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

  “Also,” he continued as they made their way to a more open section of the park, “regarding housebreaking—there will be occasional setbacks,” he warned her. “I don’t recommend dragging Jonny back and sticking his nose into what just came out his other end while sternly denouncing him, saying, ‘No, no!’ Best-case scenario,” Christopher explained patiently, “all that teaches him is to do it somewhere a little more out of the way so he won’t get reprimanded for it.”

  “And worst-case scenario?” she asked, curious what he thought that was since what he’d just described was worst-case scenario as far as she was concerned.

  Christopher laughed softly. “Your puppy just might find he has a taste for it. I’ve heard of more than one dog who believed in recycling his or her own waste products.” He stopped walking, taking a closer look at Lily’s face. “You look a little pale,” he noted. “Are you all right?”

  She put her hand over her stomach, as if that would keep her hastily consumed breakfast from rising up in her throat and purging itself from her stomach. Opening her door to this puppy had consequently left her open to more things than she’d ever dreamed of, no pun intended she added silently.

  “I just didn’t realize all the things that were involved in taking in a stray—even temporarily. The only dogs I ever knew were up on a movie screen,” she confessed. Admittedly it had been a very antiseptic way of obtaining her knowledge. “They didn’t smell, didn’t go to the bathroom and had an IQ just a tad lower than Einstein’s.” She smiled ruefully as she elaborated a little more, realizing while she was at it that she was underscoring her naïveté. “The kind that when their owner said, ‘I need a screw driver’ would wait until he specified whether it was a flathead or Phillips head that he wanted.”

  Christopher grinned. He liked that she could laugh at herself. The fact that Lily had a sense of humor was a very good sign, as far as he was concerned.

  “In the real world, if you don’t bathe them, dogs smell, and they don’t do long division in their heads.” And then he went on to list just a few of the positive reasons to own a dog. “But they do respond to the sound of your voice, are highly trainable and will come to an understanding with you, given the time and the training—coupled with a lot of patience. Always remember, anything worth doing is worth doing well. You let a dog into your life, remember to show him that while you love him, you’re the one in charge, and you will never regret it.”

  Christopher paused for a moment. He caught himself looking into her eyes and thinking how easily he could get lost in them if he wasn’t careful.

  Taking a breath, he told himself that he needed to get down to business before she got the wrong idea about him and why he was here.

  “Now then, are you ready to get started?” he asked Lily.

  “Ready,” she answered with a smart nod, eager to begin.

  “All right,” he said, stooping down to the dog’s level again to remove the leash he’d given her. He replaced it with a long line, a leash that was three times as long as the initial one. Getting back up to his feet, Christopher told her, “The first thing we want to teach Jonny here is to come when you call.”

  She watched as he slowly backed up, away from Jonathan. “Um, how about housebreaking?” she asked hesitantly.

  She would have thought that would be the very first thing the dog would be taught. She’d had to clean up several rather untidy messes already and couldn’t see herself doing that indefinitely. To be honest, she’d rather hoped that the vet had some sort of magic solution regarding housebreaking that he was willing to pass on to her.

  The sympathetic expression on his handsome, chiseled face told her that she’d thought wrong.

  “That’s going to take a little longer for him to learn, I’m afraid. I can—and will—show you the basics and what to say, but for the most part, that’s going to require dedication and patience on your part. A lot of dedication and patience,” he emphasized. “Because you’re going to have to take Jonny here out every hour on the hour until he goes—as well as watch for signs that he’s about to go.”

  This was completely new territory for her and something she had never given any attention to before now. “How will I know what signs to look for?”

  “That,” he replied with a smile that would have curled her toes had she allowed it, “is a very good question.” Leaning in to her as if to confide a secret, he lowered his voice and said, “This would be the part where you get trained.”

  Drawing his head back again, he gave her a wink that seemed to flutter through layers of skin tissue and embed itself smack in the middle of her stomach.

  “Okay, back to getting him to come when you call,” he said, taking a firm hold on the long line. With that, he proceeded to go through the basics for her slowly and clearly before he went on to demonstrate what he’d just said, allowing her to see it in action.

  Chapter Six

  “Okay, now you try,” Christopher said after successfully getting Jonathan to come to him when he called the puppy. The vet held out the long line to her.

  Instead of taking it from him, Lily looked at the elongated leash uncomfortably. “Me?”

  If there was one thing she really hated, it was appearing inept in front of people, even someone who seemed as nice as this man. Doing so only seemed to underscore her feelings of insecurity, not to mention that it reinforced the shyness that she grappled with every day.

  Christopher instinctively knew when a situation required an extra dose of patience. Usually, it involved the animals he treated, but occasionally, he could sense the need to tap into his almost endless supply when dealing with a person. He could see that Lily’s reluctance had nothing to do with being stubborn or reticent. From her stance, she was far from confident.

  That had to change. If he could sense it, the dog definitely could. While he had a soft spot in his heart for all things canine, he also knew that dominance had to be established. If it wasn’t, this cute little black ball of fur and paws was going to walk all over the woman beside him and most likely make her life a living hell—or at least turn her home into a shambles.

  “Well, yes,” Christopher told her. “Unless you intend to have me come home with you and take over raising Jonny here, you’re going to have to learn how to make him obey you. Emphasis on the word obey,” he said, still holding the end of the long line before her.

  Lily pressed her lips together. The only thing she hated more than looking like a fool was looking like a coward. She took a deep breath and wrapped her fingers around the end of the long line.

  Glaring at the puppy, she said as authoritatively as she could, “Come!” When Jonathan remained where he was, she repeated the command even more forcefully. “Come!” At which point Jonathan cocked his head and stared at her, but made no attempt to comply.

  Taking pity on her, Christopher bent close to her ear and said in a low voice, “Remember to preface each command with his name and give the long line a little tug the way I did. He’ll get the hang of it eventually.”

  Christopher’s breath along the side of her face and neck would have caused an involuntary shiver to shimmy down her spine had she not steeled herself at the last moment.

  Lily felt her cheeks growing pink. Use the puppy’s name. How could she have forgotten something so simple so quickly?

  “Right. Jonathan, come!” she ordered, simultaneously giving the elongated leash a little tug.

  Despite its length, the impact of the play on the line telegraphed itself to the Labrador. Then, to her surprised relief, Jonathan trotted toward her, coming to a halt almost on top of her feet.

  “He did it,” she cried excitedly, stunned and thrilled at the same time. “He came!”

  Christopher wasn’t sure which was more heartening to him, seeing the animal respond to Lily’s command or seeing Lily’s joy because the animal had
responded to her command.

  “Yes, he did,” Christopher acknowledged with a pleased smile. “Now give him that scrap of doggie sausage as a reward and play out the long line so you can do it again.”

  Jonathan appeared to be in sheer ecstasy as he swallowed his “reward” without so much as pausing a second to chew it.

  It was a toss-up as to which appeared to be more eager for a repeat of what had just happened, Christopher mused: Jonathan or his mistress.

  The brief exercise played out more smoothly this time.

  “Again,” Christopher instructed her after Lily tossed the treat to the eager puppy.

  Lily and Jonathan repeated the training exercise a total of five times before Christopher decided it was time to move on to the next command.

  “This is the exact opposite of what you’ve just taught him,” Christopher told her. He noticed that instead of the reluctance she had initially exhibited, Lily seemed to be almost as eager as the puppy to undertake the next “lesson.” “You’re going to train him to stay where he is. Now, not moving might seem like it’s an easy thing to get across, but for an antsy puppy that’s approximately six to seven weeks old, staying put is not part of their normal behavior—unless they’re asleep,” he told her. “Okay, instead of tugging on the long line, you’re going to use a hand gesture—holding your hand out to him as if you were a cop stopping traffic—plus a calm voice and patience. Lots of patience,” Christopher emphasized.

  “Okay,” she said, nodding her head.

  In a way, he couldn’t help thinking that she reminded him of the puppy—all eagerness and enthusiasm. Without fully realizing it, she’d gone a step up in his estimation of her.

  “You tell him to stay and then slowly back away from him,” Christopher instructed, standing directly behind her and ready to match her step for step as she backed up. “Until he responds for the first time and stays in place for as long as you’ve designated, you don’t take your eyes off him. Make him obey you. Your goal ultimately is to get Jonny to obey the sound of your voice without being bribed to do it or being watched intently. And that,” he told her firmly, “is going to take doing the same thing over and over again until he gets it, until he associates what he does with the key words you use.”

  “I was never very good at being authoritative,” Lily admitted ruefully. But even so, her enthusiasm was still high.

  “Then you’re going to have to keep that little secret to yourself. As far as Jonny here is concerned, you are the lord and master of his world—or mistress of it if you prefer,” he amended.

  She didn’t seem like the type to take offense over words where none was intended, Christopher thought, but since they were still in the getting-to-know-each-other stage, he wasn’t about to take anything for granted.

  Lily smiled at him. There was something about the way she looked at him that made him feel connected to her. It was as if, without his exactly knowing why, they were in sync to one another. “Either way is fine with me,” she told him.

  In all honesty, she’d never thought of herself in those sort of lofty terms. She was neither a mistress nor a master. Or at least she hadn’t been until now, she thought with a smile.

  “Okay.” Christopher nodded toward their subject. “Let’s see you make him stay.”

  “You’re not going to do it first?” she asked Christopher.

  “You mean warm him up for you?” he asked, amused. “He’s your dog,” he told her, wanting to subtly build up her confidence. “You should be the main authority figure he listens to.”

  “But he’s not my dog,” she protested. “I have these flyers out in my development. His owner might still come looking for him.” Although, she had to admit, she was now just a tad less eager for that to happen than she had been just a little while ago.

  He looked at Lily for a long moment, seeing through the veneer she’d put up. “Then tell me again why you’re going to all this trouble for an animal you might not get to keep?”

  There was a struggle going on inside of her, a struggle between logic and emotions. At any given moment, she wasn’t quite sure just which way she was leaning.

  But for the sake of appearances and the role she was trying to maintain, Lily replied, “I’m trying to train Jonathan so that I can survive with him until his owner does turn up.” She did her best to sound cool and removed as she added, “I don’t want to get attached to him and then have to give him up.”

  “I hate to break this to you, Lily, but watching the two of you, in my opinion, you already are attached to him—and it looks to me as if he’s attached to you as well, as much as an overenergized puppy can be attached to one person,” he qualified with a laugh. “Don’t get me wrong,” he was quick to explain. “Dogs are extremely loyal creatures, but puppies tend to sell their souls for a belly rub and have been known to walk off with almost anyone—unless they’ve been given a better reason to stay where they are.”

  Christopher searched her eyes. He could readily see that Lily was grappling with the problem of wanting to keep the dog at an arm’s length emotionally—while wanting to throw caution to the wind and enjoy the unconditional love that the puppy offered.

  “And if I could add two more cents.” Christopher paused, waiting for her to nod her head.

  Surprised, she told him, “Go ahead.”

  “Personally, I don’t think anyone is going to come looking for Jonny here,” he told her. “The way I see it, his mom probably had a litter recently and this one made a break for it when he was old enough to explore the world and no one was watching him. Most likely, his mom’s owner was busy trying to find a good home for him and his brothers and sisters. When Jonny took off, the owner probably took it to be a blessing—one less puppy for him to place.

  “Or he might have been so overwhelmed that he didn’t even notice Jonny was missing—especially if his dog had had an unusually large litter.” A fond smile curved his lips as he gazed down at the Labrador that had taken to momentarily sunning himself and was stretched out in the grass. “These little guys move around so fast, it’s hard to get a proper head count.”

  She couldn’t quite explain the happy feeling growing inside of her, especially since she was trying so hard to maintain her barriers, so hard to not get attached and thereby leave herself open to another onslaught of pain.

  Attempting to sound removed—and not quite succeeding—she said, “So what you’re telling me is that I’d better get used to the idea of vacuuming up fur several times a week.”

  For the sake of her charade, Christopher inclined his head—even though he saw right through her performance. “That’s another way of putting it.”

  She was on shaky ground and she had a feeling that she wasn’t fooling him—or herself. “What if I don’t like the idea of having to vacuum that often?” she posed.

  Rather than tell her that he would take the dog—which he actually would do if he believed she was serious—Christopher decided to play on her sympathies and create a heart-tugging scenario.

  “Well, in that case, you could always bring Jonny to the animal shelter and leave him there. Bedford outlawed euthanizing animals after a certain period of time the way they do in some other cities, so there’s no chance of his being put to sleep. Of course, he might not get all the love and attention he needs, getting lost in the shuffle because there are a large number of animals at the shelter. The city had to cut back on employees even though the animals all need care and attention.

  “Not to mention the fact that lately the number of volunteers who come by to walk, feed and play with the animals has dropped off, too, but at least the little guy would still be alive—just not as happy as he would be here with you.”

  Beneath the steel exterior she was trying to maintain was a heart made of marshmallow. But even if there wasn’t, Lily would have seen what the veterinari
an was trying to do.

  Shaking her head, she told him, “You left out the violins.”

  The comment, seemingly coming out of the blue, caught him by surprise. “What?”

  “Violins,” she repeated, then elaborated. “As background music. You left them out. They should have been playing while you painted that scene for me. They could have swelled to a crescendo right toward the end. But other than that, you just created a scenario that’s bordering on being a tearjerker.”

  “Just wanted you to know what these little critters are up against,” he told her with a very straight face. “Now, let’s see if you can get Jonny to stay. In place,” he added with emphasis in case she thought he was still referring to the dog staying with her. And then he winked at her.

  Again.

  Her reaction was exactly the same as it had been the first time he’d winked at her. Her breath caught in her throat and butterflies fluttered in her stomach. The only difference was that it seemed to her that there were even more now than there had been the first time he’d winked at her.

  How could something that could technically be described as a twitch create such pure havoc inside of her? Was she really that starved for attention that any hint of it had her practically melting into tiny little puddles and reminding herself to breathe?

  Lily had no idea how to begin to make any sense of that.

  For the moment, she blocked it all out and turned her attention to what Christopher had just said, not how she’d reacted to how he’d looked as he said it.

  “Okay, let’s see if I can get him to listen.”

  “Oh, he’ll listen,” Christopher assured her. “That’s not the issue. Whether he’ll obey is a totally other story.”