(Second
Chances Series)
By
Margaret
Daley
Heartwarming
to heart pounding…an electrifying read
Single
mom, Leah Taylor, has her hands full with a grandfather, an inventor,
who lives a bit risky when it comes to his job and two sons, one a
rambunctious genius. But it is her free spirited beagle who gets her
into trouble with her new neighbor, Dr. Shane O'Grady, when her dog
makes a move on his champion bichon that he wants to breed.
Leah
and Shane clash over their dogs that clearly like each other. Leah is
determined to ignore her neighbor, but when her youngest son who
tries to defy gravity and fly ends up hurt, it is her neighbor, the
doctor, who takes care of her son. Can Leah and Shane find love or
has love gone to the dogs?
Genre:
Contemporary
Romance
Author
Margaret Daley
Margaret
Daley, an award-winning author of eighty-four books, has been married
for over forty years and is a firm believer in romance and love. When
she isn’t traveling, she’s writing love stories, often with a
suspense thread and corralling her three cats that think they rule
her household. To find out more about Margaret visit her website at
Excerpt:
When
Leah Taylor heard the pounding on her front door at seven o'clock in
the morning, she jumped, nearly sloshing her coffee all over her
hand. Did burglars now announce themselves before stealing a person
blind? No one else in his right mind would be out visiting at this
time. Carefully, so as not to spill the hot brew, she placed the mug
on the kitchen counter and made her way toward the insistent pounding
that she was sure was waking up the whole neighborhood.
She
peered out a narrow slit in her mini blind and saw an enraged, huge
man standing on her front porch with a shredded newspaper in one
hand. The other was clenched at his side. He wore practically nothing
except a pair of jean shorts. He stepped back and glanced around,
clearly not happy that no one had answered his summons.
Backing
away from the window next to her door, Leah nervously chewed the end
of one of her acrylic nails. The man looked familiar. She was sure
she had seen him in the yard across the street. He had to be a
neighbor. But why was he welcoming her to the neighborhood at such an
early hour, and with an angry expression on his face? She had been
here only a few days, and her family hadn't done anything yet to
upset the delicate balance of this small town. Or had they? She
thought back over the past few days of almost nonstop unpacking. She
had been too tired to even venture from the house much, and the same
went for the rest of her family—she hoped.
When
the pounding started again, she was so surprised by the sound that
she bit through the end of her new acrylic nail. Well, now he was
making her mad. Without thinking, she yanked open the front door and
prepared to confront the man who had the nerve to pay her a call at
seven o'clock in the morning.
"Look
what you made me do!" Leah held up her hand. "I've tried
everything to grow my own nails long, and nothing's worked. I finally
decide to get fake ones—that I might, by the way, tell you cost me
forty dollars—and look what your pounding has done. They haven't
even lasted one week." She blew out a deep breath, then brushed
her bangs away from her face in frustration.
His
dark eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open. He started to say
something, but decided instead to allow his gaze to trek downward
slowly—way too slowly for Leah's peace of mind. A blush leaped into
her cheeks as she remembered her skimpy attire. She controlled the
strong urge to try to stretch her large, white T-shirt until it
covered more than the tops of her thighs. When his survey stopped at
her bare feet, her toes wiggled as if they had a will of their own.
She
felt practically naked under his intense look. While he was staring
at her, she began at his bare
feet, which were braced apart in a stance that conveyed his anger,
not one toe wiggling. Her gaze traveled upward over long legs that
probably belonged to a runner, to narrow hips that the jean material
hugged nicely. She paused ever so slightly at the washboard ripples
in his flat stomach and came to the decision that the man worked out
religiously, something she religiously tried to avoid. Her impression
of his being an exercise freak was confirmed when her gaze skimmed
over a broad chest, wide shoulders, and arms with taut muscles
bulging as he held them rigid at his sides. Bod of steel, she
thought, realizing her impulsive inspection had done nothing to cool
the heat in her cheeks.
That
realization was utmost in her mind until her gaze came to rest on his
face—not poster boy handsome, but rugged and very masculine. Then
she noticed his eyes, dark as chocolate, growing rounder as he took
in her features. Oh, no! All traces of the heat from her blush left
her cheeks. Why hadn't she remembered that she had forgotten to
remove yesterday's makeup, when she had fallen exhausted into bed,
and that her short hair lay at odd angles all over her head as it did
every morning? Realizing she looked like Rocky the Raccoon having a
bad hair day, Leah stepped behind the front door, gripped its edge,
and peered around it to carry on the rest of the conversation, trying
to hide as much as possible from view. Too bad she didn't have a sack
to put over her head.
Her
actions snapped the stunned expression from the man's face. He held
up the newspaper, which appeared to have gone through a shredder.
"This is what your dog did to my paper—for the third morning
in a row, I might add. Makes it a little hard to read."
His
tightly clipped words blasted her. Who still read an actual
newspaper? Her grasp on the door strengthened. "That's not
possible. He's in the backyard—which is fenced, I might add."
The
man's scowl deepened. "Your dog's a beagle, right? I saw him
this morning. Medium size, brown, black, and white."
"Must
have been someone else's beagle. Arnold is as secure as a baby in a
playpen." Then, without really thinking again, Leah swung her
shield wide open, leaving her visible to his full view once more, and
motioned her less-than-friendly neighbor inside. "I'll show you
you're wrong about Arnold."
"Lady,
I'm not wrong," he said, as he stomped into her house, his large
presence in her small entryway dwarfing everything, including her.
"Leah
Taylor." She held out her hand for him to shake. After all, they
were going to be neighbors, and he would realize his mistake when he
saw Arnold in the backyard. She believed in making a good first
impression—which in this case had been blown. At least she could
shoot for a good second impression.
"Shane
O'Grady." He nodded his head slightly, but didn't take her hand
in his. He still clenched the newspaper with torn bits hanging like
black and white streamers.
Her
blush came back to haunt her cheeks. Leah gritted her teeth and
proceeded to the kitchen, intending to show the man her dog and then,
with a relish, the door. Forget that second impression. "One of
the reasons I rented this house was the chain-link fence. It's four
feet, and Arnold isn't even two feet tall. I don't think he's learned
to pole vault yet, even though he did enjoy watching it on the
Olympics telecast."
Shane
O'Grady shot her a skeptical look. "I know I saw him. He was
running back toward your yard."
Leah
waved her hand toward the window that afforded them a view of the
yard behind her house. There lay Arnold by his doghouse, sprawled on
his back with his legs stuck in the air as if he were dead. She
pointed to the closed gate. "Did you see him open the gate and
run back into the yard?" It was hard to keep the smug tone out
of her voice. In fact, she didn't succeed.
"It
was him, lady."
"Are
you the type of man who doesn't like to admit he's wrong, Mr.
O'Grady?"
The
flint in his eyes could have set her on fire. "Ms. Taylor, if
you don't take care of the problem, I will."
"What
do you mean?" Her voice rose with panic.
"We
have leash laws in Shady Oaks."
The
threat hung suspended between them. The only sounds in the kitchen
were the clock ticking over the stove and Leah's increased breathing.
"I'm
not without some pull, since I am, the mayor." He stalked toward
the door, turned back to rake her with a sharp look, and added, "Keep
that hound in your yard. We've had problems with wild dogs biting
people."
"You
must be a dog hater," she shouted at his retreating back as she
followed him to her front door.
Shane
halted on the bottom step. "Far from it. I have two dogs of my
own, but you won't see them running wild in the neighborhood. I keep
them where they belong."
She
came out onto her porch. "Yeah, well, Arnold is innocent. In
America even a dog is innocent until proven guilty. Where's your
proof, Mr. Mayor?"
He
said nothing to that last remark, probably because he was jogging
across the street and up the flight of steps in front of his house.
But several people had heard her words—the woman next door, who was
coming out to get her newspaper, and two men power walking. They all
stopped what they were doing and stared at Leah as if she were an
alien who had just landed in the middle of their peaceful town.
Leah
did the only thing she could think of. Smiling, she waved to each
one. "Just exercising my voice. It's such a beautiful day to
exercise, don't you think?"
One
man shook his head as though he couldn't quite believe his eyes, and
the other laughed. They resumed their power walk while the woman
grabbed her paper and rushed back inside, probably heading straight
for the telephone to tell everyone that the newcomer was obviously
crazy.
"Welcome
to Shady Oaks," Leah muttered to herself as she made her way
back inside her house.
When
she caught sight of herself in the mirror in the entrance hallway,
she groaned. She looked worse than she had thought She had dark
mascara circles under her blue eyes and her orange lipstick was
smeared across her right cheek. And her hair was just awful—a
brash, coppery shade of red that shone in the sunlight. Well, she
couldn't help it if her home tinting had gone awry. Red was
normal—usually.
Shrugging
away her less than desirable reflection, Leah headed straight for the
back door. "Arnold. Breakfast," she called out, and watched
her beagle roll his head into a position to see her. He stared at her
for a good minute before getting up and slowly walking toward her as
if he hadn't had twenty hours of sleep, and barely had enough energy
to make it to the door.
"For
being falsely accused you get an extra portion this morning,"
she murmured, and bent to pat Arnold. Her hand stopped on the fur by
his neck. She spied a strip of newspaper tangled in his collar, and
closed her eyes.
When
she opened them a second later, Arnold was butting her hand to get
her to scratch him behind the ears. Instead, she took the scrap of
newspaper off the collar and saw the evidence against her dog
mount—the piece of paper had the day's date written across it in
bold, black letters.
"Oh,
no, Arnold, you couldn't do this to us. We've just moved here. This
was supposed to be a fresh start. Now look what's happened. I've
antagonized the town mayor." Leah balled the shredded piece up
in her hand and marched to the trashcan. No one was going to know
about this.
Looking
out the window at the securely shut gate, she wondered how Arnold had
gotten out. He couldn't open it, then close it, could he? Well,
however he had gotten out, she would make sure that Arnold didn't
escape again, even if she had to chain him outside the next morning.
She
had wanted to make a good first impression. She plopped down on a
stool at the kitchen counter and buried her face in her hands. She
knew how important that was in a small town, where everyone knew
everyone. She wanted her family to belong, to finally have a place
they could call home. She had researched Shady Oaks, and the town had
everything she wanted, especially an excellent school system.
The
sound of feet running upstairs drew her attention. Her exchange with
Shane O'Grady awakened the neighbors, and her family as well. She
turned her accusatory glare on her dog that sat at her feet wagging
his tail while he patiently waited for his breakfast. "I should
give you half rations, you Benedict Arnold."
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