Page 36 of Love Out Loud

When she glanced up, he was staring over at the big-dog park, looking relaxed. She half expected the black Lab to be gone, but he was still there, loping along the fence line, chasing a ball. “You’re doing better.”

“Yeah, I am.” He smiled, and to Fiona, it was as beautiful and as bright as the sunlight breaking through the trees overhead. Her eyes dropped to his mouth, and her heart rate kicked up as she imagined pressing her lips to his.

Fire him.

“So, if your schedule permits, I can go to my next appointment, and we can meet up later today after you’ve committed some of that to memory,” he said.

She blinked the image of kissing Jake out of her head. Maybe this was one-sided. If she fired him and they weren’t on the same page, she might not get to see him again outside of passing in the lobby. Right now, she wasn’t willing to risk that. “Sure. I’m going by the clinic to do some cleanup and organization, and then I’m free the rest of the day.” Well, that sounded pathetic, like she didn’t have a life at all—maybe she didn’t. No. She wasn’t going to go there. She loved her life and was completely happy with it.

“Well, then. How about we meet at Chez Ari at five?”

That sounded like a date. She swallowed hard. “Okay.”

“Great. I’ll make a reservation for an outside table in the courtyard. Drinks and a speech. Does that work?”

Yeah, way too much like a date. “Sure.”

He gave that sunlight-through-the-trees sparkly smile again, then headed out of the dog park. She should stop this before she got her heart hurt. Jane had been right about examining her reservations, which way outnumbered the positives, but dammit, something about this guy made her a little reckless.

She watched him until he turned the corner at the end of the block. “Why do I do it?” She shoved the papers into her backpack and picked up Daisy’s and Otto’s leashes. “How could I not?”

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