Page 10 of Love At The Shore
“Hey.” She glanced down at Tank, wagging his tail in glee. “I think this guy belongs to you.”
Honestly, hadn’t Mr. Slack ever heard of leash laws?
The dog was awfully cute, though. Maybe he was just trying to run away from the loud music and general chaos of Lucas’s side of the house. Jenna couldn’t really blame him.
Lucas’s expression went all ooey-gooey at the sight of his canine bestie, and he picked up his usual laid-back pace. “Whatcha doing over there? Get in here, you.” He pushed the screen door open. “Get in.”
Jenna released her hold on Tank’s collar and he trotted past Lucas to pounce on one of the dog toys strewn on the worn wooden floor of the porch.
“Either trying to play with, or rearrange, my book. I don’t know. It’s really hard to say.” Jenna forced a smile. As adorable as Tank was, she still had coffee-stained pages to contend with on the upstairs deck.
Lucas shot her another of his boyish grins. “Well, I always said he’d make a great editor.”
She might have even considered Lucas and his scruffy little mutt charming if they weren’t so wholly annoying.
“No?” He leaned against the doorjamb and shrugged one shoulder.
“No. Cute, but no.” Now wasn’t the time to give in, no matter how sweet the surfer and his doggy bestie were together. “Hey, one other quick thing, if you have a second.”
“Yeah, of course. Come on in.” He held the screen door open for her and motioned for Tank to follow when they reached the entry to the duplex. “Come on, buddy. Inside.”
Lucas’s half of the house was a mirror image of Jenna’s, decorated in the same calming beach glass hues. A strand of colorful lights lined the walls of the living room and a bright blue electric guitar sat propped in a corner.Theguitar, no doubt.
Other than a table piled with books and a basket of clean, unfolded laundry, the space was remarkably tidy. Wonders never ceased.
Remember the two-week rule.
She pasted on her best neighborly smile. “So, I just wanted to ask or maybe suggest we set some ground rules.”
Lucas grabbed a plastic bin of dog food from the kitchen counter and began to scoop kibble into a metal bowl. “Yeah? About what?”
Tank trotted past her, tags jangling. “Well, the dog, for starters.”
“Oh.” Lucas flipped the plastic bin closed and set Tank’s bowl on the floor. “You’re not a dog person.”
“No, I love dogs.” She just didn’t love it when they jumped all over her manuscript and interrupted a rare moment when she was getting some actual work done. That hadn’t been Tank’s fault, of course. She blamed Lucas. No wonder he didn’t have kids. If he did, he’d probably lose track of them in a heartbeat. “I mean, I like them, my daughter loves them, and my ex-husband keeps promising to get them one, but I’m just too busy to commit to a dog right now. I mean it wouldn’t be fair to the little guy. Especially considering I have this book deadline and I’m not quite sure how I’m going to hit it.”
Stop. Talking.
She couldn’t seem to stop the flow of nonsense coming out of her mouth. Why was she rambling? Moreover, what was it about Lucas that made her so nervous?
He didn’t need to know what she did for a living. They weren’t friends. They were neighbors—temporaryneighbors.
“Oh, you’re a writer?” Lucas looked up from the dishtowels he’d begun folding sometime during her monologue. “What do you write? Like, novels or plays?”
“Teen fiction,” Jenna said.
He gave her a blank look.
Oh, no. She’d seen that look before—on her ex-husband’s face. As amicable as their split had been, he wasn’t exactly supportive of her career as an author. Never had been. When they’d been married, he never really understood why she stayed up late to write after the kids had gone to bed. The way he’d seen it, she’d been wasting her time on a book for teenagers when she already had a job writing about community events for the local paper. Even after she’d signed with an agent and accepted a publishing deal, he’d been happy for her but unconvinced. After all, one book didn’t make a career.
Sometimes she wondered if he was right. Could she really do this?
“It’s a lot harder than it sounds,” she added. “Which is why I can’t risk any distractions right now. So, I was hoping you could keep Tank on your side of the fence, so to speak.”
He laughed as if she’d just asked the impossible. “Sorry. I can’t do that.”
Not exactly the reaction she was expecting. In fact, it was the exact opposite. “What?”
