“Princess, you’ve got a little fantasy going based on me saving your life, and maybe because there’s an attraction between us. We won’t be acting on it. That’s that.” He walked straight into his house and shut the door.
Pete had followed him, but Abel let her give him a hug, one she really needed.
Rejected. Emily had been right. Victoria wasn’t used to it, and it stung a whole lot. Mattered a whole lot.
“Take good care of him, okay?” she said to the dog. “I think he needs someone to love him.”
She had to leave him alone, as he wanted. If she pursued him, pushed him, he would only get angrier, and she’d rather he remember her fondly.
Victoria got into her car, then a half hour later she walked into Estelle’s diner, cooler in hand, having lost her good spirits. The noon rush was over, only a few customers sat at the counter, sipping coffee. The redheaded, fiftyish Estelle was leaning her elbows on the counter and gabbing with an older man.
“Everything was wonderful,” Victoria said to her. “I’ll set this by the kitchen door, Estelle.”
“That’d be fine, thanks. Oh, Lenny was here for lunch. Said he met you.”
“Yup,” Victoria answered, drawing a laugh. She would be as tight-lipped as necessary. Garrett would appreciate her discretion, she was sure. “Garrett was kind enough to show me his rescue operation. He’s doing good work.”
“Rescue operation? I thought he just took in stray animals.”
“He also trains them so that they’re ready to be good pets for people.” Victoria assumed an allbusiness mode. She owed it to Garrett to protect him from gossip—and maybe to improve his reputation a little. “That’s a nice little enterprise he has going. Well, thanks again, Estelle.”
“Sure thing, honey.”
Instead of getting in her car, Victoria walked to a park a couple of blocks away. She didn’t want to face Wendy and Emily yet, afraid the disappointment of being dismissed by Garrett would be visible on her face. That defeat hurt more than she’d expected and was deepening each minute. She was torn between staying away, as she’d first thought she could, and making a bigger effort to tear down his walls of resistance. Could she accomplish that? Maybe if she had more time …
Caught between the challenge of winning him over and her usual don’t-make-waves stance, Victoria sat on a park bench to think. A young mother pushed her toddler in a swing across the way, but otherwise it was a school day and therefore devoid of older, noisier children, giving her the quiet she needed.
He was right about some things—fourteen years was a big difference in age. Wendy had told her he’d moved away a couple of times. What had he done during those exiles? What kind of life experience did he have that she didn’t? She was accustomed to the men of her social circle. Similar backgrounds helped smooth the path to an easier getting-to-know-you time in a relationship.
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