LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      “DOWN! DOWN, HUDSON. DOWN!”

      Apparently the dog decided he didn’t need to take her seriously because she was laughing, and he enthusiastically licked her face. She gave up for a moment and hugged his big body. How was it possible he’d grown so huge, when the shelter had guessed he’d be about average-sized? She was pretty sure that average-sized dogs couldn’t slap their paws on your shoulders in greeting, but then again she’d known he was special the second she’d met him.

      “You’re such a good boy. I’m happy to see you, too.” She grinned and shoved at his paws to take a quick step sideways—only nearly to trip when her other dog, a Yorkshire Terrier not much bigger than a city rat, bit down on her pant leg.

      “No snagging my pants with your little dagger teeth, Yorkie. Off. Off, please!”

      She yanked her leg loose and the slight unsteadiness of the movement didn’t embarrass her anymore, the way it had when she’d been a child and even for a long time after she’d had surgery as a teen. Growing up with her legs different lengths hadn’t exactly helped her fit in with the crowd, and had invited the kind of nasty teasing bullies were infamous for. Good thing those days were over. Now most people couldn’t even tell she’d been a misfit for much of her life.

      She crouched down to give Yorkie a hug, too, and the rambunctious greeting from her pups made her smile. Nothing like the unconditional love of dogs, was there? You didn’t have to worry whether they really wanted to be with you, or were disappointed in you, or embarrassed by you. They just loved you, period.

      “All right, I know you two are bored after being stuck in here all day. But working the early shift means I’m home early today! Plenty of time for a walk before it’s dark.”

      The word walk incited yipping and excitement as Jillian walked the six steps it took her to get to the tiny bedroom in her New York City apartment, where she’d barely managed to squeeze in a double bed and a small dresser. It was an apartment that hadn’t been designed to hold two dogs—especially one nearly the size of a motor scooter.

      Familiar pain and regret stabbed at her heart when she thought about why she was living there instead of in the much more spacious apartment she and the pups had lived in before. The place they’d shared with her ex-husband until, after barely a year, their marriage had disintegrated. The place she’d heard through the grapevine he’d sold in order to move into an even bigger penthouse apartment in an even more exclusive area of the city. A place she’d fit into even less than she had before.

      But there was no point in thinking about that anymore, was there? Her short marriage was over and done with.

      From the first second her eyes had met her ex-husband’s she’d felt as if the ground beneath her feet had shifted. It had been an earthquake like nothing she’d experienced before and she hadn’t been able to escape.

      It had taken only two dates for her attraction to morph from starry-eyed to head over heels in love with the man, and they had eloped into a dizzyingly fast and wonderful wedding even as her worried inner voice had told her all along it was too good to be true. She had always known, deep inside, that she wasn’t the kind of woman who could measure up to being the wife of a man like super-surgeon, jet-setting, workaholic Dr. Conor McCarthy.

      Unbidden, a vision of his dazzling smile, his messy thatch of blond hair and his heartbreakingly handsome face came into her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing all that sexiness to go away. The fact that she just might have to see it for real every day made her stomach physically hurt.

      How could she face having to work with him again?

      Last week her boss at Occupational Therapy Consultants had told her she had to go back to the company where she’d met and worked with Conor, and the horror of it had made her feel so woozy she’d had to sit down. Apparently OTC was shifting its focus to work exclusively on lower body therapy, instead of hands and wrists, which meant she had to transfer back to HOAC, the hand and arm orthopedic center owned by Conor. She knew that seeing him all the time would rip off the scab on her heart that was still healing, and she feared it might start bleeding all over again if that had to happen.

      Escape was the only answer, and she prayed the job interview she had set up for next week in Connecticut would get her out of New York City and away from Conor. Housing there would be a lot cheaper, too, which would mean a bigger place for her and the dogs. And, while she’d miss the city and her friends, a move there would be a good thing.

      At least she hoped it would be good. But, regardless, there was no way she could work again at the place where she’d have to see and sometimes share patients with Conor McCarthy.

      She drew in a calming breath. No point in worrying about it this second.

      Banishing all those scary thoughts from her head, she quickly changed from her work clothes into leggings and sneakers and a snug jacket. It was a surprisingly nice day for December in New York City, and she planned to take advantage of every moment of it before gray skies and cold and snow blanketed the city. To enjoy every minute of this crazy and wonderful place before she had to move away.

      When the dogs saw the leashes in her hands their tails wagged so hard their entire rear ends wagged along with them, and Yorkie briefly danced around on his short back legs, helping her smile again. At least she still had these two. The two puppies she and Conor had chosen together at the shelter the very first week after their honeymoon.

      Her heart pinched all over again at the memory of that day, and of their seemingly idyllic perfect days together until it all had fallen apart.

      “Come on, you two!” she said, practically jogging them to the elevator in her hurry to breathe in some fresh air and banish the depressing thoughts that seemed stuck on repeat. “It’s warmer today than yesterday, so this walk will be a nice long one. Happy about that?”

      Tongues hung out in doggie smiles as they moved out to streets still lit by the low evening sun and all walked briskly toward the park, a few blocks away.

      When they turned the corner they came face to face with two black dogs almost as big as Hudson, accompanied by a small elderly man. Normally Hudson and Yorkie were good around other dogs, but the second the

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