She walked down the stairs, gripping her dog’s leash. Her temporary dog’s leash. Look at her. She couldn’t even open her heart and her life to a dog, much less a man and a boy who needed so much more than she could give them.
* * *
SAM DIDN’T KNOW when he had ever been so tangled up over a woman.
Things with Kelli had been so easy. He couldn’t remember ever being this stirred up, even in the beginning of their relationship.
He had been temporarily stationed near San Francisco, where she had been going to graduate school for social work. He had walked into a bar with a couple of buddies, seen her there with some of her girlfriends and asked her to dance.
Six months later, they were engaged, married a year after that, and Ethan had come along almost two years to the day after that.
He couldn’t say their marriage had been perfect. Kelli had been on the spoiled side and had been frustrated living on an enlisted soldier’s salary. She could be petulant when she was mad at him and generally spent way too much time on the phone with her mother and her girlfriends in Denver.
Still, he had spent two years grieving for the life they could have made together.
Alex, on the other hand, was the antithesis of easy. For all her prickliness, there were glimpses of something else, something soft and sweet she seemed to think she needed to hide away from the world.
Why? What was she hiding?
None of his business, he reminded himself. As she had so bluntly told him, she wasn’t interested. He needed to back off, no matter how frustrating he found her.
“Have you met any of the neighbors yet?” she asked when they passed the house just to the north of his.
“A few. The lady who lives across the street from you dropped by with some cookies.”
“I’ll bet she did.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning Anita Adams has been divorced for about five months now, something of a record for her. She’s probably looking for husband number four. Gorgeous single guys aren’t exactly thick on the ground in Hope’s Crossing, as you might have noticed.”
“I guess I haven’t really been paying attention,” he said drily.
Though tension still tugged and stretched between them, she smiled. “That was probably mean of me. Forget I said anything. See? I told you I can be bitchy. I actually really like Anita. She is a lot of fun under the right circumstances. You should ask her out.”
He somehow managed not to growl under his breath, though it was close. She was trying to throw him at someone else again, just minutes after that heated kiss, and it bugged the hell out of him.
“Thanks for the dating advice, but I’ll probably pass on that one, too.” He changed the subject. “I understand the house to the south of me is a vacation home for a couple from California.”
“Bob and Cindy Whittal. They only come out a couple times a year, usually at Christmas and for a week or so in the summer. They’re really nice. He’s a plastic surgeon to the stars or something like that. They make a point of always coming to the restaurant up at the resort and saying hi. I guess I’ll have to let them know about my new situation now.”
“I haven’t met my neighbor on the other side. I haven’t even seen him, but I know someone’s there because I’ve seen lights on and someone moving past the curtains. Seems a bit of a recluse.”
“Mr. Phillips. You and Ethan should really take a moment to stop in and say hi. He has health problems and doesn’t get out much but he’s very kind.”
“I’ll do that.”
They reached the walk leading to her house, and Leo strained on the leash, eager to be home.
They walked up the steps and she unlocked her door. For a minute, he felt uncomfortably like a sixteen-year-old kid on his first date, not sure if he should swoop in and steal a kiss.
“I’ll see you tomorrow evening,” he said.
She had left a porch light burning when she and Leo went for a walk. In its glow, he watched her mouth twist into a grimace. “We’ll have to see if you’re still talking to me on Saturday after you try to force down the gag-inducing dinner I’m sure will be in store for everyone.”
“Would you stop, already? You know perfectly well it’s going to be fantastic, just like everything you cook. You’ve worked damn hard to get here and you need to just relax and enjoy this moment.”
She looked at him for a long moment, then, to his delight, she started to laugh. “You’re right. Absolutely right. That was the perfect thing to say.”
Before he quite knew what she intended, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him just above his jawline but stepped quickly away before he could sweep her into his arms and give her a proper good-night kiss.