Love Gone to the Dogs (18 page)

Without a word he drew her to him, and his mouth came down on hers, crushing any resistance in its punishing possession. His kiss stripped away her defenses, leaving her wanting, needing. Then he jerked away from her and placed several feet between them.

He just stared at her for a long moment, emotions battling for dominance in his expression. What won out chilled her to the bone. He wheeled about and stalked to the door, wrenching it open and departing without bothering to close it.

Slowly Leah walked to the front door, gripping it for support, her knees weak, her body quaking. The look of disgust on Shane's face would stay in her mind forever. She watched him jog across the street and enter his house without a backward glance toward her.

The pain in her chest threatened to overwhelm her. Maybe she should fight. Maybe things would work out. Maybe she wouldn't be the loser, like in her first marriage. But the people of Shady Oaks had signed the petition to call for a meeting. How could she fight a whole town? How could she come between Shane and the people he cared about? What kind of commitment would that be?

No, she was doing what was right for everyone. Leah shut her front door, the sound of the lock clicking so final.

* * *

"Mom, Arnold's gone!" Sam shouted from the kitchen.

Amidst the cardboard boxes in her bedroom, Leah closed her eyes and sighed. Here she went again. Arnold would be the death of her yet, she thought as she pushed herself to her feet and walked into the kitchen.

"You've looked everywhere in the backyard?"

Sam nodded.

She paused, a lump forming in her throat "Did you check—check with Shane?"

Sam shook his head. "Can't. I have to meet my friends at the ballpark."

"Well, I need you to go over to Shane's and check first."

"Mom, I'm late. I don't have much more time to spend with them before we leave. Do I have to?"

Leah narrowed her eyes on her eldest. He was manipulating her, and the problem was that it was working. She did feel guilty for uprooting Sam yet again, but he always adjusted so well to each new place. "Go ahead. I'll see to Arnold."

"Thanks, Mom." Sam raced from the room before she changed her mind.

Another deep sigh escaped Leah. She glanced out the front window at Shane's house and dreaded the next few minutes. It had been two days since she had last seen him. And in those two days she had wanted to go to him a hundred times. But each time she remembered that last look, and couldn't.

Okay, Leah, you can do this. March across the street and bring Arnold home
. She straightened, and fortified herself with a deep breath as she headed for the front door. She realized she had allowed Sam to convince her she should be the one to see if Arnold was at Shane's. She also realized she had needed a reason to see him, and this was as good as she had been able to come up with over the past few days.

When she rang the bell at Shane's house she almost turned and fled. She could hear his footsteps approaching, and panic seized her. When he opened the door, her heart twisted at the sight of him—a day's growth of beard on his face, his eyes solemn, his hair a mess as if he had combed his fingers through it over and over.

"What do you want?" he asked, his voice as cold as his expression.

"Arnold."

"He isn't—" His jaw clamped down on the rest of his sentence. "In fact, I haven't seen Princess either, today."

"Will you check to see if she's here?"

Without inviting her in, he pivoted and disappeared into his house. An eternity seemed to pass while Leah waited for him to return. Shane's anger was there just under the surface, simmering. A deep ache in the pit of her stomach began to grow.

In the two days since she had announced her impulsive decision about her moving to Shane, she had relived it over and over, each time taking her words back. As she had packed each box, she had felt the wrongness in her actions but couldn't stop herself from going ahead. Yes, he had put his wife's picture away, had taken off his wedding ring, but that didn't mean he was ready for the kind of commitment she needed. Shane had never said he loved her. He would be better off without her and her family in Shady Oaks, causing problems between him and the rest of the town.

When Shane reappeared, he stepped out onto the porch and closed his door. "She's gone, too. She's due any day now. We'd better find them."

"Where do you think we should look?"

"Who knows, with that hound of yours?"

"I'll have you know that Arnold is a thoroughbred among beagles," Leah said, grabbing onto the old argument between them to ease the tension.

"Heard that before. But I've yet to see this thoroughbred's papers you claim to have." He gestured down the street. "Let's walk toward Miller Woods. I have a feeling Princess sneaked off to have her puppies there. I had a nice comfortable bed for her, but her tastes have gone to the dogs since a certain one moved in across the street."

"You know I hope you've resigned from the welcoming group. Your manners have not improved." She fell into step next to Shane, having to hurry to keep up with the man. She felt as though she and Shane had gone back two months, to the day they had met. She wished they could. She hadn't worked hard enough to protect herself from being hurt and now she was paying the price dearly.

At the edge of Miller Woods Shane stopped and surveyed the foliage. "Any suggestions?"

"They could be anywhere in there, or someplace else."

He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, "Princess!"

Nothing.

"Try calling for Arnold."

Leah yelled for Arnold as she walked into the trees while Shane did the same with Princess. She hoped that for once all those obedience classes would pay off, and he actually would answer her summons.

The whole time she and Shane searched the woods she was aware of the man beside her. The ache in her stomach expanded to encompass her chest making her breathing shallow. Her pulse raced, and her palms were sweaty.

Leah halted in the middle of the path, feeling closed off from the world by the green foliage. "Arnold." She turned in a full circle, calling her pet's name until she felt a dryness in her throat.

Shane came to stand beside her. "They're probably not here."

She turned and stared up into his face. The feeling of isolation intensified as she became lost in the soulful brown of his eyes. Her heart increased its pounding tempo, the sound thundering in her ears. She felt as if it were ricocheting off the tree trunks and bombarding her with her foolishness.

"Shane, I—" She swallowed her words, unsure what to say to the man she realized she loved. That knowledge stunned her with such a force that she swayed, reaching out to grasp his arm to steady herself. She hadn't wanted to fall in love, to leave herself open to be hurt again.

Shane's gaze dropped to her hand on him, then back up to her face. "Are you all right?"

The husky timbre in his question shuddered down the length of her. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She wanted to shout to the world that she loved this man, yet years of running away from her emotions kept her quiet, protecting herself the best way she knew how.

"Then we'd better go back. Maybe they're hidden at one of our houses."

Shane started to leave, but Leah increased her grip on his arm, forcing him back around to her. She didn't want to part with this anger between them. "I'm sorry about—everything."

He shrugged her hand off him. "What's there to be sorry about? We both stated at the beginning our intention to keep things casual between us."

His words stung, knifing through her heart. Tears welled in her eyes. When her husband had walked out on her, she had sworn she would never cry over a man again. Now wet tracks rolled down her cheeks, and she could do nothing to stop their flow.

A nerve twitched in his clamped jaw. "Don't, Leah."

"Shane, there was nothing casual about my part in our relationship. I don't do casual. Never have. That's my problem, all or nothing."

He grasped her arms and brought her close. "What are you saying, Leah?"

For a moment she stared up into his handsome face, fighting the urge to throw herself at him. She had stopped taking emotional risks long ago, and what she had to say to him was difficult to get past the constriction in her throat. "I love you, and I don't know what to do about it."

Her thundering heartbeat slowed to a throb as she waited for Shane to say something—anything. He just stared at her, an unreadable expression on his face. The knot in her throat thickened. It was too late. She had learned to take a risk, to trust, and it was too late.

She felt raw, completely exposed now, but she knew she couldn't stop until she had told him everything. "I know I'm not very good at telling a person what I feel, but I couldn't leave without telling you that."

For a few seconds longer his expression remained totally closed off to her. Then he smiled, a smile that reached into her heart and destroyed all the barriers she had placed around it over the years. "So when did you decide that you love me?" He took her into his arms and held her against his pounding heart.

Tension flowed from her, leaving her weak against him, clinging to him. "About two minutes ago."

"And you're just getting around to telling me? What took you so long?" He nipped at her lower lip, teasing her with nibbles. "I've known how I feel about you for days."

"And you're just getting around to telling me?" Leah wanted to surrender to the delicious feel of his mouth on hers, and would have if she hadn't heard a bark through the mist shrouding her mind. She pulled back slightly and scanned the woods.

"Arnold?"

"Yes, and as usual he has impeccable timing."

She started to follow the sound of the barking.

But Shane stopped her. "We'll take care of the dogs. Then you and I need to talk."

"Agreed. The problems between us are still there."

"Those problems we will deal with together."

Leah held on to what had happened in the middle of Miller Woods as they found Arnold and Princess and helped deliver four puppies, so ugly they were actually cute. When she and Shane returned to his house with the dogs and puppies, reality also returned to Leah. She saw Ned out on his lawn watching them and realized that the town meeting was to be that night.

The second that Princess was deposited in the kitchen where Shane had made a place for her and her puppies Arnold took off, darting through the doggie door into the backyard, leaving everyone to wonder what was going on.

"Just like a male to take off when all the hard work is about to start," Leah muttered and headed for the back door.

"Right now Princess probably thinks the past hour was the hard work."

"Wait till she has to raise those puppies by herself." She scanned the yard, and, as she suspected Arnold was already long gone.

Just as Leah was about to open the gate her beagle came trotting up the driveway with a bone in his mouth. She watched him prance by her and disappear inside Shane's house. "Well, I think I've seen everything now."

"My opinion of Arnold has risen a notch." Shane took hold of Leah's hand and drew her toward the lounger on the back patio. "Now for our discussion."

He tugged her down, cradling her between his legs, his arms wound about her, as he pulled her back against his chest. He nibbled on her neck, sending chills to the tips of her toes. She twisted her head to the side to give him access to her ear, where he took the lobe between his teeth, nipping gently.

"I think we should begin with I love you," he whispered into her ear before proceeding to outline it with his tongue.

Leah didn't think it was possible for her muscles to turn to mush, but she could have sworn that was happening. She shivered against the warmth emanating from him. She threw back her head and rested it on his shoulder, trying to form a coherent response to his declaration, but her reasoning was dissolving as quickly as her muscles.

He kissed a fiery path to her mouth and lay claim to it. "I love you, Leah Taylor, and you don't have to raise your sons by yourself. Will you marry me?"

She needed to answer him, but felt as if she were under water, struggling to reach the surface. Squeezing her eyes shut, she surrendered to the feel of his lips against hers, his tongue sweeping into her mouth.

"I love you, Shane O'Grady," she finally said when they parted slightly.

"And will you marry me?"

"No. Yes. I don't know."

He pulled back to look into her eyes. "What kind of answer is that?"

Leah straightened, hating the fact that reality was so quickly intruding. "I won't come between you and the citizens of Shady Oaks."

He laughed, relief evident in his expression. Cupping her face in his hands, he commanded her full attention. "You listen to me, Leah Taylor. I love you, not the citizens of Shady Oaks." When she started to say something, he placed his fingers over her mouth. "Yes, I care about the people of this town, but I care more about you. I can live without them, not without you. Do you understand that?"