Really? Carolyn wrote in response. Have you met a lot of people through the site? And if so, why are you still trolling the web for prospective dates?
Sure, Darren answered. I’m making friends right and left. So far, it’s just been dinner and a movie, but, hey, at least I’m doing something besides filling cavities and begging patients to floss. Ha ha.
Darren had a sense of humor, then.
Sort of.
Carolyn sat with her fingers poised over the keyboard, and no earthly idea what to say next.
Carol? Darren asked. Are you still there?
I’m here, Carolyn replied.
You’re shy, Darren said.
Carolyn blew out a long breath, making her bangs tickle her forehead. Not really, she answered. There, she’d said something honest. She wasn’t shy. She was merely cautious. Sensible.
It finally occurred to her that if she was stretching the truth, Darren might be, too. Maybe his name was Dave, and he was married and not a dentist at all. Maybe he owned the Friendly Faces website, and this was his way of making people think they were in for some action.
Nice “talking” to you, Darren, she wrote. But I should be going. Lots to do.
Wait! Maybe we could meet for coffee? he replied.
Maybe, Carolyn said.
Your picture is great, Darren hastened to add. Promise we can chat again, at least?
Carolyn sighed. We’ll see, she wrote.
She logged off the computer, pushed back her chair and stood. Stretched, enjoying the pull in her muscles, and turned around. There was the sewing machine, the plastic box full of ribbon scraps saved from various projects, her quilted-top basket, where she kept scissors, thimbles, needles and other notions.
Sewing, like horseback riding, had long been a refuge for her. She could lose herself in either pursuit...usually.
But tonight was different.
All because Brody Creed had kissed her.
The bastard.
The good-looking, sexy bastard.
Carolyn squared her shoulders, spun around on one heel and marched herself back to the desk, and her computer.
She switched on the laptop and waited impatiently for the system to reboot.
Then she went online and clicked her way straight to the Friendly Faces website.
Who knew? Maybe Darren—Darrell?—the dentist was still hanging around.
Carolyn’s eyes widened when she spotted the message-box counter. “Carol” had over a dozen emails waiting.
After pushing her sleeves up again, Carolyn plunged in.
* * *
BRODY TIPPED WHAT was left of his microwave-box dinner into the trash and looked up at the last of the functioning lightbulbs. Might as well change them out, he figured. It wasn’t as if he had anything better to do.
He rustled up the extras he’d bought days before, but never gotten around to installing, and vaulted up onto the counter to take out the dead bulbs first. The job was tricky—he’d seen these thingamajiggies shatter into a jillion tiny, razor-sharp shards for no sensible reason—so Brody took his time.
He’d just finished, his eyes still a little dazzled by the glare of three fluorescent tubes, when he heard what sounded like a thump, or maybe a scratch, at the door.
He got down off the counter. Listened.
That was when he heard the whimper. It was faint, and almost human.
A chill trickled down his spine. He sprang to the door and wrenched it open, half expecting to find a person on the other side, injured and bleeding, looking for help.
Instead, his gaze fell onto the skinniest, dirtiest, most pitiful dog he’d ever seen. It was just sitting there, looking up at him with a sort of bleak tenderness in its eyes.
Brody, a sucker for anything with four legs and fur, crouched down, so he wouldn’t be looming over the poor critter like a grizzly or something.
“Hey, buddy,” he said huskily. “You selling something? Spreading the Good News?”
The dog whimpered again.
Brody examined the animal. No collar, no tags.
Fleas were a sure thing, though, and maybe something worse, like ringworm.
Brody stood up, slow and easy, and stepped back. “Come on in,” he said to the dog. “Nothing to be afraid of—you’re among friends.”
The stray just sat there for a few moments, as though he might have heard wrong. He was obviously used to fending for himself.
“Come on,” Brody repeated, speaking gently and giving the dog room.
Slowly, painfully, the wayfarer limped over the threshold and right into Brody Creed’s heart.
THE DREAM WAS disturbingly vivid.
Carolyn was in a supermarket, surrounded by dozens, if not hundreds, of eager suitors. There were men of every size and shape, color and type, a regular convention for fans of the Village People.
They nudged at her cart with theirs.
Some of them carried signs with her modified name printed on them in ransom-note letters, and one wore a sandwich board that read Marry Me, Carol! and Have Free Dentistry for Life!
“Carol,” all the others chanted, in creepy unison, “Carol, Carol, Carol!”
Carolyn’s feet seemed to be glued to the floor, but she looked wildly around for an escape route anyway. The freezer aisle was completely blocked, in both directions. She was trapped. Cornered.
Heart-pounding panic set in, washing over her in sweeping, electrified waves. A man with an elaborate wedding cake teetering in his shopping cart pushed his way past the others, to the forefront.
Carolyn recognized Gifford Welsh. He smiled his big movie-star smile, and his piano-key teeth sparkled cartoonishly, like something out of an animated mouthwash commercial.
“You’re already married!” she said, turning her head when Gifford tried to stuff a handful of cake into her mouth. Then, pressing back against the cold door of the ice-cream freezer, she shouted, “I don’t want to marry any of you! You’re not—you’re not—
“Brody.” She started awake at the name. Could still feel its singular weight on her lips.
Winston, curled up at her feet, made a halfhearted hissing sound. There was no telling whether the noise was a comment about Brody or annoyance because she’d awakened him from a sound sleep.
Carolyn’s heart thumped against the back of her rib cage, and her breathing was fast and shallow. She lay there, in her dark bedroom, looking up at the ceiling and fighting tears.
Don’t be a crybaby, she heard one of her long string of foster mothers say. Nobody likes a crybaby.
Carolyn had subscribed to that belief ever since, and she blinked until the sting in her eyes abated a little.
Going back to sleep was out of the question, lest the dream go into rewind, so she got out of bed and padded into the kitchen, barefoot. She was wearing flannel pajamas she’d sewn herself, covered in a puppy-dog pattern, and the fabric was damp against her chest and between her shoulder blades. Perspiration.
The nightmare had been a doozy, then. Normally, dreams didn’t