White Picket Fences

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?”