The Dream Guy Next Door (The Guys Who Got Away #1) - Lauren Blakely Page 0,4

date.”

“Exactly. I have taught you well.”

After more than a decade with a man who didn’t love me, I am a happy camper to be single at last.

Single and not in need of a date.

Not in want of a man.

Single and truly single.

No men need apply. Not for anything.

I’ve been teaching my girl the same thing—that you don’t need another person to complete you. You are enough.

I believe that with my whole heart.

At the teal mailbox painted with ladybugs—an adorable addition courtesy of my best friend, Alva—we turn onto the stone walkway leading to our porch.

In spite of myself, my eyes swing one house over.

A red sedan is parked in the driveway.

Hmm. Perhaps Betty is Miss Marple after all.

And call me Agatha Christie, because I spy with my little eye a moving truck and a couple of burly men in blue dockers lugging a black leather couch up the steps.

There’s no sign of the owner though.

“We’ll pop over later and introduce ourselves. See if they need anything,” I say as I climb the porch steps.

A door creaks, and a voice rumbles across the yard. “Yes, this is a little quieter than New York City. But I have a hunch it’s going to be absolutely fantastic.”

I stop in my tracks.

That voice.

He sounds like an English hottie, like Tom Hardy, Daniel Craig, or Henry Cavill.

What are the chances though? That the face will match that kind of a voice?

One thousand to one?

No.

One million to one, easy.

No way can any man have that yummy of a voice and as fine a face to go with it.

He’ll be a nottie.

I turn around.

There go the odds.

2

Liam

A few days before

* * *

I’m a glass-half-full kind of person.

Life gives you lemons?

Don’t just make lemonade. Make lemonade with vanilla bean extract, organic lemons, and homegrown honey from your own beehives and sell it at a roadside stand. You’ll make a mint.

Yes, I did that when I was younger. I made a pretty penny with Liam’s Roadside Lemonade, thank you very much.

Wake up well before the alarm clock? Log ten extra miles on the bike as the sun rises and the birds chirp, and don’t forget to stretch your hammies when you’re done.

Sounds like my day yesterday, and I like to think my heart thanks me for the cardio love I give it every morning.

But being asked to diagnose a malady I don’t treat? That ranks right up there with eating broccoli.

That happens to me more than one might think. Not the consumption of broccoli—one of the greatest benefits of adulthood is never having to eat a veggie you hate. Goodbye, broccoli. Farewell, brussels sprouts, and see you never, radish.

But I can’t escape people telling me about their corns, even though my work has nothing whatsoever to do with feet.

My profession is paws.

Trouble is, when your patients can’t speak, their owners make up for it by flapping their gums, mostly about themselves. When someone’s beagle has an allergy to fish, you learn about the owner’s reactions to salmon, and Have you ever heard about salmon allergies, and what should I do about it? When Rover comes in with an upset belly, you’re the audience to a soliloquy from his master about his own digestive woes.

To hear or pretend not to hear—that is the question.

But ignoring a client goes against my nature, so I wind up listening to all sorts of ailments every time I examine Fido and Fluffy, Puss and Boots, and Lucy and Rex. I love my job, but this is one of my least favorite parts of it, and that’s saying something, because I have to give rectal exams daily.

Thankfully, that’s something I don’t have to do at the last appointment of my last day at my practice on the Upper East Side.

It’s simply needle time for Cecily.

I administer a distemper shot to a sleek black cat decked out in a bejeweled velvet collar, then scratch the kitty’s chin. “There you go, Cecily. What a good girl.”

The cat lifts her head, eagerly accepting the chin rub—give it up for the cat whisperer in the house—while her owner smiles demurely and taps her lip. “One more thing, Dr. Harris.”

“Yes, Blair?”

She flips her red hair off her shoulder and poses her question. “If Cecily is having trouble sleeping, like, say, she’s waking up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep, what should I do?” Perhaps realizing her blunder, Blair straightens, clears her throat, then smooths a hand down the cat’s back. “For her. What should I