A New Leash On Love (Furever Yours Book 1)

by Melissa Senate

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  He nodded, then gave Dempsey, who stood beside her, a scratch on the head. “Just thought you should know the stair railing on the left side heading upstairs is loose. I could easily take care of it. I’m a trained mechanic, so I’m generally pretty handy if anything needs to be fixed. You refused to take any rent while I’m living here, so I insist on offering my services in trade.”

  She thought of Matt in her living room, kitchen, bedroom...a tool belt slung low on his hips, fixing all manner of things as she watched his muscles ripple and his very sexy rear fill out the faded old jeans he wore. “A cabinet in the kitchen has a loose hinge, and I never get around to finding the power drill,” she said. “And I’ve been wanting to bolt the bookcase in the living room to the wall. You’re going to be sorry you asked. I can probably come up with a list of ten things I’ve been meaning to call someone about.”

  Wait a minute, dummy! Was she really finding stuff for Matt to do inside her home? What the heck was wrong with her?

  You want to be around him. And not just to stare at him when you think he doesn’t notice.

  “I can take care of all that,” he said. “I assume you’re working today—I can come back at three thirty if that’s good for you.”

  Tell him it’s not. Tell him you’ll fix all the stuff yourself, or that you forgot you already hired a handyman. Tell him anything, but don’t let him inside your home! “That works,” she heard herself say. “I’m not due at Furever Paws till five today to help close up for the night.”

  “See you then,” he said with a nod to Dempsey, and then disappeared down the stairs.

  Fool, she chastised herself as she closed the door. Your knees can barely hold you up when you look at Matt. Now, he’s going to be in your kitchen and living room on a regular basis.

  She had no doubt she’d find some reason to get him in her bedroom. That was how ridiculously attracted to him she was. Had it just been too long since she’d been with a man? Did since her divorce count as too long?

  Way too long, her sister had said, which was why she’d begun setting Claire up with anyone who was single.

  Ding!

  Claire went to her laptop on the desk in the living room. She had four messages from the dating website. That was fast.

  And necessary. Because if Matt was going to be Mr. Fix It in her home, she’d need more than a distraction from him. She’d need to know she was taking steps to protect herself from getting wrapped up in the past, in hoping for something that couldn’t be.

  HOT4U, whose profile photos were all shirtless, loved “quiet nights at home with his special lady.” Yeah, no doubt. Next! Except the next two weren’t much better. Online dating might not be the way to go. Hadn’t her friend and fellow teacher Sandy mentioned that she had a single cousin who might be “just right for you”? She should forget online dating and focus on fix-ups from trustworthy people.

  Claire took a fast look at the fourth message. Hmm. BigReader had one photo, a side view of an attractive, dark-haired man on a boat of some kind. He was thirty-seven, an accountant, loved historical biographies, and here was the big one: he loved dogs.

  Claire hit reply.

  Within twenty minutes, she had a date for dinner tomorrow night.

  * * *

  Matt spent the day working with Sparkle and showing the little pup around town. He’d run into some old friends and now had plans for barbecue—“feel free to bring a date”—and beers at the dive bar on the outskirts of town.

  “Didn’t take you for the kind of guy who’d have some fluffy puppy with a purple collar,” his old rival on the baseball team had said. Before he could say a word, a buddy had added, “Matt has a thigh-to-shin gash in his leg from his service to our country, so shut up.” The rival had stuck his hand out and Matt shook it, and just like that, he was one of the guys again. But did he really want to make friends, build any kind of life here when he’d run into Claire all the time? No. He’d train the puppy for Ellie, fix all the broken things in Claire’s house and then ride into the unknown. At least that was a plan, even if there was no actual plan.

  He’d have to leave town. He’d thought about Claire all day—from old memories to how she’d looked this morning. Claire owned a house. She had an important career. She was passionate about her volunteer work. She had everything. And Matt? At this point, all he had was a duffel bag of clothes and a twelve-pound puppy that he’d be handing over once she was trained. So leave your fantasies about her in your head, he reminded himself as, tool belt on and power drill in hand, he rang her doorbell at three thirty. Don’t think about kissing her, even though you want to. Don’t imagine her naked, even though you can’t help it. Don’t picture the two of you in bed, despite being unable to shake the image.

  She opened the door, and he immediately thought about kissing her—dropping the power drill on the floor and telling her he’d been able to think of little else but her since he’d run into her at the shelter his first full day home. But Dempsey was standing guard next to her, as always, peering up at him with those soulful eyes, reminding him of his promise to himself—and secretly, to her. Not to get involved. Claire Asher had always deserved better than him, better than what he could offer.

  She wore a blue velvet jacket and a black-and-white skirt. Her teacher clothes. She smelled fantastic, like spicy flowers. Her hair was in a low bun and man, did he want to feel those silky blond tresses running through his fingers.

  “I just got home,” she said, opening the door wider and gesturing for him to enter. “I’ll go change and meet you back in the living room. You can check out the bookcase that I want anchored. I keep being afraid that a dog Dempsey’s size could pull it down if she jumped up. Hasn’t happened yet, but it worries me.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” he said. He went to kneel down, and for some reason today—maybe the threat of rain in the air—he winced and it took double the usual time to get down. But he was halfway there and it would hurt worse to stand back up, so he balanced himself on the edge of the couch and eased into the kneel. Don’t say anything. Don’t ask, he sent telepathically to Claire as she gave Dempsey a rigorous pat on her soft but bristly fur. Sparkle was like a down pillow compared to Dempsey.

  “War injury?” she asked.

  Crud. He hated when attention was called to it, even though the ole bad leg had given him a pass for carting around such a too-cute puppy in a striped purple collar this morning.

  He nodded, focusing on Dempsey. “IED.”

  Now it was her turn to wince. “Does it hurt much?”

  Crud again. He didn’t want that look in her eyes. Concern. Worry. Claire was a runner, or at least she had been, and back when they were a couple she was even faster than him. Now, he wasn’t even sure he could walk a half mile, let alone run a 5K.

  “Sometimes,” he admitted.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  He pulled himself up, wincing again, and he saw her reach her arm out as if to steady him if he needed it. This was exactly what he wanted to avoid. Feeling like half a man. He mentally shook his head away from those “poor me” bullcrap thoughts; he was lucky as hell and he knew it. Two in his unit had come back with much worse injuries.

  “I’ll go check out the bookcase,” he said, heading over to it without looking at her.

  He could feel her lingering in the room, and knew she was wondering if she should say something, do something. How could he know her so well after all this time? Maybe when it came to the important people in your life, those who got under your skin, those who helped make you who you were, that feeling of “knowing them” never went away.

  Great.

  The bookcase. Focus on the damned bookcase, he told himself. He heard the soft click of Dempsey’s nails on the hardwood floor, which meant Claire was leaving the room and Dempsey was following. Good.

&
nbsp; The bookcase was waist-high and full of interesting things, like the stained-glass jewelry box he knew she’d inherited from her great-grandmother when she was sixteen, a lopsided vase she’d made in pottery class back in high school, a lot of books and family photos. On the top of the bookshelf was an open photo album. Whoa. The page was full of photos of him and Claire as a couple and some of him solo. He put down the power drill and picked up the album.

  Had he really ever been that young? From seventeen to a hundred.

  He turned to the first page and looked at each photo, smiling at Claire as a toddler with birthday cake all over her face, Claire as a little girl on a two-wheeler, her beloved father holding on to the back of the seat, Claire as a sixteen-year-old, with a tall, skinny boy standing a respectful distance away for the photo. God, look at me, he thought, madly in love, afraid to show it, barely able to believe she liked me back.

  “Oh, um, I—” Claire said.

  He turned around, still holding the album. Claire’s cheeks were red, as though she were embarrassed at having been caught reminiscing. Which was exactly what he was doing now. She’d changed into jeans and a yellow sweater, and reminded him of the girl he’d known, who used to drive him wild just by existing.

  “I can’t believe I was ever that young,” he said, his gaze back on the photograph of the two of them. “Or that the most beautiful girl in the world was mine.” Okay, that had come out of his mouth without his say-so. But he sure had been thinking it. Back then and now. He stared down at the book and flipped the page. He and Claire dancing at prom. Kissing.

  She walked over to him and glanced at the page. She pointed at the top left photo, of the two of them arm in arm for the “professional” couple shot the principal had taken of all the attendees. “I sure had no idea then what was going to happen by the end of the night. I thought my boyfriend and I would be sneaking off to a motel. Instead, I was sobbing in my room with a pillow over my head.”

  Punch to the gut. He hated how much he’d hurt her back then. “If you had any idea how much I wanted you that night, Claire,” he said, putting the album down. He took her hands, and she looked up at him. “I was madly in love with you.”

  “I don’t want to talk about the past,” she said. “What I want is for you to kiss me.”

  Me too, he thought, everything else fading away. Like reason and the real world. He stepped closer and put his hands on her beautiful face, then leaned in to kiss her, gently and sweetly in case she changed her mind midway.

  But that didn’t seem to happen because she deepened the kiss, snaking her hands through his hair. She kiss-walked him backward to the couch and straddled him, trailing kisses along his neck. He was going to explode.

  And then she began unbuttoning his shirt, her hands cool on his hot skin. Five seconds later, he had her sweater off, one hand slipping down under the waistband of her soft, sexy jeans.

  “Help me get you out of my system,” she whispered in his ear. “This is what I need.”

  He pulled back, her words a splash of cold water on his head. “What?”

  “You and me,” she said. “It’s not going to happen—in the long run, right? Just like last time. So let me get you out of my system once and for all.” She ran her hands inside his shirt, over his chest.

  It felt so good. But he didn’t believe her. So he pulled away and stood up.

  “You think sex will get me out of your system?” He shook his head. “I already think about you all damned day, Claire. Sex will make me unable to do anything else. Sparkle will be peeing all over the apartment.”

  “So once again you’re not going to sleep with me for my own good?” She walked away and stopped by the sliding glass door, then turned to glare at him. “How about you let me make my own decisions for myself.”

  “I won’t sleep with you when I know I’m leaving soon,” he said. “If that’s ‘like last time,’ then so be it. I’m wrong for you. Just like eighteen years ago.”

  “I think I hear Sparkle whimpering,” she said through gritted teeth, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “No, you don’t,” he said. He’d become attuned to every little noise the puppy made over the past couple of days. If Sparkle had made a single peep, he’d have heard it. Claire wanted him gone, but shouldn’t they talk about this? Shouldn’t they get it straight and right between them? She had to understand where he was coming from.

  She lifted her chin. “I have to grade essays. So this isn’t a good day for you to work in the house, after all.”

  This wasn’t what he wanted either. This bad kind of tension between them. He hated the thought of leaving this way.

  “Claire, if you only knew—”

  She held up a hand. “Matt, you’ve said it all. You find me attractive, but can’t—on all levels. Have I got that right?”

  Oh hell.

  Her phone rang and so he headed to the door. Don’t say you’re sorry or she’ll conk you over the head, he told himself.

  So, he didn’t, but he wanted to. He was sorry. And wished things could be different. Wished he were different.

  Chapter Six

  Ridiculous. This morning, Claire had been sure the way to get Matt Fielding out of her system was to spend $14.95 on an online dating service. Suddenly, just several hours later, the way to get over him was to ravish his body in her bed? To finally have sex with him? Was she insane?

  Thank God he’d put the kibosh on that. Right? She went back and forth, depending on the minute. Yes, it was a good thing. She’d be a mess if she finally slept with the man she couldn’t get over after eighteen years. And she couldn’t afford to be an emotional mess. She had hormonal, pimply faced, identity-seeking preteens depending on her to be the calm, rational one. She had a foster dog who needed to be fed, exercised and played with. And she needed to be present for the dogs at Furever Paws, not be all teary-eyed and unfocused.

  So, yes, score one for Matt. But then she’d think that maybe sex with him really would do the job, that the mystery of him, of “it,” would poof!—disappear. She’d know what sex with him was like, and she’d move on. Wasn’t that a possibility?

  Luckily, Claire really didn’t have time to vacillate endlessly about sleeping with Matt or not. She was due at Furever Paws at five, and then she was meeting BigReader, aka Connor Hearon, at the Main Street Grille at seven for dinner. He’d said during their two message exchanges that it was unusual to make dinner plans before spending much time emailing back and forth and chatting on the phone, but he had “a feeling about her.” Claire, unfortunately, had lost all feeling and interest in meeting Connor, but she was not going to let Matt derail another date with a potential beau who could be what she needed and wanted right now. To be safe, she’d texted her friend and fellow Furever Paws volunteer, Amanda Sylvester, manager and co-owner of the Main Street Grille, to let her know she was meeting an online date there at seven and to keep an eye out for anything strange. Not that Claire knew what that would constitute. It just seemed a good precaution. Then she texted her sister BigReader’s details as a “just in case” too.

  You’re my hero, her sister texted. Very happy you’re putting yourself out there. This time next year, rock-a-bye baby... :)

  Getting a little ahead of yourself, there, sister dear, Claire thought. But at least Della had made her smile. Because was putting herself out there supposed to feel this...unexciting? Once again, she blamed Matt Fielding.

  That really was handy, sticking him with the blame for everything.

  * * *

  Matt wanted to pick up another pack of training treats for Sparkle, so he drove out to Furever Paws. He could probably find the same treats at the supermarket, but he liked the idea of spending his money at the shelter. And he’d run out of places to go to avoid going home—he still felt funny thinking of the apartment at Claire’s as home, but it was for now. Since their argument, he
’d vacuumed all the dog hair and errant treats around the apartment, gone grocery shopping, returned his “not him” rental car and bought himself a used black Mustang from a car dealer he’d heard good things about. Then he’d spent a couple of hours in the park with Sparkle and worn the puppy out. They’d practiced commands—come and stay—and Sparkle was getting the hang of it. A woman had come over, oohing and aahing over Sparkle’s cuteness, and because it was such a small world, she turned out to be his niece Ellie’s third-grade teacher. Mrs. Panetta, whom he’d heard Ellie rave about, gave Sparkle an A+ for cuteness and her stay command.

  When he’d left the pup at home ten minutes ago, she was fast asleep in the kennel, curled up with her bounty of toys in her little bed.

  Matt pulled into a spot in the small gravel parking lot at Furever Paws. Huge oak trees surrounded the sturdy, dark-gray, one-story building. He walked up the porch steps, the logo—a large image of a cat and dog silhouetted inside a heart—painted on the front greeting him. He pulled open the glass door and walked into the small lobby. He remembered tall, gray-haired Birdie, one of the owners, from the last time he was here.

  “Afternoon, ma’am,” he said. “I’m Ma—”

  Birdie turned her sharp blue eyes from the computer screen to him. “You left here a few days ago with one of our not-ready-for-prime-time pups,” she said, her stern expression softening into a smile. “I know exactly who you are. It’s nice to see you again, Matt. And call me Birdie. I’m not the ma’am type. Pleeeze.”

  He laughed. “Well, Birdie, I’m here to pick up some more training treats for Sparkle. We’re going to work on the lie down command tomorrow.”

  “Our gift shop has plenty,” she said, gesturing to the wall along the side of the lobby. Claire had mentioned that the supplies were mostly donated; sales benefited the shelter, and he was glad to help.