Page 63 of Puppy Christmas

Your financial stability rocks my world. I love your work-life balance. Damn, but you look good in that cloak of adulthood.

He could hardly say any of that out loud, especially when his own future was still so murky. He didn’t know where he’d be in two months, let alone two years, and even if he worked his ass off the entire time, he’d never be good enough for a woman like Lila. In fact, the only thing he knew for sure was that there would be no finding his way back from her.

Not even if he went all the way to Seattle to do it. Not even if he spent the rest of his life trying.

* * *

“I swear toG-o-d, if I have to look at one more coffee-maker, I’m going to start putting tails on the filter baskets and eyeballs in the power switches.” Ford tossed his pen down in disgust and rubbed a weary hand over his eyes.

Despite his determination to be a man of duty, he wasn’t going to last another minute of being chained to his desk. A hard-working, dedicated businessman he decidedly was not, especially after a sleepless night. Poor Giles had no idea what he was getting himself into with that full-time job offer.

“Distract me with something,” he begged the woman standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “Anything.”

“Why do I get the feeling that’s a loaded question?” she asked.

He swiveled his chair to face her. Although Lila had theoretically hadhernight’s sleep disturbed, too, no sign of it showed anywhere on her person. To look at her, with her loosely flowing braid over one shoulder and an enormous flower pinned to the front of her blouse, she was getting ready to attend church or PTA or anywhere else people congregated with the most honorable of intentions.

“Because you have a highly suspicious mind,” he countered, but couldn’t help a yawn from escaping and ruining the moment. “Maybe it’s the cost of having sold your soul to the devil. How else can you stand there, looking like that, after what you did to me last night?”

“WhatIdid to you?” she asked blankly. Her bemusement didn’t last long. With a narrowing of her eyes and a suspicious tone, she added, “Why? How do I look?”

There were a dozen different ways he could have answered that question, most of them based on the fact that all she had to do was walk in a room to make him feel as though the sun had finally come out from behind a cloud. She was bright and brilliant and beautiful, and he could feel her presence even if he wasn’t looking directly at her.

He could hardly say any of that out loud, however.You look like the sun after a long, cold blizzard, like the rainbow after a storm. Your air of quiet dignity makes me long to throw you over my shoulder and perform any manner of undignified acts in the back of my minivan.Ford was no stranger to making a fool of himself, but even he drew the line there.

“You look perfect,” he decided.

She pushed herself off the doorway, her spine straightening into a lightning rod of stiffness. “I beg your pardon?” There was a dangerous note in her voice, as though daring him to repeat such a claim.

So he did.

“I could throw you into a wind tunnel with three feral cats, and you’d emerge looking exactly like that,” he added with a mock sigh. “I hope the devil gave you a good bargain, because it’s wasted on me. Not even a feral cat attack could make you any less beautiful in my eyes. Well? What’s next on the puppy agenda?”

Lila pursed her lips and watched him for a few seconds, as if deciding whether or not to let his comment pass by. She wanted to engage, he knew, but she wouldn’t. Not during working hours.

He was right. With a glance down at her slim gold watch, she said, “Actually, if it’s not too much trouble with your schedule, I was hoping we could take an outing this afternoon.”

“An outing?” Ford echoed.

“Yes. It’s when you change out of your pajama pants and leave the house in the middle of the day. People do it all the time. Some of them even like it.”

He glanced down at himself with a suppressed laugh. He was, in fact, wearing the infamous pajama pants once again, but that had been an act of pure mischief. He’d done laundry and dressed like a dignified man that morning, but the second those worn, checkered pants had come out of the dryer, he couldn’t resist putting them on again.

It had been worth it, too, to see the way Lila’s gaze strayed to his bottom half and stayed there, her lower lip caught in her teeth as she recalled their activities.

“I happen to be rather fond of these pants,” he said. “I like the way they fit, all hot and tight and—”

“Ford!” Lila glared at him, but her lips wobbled in a clear attempt to suppress a smile. “I’m on the clock, if you’ll recall.”

“Oh, I recall. Believe me when I say that it’s very, very hard for me to think of anything else.” He heaved another sigh—this one with less mockery—and tried to gather his thoughts. Fatherhood. Puppies.Work.“Well? What did you have in mind?”

“Anything in a public setting. We need to get Jeeves used to behaving himself out in the world.”

Ford lifted a brow. “And you think I’m going to be a help with that? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but behaving myself in public isn’t one of my strong points. In fact, behaving myself in any capacity is becoming an almost impossible chore.”

The color mounted in Lila’s cheeks, but she maintained a dignified stance, her gaze pinpointed just above his right shoulder. That seemed to be one of her favorite spots whenever she was trying not to let him get the better of her. “The mall is crowded enough this time of year to work as a good training ground. Is there any holiday shopping you need to do?”

“Well, Idoneed a cutlass for my Blackbeard costume,” he suggested. “And unless you’ve been busy on your own, I’m guessings-l-u-t-t-yAnne Bonny could still use some work. I have a few ideas. Several of them, actually. Want to hear what they are?”