her name snapped her out of her thoughts. “Huh?”
Jon looped the stethoscope casually around his neck. “I think Boggle is fine. Heart and lungs and stomach sound good, no other obvious problems. Of course, if you notice additional symptoms, bring him back in, but honestly, I think he’s just ornery by nature. And he’s already been neutered so I’m afraid that as far as personality goes, what you see is what you get.”
He was probably wondering how in the world she would not know that her own cat was already neutered. She said, “Thanks, Doctor.”
“Call me Jon.”
She didn’t want to call him Jon. She didn’t want to call him anything.
Okay, that wasn’t true. He was a tasty-looking dish, there was no denying that, but she’d recently bowed out of the dating game.
On the other hand, she didn’t want to leave a bad impression even if she would never see him again. It was a small community and who knew when he’d show up at the flower shop needing flowers for some new honey? A beautiful bronzed blonde, she’d bet. A woman with long eyelashes and a thrilling career that didn’t require she live from paycheck to paycheck. Sweeping aside wayward strands of wavy dark hair, Lora added, “Did I mention that I haven’t had Boggle very long?”
“That explains a lot,” he said as though relieved to discover she might not be a nitwit after all. He unfolded his glasses and put them on again, and sure enough, he looked fine. Reaching for the folder, he flipped it open and scanned the page. “It appears you forgot to give us your phone number,” he said, glancing up.
“Why do you need my phone number?”
“It’s office policy,” he said, grabbing a pencil from the counter.
She mumbled out a bogus phone number and repeated her thanks. Clutching the angry cat and her checkbook, she hurried out of the small examination room only to be met by an assistant wearing a purple smock printed with frolicking dogs. The assistant told Lora to wait as she ducked into the room Lora had just vacated.
Lora more or less wedged an increasingly distressed Boggle between herself and a wall and wished she’d thought to bring a box. She tried stroking the cat’s ears and crooning softly to calm him, just as she’d seen Jon do. For a moment, staring into eyes as green as her own, she thought she and the cat connected in some primal way, then he opened his mouth so wide she could see down his surprisingly pink gullet and emitted a hiss that made the hairs on the back of Lora’s neck stand up.
“Bad kitty!” she scolded. With an annoyed glance at the examination room door, she wondered what was taking so long.
The assistant finally reappeared. “The doctor says there’ll be no charge today.”
Stunned by Jon Woods’s generosity, she momentarily thought of tumbling to his charm, then she sucked it up and beat a hasty retreat. Once inside the van, Boggle crouched under the passenger seat and howled.
“No wonder I prefer tropical fish,” Lora grumbled over the din.
Jon found himself looking out the window, angling for a glimpse of his last patient’s owner.
All he saw was a big blue van pulling out of the parking lot. He resettled the blinds and picked up the folder beneath Lora’s.
He’d been in Fern Glen, a quaint town on the Northern California coast, for a little over a month and face it, he’d been growing increasingly bored. There were just so many times a man could walk along a windswept beach—alone. Only so many times he could admire towering trees or chat with strangers. He missed Los Angeles, Trina, his own life, and not necessarily in that order.
He couldn’t deny, however, that Lora Gifford had piqued his interest. She was just so…well, so real. He’d be willing to bet there wasn’t a phony hair on her head, and speaking of hair, that ebony fall of glistening strands was unbelievable.
Lora. Her name was Lora and she seemed a little skittish, as though she’d been wounded in the past. He felt a protective surge in his chest and smiled at his own folly. His ability to empathize with creatures was a bonus in his career; he just had to guard the tendency to let it guide his reactions to people. Especially female people.
He put Lora Gifford out of his mind as he got ready for his next patient, a black Labrador puppy with the sniffles.
Five years before Lora was born her parents had purchased a small piece of real estate in the heart of Fern Glen. Her mother dreamed of opening a fabric store. Her father yearned to start a bait and tackle shop. They settled on a florist because at the time, Fern Glen didn’t have one.
Compromise. That was the name of the game for her parents, but it hadn’t come without taking a toll on their relationship. For all intents and purposes, Lora had grown up in a petal-lined war zone. In the off season, while her father fished and her mother made quilts for extra money, Lora had escaped into after-school work with a local lily grower, her mentor a disabled old man with a wealth of experience he was anxious to share. For her, his warm glass-sided buildings had become a sanctuary.
Four years before, Lora had received a modest inheritance from a favorite uncle and shocked everyone by using it to buy herself a house. Her parents had been surprised by her choice—the house was small and ungainly. What Lora didn’t explain was that she’d really bought the house because of the greenhouse out in back.
Two years later, her father decided thirty years of married life was enough, hooked up his boat and drove away. Her mother kept the shop. Lora, who discovered how limited the financial resources really were when she took over the books, invited her mother to move in with her for a few months. The months had turned into a year.
And then Lora’s long-widowed grandmother had shown up on Lora’s doorstep with three suitcases and five cardboard boxes, everything else she owned tucked safely in storage. She was lonely. How could Lora turn away her own grandmother? At least Grandma was willing to share a room with Lora’s mom. So now three generations resided in Lora’s little cottage and Lora was one breath away from going nuts.
It was Calvin’s fault. The rat had left her, and in leaving her, he’d opened the door for her relatives to come charging through, a single goal firing their passion: find Lora a husband! It didn’t matter how many times Lora told them she wasn’t interested—they simply didn’t believe her.
She’d been so sure that Calvin was “The One.” They were the same age, he loved the outdoors as she did, he had family in Fern Glen. Perfect. Then he’d accepted a job in Chicago without even telling Lora he’d applied. All she had to do was pack a bag. He, it seemed, had a plan.
Only, she had plans of her own.
Take it or leave it, he’d said.
At that point she’d decided there was one thing of which she was certain: she was not going to follow her parents’ example and spend her life compromising.
Now, thanks to the meddling of her loving relatives, a seemingly endless procession of quasi eligible men had recently shown up for dinner or come into the shop to buy flowers. Things were getting out of hand.
Out of desperation, Lora had given the matter some deep thought. Loneliness was the culprit, she decided, for both her mom and Gram, so she’d attack from that angle. With luck, she’d shift their attention away from her love life and on to their
