“Hey!” Xander calls out.
I turn.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
I narrow my gaze. “Keys and wallet,” I say, patting my pocket. “Dog, leash… Nope. I’m good.”
“She’s still wearing my sunglasses,” Xander says, as if I need a reminder.
“It’s sunny out, and I have my convertible. She’s going to need them.”
Sasha lets out an unladylike snort of laughter, causing me to grin, while her husband frowns and shakes his head. Sometimes I wonder how Dash and this more serious man are related.
“Wish me luck,” I say and take my companion out of the house and lead her to my brand-new Chevy Corvette, in what the dealer called Elkhart Lake Blue Metallic. To me, it’s my royal blue metallic baby.
I settle Bella in the passenger seat, once again picking up the glasses she knocked off and adjusting them on her face.
After I turn on the engine, I open my phone’s map app, put in the business name, and start the directions.
I drive out of the circular driveway, my stomach in knots because, other than the dog beside me, I have no real plan. A short while later, I pull up to a white clapboard building that, if not for the driveway and parking lot out front, looks more like a house than a clinic.
I cut the engine and turn to my panting passenger. “Now remember, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen Tara, and I’m counting on you to break the ice for me.”
Drool hangs from Bella’s mouth, and I groan. “Don’t be nervous. Tara was great when we were younger. In fact, she was really important to me.” And I am hoping I can get to know her again and see if the old spark between us remains. “I’m sure she’s got gentle hands and is a good vet. You’re going to like her a lot.”
I continue to talk to Bella, giving the dog a pep talk that is meant more for myself than for her. Which is ridiculous considering I’m a rock star who can get any woman I desire with a simple look, cock of my head, or lifting of my lips in my signature smirk.
The fact that I haven’t been with a woman in over six months says something about my state of mind when it comes to the opposite sex. No one has interested me in a long time. Until now. That I sit in my car outside a small-town vet’s office like a nervous teen is pretty fucking pathetic.
But seeing Tara’s photo stirred all sorts of memories of the time we spent together, the fun we had, and the feelings we shared. I’m not stupid and know I only have one second chance with the woman I once wished I could spend the rest of my life with. And I’m counting on a dog to do the heavy lifting.
CHAPTER TWO
Tara
Iwalk outfrom the back area of my veterinary practice, East Hampton Vets. I finished an annual exam on an overweight Pomeranian named Hazel and went into the back area to check in on the overnighters. All my patients are doing well.
I join my mother out front and place a folder on the desk. “That’s it until after lunch,” I say. “Did you get Mrs. Frankel checked out okay?” I ask of my last patient.
My mom nods. “She wasn’t happy with the diet you put Hazel on. She complained about the cost and said we were just trying to make money off our clients.”
I sigh. “Hazel is seventeen pounds. The breed standard is three to seven. Even if she was a throwback to the older Poms who weighed up to fifteen, which she’s not, she’s still overweight. It’s not good for her heart or other organs.”
“All of which I’m sure you told Mrs. Frankel. If Anna would stop feeding the dog table scraps, she could have avoided needing to spend money on a special diet.”
I nod. “That is the truth.” I smile at my mother, who is a beautiful woman.
We share the same thick brown hair that I wear past my shoulders, and my mom cut just above hers. Marsha Davidson, not Stillman anymore since she married Glenn Davidson, has gorgeous skin she takes good care of with expensive creams, and always wears her makeup perfect. She is warm and generous to a fault.
She loves to work, whether it’s necessary or not, a trait I inherited. My mother was the receptionist at my dad’s veterinary clinic in California. Dad passed away from a heart attack right before I was due to leave for college, leaving my mother and me devastated.
Ultimately, my mom sold the practice that I was supposed to join when I graduated vet school. Unable to bear the painful memories and wanting to be near me, while I attended my dad’s alma mater in Manhattan, my mother moved to New York City, too.
Once she adjusted to her new surroundings and being a widow, she moved to the Hamptons full-time and took a job with my godfather, my dad’s college best friend, and a veterinarian, Dr. Harry James.
Harry became my mentor. He owns this clinic and has been here for me, helping me make vet school choices, giving me a job when I graduated, and we had an agreement. When Harry was ready to retire, I would buy out the clinic with the money I was left in trust from my mother’s sale of my father’s vet business. My dad left my mom well cared for with life insurance, and my mother insisted my father would want me to use the money to open my own practice.
Losing my father altered the course of my entire life and led to me moving across the country to settle in New York. My mom married Glenn Davidson, a man who treated me like a daughter, and I care for him deeply. Thanks to Glenn, I have two stepsiblings, Amy and Connor. But being a part of the family always makes me feel disloyal to my real father. Only here, with my dog, and at the shelter where I volunteer, do I feel truly at home.
