Diamond in the Ruff (Matchmaking Mamas Book 13) Read online

  She was acutely aware of her heart and the ramped-up rhythm it had attained.

  Christopher lowered his mouth to hers and ever so lightly, like a sunbeam barely touching her skin, he kissed her.

  The next moment, he drew back and she thought for a second that the sound of her heart, beating wildly, had driven him back.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to take advantage of you like that,” he told her, still cupping her cheek with the palm of his hand.

  Her voice felt as if it was going to crack at any second as she told him, “You didn’t. And there’s nothing to be sorry about, except...”

  “Except?” he prodded.

  Lily shook her head, not wanting to continue. She was only going to embarrass herself—and him—if she said anything further. “I’ve said too much.”

  “No,” he contradicted, “you’ve said too little. ‘Except’ what?” he coaxed.

  Lily wavered. Maybe he did deserve to know. So she told him.

  “Except maybe it didn’t last long enough,” she said, her voice hardly above a whisper, her cheeks burning and threatening to turn a deep pink.

  “Maybe it didn’t,” he agreed. “Let’s see if I get it right this time,” he murmured just before his mouth came down on hers for a second time.

  This time nothing happened in slow motion. This time, she could feel the heat travel through her as if its path had been preset with a thin line of accelerant, a line that ran between the two of them as well as over the length of her.

  They’d been sitting at the counter on stools that swiveled and were now turned toward one another. Lily caught herself sliding from the stool, her arms entwined around the back of Christopher’s neck.

  He stood up at the same moment that she had gotten off the stool.

  The length of her body slid against his. His ridges and contours registered with acute details. All the electricity between them crackled with a fierceness that was all but staggering.

  He savored the sweetness of her mouth in a far more profound way than he had savored the flour-and-cream creations she’d made. The Amaretto in the pastry had been just the tiniest bit heady. The taste of her lips was far more intoxicating.

  So much so that it sent out alarms all throughout his body, warning him that he was walking into something he might not be prepared for. Something he might not be equipped to handle at this juncture of his life, all things considered.

  The magnitude of his feelings right at this moment was enough to make Christopher back away, concerned about the consequences that waited for him if he wasn’t careful.

  It wasn’t easy, but he forced himself to draw back again.

  “Maybe I better go,” he told her, the words that emerged sounding low and almost gravelly.

  She needed time to pull herself together. Time to try to understand just what it was that was going on here—aside from her complete undoing. Time to fix the shield around her heart because it had seriously cracked.

  “Maybe you’d better,” she agreed.

  He tried to remember what had brought him here in the first place. It was difficult to get a fix on his thoughts; they were scattered and unfocused. All he was aware of was how much he wanted her.

  “I just wanted to tell you in person why I backed out this afternoon,” he finally managed to say.

  “I appreciate that,” she told him, then added belatedly, “I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

  Her wits managed to finally come together. The relief she experienced at being able to think again was incredible. She almost felt as if she was in full possession of her mental faculties again. Or at least enough to be able to carry on a normal conversation. Even so, she didn’t want to push herself and have it all fall apart on her again.

  Something about this man threatened her carefully constructed world and if she wasn’t on her guard, all the work she had put in to keeping her heart out of danger’s reach would go up in smoke.

  “Why don’t you take one or two for the road? Or more if you like,” Lily suggested, doing her very best to sound casual. It wasn’t easy talking with one’s heart in one’s throat.

  “One or two for the road?” he echoed. They’d just been locked in a kiss, so was she talking about those? he wondered, looking at her uncertainly.

  “Or more,” she repeated again. “I can wrap up as many pastries as you’d like to take home with you. Maybe even give a couple to your poor neighbor for what he’s just gone through.”

  And then it all clicked into place. She was talking about the pastries, not about kissing him again. Christopher laughed—more at himself and at what he had thought she was saying than at what Lily was actually telling him.

  “You’re being too generous,” he said.

  She didn’t quite see it that way. “I like to spread smiles around and these pastries make people smile.”

  “That they do,” he wholeheartedly agreed. He looked over toward the remaining two and a half trays. “I can completely attest to that.”

  “Then let me give you some.” It was no longer a suggestion but a statement of intent.

  She had a total of eight pastries wrapped, placed in a cardboard container and ready to go within a couple of minutes.

  “You sure you don’t want more?” she asked. He’d stopped her when she had reached for the ninth pastry, saying eight was already too much.

  “I want them all,” he told her honestly. And more than just pastries right now, he added silently. He concentrated, determined to keep even a hint of the latter thought from registering on his face. “But in the spirit of sharing, what you just packed up for me to take with me is more than enough.” Not wanting to leave it just at that, he told her, “I can come by tomorrow afternoon if you like—and we can pick up where we left off.”

  Belatedly, Christopher realized he had worded that last line rather poorly, allowing her to misunderstand his meaning. “Left off training Jonny,” he tacked on awkwardly.

  He had never been a smooth talker—the type who was able to sell ice cubes to polar bears—but he had never had this much trouble saying what he meant. This woman had definitely scrambled his ability to communicate. Why was that?

  He had no hard-and-fast answer—and the one that did suggest itself made him nervous.

  “That would be very nice of you,” Lily was saying as she walked him to the front door. Jonathan came along, prancing around, all but tripping both of them as he wove in and out between them. “I’ll bake you something else next time,” she promised with a smile that completely seeped under his skin.

  Christopher laughed, shaking his head as he opened the front door. “You do that and I’m going to have to start shopping in the husky-men section of the local department store.”

  Her eyes swept over him, as if to verify what she already knew. “You have a long way to go before that happens,” she assured him.

  “Not as long as you think,” he replied just before he turned and walked out. He didn’t trust himself to stand on the doorstep one second longer.

  She made him want things he had no business wanting. Things that, if he recalled correctly—and he did—would only ultimately promise to lead to an unhappy ending sometime in the near future.

  Been there, done that, he thought as he got into his car and drove away.

  As if to contradict him, the warm scent coming from the pastries seemed to rise up and intensify, filling his car. It made him think of Lily all the way home.

  Chapter Ten

  There wasn’t a single position on her bed that felt comfortable enough for her to fall asleep for more than a few minutes at a time. And when she actually did manage to fall asleep, she wound up dreaming about what was keeping her awake, perpetuating her dilemma.

  She dreamed about a magnetic pair of blue eyes that pulled her in and thick
, dirty-blond hair that curled just enough to make her fingers itchy to run through it.

  And at the end of each and every one of these minidreams Lily would experience a deep, dark feeling of bereavement, of being suddenly, irreversibly left behind, to continue on alone.

  She felt as if her insides had been hollowed out by a sharp, serrated carving knife. Then she’d bolt upright, awake and damp with perspiration despite the fact that the night air was cool tonight.

  Alone in her bedroom, her knees drawn up against her chest as if her body was forming an impenetrable circle, Lily recognized her nightmares for what they were, what they signified: fear. Fear of caring, fear of experiencing the consequences that came from allowing herself to care about someone.

  Was she crazy to even think that she could have some sort of a relationship without paying the ultimate terrible price that relationship demanded? If you danced, then you were required to pay the piper. She knew that and she desperately didn’t want to have anything at all to do with the piper.

  Not ever again.

  The best thing was just to remain strangers, the way they were now.

  * * *

  Finally, at six in the morning, Lily gave up all attempts of trying to get even a solid hour of uninterrupted sleep.

  With a deep sigh, she threw off her covers and got out of her extremely rumpled bed. Glancing at the tangled sheets and bunched-up comforter, it occurred to her that her bed looked as if it had been declared a war zone.

  Maybe it had been, she thought ruefully. Except that there had been no winner declared.

  She normally never left her bedroom in the morning without first making her bed, but this morning, she abandoned the bed entirely. She just wanted to get out of the house.

  Maybe some fresh air would do her some good.

  Putting on a pair of jeans and donning a light sweater, she announced to the puppy that had insisted on sleeping on her bedroom floor, “We’re going out for a walk, Jonathan.”

  Fully awake in less than an instant, the Labrador half ran, half slid down the stairs and then darted around until she reached the landing to join him. Picking the leash up where she’d dropped it by the staircase, Lily hooked it onto the dog’s collar. At the last minute she remembered to take a bag with her just in case she got lucky and the dog actually relieved himself while they were out.

  Taking Jonathan for a walk was yet another exercise in patience. It consisted of all but dashing down one residential street after another, followed by periods of intense sniffing that lasted so long Lily finally had to literally drag the puppy away—at which point he would abruptly dash again.

  This theme and variation of extremes went on for close to an hour before Lily finally decided that she’d had enough and wanted to head back to the house.

  Just before they reached their destination, Jonathan abruptly stopped dead, nearly causing her to collide with him because of the shift in momentum. When she turned toward the dog to upbraid him for almost tripping her, she saw that the puppy was relieving himself.

  She realized that meant she didn’t need to be so vigilant for the next few hours. “I guess I’m home free for half the day, right?”

  The Labrador had no opinion one way or the other. He was far too busy investigating what he had just parted with. Lily pulled him back before he managed to get too close to it.

  This having a dog was going to take some getting used to, she thought, elbowing the puppy out of the way in order to clean up after him.

  A lot of getting used to, she amended after she finished with her task.

  * * *

  Lily got back to her house just in time to hear her landline ring. Unlocking the door and hurrying inside, she managed to get to the telephone a scarce heartbeat before it went to voice mail.

  Dropping Jonathan’s leash, she picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  There was about a second or so delay before someone answered her. She reacted the moment that she heard his voice.

  “Lily, hi. I was just getting ready to leave a message on your machine,” the deep voice on the other end told her.

  She could feel goose bumps forming on her skin. There was something incredibly intimate and, okay, arousing about Christopher’s voice on the phone. But that still didn’t change her resolve about keeping the man at arm’s length. If anything, it strengthened it.

  “Now you can leave a message with me,” she said, forcing herself to sound as cheerful as she possibly could.

  When she heard him draw in a long breath, she knew it couldn’t be good. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to cancel today.”

  She had a feeling, a split second before he said the words, that he was going to bow out. Which was fine, because that was what she wanted.

  But if that was the case, why was there this vast, hard lump of disappointment doing a nosedive in the pit of her stomach?

  “I didn’t know you had the power to do that,” she said, still doing her best to sound light and upbeat. “To cancel an entire day.” The silence on the other end made her feel like squirming. “Sorry, that was me just trying to be funny. I didn’t mean to interrupt you while you were talking.”

  He did the worst thing he could have done, Lily thought. He was understanding. “You weren’t interrupting, you were being humorous.”

  Maybe he was canceling because he had another emergency, and she was making wisecracks. Lily felt terrible.

  “And you’re being nice.” She apologized in the best way she knew how. She absolved him of any obligation. “It’s okay, about canceling,” she added since she knew her words sounded vague. “I understand.”

  “How can you understand?” Christopher asked. “I haven’t told you why I’m canceling yet.”

  He had a point. Her nerves were making her jump to conclusions. She searched for something plausible to use as an excuse, but came up empty. She went with vague. “I’m sure it’s for a good reason.”

  “I wish it wasn’t,” he told her honestly. Something had made him go in very early this morning, to check on his neighbor’s dog. Rhonda hadn’t been as responsive as he would have liked. Further investigation had brought him to this conclusion. “Rhonda had some internal bleeding suddenly start up. I have to go back in and cauterize the wound, then sew her up again. When I finish, I want to watch her for a few hours, just to be sure she’s on the mend this time. That means I won’t be coming over today to work with Jonathan.”

  That he could even think about that when he had an emergency on his hands made her feel that he was a very exceptional person. She didn’t want him to feel as if he was letting her down in any way.

  “Well, as it turns out, Jonathan and I went out for a long walk this morning and he decided he couldn’t hold it long enough to come back to the house to make a mess, so he went outside.”

  Tickled at the way she’d narrated her latest adventure with the dog, Christopher laughed. “Congratulations. But you do realize you’re not out of the woods yet, right? The process has to be repeated—a lot—before it becomes ingrained. Did you remember to praise him after he finished going?”

  Lily pressed her lips together. She knew she’d forgotten something. “Is praising him important?” she asked, hoping he’d tell her that it was just a minor detail.

  “It is—and I’ll take that as a no. Next time Jonny goes, praise him to the hilt and tell him what a wonderful puppy he is. Trust me,” he assured her, “it works wonders.”

  She sighed, glancing at the dog who had plopped down at her feet, apparently content to lie there, at least for the moment. “I’ll remember next time.”

  “Listen, I need to go, but you can still drop Jonny off here on your way to work tomorrow—unless you feel confident enough to leave him alone at your house,” he added, not wanting her to think he was talking her into leaving the dog at his
clinic for the day.

  “I’ll drop him off,” she said quickly, relieved that he hadn’t taken back his offer. She wasn’t naive enough to think that one success meant that the puppy’s behavior was permanently altered. “And thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it. Now I’ve really got to go,” he told her again.

  Christopher hung up before she had a chance to say goodbye.

  Mixed feelings scrambled through her as Lily hung up the receiver. She didn’t know whether to be relieved that Christopher wasn’t coming over—relieved that she wouldn’t find herself alone with him—or upset for the very same exact reason.

  Jonathan barked and she realized that he was no longer lying down at her feet. The bark sounded rather urgent. She had a feeling that he was asking for his breakfast. Christopher—and her present ambivalent dilemma—wouldn’t have been part of her life if Jonathan hadn’t been on her doorstep that fateful morning.

  “Life was a lot simpler before you came into it, Jonathan,” she told the puppy.

  Jonathan just went on barking at her until she began walking to the kitchen. Following her, his barking took on a different, almost triumphant intensity.

  Lily laughed to herself. Exactly who was training whom here?

  She had a sneaking suspicion she knew. Right now, the score was Jonathan one, Lily zero. She took out a can of dog food and popped the top.

  * * *

  The following morning, Lily nearly drove right past the turn she was supposed to make to get to the animal hospital. At the last minute, she slowed down and deliberately made the right-hand turn.

  Less than a mile later, she was driving into the rather busy upscale strip mall where Christopher’s animal hospital was located.

  Lily had come close to driving past the initial right-hand turn not because she had a poor sense of direction, but because she had a strong sense of survival. The more she interacted with the handsome, sexy veterinarian, the more she was going to want to interact with him—and that sort of thing would lead to an attachment she told herself that she ultimately didn’t want.