He continued to talk to Bella, giving the dog a pep talk that was meant more for himself than for her. Which was ridiculous considering he was a rock star who could get any woman he desired with a simple look, cock of his head, or lifting of his lips in his signature smirk.
The fact that he hadn’t been with a woman in over six months said something about his state of mind when it came to the opposite sex. No one had interested him in a long time. Until now. That he sat in his car outside a small-town vet’s office like a nervous teen was pretty fucking pathetic.
But seeing Tara’s photo had stirred all sorts of memories of the time they’d spent together, the fun they’d had, and the feelings they’d shared. Axel wasn’t stupid and knew he only had one second chance with the woman he’d once wished he could spend the rest of his life with. And he was counting on a dog to do the heavy lifting.
Chapter Two
Dr. Tara Stillman walked out from the back area of her veterinary practice, East Hampton Vets. She’d finished an annual exam on an overweight Pomeranian named Hazel and had gone into the back area to check in on the overnighters. All her patients were doing well.
She joined her mother out front and placed a folder on the desk. “That’s it until after lunch,” she said. “Did you get Mrs. Frankel checked out okay?” she asked of her last patient.
Her mom nodded. “She wasn’t happy with the diet you put Hazel on. She complained about the cost and said we were just trying to make money off our clients.”
Tara sighed. “Hazel is seventeen pounds. The breed standard is three to seven. Even if she was a throwback to the older Poms who weighed up to fifteen, which she’s not, she’s still overweight. It’s not good for her heart or other organs.”
“All of which I’m sure you told Mrs. Frankel. If Anna would stop feeding the dog table scraps, she could have avoided needing to spend money on a special diet.”
Tara nodded. “That is the truth.” She smiled at her mother, who was a beautiful woman.
They shared the same thick brown hair that Tara wore past her shoulders and her mom had cut just above hers. Marsha Davidson, not Stillman anymore since she’d married Glenn Davidson, had gorgeous skin she took good care of with expensive creams and always wore her makeup perfect. She was warm and generous to a fault.
She loved to work whether it was necessary or not, a trait Tara had inherited. Marsha had been the receptionist at her first husband’s and Tara’s dad’s veterinary clinic in California. Gary Stillman had passed away from a heart attack right before Tara had been due to leave for college, leaving Tara and her mother devastated.
Ultimately, her mom had sold the practice that Tara was supposed to join when she’d graduated vet school. Unable to bear the painful memories and wanting to be near Tara, who’d gone to her dad’s alma mater in Manhattan, her mom had moved to New York City, too.
Once Marsha had adjusted to her new surroundings and being a widow, she’d moved to the Hamptons full-time and taken a job with Tara’s godfather, her dad’s college best friend and a veterinarian, Dr. Harry James.
Harry had become Tara’s mentor. He owned this clinic and had been there for her, helping her make vet school choices, giving her a job when she graduated, and they had an agreement. When Harry was ready to retire, Tara would buy out the clinic with the money she’d been left in trust from her mother’s sale of her father’s vet business. Her dad had left her mom well cared for with life insurance, and her mother insisted her father would have wanted Tara to use the money to open her own practice.
Losing her father had altered the course of Tara’s entire life and led to her moving across the country to settle in New York. Her mom had married Glenn Davidson, a man who treated Tara like a daughter, and she cared for him deeply. Thanks to Glenn, Tara had two stepsiblings, Amy and Connor. But being a part of the family had always made her feel disloyal to her real father. Only here, with her dog, and at the shelter where she volunteered, did Tara feel truly at home.
“Well, that’s something you don’t see every day,” her mom said. While Tara had been lost in thought, her mom had walked to the windows looking over the parking lot.
“What is it?”
“A dog in a convertible wearing sunglasses,” her mom said, laughing. “Come look!”
Tara strode over and glanced out the window, recognizing the golden dog. “Is that Bella?” she asked, narrowing her gaze. “That definitely looks like Bella Kingston. Is she on the schedule today?” Tara hadn’t seen the retriever on the list of appointments, but Sasha or Xander could have called to bring her in if the dog was sick.