Puppy Love by Ginger Chambers

Author:Ginger Chambers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

“THERE’S NO WAY I can guarantee sparkling conversation,” Gracie said. “Will ordinary conversation do?”

“It sounds wonderful,” Roger agreed.

Gracie went into the kitchen and started the automatic coffee maker, then she searched in her pantry for something to serve with it. She’d been planning to go to the grocery store tomorrow, so her supplies were low. She found the remains of several different kinds of cookies and arranged them on a plate, which she carried into the living room when the coffee was done.

He wasn’t seated where she’d left him. He’d gotten up to study the photographs clustered on a glass-topped table. Most were likenesses of her family—her mother, Emil, Sheila as a child. A few were of friends from across the country, mostly taken at dog shows. Another was of her and Hortense, just after they’d won Best in Show at a competition in St. Louis.

It was that photo he’d lifted to study. “When was this taken?” he asked.

“About five years ago. That’s Hortense, Jo-Jo’s mother.”

“She died, I understand.”

“Yes.”

She placed the tray on the coffee table, and he came back to the couch to accept his cup. He sat back without adding sugar or cream, taking it just as she did.

All the while the young cocker was busily checking out the room, with Jo-Jo right behind him. Occasionally the pup would roll over and wave his paws in the air, then he’d hop up and resume making discoveries.

“Don’t worry,” Roger said. “He’s housebroken.”

“I wasn’t worried,” Gracie replied.

A little silence stretched between them. Gracie was very aware of him, aware that this was their first conventional contact. A man, a woman—talking. She searched for something to say.

“Why did you leave Tyler all those years ago?” Roger asked, taking the onus off her, but introducing a subject that made her frown. “Or isn’t that ‘ordinary’ enough?” he teased. Yet his teasing contained a serious edge.

Gracie’s grip tightened on her cup. Was this a part of his determination to ‘get to know her’? “I wanted to see if I could run a business myself.”

“What made you choose a breeding kennel?”

“Why not?” she replied lightly.

“Most of the time, people have a reason for what they do.”

“Why did you leave medical school?” she countered.

“Because I hated it. Because it wasn’t my idea, it was my father’s.”

“Did you always do what your father wanted?”

Roger smiled slowly. “I asked you first.”

Gracie took a perfunctory sip of her coffee, then settled the cup and saucer back on the low table. “I couldn’t find anything else I wanted to do. Office work bored me, I didn’t like sales clerking. I groomed dogs for a time, enjoyed it, talked to people who bred them, then decided I could do it, too.”

“And Grace Farms was the result.”

She nodded.

“Why’d you sell it?” he asked, still probing for a hidden truth. “From everything I heard, it was highly respected by your peers. Did you get bored with it, too? Or discover that you didn’t really like it? I wouldn’t have thought, with it being so successful, that would be the case.

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