction. Her inner walls clenched at the thought.
He shifted and for the first time since meeting him, Leah noticed a chip in his confident armor. She wondered what had caused it. “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Cleaning her house? Making her breakfast and dinner? Giving her swoon-worthy compliments that made her feel seen? Being so perfect that he couldn’t be real?
“For what I said, last night.”
Leah’s heart was racing, the way it did whenever she was around Lance and she was sure that her cheeks were red, something that he’d so memorably pointed out happened when he looked at her. He wasn’t wrong, those things did happen when he looked at her.
“You said a lot of things last night.” That was a sentence she’d never expected to say to Lance. He was a man of few words, but fuck, were those words good.
“Things got…I said some personal things that I shouldn’t have.”
“Why?”
“Why did I say them?”
She’d actually been asking why he thought he shouldn’t have said them, but realized she was more interested in hearing why he had. “Yes, why did you say them?”
Lance set his glass of water down and stared at the floor. She waited in her usual state of Lance-induced bated breath to hear what he was going to say. While she was waiting, she couldn’t help but notice the way his biceps rounded as his fingers gripped the edge of the counter.
Damn, his arms were yummy. So were his hands. They were so large. She began to daydream about what it would be like to be held by those arms, to be touched intimately by those hands.
“I’m not sure why I said them.” His voice snapped her out of her mini fantasy session, and her eyes lifted to his. “I find myself saying a lot of things I’m not sure about around you. And barely stopping myself from doing things I know I shouldn’t do.”
It wasn’t like Lance was spouting Shakespeare. There was nothing poetic in what he’d said, but somehow it resonated with her as deeply romantic. Personal. Significant.
Lance had a gift for saying things in a way that made her feel like the most special person in the world. She had no idea how he did what he did, but she loved it. And his admission gave her the perfect opening to broach the subject of whether or not all of this was one-sided.
“What do you stop yourself from doing? What things do you want to do?”
Her heart was pounding so hard she wondered if it might fly right out of her chest. The two of them were standing at least ten feet away from one another but the atmosphere was so sexually charged, Leah was sure that if someone lit a match, the entire house would go up in flames. What was transpiring between them was flammable, dangerous, and ignitable.
Lance started to walk toward her but only made it two steps when a loud screech interrupted the moment. It was followed by a piercing scream. Lance and Leah stared at one another for a split second before they both raced out of the house.
When they got outside Leah saw Susan cradling Mason in her arms, crying, and Mrs. Daly’s Buick stopped in the middle of the road.
“Are you okay?!” Leah asked as she ran across her front yard. “Is Mason okay?!”
“Yes! Yes!” she called out as tears streamed down her face.
It wasn’t until she got to the sidewalk that she saw a white dog lying in the street in front of Mrs. Daly’s Buick. The stray that she’d looked for the night before. She started to run toward the dog’s lifeless body but Lance beat her to it. He was by the dog’s side in a flash.
“He saved Mason’s life. I was putting the car seat in the car and he must have run in the street. The dog saved his life,” Susan explained as tears ran down her cheeks. “Is he okay? He has to be okay!”
“He’s alive. Leah, get your car,” Lance instructed as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’m calling Doc.”
Leah nodded and ran back in to get her keys as tears pooled in her eyes. She didn’t know what was going to happen, but she did know that she was happy that she’d be facing it with Lance by her side.
Chapter 11
Lance held the phone to his ear. It rang twice before his grandfather answered. “Hey there, I was just about to—”
“A dog was hit by a car.” Lance cut his grandfather off. “Leah and I are bringing him in.”
“I was on the way to the hospital. I’ll meet you at my clinic.”
The line disconnected and Lance checked the dog’s thigh for a pulse in his femoral artery. He didn’t feel anything, so he checked the large pad on his front paw and then directly over his heart. There was nothing. He then pressed the back of his hand then his cheek to the dog’s snout and didn’t feel any air exchange. That’s when his K-9 CPR training kicked in and he started chest compressions, artificial respiration, and finally abdominal squeeze to assist circulation of blood back to the heart. He repeated this several times before the dog began breathing on his own.
At some point during CPR, Leah pulled up beside him in her Range Rover. She was out of the vehicle almost immediately and talking to the woman holding the toddler.
“I didn’t see him!” The woman that Lance had asked about the dog earlier, the one who’d babysat his father, was the driver of the car that hit the dog. “I already called the police. Is he going to be okay?”
Lance had no answer for that.
Lance wrapped his arms around the dog as gently as he could and picked him up off the road. His heart sank when the dog whimpered. “I know, buddy. I’m sorry. I got you.”
He kept a tight hold on the dog as he maneuvered into the vehicle. As soon as the two were safely in Leah shut the door and was back in the driver’s seat in flash.
“He saved Mason’s life!” The woman who held the toddler exclaimed again. “He saved my baby’s life! Please help him.”
“We are, Sus. We are,” Leah assured the woman as she hopped back into the SUV.
Lance saw some blood on the dog’s shoulder but other than that he didn’t see any obvious wounds. Internally though, he worried that the dog was in really bad shape.
“How is he?” Leah asked as they sped toward his grandfather’s vet office.
“He’s breathing.” His breaths were shallow, but he was breathing.
“You’re okay, big guy. We’re gonna take care of you.” Leah assured the dog before asking Lance, “Does Doc know we’re coming?”
“I called him.” Lance slid to the right side of the car and his shoulder slammed into the side of the door when Leah careened around the corner onto Riverwalk Drive, where both the vet clinic and Leah’s pet store were located.
“Sorry,” she apo
logized.
Lance carefully shifted his arm so that he could get a better grip on the dog, who was underweight for his size, but still at least sixty pounds. “Almost there. Hold on, bud. I got you.”
He’d just made that declaration when Leah raced into the parking lot, and hit a speed bump, sending Lance about an inch off of his seat. He did his best not to jostle the dog, but the poor boy whimpered in his arms.
“Shit! Sorry! I’m so sorry!” Leah exclaimed as she screeched to a stop in front of the building.
Lance looked up and saw that his grandfather had beat them there. He was holding the glass door at the entrance open. Leah hopped out of the car and was around to his side just as he’d opened the passenger door.
“Through here,” his grandfather commanded.
Lance moved as quickly as he could while doing his best to keep the dog as stable and steady as possible.
His grandfather led him back to a surgical suite. “Lay him down here.”
He motioned to a stainless-steel slab. Lance gingerly lowered the dog onto the surface when he heard an unfamiliar voice.
“I’m here!” A dark-haired woman who appeared to have either swallowed a watermelon or was very pregnant entered the room in sweats.
Lance’s grandfather began rattling off instructions to the new arrival and Leah stepped to the side, out of the way. When she did, a crash sounded and Lance saw that she’d knocked over a silver tray of instruments.
“Shit, sorry!” Leah crouched down and started picking them up.
“I’ve got it, Leah. You two can wait outside.” The woman who’d just entered informed the duo as she began pulling things out of cabinets.
“Okay, Meg. Sorry,” Leah apologized once more before they both backed out of the room.
As they walked back down the hallway, Lance noticed that Leah was shivering and barefoot. She was still wearing the dress that she’d worn the night before and he doubted it did much to ward off the chill in the air.
“Why don’t you go home. I’ll call you as soon as I hear anything,” he offered.
Just One Look - Leah and Lance (Crossroads Book 15) Page 10