Susan Mallery - Not Strictly Business!

“This is Charlie,” Jack said. “Do you like dogs?”

Samantha held out her fingers for Charlie to sniff, then petted him. “I love them.” She crouched down in front of Charlie and rubbed his shoulders. “Who’s a handsome guy?” she asked, then laughed as he tried to lick her face.

“He likes you,” Jack said. “Smart dog.”

She laughed. “Okay, now I really want to have dinner with you. Come on in.”

She led the way to the kitchen where Jack opened the wine and she collected plates for their dinner. As she opened the bags and began pulling out cartons of food, she noticed a bright red plastic bowl and a box with a big C on it.

“This is interesting,” she said, holding up both.

Jack grinned sheepishly. “They’re for Charlie. He loves Chinese, so the place I go mixes up a special rice dish for him. It’s beef and chicken, rice, vegetables, light on the salt and spices. He loves it and the vet approves. It’s kind of a special treat.”

Samantha did her best to reconcile the straitlaced lawyer she knew Jack to be with a guy who would special order food for his dog.

“Now I know who’s really in charge,” she murmured.

“Yeah,” Jack said easily. “He’s the boss.”

He helped her carry the cartons to the table. Charlie was served, but he waited until they sat down before digging in to his dinner.

Jack held out his glass of wine. “Welcome to the neighborhood. I hope you like it.”

“Thank you.” They touched glasses, then she took a sip of the red wine. “Very nice. All of this.”

“No problem. I thought you might still be feeling out of place.”

“Some. I like the apartment, but it’s weird because nothing in here is mine. Like these plates.” She held up the plain cream plate. “I would never have bought these.”

“Too normal?”

“Too boring. Color is our friend.”

“Agreed. But you’ll get settled, then you can find a place of your own.”

“I know. But for now, this is great. They make it very convenient.”

Jack passed her the honey-glazed shrimp. “That’s why I’m here. Dry cleaning right downstairs. The corner grocery store delivers. The dog walker lives across the street. There are over twenty restaurants in a five-block square around here and a great park close by where Charlie and I hang out on weekends.”

She glanced at the dog who had finished his dinner and was now sniffing the floor for rice grains he might have missed. “He’s beautiful. But doesn’t he need exercise and attention? You’re a guy who works long hours.”

“He’s fine,” Jack said. “Is it quiet enough here for you? That’s the first thing I noticed when I moved in. How quiet it was. Good construction.”

She started to agree, then realized he had not-so-subtly changed the subject. “It’s great,” she said. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“About Charlie. You changed the subject.”

“From what?”

“How he gets through the day without tearing up your place.”

“He keeps busy.”

Jack looked uncomfortable. She glanced from him to the dog. “What? He watches soaps and does a crossword puzzle?”

Jack sighed. “He goes to day care, okay? I know, I know. It’s silly, but he has a lot of energy and border collies are herding dogs. I didn’t want him alone and bored all the time so three days a week he goes to doggy day care. There he plays with the other dogs and herds them around. He comes home so tired that on Tuesdays and Thursdays he pretty much just sleeps. I have a dog walker who comes by twice a day to take him out.”

The muscles in his jaw tensed slightly as he spoke.She could tell he hadn’t wanted to share that part of his life with her.

She did her best not to smile or laugh—he would take that wrong—not realizing that women would find a big, tough, successful guy who cared that much about his dog pretty appealing.

“You’re a responsible pet owner,” she said. “Some people aren’t.”

He narrowed his gaze, as if waiting for a slam. She smiled innocently, then changed the subject.

After dinner they moved to the living room. Charlie made a bid for the wing chair in the corner. Jack ordered him out of it. The dog gave a sigh of long suffering, then stretched out on the carpet by Samantha.

Jack glanced around at the furniture, then studied the painting over the fireplace. “So not you,” he said.

Samantha looked at the subtle blues and greens. “It’s very restful.”

“You hate it.”

“I wouldn’t have gone for something so …”

“Normal?” he asked.

She grinned. “Exactly. Too expected. Where’s the interesting furniture, the splash of color?”

“I’m sure you’ll do that with your next place.”

“Absolutely. I miss fringe.”

He winced. “I remember you had that horrible shawl over that table in your apartment when we were in grad school. It was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen.”

“It was beautiful,” she told him. “And it had an amazing color palate.”

“It looked like something from a Dali nightmare.”

“You have no taste,” she said.

“I know when to be afraid.”

He smiled as he spoke, making her own mouth curve up in return. It had always been like this, she thought. They rarely agreed and yet they got along just fine. She liked that almost as much as she liked looking at him.

He’d changed out of his workday suit into jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. The denim had seen better days. Dozens of washings had softened and faded the material, molding to his long legs and narrow hips.

A controlled sex appeal, she thought. Reined-in power that always made her wonder what would happen when he lost control. How big would the explosion be? She had an idea from their lone night together. He had claimed her with a need that had left her shaking and desperately wanting more.

Step away from the memory, she told herself. Talk about dangerous territory.

“Don’t you have some furniture and decorations from your New York apartment?” he asked.

“I have a few things in storage,” she said. A very few things. In an ongoing attempt to control her, Vance had fought her over every picture and dish. It had been easier and oddly freeing simply to walk away.

An emotion flickered in his dark eyes. “I know you’re coming off of a divorce. How are you holding up?”

The news wasn’t a secret, so she wasn’t surprised that he knew. “Okay. It was tough at first. I went through the whole ‘I’ve failed’ bit, but I’ve moved on from that. Right now I’m feeling a lot of relief.”

“It’s a tough time,” he said.

She nodded. “I had really planned to stay married to the same man for the rest of my life. I thought I’d picked the perfect guy.” She paused. “Not perfect. Perfect for me. But I was wrong.”

An understatement, she thought grimly. “We wanted different things in nearly everything. I could have lived with that, but he changed his mind about wanting children.” She kept her voice light because if she gave in to her real feelings, the bitterness would well up inside of her. She didn’t want to deal with that right now. Talk about a waste of energy.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said. “I remember you used to talk about having kids all the time.”

“I still plan to have them. I think I have a few good years left.”

“More than a few.”

She smiled as she spoke. Jack liked the way she curled up on the sofa, yet kept one leg lowered so she could rub Charlie with her bare foot.

She still painted her toenails, he thought, looking at the tiny flowers painted on each big toe. She even had a toe ring on each foot. None of the women he got involved with were the toe-ring type. Of course none of them wore jeans with flowers sewn onto the side seams or sweaters that looked more like a riot of colors than clothing.