Diamond in the Ruff (Matchmaking Mamas Book 13) Page 17

  Then she eyed Christopher thoughtfully. “Didn’t you say that you sometimes volunteer at the shelter, check out the animals, make sure they’re healthy?” She knew the answer to that, as well.

  His face lit up as his mind filled in the blanks, padding out what his mother’s friend was telling him. “You know, that’s just crazy enough to work,” he agreed. “And Lily makes the most exquisite pastries.” Christopher stopped short. He looked at her, slightly puzzled. “How did you know that?” he asked. “How did you know that Lily makes pastries?”

  That had been a slip, but one that Maizie was quick to remedy. “I didn’t. It was just a lucky guess,” she told him. “I have a weakness for pastries.”

  “Well, if this gets her talking to me, Mrs. Connors, I’ll make sure you get a pastry every day for the rest of your life,” he promised, getting into the spirit of the thing.

  “Which is guaranteed to be short if I start indulging like that,” she told him with a laugh. Bending down, she picked up the puppy she had brought as a prop. “So, you’re sure that Walter here is healthy?”

  “Absolutely in top condition,” he assured her. Christopher paused and regarded the Labrador thoughtfully as he scratched the dog’s head. “He really does look like Lily’s puppy,” he told her.

  “Then this Lily’s puppy must be a very fine-looking dog,” Maizie speculated with a wink.

  She was quick to turn away and walk out before Christopher had a chance to see how broad her smile had become.

  * * *

  When she first heard about it, Lily’s first inclination was to beg off. She knew that if she gave Theresa some excuse as to why she couldn’t go to the catering event to serve her pastries, the woman would believe her and say it was all right.

  But that would mean lying to someone who had been like a second mother to her. Not only that, it would be putting Theresa in a bind since she already found herself shorthanded. At the last minute, two of her regular servers, Theresa told her, had both come down with really bad colds, making them unable to work.

  Lily didn’t mind working, didn’t mind being in the middle of things and hearing people rave about her desserts. But this particular event had to do with an adoption fair for the city’s animal shelter. And that meant that Christopher might be there.

  She knew that he volunteered his services at the shelter, that he periodically treated some of the animals that were left there. Funny how the very same thing that had made her love him now just made her feel uneasy.

  It had been over two weeks since she’d walked out. Two weeks she’d been functioning—more or less—without a heart. She hadn’t taken any of his calls since that night.

  The night that had been by turns one of the best and then worst nights of her life.

  For a brief, shining moment, she had thought that she’d finally found the man she’d been looking for all her life. She and Christopher seemed to be of one mind when it came to so many things.

  She had wound up running toward him when what she should have done was walked—slowly. Walked slowly and gotten to know the man.

  But she hadn’t, and then that bombshell had dropped, shattering her world.

  Not only hadn’t he told her that he’d been engaged, but he’d been the one to break off the engagement—and so recently. That meant he wasn’t serious enough about his commitment. If he could break an engagement, walk out on a promise once, well, what was to keep him from doing it again? From bringing her up to the heights of joy only to let her fall onto the rocks of bitter disappointment somewhere down the line? Even if he could put all that behind him and change, that would take time for him to work out. He couldn’t be ready for something so solid so soon after breaking off his engagement. He had to see that and once he did, he’d back away from her on his own.

  She wasn’t going to risk that, risk having her heart ripped out of her chest, risk tumbling down into the abyss of loneliness and despair. She just wasn’t built like that. It was better not to dream than to have those dreams ripped up to pieces.

  She hurt now, but she would hurt so much more later if she continued seeing Christopher—continued loving him—only to be abandoned in the end.

  “You are a lifesaver,” Theresa was saying to her, the woman’s very words of praise sabotaging any hope of remaining behind. “I am so shorthanded for this event, I might just have to put out a call to my children to have them come and help. This Adoption Fair promises to be huge.” Theresa slanted a look at her protégée. “You are all right with doing this, aren’t you, Lily?”

  Lily forced a smile to her lips. There was no way she was going to let Theresa down—even if she spent the whole time there looking over her shoulder.

  “I’m fine.”

  “This is for a good cause,” Theresa said by way of a reminder. “But I don’t have to tell you that. Once you take a pet into your home and into your heart, you see the other homeless animals in a completely different light. You outdid yourself, by the way.” Theresa looked over to the boxed-up pastries that were all set to be transported. “Everything smells just heavenly, even through the boxes.” Theresa beamed, then asked, “Are you ready?”

  Lily snapped out of her mental wanderings. “You mean to go? Sure,” she answered a bit too cheerfully.

  She was ready to transport the pastries she’d made, ready to do her job. But as far as being ready to see Christopher again, the answer to that was a resounding no.

  The best she could hope for was that he didn’t show up. After all, it wasn’t as if there were going to be any sick animals at the event. The object of this fair was to get as many of the shelter’s residents adopted as possible. That guaranteed that only the healthy ones would be on display.

  He probably wouldn’t be there.

  * * *

  Lily was still telling herself that more than an hour later.

  The adoption fair had gotten underway and it seemed as if at least a quarter of Bedford’s citizens had turned out to check on the available animals and, as an afterthought, the food, as well.

  Her pastries were going fast. She could only hope that some of the people doing all that eating were also seriously considering going home with one of the cats, dogs, rabbits, hamsters and various other species the shelter had on display.

  “Your pastries are certainly a major attraction,” Theresa said as she passed by the table where Lily was set up. “I think that by the end of the day, your ‘contribution’ will have raised the biggest amount of money for the animal shelter,” Theresa told her with warm approval. In keeping with it being a charitable event, Theresa had charged only half her regular fee. “You should be very proud of yourself.”

  Although Lily did like receiving compliments, they always made her feel somewhat uncomfortable. She never knew what to say, how to respond, so she usually said nothing, only smiled. This time was no different. After smiling her thanks, Lily pretended to look off toward a group of children who were having fun with a litter of half Siamese, half Burmese kittens that had been born at the shelter. The mother, she’d been told, had been left at the shelter already pregnant.

  Patting her hand, Theresa murmured something about seeing how the others were doing and wove her way into the crowd.

  No sooner had she left than Lily heard a voice behind her. “How much for that raspberry pastry?”

  Lily stiffened. She would have recognized that voice anywhere. It was the voice that still infiltrated her dreams almost every night. The voice that made her ache and wake up close to tears almost every morning.

  “Two dollars,” she replied formally.

  “Very reasonable.” Christopher came around the table to face her. He handed her the two dollar bills and she pushed the paper plate with the aforementioned raspberry pastry toward him. Christopher raised his eyes to hers. “How much for five minutes of your time
?”

  “You haven’t got that much money,” she told him crisply.

  More than anything, she wanted to flee the premises, to just take off and leave him far behind in her wake. But there was no one to cover for her and she couldn’t let Theresa down after she’d agreed to be here.

  She was just going to have to tough it out, she thought, hoping that she could.

  “I’ve called you every day, Lily,” he told her in a low voice so that they wouldn’t be overheard. “You haven’t returned any of my calls.”

  She looked at him sharply. Ignoring each call had been agony for her, especially the ones that came while she was home. The sound of his voice, leaving a message on her answering machine, would fill her house. Fill her head. He made it so hard for her to maintain her stand.

  “I didn’t see the point, Christopher. It wasn’t going to work anyway. Please just accept that,” she told him as calmly as she could.

  Now that he had her in front of him, he wasn’t about to let this opportunity get away. “Lily, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Irene, especially since it happened not too long ago. You have every right to be angry about that. I shouldn’t have kept it from you.”

  “I’m not angry that you didn’t tell me. I’m not denying that it didn’t hurt, finding out that way, but that’s not why I haven’t returned your calls.”

  He looked at her, completely at a loss. “Then I don’t understand,” he confessed.

  “You’re the one who broke off the engagement. And how could you be ready to be with anyone yet?” she asked. “You made a commitment, Christopher. A lifelong commitment,” she stressed. “And then you backed out of it just like that. Suddenly I come along, and who’s to say you wouldn’t drop me, just like that, too?” She snapped her fingers to underscore her point.

  Unable to remain in the same space as Christopher any longer, she threw up her hands in despair and started to walk away. But she couldn’t outpace him and she had a feeling that if she began to run, he’d only catch up. She didn’t want to cause a scene, so she stopped moving. Maybe if she heard him out, then he’d go away.

  “It wasn’t ‘just like that,’” Christopher contradicted, angry and frustrated by the accusation. “You didn’t give me a chance to explain what happened. I wasn’t just engaged to Irene for a day or a week, it was for five months—and during that time, she began to change from the person I thought I was going to marry to a completely different woman. Not only that, but she made it clear that she expected me to change as well, to transform into what she, and her family, felt was a suitable match for her and her world.

  “I realized that our marriage wasn’t going to be a happy one. What I’d pictured was going to be our life together just wasn’t going to happen. She wanted me to give up being a veterinarian and go to work for her father’s investment firm. In essence, she wanted me to give up being me and I couldn’t do that.

  “So I broke off the engagement, hired a moving company to pack up all my things and I came back to a place I always considered to be my home.”

  His eyes on hers, Christopher took her hand in his, in part to make a connection, in part to keep her from running off until he was finished. He still wasn’t sure just what she was capable of doing in the heat of the moment.

  “After the breakup, I was certain that the last thing I wanted was to be involved in another relationship, but I hadn’t counted on meeting someone as special as you. You brought out all the good things I was trying so hard to bury,” he confessed. “You made me feel useful and whole and you made me want to protect you, as well.

  “I honestly didn’t think I could feel this alive again, but I did and it was all because of you. I know how I feel about you.” He tried to make her understand, to see what was in his soul—and to see how much she mattered to him. “I don’t want to go back into the darkness, Lily. Please don’t make me.” His hands tightened ever so slightly on hers and he was relieved when she didn’t pull them away. “I haven’t been able to concentrate, to think straight since you walked out that morning. And frankly,” he confided, his expression even more solemn than before, “the animals are beginning to notice that something’s very off with me.”

  He made her laugh. Lily realized that it was the first time she had laughed since before she’d run out of his house.

  “Let’s just say—for the sake of argument,” she qualified, “that I believe you—”

  He jumped the gun and asked, “So you’ll let me have a second chance?”

  “If you did have a second chance at this relationship, what would you do with it?”

  There was absolutely no hesitation, no momentary pause to think. He already knew what his answer would be. “I’d ask you to marry me.”

  She lifted her chin. He knew that meant she was preparing for a confrontation. “The way you asked Irene,” she concluded.

  “No, because I know now that the Irenes of this world are to be avoided if at all possible,” he told her. “They don’t want a husband, they want a do-it-yourself project. I want someone who loves me—who likes me for who I am and what I have to offer. More than that,” he amended, looking into her eyes with a sincerity that almost made her ache inside, “I want you.”

  “For how long?” she challenged, even though she felt herself really weakening.

  “I have no idea how long I have to live,” he told Lily honestly, rather than resorting to fancy platitudes, “but for however long it is, I want to be able to open my eyes each morning and see you there beside me. These past two weeks without you have been pure hell and I will do anything, anything,” Christopher stressed, “for a second chance.”

  “Anything?” she asked, cocking her head as she regarded him.

  “Anything,” he repeated with feeling.

  “Well,” she began philosophically, “you could start by kissing me.”

  He immediately swept her into his arms and cried, “Done!”

  And it was.

  Epilogue

  “Well, ladies, I believe we can happily chalk up another successful venture,” Maizie whispered to Theresa and Cecilia.

  All three women were seated together in the third pew of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church. It was six months since the animal shelter adoption fair had taken place, resulting in more than one happy ending.

  Maizie beamed with no small pride as she watched the young man standing up at the altar. He was facing the back of the church, anxiously waiting for the doors to open, and for the rest of his life to finally begin.

  He looked very handsome in his tuxedo, Maizie couldn’t help noticing.

  Theresa dabbed at her eyes. No matter how many weddings she attended—and there had been many in the past few years—hearing the strains of “Here Comes the Bride” never failed to cause tears to spring to her eyes.

  “Frances should be here,” Theresa told her two friends wistfully.

  Cecilia leaned in so that both Theresa and Maizie could hear her. “What makes you think she isn’t?” she asked in all seriousness.

  Neither of her two friends offered a rebuttal to her question. The thought of their friend looking down on her son with approval as the ceremony unfolded was a comforting one.

  “Oh, isn’t she just spectacularly beautiful?” Theresa said in awe as they watched Lily slowly make her way down the aisle, each step bringing her closer to the man she was going to spend forever with.

  “Every bride is beautiful,” Maizie whispered to her friend.

  “But some are just more beautiful than others,” Theresa maintained stubbornly. Lily had become very special to her in the past year.

  “Do you think she ever figured out how Jonathan just ‘happened’ to appear on her doorstep that morning?” Cecilia asked the others.

  “I’m pretty sure she didn’t. But I think that Chris might have a few
suspicions about that,” Maizie whispered back, thinking back to her impromptu visit to his office. He was, after all, a very intelligent young man.

  “I told you that you should have used a different dog than one of Jolene’s puppies,” Cecilia reminded her.

  Maizie shrugged. “Water under the bridge,” she answered carelessly. “Besides,” she went on with a grin her friends had always referred to as mischievous, “it did the trick, didn’t it?”

  “Shh, it’s about to start.” Theresa waved a silencing hand at her friends as she nodded toward the priest, who was standing at the front of the altar.

  “Not yet,” Maizie pointed out as she glanced over her shoulder to the rear of the church. Just before the doors closed, one more wedding participant had to make his way through the narrow opening.

  A buzz went up in the church as guests nudged one another, each turning to look at the last member of the wedding party.

  “Well, would you look at that.”

  “Certainly isn’t your everyday member of a wedding, is it?”

  “Aren’t they afraid he’s going to swallow the rings?”

  The last comment had come from the man in the pew directly in front of the trio.

  Unable to hold her tongue any longer, Maizie tapped him on the shoulder. When he turned around to look at her quizzically, she said, “They’re not worried about the rings because that’s the bride’s dog and the groom did an excellent job training him. Besides, if you look very closely, both the rings are secured to that satin pillow in his mouth.”

  “Why would they include a dog in their wedding?” someone else asked.

  The person’s companion explained in a voice that said he was the final authority on the subject, “The way I hear it, if it hadn’t been for that dog, the two of them would have never met and gotten together.”