Читать книгу Her Mother's Shadow - Diane Chamberlain - Страница 14

LACEY STOOD NEXT TO THE EXAMINING TABLE at the animal hospital, her hands buried in the thick, black shoulder fur of a Bernese mountain dog, while her father snipped the stitches from several shaved areas on the dog’s side.

“You’re being such a good boy,” Lacey cooed to the dog. He was huge, a hundred and ten pounds, and panting up a storm. His heavy coat was not designed for a North Carolina summer.

“He’s healing very well,” her father said.

From where she stood, she could see how the gray was rapidly invading her father’s once dark hair, and for some reason, that distressed her.

“Don’t you try to escape again,” Lacey said to the dog, who appeared to be ignoring her. He stared straight ahead at the wall, stoically tolerating the procedure until he could return to the waiting room and his beloved owner. The dog belonged to a family staying in a beachfront house, and he’d run straight through a flimsy wooden fence on the day of their arrival, anxious to cool off in the ocean.

Suzy, the receptionist, suddenly opened the door to the examining room and poked her head inside.

“There’s a gorgeous vase full of yellow roses out here for you, Lacey,” she said. “They were just delivered.”

“You’re kidding.” Lacey looked at Suzy. “Who are they from?” She knew there could only be one answer to that question.

Suzy held up a small envelope. “You’ve got your hands full,” she said. “Want me to open it for you?”

Lacey nodded, and Suzy pulled out the card and held it toward her. One hand still deep in the dog’s fur, Lacey took the card and read the handwritten message to herself. You are the best thing about this summer. With affection, Rick.

“Well?” Suzy asked with a grin, her curiosity clearly piqued.

“A friend.” Lacey slipped the card into the pocket of her lab coat. “Thanks for letting me know.”

Suzy left the room, and Lacey did not need to look at her father to know his eyes were on her.

“Roses, huh?” he asked. Two little words, but she knew all that was behind them. What are you doing, Lacey? Are you being careful? Are you falling into your old ways?

“Not from anyone special, Dad,” she said.

He returned his attention to the stitches without another word, but she knew he wasn’t finished. He wouldn’t be able to help himself. She wasn’t surprised when he spoke again. “None of them were ever special to you, though,” he said. “That was the problem, wasn’t it? That you were indiscriminate? That caring about a person wasn’t really what mattered to—”

“Dad,” she said. She loved him immensely, but he could be such a pain in the neck. “I don’t want to talk about this, okay? The roses are from a nice guy I’ve been seeing recently. Platonically. They’re yellow roses, not red. Please have a little faith in me.” She was quiet a moment, then added, “Gina and Clay have met him, and they like him.”

She and Rick had been out three times so far, and she’d finally allowed him to pick her up at the keeper’s house the night before. She’d been nervous about introducing him to her brother and sister-in-law, but they’d instantly been able to tell that Rick was different from the other men she’d dated. The house had been full of people when he arrived, and she’d worried that Rick would be overwhelmed. Henry, the grandfather of Clay’s first wife, and Walter, Gina’s grandfather, were both there. The two elderly men were frequent visitors to the house, especially now that Rani had arrived. The men had lost their dear, longtime friend, Brian Cass, over the winter and some of the joy had gone out of them. Rani, though, had brought it back.

Rick had handled all the introductions easily, and this morning at breakfast, Clay and Gina had given him their stamp of approval.

Her father snipped the final stitch and straightened up. “I’m sorry, hon,” he said, reaching for a dog treat from the bowl on the counter.

“I feel like a kid who gets an A-minus on a test and you yell at her for not getting an A,” Lacey said, still wounded.

He smiled at that. “I know you’ve tried hard to change, Lace,” he said. “I’ve admired that. And I do trust you. I just flipped out there for a sec.”

He was backpedaling so fast she felt sorry for him. “It’s okay,” she said. She helped him lift the dog from the table and set him on the floor. The dog instantly ran to the door of the room, pawing to be let out. She reattached his leash to his collar.

“I’ll take him out,” Alec said, taking the leash from her hand. “Your shift’s nearly over.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The roses, resting in a glass vase on the reception counter, were beautiful and just about to open fully. Ordinarily, she would stop at a restaurant, usually Sam and Omie’s, for lunch between her morning at the animal hospital and her afternoon in her studio, but she wanted to take the roses home with her and they would bake in the car while she was eating. So, instead, she bought a sandwich from the Subway around the corner and settled into the small kitchen at the animal hospital to eat and read.

The book she was reading was titled Making Good Choices: A Woman’s Guide to Relationships, and was one of a half dozen her therapist had recommended to her. Most of the books, filled with psychobabble, had not spoken to her, but this one did. She could see herself in the anecdotes the author used to illustrate her points. And this author was forward-looking rather than focusing on the past. Lacey appreciated that. She did not want to be analyzed. She didn’t want to look at how, in some bizarre way, she had followed her mother’s promiscuous footsteps without even knowing about them. She just wanted to stop. This author made sense. It’s so much easier to stop an old behavior when you have a new behavior to take its place, she suggested. The author was big on relationships that started as friendships, that did not rush toward physical intimacy, that involved deep and open communication. The person selected for that relationship should be someone different from the type of person the reader was ordinarily drawn to, the author advised. Someone who would not trigger those old behaviors. Someone, Lacey knew, like Rick.

He had kissed her for the first time last night. She doubted she had ever been on three dates before without kissing. In truth, she had not been on three dates before without going to bed with the guy. Last night’s kiss had been chaste, closed-mouthed, and that had been fine with her. She’d wanted nothing more than that. She was a bit worried she had permanently frightened the libido out of herself, but maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. She knew she should be thrilled that Rick had come along at this point in her life. Someone decent, who listened to her when she said she needed to move slowly, who made no demands on her. It felt like a gift, like some greater power was telling her, “You’ve been a good girl for a whole year, Lacey. Now you have earned this truly decent man.” And yet, something was missing.

She was now reading a chapter she desperately needed: Discovering Attraction Where There Is None. “Often,” the author wrote, “women are attracted to ‘bad boys,’ those men who are a challenge or who are in need of ‘fixing.’ The ‘good boys’ are uninteresting and unattractive to these women. But feelings follow behavior. If the man seems right, but the chemistry is lacking, stop focusing on that point. Instead, talk to yourself about his good qualities. I promise, if it was meant to be, loving feelings will follow.”

This was perfect timing, Lacey thought. She had the man. The good boy. And he was even attractive. Feelings follow behavior. Standing up from the table, she reached for the phone on the wall. She would call to thank him for the roses.