She had to like him. To Luke, watching in silence, Bruce Basset looked almost irresistible.

But Wendy stooped down to floor level without saying a word. She touched Bruce lightly on his velvety ears-and she burst into tears.

Hell! This was appalling. What to do now? Of all things-to have made Wendy cry…

‘You don’t have to keep him. I didn’t mean… If you think I’ve already dumped enough on you I can take him back.’ Luke started forward, but then he paused as the puppy was scooped up into Wendy’s arms and she glared up at Luke as if she was a mother hen protecting her entire brood.

‘Take him back?’ Her voice was laced with emotion and tears were slipping down her face unchecked and unheeded. ‘Take him back? Don’t you dare!’

‘But…’ Hell, she was crying! ‘Don’t you like him? Wendy, what’s wrong?’ Unconsciously he stooped too, so his eyes were on a level with hers. The puppy was squirming in her arms, and his small pink tongue came out to lick away a tear.

Hey, the puppy knew what to do. Luke grabbed his handkerchief and moved in to help. Now there were two males attending to Wendy’s tears and it was all too much. Wendy was falling backwards, sitting on the floor and sobbing helplessly into Bruce’s velvety coat.

But she was also…smiling? Laughing through tears? Luke managed to get a piece of his handkerchief to her cheeks. It was licked aside by the puppy and, hell, he was jealous of a puppy!

‘You don’t want me to take him back?’ he tried cautiously and now he was sure she’d been chuckling. She was smiling at him through her tears and her eyes were shining like raindrops in a sunshower. She hugged the crazy, wriggling bundle of puppy, and she smiled and smiled-and Luke’s heart lurched as if it had never lurched in its life before.

‘Luke, if you knew how much I’d wanted to give Gabbie a puppy…’ It was all she could do to get her voice to a whisper. She hugged Bruce again, venting her overstrung emotions on his small squiggly person. ‘We have Home dogs-specially trained dogs skilled in being hugged by children in need-and Gabbie’s loved them. But they’ve never been hers, and every time she’s moved it’s been to a different dog. But this little one… She needs something to love so much…’

‘And you do, too,’ he said thoughtfully, watching her face. Somewhere inside something was starting to feel really, really good. He’d done something right! He’d made this woman happy. Luke Grey, independent mover and shaker, had made this lady happy.

And it felt-fantastic!

‘And me too,’ she admitted shyly. She lifted the little dog high so woman and dog were nose to nose. ‘I admit it. I haven’t owned a dog since I was a child, and I’ve wanted one so much. Now I have Gabbie and I have Grace, and I have Bruce.’ She turned to look at him with exactly the same look she’d bestowed on Bruce. Unswerving love. ‘Oh, Luke, thank you. I don’t know how to say it…’

‘You don’t need to.’

‘But Luke…’

‘No.’ He reached forward and caught a last errant tear, whisking it away with his forefinger.

And then suddenly he was so close. She was so lovely. God help him, a man would have to be inhuman to resist a sight like this.

He wasn’t inhuman. This lady before him was Wendy. Wendy! She’d been weeping and she was so, so near…

He moved just inches closer. She gazed at him with eyes that were loving and misty with tears, and his fingers caught her under the chin.

Some things were just inevitable. He kissed her.

And wow!

Heaven knew what went into that kiss. It was a kiss that had the power to change the world-or change the world of the two persons whose lips touched-and change the world it did.

She was so gorgeous. So…

Her lips were just as he’d known they would be. Just as he’d remembered from that fleeting kiss with the children between them. They were full and soft and warm and yielding-and tasting slightly of salt where the tears had slid unchecked.

The puppy was still there, somewhere between them, but his small warm presence did not intrude. He’d been woken from sleep, but a pup could tell these two soft bodies meant a small creature nothing but good. It was clear that Bruce believed he was on to a very good thing here…

As did Luke. Wendy felt so wonderful. It was all part of the magic of the night, he thought. It was part of the discovery of coming home. Home…

Here was his home.

Wendy was his home.

The discovery was no lightning bolt. It was more a sweet, insidious knowledge, creeping softly into his consciousness. He’d never known what he was missing until this moment, but here, in this moonlit kitchen, with the soft wuffling of a puppy between them, he found a missing link in his life that he hadn’t known was broken.

And Wendy?

For the life of her she couldn’t pull away. The knowledge that was already with Luke was playing its magic part on her as well. It was like a spell, numbing her brain, making her unaware of anything but how good this man felt, how strong were the hands that gripped her shoulders-how warm was the mouth on hers…

How achingly empty her life was without…

Without what? A man?

Dear God. Where had that thought come from? It slammed into her brain like a zillion volts and it scared her rigid. Of all the stupid, stupid things to think…

Luke was still kissing her-she was still letting herself be kissed-but suddenly things weren’t the same. The numbness had worn off. She’d been down this road before, letting emotion sway her… Letting hormones do their thing until she’d risked so much she had no right to risk!

No!

‘No!’

Heaven knew how she uttered the word. Heaven knew how there was enough space between them to say it but somehow, somehow she dragged herself back, and her eyes were fear-filled and dreadful.

He let her go. ‘Love, what is it?’

What had he called her? Love? He had to be joking.

‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ She clutched the puppy to her. Bruce looked up in faint reproach; it had been really cosy cradled between chest and breast, and he wouldn’t have minded staying there!

Luke’s voice, when he found it, was a bit shaken. ‘I thought I was kissing you.’ Somehow he managed a faint chuckle. ‘And I thought you were kissing me right back.’

‘It must have been the puppy.’ She gasped and scrambled to her feet. ‘I wouldn’t…’

‘You wouldn’t have kissed me? Liar!’

‘Luke!’ There was real distress in her voice and he heard it. A frown creased his eyes.

‘Wendy, what’s wrong?’

‘This…this is ridiculous.’

‘Us kissing?’

‘Yes.’ She took a jagged breath, searching for control. ‘Ridiculous,’ she repeated. ‘You’re my boss. We have a business relationship.’

‘A business relationship?’

‘Yes. Nothing more.’ She closed her eyes and hugged Bruce closer. ‘Nothing else. Otherwise it’d be…a disaster.’

He nodded, watching her face. If he took one step closer to her now she’d run, he knew, and he also knew quite desperately that the last thing he wanted was for this woman to run. And it wasn’t for the sake of two small children and one puppy…

Keep it light, he told himself. He’d scared her. What woman had ever reacted like this to him kissing her? he asked himself, but Wendy was doing just that, and it was Wendy he wanted most desperately to stay. So he had to learn some new rules. Fast.

‘I always kiss women who weep,’ he said, making his voice light. ‘It serves you right for turning on the water-works.’

‘I didn’t cry.’

‘Ha!’

‘I just…I just got a bit emotional when I saw the puppy.’

She was playing for lightness, too. Good. They could take it from here.

‘Great. Soggy puppy. Soggy woman. I have a houseful.’

‘He’s…’ She’d withdrawn, but she had herself almost under control and she was searching for a safer topic. ‘He’s really for Gabbie?’

‘He’s really for Gabbie.’ He gave her an encouraging grin. ‘But not tonight. If we give him some milk now he can sleep in my room.’

She looked up at him, startled, and he gave a mocking smile. ‘Now, why does that surprise you?’

Her brow creased. ‘I guess I had you down as the sort of guy who’d say put him on the veranda to sleep.’

‘Yeah, right.’ He had his voice almost completely back under control now. Pity about his emotions. ‘I tried that. Or sort of.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I put him in a cardboard box when I picked him up from the dealer. I put him on the back seat for the drive here and it lasted exactly five minutes. First of all he howled so much I sounded like a police car belting down the freeway, and then he proceeded to eat the cardboard box. Once the box was eaten, he threw up, then kept right on howling.’

‘Oh, Luke!’ The tension of moments ago was passing. Almost. He had her chuckling. ‘So what did you do?’

‘What any sane man had to do,’ Luke said, sighing. ‘He spent the remainder of the trip on my knee, which is a totally illegal, dangerous but admittedly peaceable way to carry a dog. About half an hour from here he fell into such a deep sleep that he fell sideways and upside down onto the passenger seat, but even then he kept an eye on me. So if I stick him on the veranda, what’s the chance of us getting any sleep at all tonight?’

‘Somewhere about zero, I’d say,’ Wendy agreed, grinning, and Luke nodded.

‘Well, there you go, then. You have your baby for the night and I have mine. Opposite ends of the house and I hope my baby doesn’t need feeding any more than yours. And I hope to high heaven mine doesn’t snore.’


He did.

Bruce snored happily well into morning, wuffling contentedly in a basket right underneath where Luke lay. He snuffled and snorted and it was enough to drive a man mad-but then, to be fair, maybe it wasn’t Bruce who was driving him nuts. Maybe he was feeling he was going nuts anyway.