LITMIR.BIZ

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mumbled out a bogus phone number and repeated her thanks. Clutching the angry cat and her checkbook, she hurried out of the small examination room only to be met by an assistant wearing a purple smock printed with frolicking dogs. The assistant told Lora to wait as she ducked into the room Lora had just vacated.

      Lora more or less wedged an increasingly distressed Boggle between herself and a wall and wished she’d thought to bring a box. She tried stroking the cat’s ears and crooning softly to calm him, just as she’d seen Jon do. For a moment, staring into eyes as green as her own, she thought she and the cat connected in some primal way, then he opened his mouth so wide she could see down his surprisingly pink gullet and emitted a hiss that made the hairs on the back of Lora’s neck stand up.

      “Bad kitty!” she scolded. With an annoyed glance at the examination room door, she wondered what was taking so long.

      The assistant finally reappeared. “The doctor says there’ll be no charge today.”

      Stunned by Jon Woods’s generosity, she momentarily thought of tumbling to his charm, then she sucked it up and beat a hasty retreat. Once inside the van, Boggle crouched under the passenger seat and howled.

      “No wonder I prefer tropical fish,” Lora grumbled over the din.

      Jon found himself looking out the window, angling for a glimpse of his last patient’s owner.

      All he saw was a big blue van pulling out of the parking lot. He resettled the blinds and picked up the folder beneath Lora’s.

      He’d been in Fern Glen, a quaint town on the Northern California coast, for a little over a month and face it, he’d been growing increasingly bored. There were just so many times a man could walk along a windswept beach—alone. Only so many times he could admire towering trees or chat with strangers. He missed Los Angeles, Trina, his own life, and not necessarily in that order.

      He couldn’t deny, however, that Lora Gifford had piqued his interest. She was just so…well, so real. He’d be willing to bet there wasn’t a phony hair on her head, and speaking of hair, that ebony fall of glistening strands was unbelievable.

      Lora. Her name was Lora and she seemed a little skittish, as though she’d been wounded in the past. He felt a protective surge in his chest and smiled at his own folly. His ability to empathize with creatures was a bonus in his career; he just had to guard the tendency to let it guide his reactions to people. Especially female people.

      He put Lora Gifford out of his mind as he got ready for his next patient, a black Labrador puppy with the sniffles.

      Five years before Lora was born her parents had purchased a small piece of real estate in the heart of Fern Glen. Her mother dreamed of opening a fabric store. Her father yearned to start a bait and tackle shop. They settled on a florist because at the time, Fern Glen didn’t have one.

      Compromise. That was the name of the game for her parents, but it hadn’t come without taking a toll on their relationship. For all intents and purposes, Lora had grown up in a petal-lined war zone. In the off season, while her father fished and her mother made quilts for extra money, Lora had escaped into after-school work with a local lily grower, her mentor a disabled old man with a wealth of experience he was anxious to share. For her, his warm glass-sided buildings had become a sanctuary.

      Four years before, Lora had received a modest inheritance from a favorite uncle and shocked everyone by using it to buy herself a house. Her parents had been surprised by her choice—the house was small and ungainly. What Lora didn’t explain was that she’d really bought the house because of the greenhouse out in back.

      Two years later, her father decided thirty years of married life was enough, hooked up his boat and drove away. Her mother kept the shop. Lora, who discovered how limited the financial resources really were when she took over the books, invited her mother to move in with her for a few months. The months had turned into a year.

      And then Lora’s long-widowed grandmother had shown up on Lora’s doorstep with three suitcases and five cardboard boxes, everything else she owned tucked safely in storage. She was lonely. How could Lora turn away her own grandmother? At least Grandma was willing to share a room with Lora’s mom. So now three generations resided in Lora’s little cottage and Lora was one breath away from going nuts.

      It was Calvin’s fault. The rat had left her, and in leaving her, he’d opened the door for her relatives to come charging through, a single goal firing their passion: find Lora a husband! It didn’t matter how many times Lora told them she wasn’t interested—they simply didn’t believe her.

      She’d been so sure that Calvin was “The One.” They were the same age, he loved the outdoors as she did, he had family in Fern Glen. Perfect. Then he’d accepted a job in Chicago without even telling Lora he’d applied. All she had to do was pack a bag. He, it seemed, had a plan.

      Only, she had plans of her own.

      Take it or leave it, he’d said.

      At that point she’d decided there was one thing of which she was certain: she was not going to follow her parents’ example and spend her life compromising.

      Now, thanks to the meddling of her loving relatives, a seemingly endless procession of quasi eligible men had recently shown up for dinner or come into the shop to buy flowers. Things were getting out of hand.

      Out of desperation, Lora had given the matter some deep thought. Loneliness was the culprit, she decided, for both her mom and Gram, so she’d attack from that angle. With luck, she’d shift their attention away from her love life and on to their own.

      After Lora dropped Boggle off, she entered the flower shop through the delivery door in the back. She tiptoed around, relieved to find her mother and grandmother busy with customers out front.

      For a second, she thought about Jon Woods and his ploy to get her phone number, and she felt a smile threaten to emerge. She wiped the smile away with a firm wave of resolve. Sure he was interesting and as sexy as all get out. It wasn’t that she was blind to his attributes, she reminded herself, she was just on the mend. It wasn’t wise to flit from relationship to relationship like some dazed bumble bee.

      But Jon is local, an animal doctor, a man with roots like your own, her subconscious needled. Maybe you should let down your guard a little and get to know him.…

      No. Concentrate on Mom and Gram. There’ll be time to investigate Jon Woods in the months to come.

      She checked the fax machine to see how behind they were. Not bad. After making a couple of calls to confirm which hospital Dr. Reed was at she quickly put together a suitable arrangement and made it out the door again without being detected.

      At the nurses’ station, she discovered Dr. Reed’s surgery had been two days before, which was terrific news. Surely he’d be well on the way to recovery by now and perhaps a little lonely. Lonely people liked to chat, even to florists. She told the busy nurses she’d deliver the flowers herself. A few moments later, she got her first glimpse of her prospective stepfather.

      Dr. Reed, lying in his bed, glanced up from a book the moment Lora came through the door. The first thing she noticed about him were the color of his eyes, a perfect match for grape hyacinths. A neatly trimmed beard and a full head of sterling silver hair accompanied the eyes—the man looked like the captain of a cruise ship!

      “More flowers?” he said.

      There were no other flowers in the room. “You bet. Where would you like them?”

      “Who are they from?”

      She’d thought of that. Picking out the card she read, “Says here they’re from your friends at the Animal Clinic.” She handed him the card and he studied it for a moment.

      “Those guys really went overboard. I told my sister to take the other bouquets because I’m getting out this afternoon. Just put those by the window.”

      No aging girlfriend to schlep his flowers? Good.

      “I’d be happy to

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