White Picket Fences

Zack held out a hand to her. “Then…”

She shook her head, forestalling his words. “It didn’t last,” she said. “Or at least, not strongly enough. I feel things when I’m with Barbara that I’ve never felt before. This is right for me, Zack. I’m one hundred percent sure of it.”

There appeared to be nothing left to say. Hands in his slacks pockets, Zack wondered how best to extricate himself, pride intact.

“I care very much for you, Zack,” she said beseechingly. He couldn’t figure out why she’d bothered to say that.

“Not enough, apparently.”

“Plenty,” she countered. “More than you’ll ever know. It’s killing me to do this.”

“Then don’t do it.” So much for pride. “Let’s just forget this whole conversation ever took place.”

But could he really? Every time he looked at her he’d have to picture her with—

“I just don’t feel anything…sexually when I’m with you.”

He felt the blood drain from his face.

“I want more than anything to be your friend.”

“I don’t think that’ll be possible.” The cold voice that said those words wasn’t one he even recognized.

Dawn bowed her head. “I understand.”

“Do you?” the stranger’s voice continued.

“Yes,” she whispered, fresh tears pooling in her soft blue eyes as she looked up at him. “Please, please don’t blame yourself for this,” she begged him, touching his arm.

Zack jerked away. “Who else am I to blame when my wife tells me that I’m not only unable to keep her happy in our bed, I can’t manage to keep her at all? That she doesn’t want to be married to me because…because I’m the wrong sex. If that makes any sense.”

“I had the…tendencies before I ever met you, Zack.”

“But I was able to change that. To turn you on.”

“For a brief time, yes.” She nodded.

“Maybe if I’d been man enough, the time wouldn’t have been so brief.” His own voice was back—sort of. It was thick with emotion. Saying things he couldn’t stomach.

“If you hadn’t been such an incredible man, I would never have felt anything to begin with.”

“Perhaps that would have been better.”

“Perhaps. For you, at least.”

He glanced over at her, wondering what she meant by that.

“I’ll never be sorry that I knew you Zack. You’ve added dimensions to my life that I’ll cherish forever.”

He didn’t need any of her sap for his battered pride. He didn’t need anything from her.

He knew what she was saying. Understood that he wasn’t to blame for Dawn’s choices. But deep down in his gut, he still felt responsible. Somehow.

“I’ll be gone tonight,” he told her, striding for the door.

“You’ll need time to arrange for movers and—”

“I don’t want a damn thing from this house,” he said, “except Sammie and Bear. They’re mine.” That was the only thing he was sure of. “You can have it all—sell it all—I don’t give a damn what you do with it….”

A wet nose nudged Zack’s palm, brought him back to the present. He ignored it. He still didn’t give a damn. It was the only way to get from one day to the next. Because you couldn’t take anything for granted. Not even something as basic as love and marriage. One minute it was there, and the very next minute, reality could completely change.

The only given was himself.

The nose nudged him again. Harder.

Looking into Sammie’s big dark eyes, Zack sighed, setting down the bottle he still clutched in one hand. Hell.

He’d gone and done it, anyway—he’d thought of Dawn. Relived that whole last horrible scene—for the first time in weeks.

He’d wallowed.

And he hated that.

“Okay, Sammie, my girl, from now on, we play catch in the evenings, got it?” he asked.

She wagged her tail, turned in a circle and barked.

Now there was one female he could count on.

IN DEFERENCE TO the cooler sixty-degree temperature, Randi pulled a sweatshirt over the usual bike shorts and cropped T-shirt she wore to work. And added the finishing touch, the sports socks and tennis shoes that were also standard attire for the youngest women’s athletic director Montford University had ever had. Classes didn’t start for another week—the fifteenth of January—but Randi, along with the rest of the Montford faculty, was due back the Monday before.

Not a minute too soon, as far as she was concerned.

Running her fingers through her short blond hair, she dashed for her Jeep. She had a meeting later that morning with her head basketball coach—recruitment possibilities to discuss—but Randi had something else to accomplish first. Something to knock off her list—she hoped.

The Shelter Valley Veterinary Clinic was just around the corner from downtown, not even a block from Main Street. The newish-looking structure was familiar to Randi, but only from a drive-by position. She’d never had reason to visit it before.

And hoped never to have reason to visit it again.

What could Will have been thinking, giving her this assignment? He had to know she’d try to unload it.

Which might very well have been his plan. Cancel the whole thing. Who ever heard of a university having a pet-therapy club, anyway?

Parking the Jeep, Randi hopped out and latched the door behind her. She could just picture it, a bunch of dogs in private offices, sitting in armchairs in front of couches, administering therapy to emotionally disturbed people.

Shaking her head, she entered the building. Cassie Tate had opened the clinic almost three years before, but from what Randi had heard, she wasn’t in town all that much now that she was teaching the rest of the country about pet therapy. Randi had gone to school with Cassie, and while they hadn’t been particularly close—Cassie had only had eyes, and time, for Sam Montford, and Randi had already been in training for her stint with the Ladies Professional Golf Association—Randi had always respected Cassie.

“Can I help you?” a young college student asked from her position behind the reception counter.

“Sure,” Randi said, glancing around the waiting room as she approached. One woman with a cat. In a carrier. “Is Dr. Foster around?”

“Zack?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have an appointment?” The girl looked down at the book in front of her and then over the counter to notice Randi’s lack of a pet.

“No,” she said. She’d been hoping to just pop in and make this short and sweet. Emphasis on short.

“Can I tell him who’s here?”

“Randi Parsons. I’m from the university, and I need to speak with him about the pet-therapy club.”

The girl nodded and pushed through a swinging door behind her.

Okay, Randi understood the part about extracurricular activities on campus and even the fact that she had to be an adviser. She’d managed to avoid it so far, although most of the Montford faculty served eventually. It kept the teachers and students unified, working toward common goals. Many of the activities were community-oriented, which helped solidify the values of which Montford was so proud. She was for all of that. Would lobby for it, if necessary.

But pet therapy?

“You can go on back.” The receptionist had returned. “He’s in his office, third door on the right.”

“Thanks,” Randi said, rounding the counter with her fingers crossed. Five minutes should make all the difference.

She’d seen Dr. Zack Foster from a distance. In a town the size of Shelter Valley, it was pretty much impossible not to at least catch a glimpse of each of the two thousand or so permanent residents at some time or other. Even if said resident had been in town for less than a year. There was only one major grocery store, two gas stations, one real restaurant. Everyone was seen eventually.

Besides, Zack Foster was a basketball fan. She’d noticed him at one of the final women’s games when Montford had been on its way to the championship.

Which they’d won. Randi still felt a little glow of pride when she thought about it.

Seeing him from a distance was nothing like being in the same room with him. Up close he was huge. Not an ounce overweight, just muscular. Solid.

“Dr. Foster?”

“Please, call me Zack.” He rose and offered her his hand.

Randi swallowed. “I’m Randi Parsons.” Her voice almost cracked.

What the hell was the matter with her?

“Good to meet you,” he said, looking at her oddly. “I followed Montford’s women’s basketball last season. Very impressive.”

“Thanks.”

She’d been around big men all her life. Had four of them for older brothers, and ever since she’d been able to walk she’d been able to take on all four of them with one hand tied behind her back. Both hands, if it came to that.

He didn’t sit back down. Didn’t offer her a seat, either, not that she planned to stay long. At least she didn’t think she planned to. He had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. And they were boring holes in her.

“Uh, do I, uh, have jelly smeared on my mouth?” she asked, wiping her lips even though she hadn’t had jelly in years. Or breakfast that morning, for that matter.

“No, of course not.” His gaze dropped. “Sorry about that. Please, have a seat.”

Randi sat. She had the strangest feeling that she’d do just about anything the man asked of her right then. A feeling she’d never had before in her life. One she hoped never to have again.

“I, uh, just wanted to speak with you a moment about Montford’s pet-therapy club. I was told you’re administering it from the professional side.”

“I am.” He nodded, one thumb busy thumping a folder on top of his desk.

The man was having the most discomforting effect on Randi. She had no idea what to do with it. Her only consolation was that he seemed to be just as uncomfortable as she was.

Good. That should make it even easier to accomplish her task.

“I’ve been assigned to be the club’s faculty adviser.”

“What happened to Dr. Randolph?”

“He retired.”

“Oh.”

The vet’s blue eyes were studying her again, as though he saw something he didn’t know what to do with, either.

She’d help him out. Help them both out.

“The thing is, I know Cassie’s made quite a name for herself with her pet therapy, helping emotionally disturbed people and all, but this club, it can’t have any real impact. The kids running it aren’t trained like Cassie is. Nor am I. We don’t have the psychology background.”

“There are many kinds of pet therapy—”

“I’m just thinking that, with Cassie being out of town so much and you having to carry an extra load, we’d be remiss not to understand your commitments and cancel the club, at least for this semester. Let you off the hook, so to speak.”

“I don’t want to be let off the hook, but thank you for your consideration.” If she wasn’t mistaken, his words held just a bit of mockery. As though he knew she hadn’t really been thinking of him at all.

Or, at least, only as an afterthought.

Randi wanted out of this assignment. More than ever, now that she was actually sitting here with Zack Foster. His glance was so powerful, something about him so compelling, her stomach was almost quivering.

Her stomach never quivered.

“What good are a bunch of untutored college kids going to be?” she asked, determined to do what she’d come here to do and get the hell out of there. “I don’t imagine they can learn enough about therapy in the five short meetings allotted to us.”

“They don’t need any training at all,” Zack said with great confidence. “And the meetings aren’t all that short. We take four or five trips a semester into Phoenix to nursing homes there. I provide the dogs, you provide the dogs’ partners, whose only job it is to take the dogs into different rooms and let them do their stuff.”

He lost Randi with the remark about meetings that weren’t short. She had a very full schedule this semester. She had a new cross-country coach to stay on top of and a budget that wasn’t going to stretch all the way. Plus, the athletic conference of which Montford was a part was completely reworking its policies this spring. And in her spare time, her focus had to be on recruiting for the basketball team so they weren’t a one-season wonder. She needed the gate money or she’d have to consider cutting the women’s gymnastics program.

Men’s gymnastics had already been cut to give women’s athletics a more equitable financial share.

“This is all very altruistic,” she said, knowing she should be stating her case more strongly—even while her tongue failed to do so. “But do you really think it’s worth the effort to take a bunch of kids into Phoenix when your time—and mine—is at such a premium?” She didn’t want to waste four or five afternoons on something as frivolous as pet therapy, but neither did she want to bring a frown to that face. She didn’t want to earn Zack Foster’s disregard.

Which made no sense at all. She hadn’t cowered before a man’s displeasure her entire life. A woman in athletics couldn’t afford to let men intimidate her. She’d never get anywhere. Randi lived in a man’s world and could hold her own with the best of them.

“I take it you aren’t thrilled with this appointment,” Zack drawled, a half smile on his face.

“Let’s just say I don’t have time to waste,” she answered curtly. It was the best comeback she could manage.

And it wasn’t all that good.

CHAPTER THREE

“WHAT MAKES YOU so sure the pet-therapy club would be a waste of time?”

She threw up a hand. “What’s an animal going to do for some frail old person that modern science and medication isn’t already doing? Except bring germs into an already fragile environment? Or scare them half to death.”

He sat back, hands steepled under his chin. “Germs?”

She was not going to be intimidated. His opinion of her mattered not at all. Her time did.

“Everyone knows that dogs, you know, lick themselves.”

“Yeah.”

“In, uh, inappropriate places.”

“They also have the cleanest mouths of just about any creature, including human beings. They excrete a natural antiseptic which is why, when they lick a wound, it heals faster.”

She hadn’t known that—exactly—but it still didn’t change her mind. “So how many old people need wounds licked?”

“It might also interest you to know,” he continued as though she hadn’t even spoken, “that it’s been scientifically proved that petting an animal—a dog—reduces blood pressure in people.”

He was a veterinarian. He’d dedicated his life to caring for beasts. He was supposed to say stuff like that. “So does medi—”

“Pets also provide relief from depression—a disease that abounds in nursing homes.”

Nothing a good psychiatrist couldn’t do.

“Listen, I’ll be honest with you,” she said. “I just don’t have the time this semester to chase off to Phoenix on the off chance that we’ll find some depressed old person with high blood pressure. An old person, moreover, who wants his privacy invaded by a college kid and a dog.” Put that way, the project sounded as invalid as she believed it to be.

He shrugged. “So get someone else to take your place.”

Didn’t he think she’d already tried that? “I can’t.” Having your brother as president of the university for which you worked definitely had its drawbacks.

“You’ve never had a pet, have you?” His smile slid all the way through her. Her legs were a little shaky now, too. Must be hunger. She had an energy bar out in her glove compartment that was calling to her.

“No.” And she didn’t want a pet. All that hair and slobber. Ugh. It gave her the willies just thinking about it.

Besides, dogs bit. Randi shuddered.

“This is probably a little forward, but I’d like a chance to convince you how worthwhile this program is. Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

“Yes.”

No. I meant no.

“It’s a date, then.” He stood up before Randi could tell him she’d said the wrong word. She didn’t date. Before she could tell him she’d changed her mind, he said, “I’ll pick you up at six, if that’s okay with you. We can drive into Phoenix.”

A date. She didn’t remember how to go on a date. It’d been years since she’d even tried.

She had to tell him she’d said yes but meant no.

Somehow, Randi found herself back in her Jeep with absolutely nothing accomplished. The man had the strangest effect on her. She was still stuck with pet therapy. And there was another pressing problem on her horizon, as well.

She had twenty-four hours to find something to wear.

IT TOOK ABOUT ten minutes to wipe the smile off Zack’s face. What the hell was he doing?

So Randi Parsons was an attractive package. Her sexy long legs in those tight black shorts had been enough to wind him. And she was smart and sassy, too. But he’d been with several attractive intelligent women in the ten months since Dawn had filed for divorce. Had enjoyed them very much. He wasn’t in any way desperate for an attractive woman.

And he could sure as hell find one who offered a lot more promise—a lot less aggravation—than Randi Parsons. The woman hated animals.

And she was an athlete. Just like Barbara Sharp.

What did that make him? A masochist?

BECAUSE HE’D PLAYED CATCH with Sammie every night for the past five nights and the poor girl deserved a rest, Zack stopped by Ben and Tory Sanders’s apartment, instead. He had a sample bag of dog food for Buddy—the dog he’d talked Ben into adopting when the young man had first come to Shelter Valley the previous fall—and a free pass for Ben’s seven-year-old daughter, Alex, to take horseback riding lessons. The owner of the stable was a client of Zack’s.

“You two are looking good,” he said to his friends, married almost a month now, as he sat across from them in the living room. They were sitting about as close as they could sit without actually touching. Alex was in their bedroom, playing a video game that Tory had hooked up to their television for her.

Tory looked at Ben, smiled and then looked down.

“We’re doing great,” Ben said. “Thanks for the riding lessons,” he said, his eyes forthright as they met Zack’s. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“It was nothing.” The stable owner had been more than happy to pay part of his monthly bill with the lessons.

“Consider it rental payments for your truck all those times last fall when you drove me into Phoenix to pick up my furniture,” Zack told his friend.

“You got the whole place furnished yet?” Ben asked with a grin.

“Just about.” Zack took a sip of the lemonade Tory had served him. “The spare bedroom is still empty, and the office needs more than a desk, but otherwise, I’m done.”

Buddy came in from the bedroom, sniffed Zack’s shoes and then hopped into his lap.

“Buddy, down,” Ben ordered.

Buddy lay in Ben’s lap.

“Buddy, get down,” Tory said softly.

Buddy dropped to the floor and ambled over to lie down at Tory’s feet.

“It’s clear who’s the boss around here,” Zack teased his friend.

Ben leaned over, scratching the dog’s ears. “It’s about time to try those obedience classes again.”

“Not if you’re taking him,” Tory said with a grin.

“Leave him to Alex and me.”

Zack didn’t know Tory all that well, not only because she was relatively new to town, but because she was one of the most private people he’d ever met. Yet he couldn’t help liking her. She’d sure made Ben a happy man.

And she’d taken on Ben’s seven-year-old daughter, as well. That said a lot.

“So what’s going on with Tory and Montford U?” Zack asked a few minutes later when they’d all three grown quiet.

Tory had spent the previous semester posing as her sister, teaching classes at the university when she didn’t even have a college degree herself. She’d been driven to this desperate act by her abusive ex-husband, who’d murdered her sister, thinking he’d killed Tory. She was safe only as long as he believed her dead. He couldn’t tolerate the thought of her having a life without him. Eventually he’d committed suicide, and all the deception had come to an end.

“They aren’t pressing charges,” Tory said, no trace of a smile left on her face.

“Thank God.” Zack had been keeping his fingers crossed for his friends since he’d first heard the tragic story.

“That’s not all,” Ben added, with a glance at his wife. “They’ve given Tory a full scholarship to get her degree.”

“Congratulations!”

“Thanks.” Tory looked up at Ben, smiling, though her eyes were shadowed. “It’s still kind of hard to take in.”

“Won’t some of the students who sat in your class last semester wonder why you’re sitting in class with them now?”

Ben nodded. “The university is going to come out with the whole story—or an abridged version of it—the first week of class. Tory and I have already proofed the copy. They did a really nice job. It’ll be published in the university newspaper, so everyone’ll have a chance to read the story. That way they won’t ask too many questions—we hope.”

Zack nodded, fully aware that there was much of Tory’s background he didn’t know, might never know, but certain that she deserved these breaks, and more.

He glanced down the hall toward the master bedroom, making sure that Ben’s daughter wasn’t on her way in.

“Any word on Alex?” he asked. Ben was in the process of trying to adopt Alex. Though he’d raised her from the day she was born, believed her to be his, had his name on her birth certificate, he’d found out the previous year that he wasn’t Alex’s father at all.

He’d lost her for a time to her real father, an ex-con who’d taken his belt to the little girl. Ben had gotten her back right before Christmas.

Ben shook his head.

“These things take time,” Tory said, her hand reaching for her husband. “We’ve been in almost constant contact with the social worker and a nurse from Alex’s old school. Everything looks really promising.”

“She’s a very lucky—”

Zack’s words were interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Who could that be?” Tory asked, frowning up at Ben.

Zack turned to see as his younger friend opened the door. He didn’t recognize the older, well-dressed couple standing there.

“Yes?” Ben asked politely.

“Are you Ben Sanders?” the man asked. His face was lined but looked friendly. The woman’s lips seemed to be trembling.

“Yes,” Ben answered immediately. “What can I do for you?”

Zack wondered if these people had something to do with Alex, maybe grandparents from her mother’s side. They’d better not be there to take the child away from Ben and Tory.

“We’re James and Carol Montford,” the older gentleman said, his voice hoarse. The aunt and uncle Ben had never met.

“He looks so much like the pictures of Grace,” Carol said to her husband, her eyes tearing up as she stared at Ben. “And like our Sam.”

That would be Samuel Montford IV, Cassie’s bastard of an ex-husband and the town founder’s namesake. Zack could only imagine what Ben must be feeling, finally meeting these people who were his only living family. Family meant everything to Ben, and until a few months before, he’d thought himself alone in the world.

Zack stood up.

“Won’t you come in?” Tory asked graciously, standing up, too.

On hearing her voice, Ben turned, glanced back at Tory. His eyes were blazing with emotion.

“Yes, please come in,” he finally said, pulling the door wider as he stepped aside. “It’s…I—”

“We won’t stay long,” Carol said gently. “We just couldn’t wait any longer to meet you.”

“We’ve been away,” Ben explained, showing them to the couch he and Tory had been sharing a short time before. “After the holidays Tory, Alex and I went back to California to get the rest of Alex’s belongings.”

The Montfords glanced curiously at Tory. “This is our new niece we’ve heard so much about?” Carol asked.

“Yes.” Ben drew Tory forward, though he released her almost immediately. “This is my wife, Tory.”