Tim stared at the closed door and finally let out the chuckle he’d been holding in. Walking across the yard between their houses, he pictured a younger Zoe struggling to hold down a squirming cat while she took a pair of clippers to it and laughed even harder. Bad sexual innuendos aside, it was a funny story.
In his bedroom, he removed his utility belt and changed his uniform for workout clothes. Taking his dry cleaning bag downstairs, he set it by the door so he’d remember to drop it off on the way to work in the morning.
The clock on the wall in the garage showed him stopping by Zoe’s had put him fifteen minutes behind his routine—he was going to have to cut his run short to finish his workout in time to watchJeopardy!Not that he was complaining, since it’d given him an excuse to talk to her again.
He scrolled through his phone for a playlist then docked it on the speakers. Cranking up the speed on his treadmill, he tried to determine what it was about Zoe that intrigued him so much even after only two brief encounters. Other than her gorgeous curves. He didn’t know anyone who wouldn’t consider them an asset, but it was more than that. There were plenty of women he’d met since his divorce with curves for days—something about Zoe set her apart. In the quick interactions he’d had with her, she’d been funny and sarcastic, bold and bashful.
She was a contradiction. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he was interested in a woman. Truthfully, and it had taken him a long time to come to terms with reality, he hadn’t been interested in his wife. He’d felt protective. He’d convinced himself he’d been in love, but he’d never really wanted to know what made her tick.
He wanted to know what made Zoe tick.
He finished his workout and headed to the kitchen. Setting water on to boil, he plugged in the counter top grill and pulled out broccoli and marinated chicken breast from the refrigerator. It was simple and easy. He’d tried to keep up the complicated meals he’d made for his ex, but it had been too much food and took too much time. At least simple grilled chicken and steamed vegetables or a salad wasn’t freezer meals. He wasn’t so entrenched in his bachelorhood that he’d sunk that far.
His home phone rang and he picked it up without looking at the caller ID since there were only three people who would call him at home.
“Hello?”
“Hey. Are you working this weekend?” his brother, Jase, asked.
“I’m off Friday and Saturday. Why?”
“Bree wants to know if you’ll meet us for lunch downtown.”
He smiled at the mention of his soon-to-be sister-in-law. He hadn’t been too sure of her and Jase’s relationship at first given the circumstances of how they met, but his brother had come out of his self-imposed solitude and he knew it was because of Bree.
“Sure. When and where?”
“Saturday at the weekend market. She wants to ask you a question.”
“Don’t tell him that!” Bree said in the background.
“I can’t take a dog.” He threw broccoli into the steamer basket in the pot.
Bree and her friend Denise were always pestering him to adopt one of their rescue dogs, but his schedule wasn’t conducive to taking care of one.
“Tim, it’s Bree.”
He lifted the lid off the grill and poked at the chicken. “Hi, Bree. I can’t take a dog.”
“Can you at least meet her first before you make a decision? She’s old and lazy. You won’t have to walk her or play with her. Just make sure she goes out a couple of times a day and has a cozy place to sleep at night.”
He sighed. That sounded like the ideal life. Maybe if he gave in on the laziest dog in the world, they’d stop asking him every week. “All—”
“She just needs a place short-term until we can find her forever home. And that won’t be long, she’s really a sweetheart.”
“All right.”
“Really? You’ll take her?”
“I’ll meet her. We’ll see how lazy she really is before I make a decision.”
“Yay! Denise will bring her by Thursday after work. That way you’ll have the weekend with her. Here’s Jase.”
“Man, you owe me. I bet her a back rub you were going to say no,” Jase said.
“Sure, I’ll rub Bree’s back.”
“You’re going to keep your damn hands to yourself.”
