For Keeps Read online

  FOR KEEPS

  Part of the “Romance Revisited” series

  by Donna Ball

  He's an animal trainer who lives by one rule: never get attached. She's a social worker who knows all too well the price of getting involved. It may take an entire menagerie to bring them together, but eventually they both must learn that sometimes it's for keeps.

  copyright 2010 by Donna Ball Inc.

  Published by Blue Merle Publishing at Smashwords

  Discover more books by Donna Ball at http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/DonnaBall

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author and the publisher’s efforts to keep the price of this e-book affordable.

  An earlier version of this book was published in 1991 under the pseudonym Donna Carlisle. This edition has been extensively revised and updated to reflect modern tastes and the author’s preferences.

  ONE

  Come on, Pat, will you lighten up?" Lyn Sanders kept her tone playful but her exasperation was not entirely feigned. "How hard can it be?"

  A worried frown played around her sister's brow as she wedged her overnight bag between the two larger cases in the Honda's small trunk. Pat was only going to be gone for a week but, in the true Boy Scout spirit, had packed enough to be prepared for anything.

  "It's not that I don't think you can handle the job," Pat assured her, straightening up as she closed the trunk. "It's just that you've only been here a couple of weeks and I feel rotten running out on you like this..."

  Lyn laughed and hugged her sister with one arm. "That's the whole point, isn't it? You haven't had a vacation in six years, now I'm here to take care of the business so will you go, already, and have a good time? It's a quarter till eight and you were supposed to pick up Marilee at seven-thirty."

  "Oh, no." This new concern added another worry line to Pat's forehead as she hurried to the driver's door. "She's so compulsive she'll have the state patrol out looking for me in another five minutes. I don't know how I'm going to stand driving all the way to North Carolina with her."

  "She's compulsive?" Lyn gave an exaggerated lift of her eyebrows. "Sounds to me like the pot calling the kettle black."

  Pat opened the door and paused, smiling. But this time the concern in her eyes had nothing to do with the business she was leaving in her younger sister's hands. "Are you sure you're going to be all right? Because if you need me to stay—"

  "I'm going to be fine," Lyn assured her firmly. And as she saw the doubt in Pat's eyes she added more gently, "This is just what I need, really. To be alone for a while, and sort things out. I'll have plenty to keep me busy, and that's the best therapy in the world. So please, just have a good time and don't worry."

  "If you say so."

  The two sisters embraced, and Lyn stepped away from the car as Pat got in and started the engine. "Drive carefully," she called. "Be sure to call me from the hotel."

  Pat waved, put the car in gear, and then stopped abruptly, leaning her head out the window. "Did I tell you about Casey Carmichael?"

  "You told me, you told me!" Lyn started backing toward the house.

  "And you won't forget where the city maps are and the emergency numbers and—"

  "Will you for heaven's sake go ?”

  Pat hesitated, then gave her sister an apologetic smile as she shifted to drive and released the brake. "I'll call you tonight," she promised.

  "Have a good time," Lyn repeated.

  Pat waved as she drove off, but Lyn did not release her breath of relief until the little blue car was out of the driveway and had disappeared down the street.

  Sometimes Lyn wondered whether she, or Pat, or both might be adopted, for never had two sisters been less alike. Pat was eight years older than Lyn, but the difference was more than that. Pat was orderly, reliable, conservative; she always had control of her life and everything in her environment. Lyn waded through life an hour late and a dollar short, and had never, as far back as she remembered, been in control of anything. Composure was something she had always wished she had, and poise was a word people used to describe Pat, not her younger sister.

  The two women did not even look alike. Pat was small and neat, blond, and managed to look perfectly groomed even in a sweatshirt and gardening gloves. Lyn was tall and slim with a mass of shoulder length, curly red hair that tended to frizz in the Florida humidity. Her features were as delicate as her sister's, and her complexion even fairer, but she had never troubled to learn the art of making the most of what she had with the use of makeup. Her broad high forehead and widely set gray eyes gave her a strikingly Nordic look, while her delicately shaped mouth and nose suggested a fragility that was completely out of place with the rest of her appearance. Lyn's mother used to say that Lyn's was a haunting face, a memorable one; Lyn had translated that to mean plain. Pat was the pretty one. And though it was true that men rarely forgot Lyn's face, it was Pat they fell in love with.

  That used to bother Lyn, even though the two sisters were too far apart in age to compete for the same boyfriends. Now that Lyn had reached the relative wisdom of twenty-eight years, she was only glad that she did not have to worry about keeping herself beautiful for a string of suitors on top of everything else.

  She went back into the house and quickly rinsed the coffee cups and left them to drain, then went into the small home office that served as Pet Pride's headquarters. Pat had started the pet-sitting business seven years ago, after her husband's death, and though it was far from becoming a Fortune 500 company—most months, in fact, it barely made a profit—Pat was justifiably proud of it. She had a long-standing list of faithful clients who relied upon her to take care of their pets and their homes while they were away, many of whom were prominent citizens.

  In January, however, few people left Florida to take vacations, and the pet-sitting business was slow. Pet Pride had two jobs scheduled for the week, each of which Lyn was familiar with down to the last detail, having accompanied Pat for three days in a row while she made her rounds. There were the Greshams' cats—three snobbish Persians who ate hand-prepared meals that had to be warmed to a precise temperature in the microwave and whose immaculate coats required brushing and de-matting twice a day—and Mr. Jolly's three saltwater aquariums and one basset hound.

  Then, of course, there was this Casey Carmichael, who had had the temerity to call at six-thirty in the morning to schedule a job beginning that day. Apparently he was a regular, because Pat had not hesitated about accepting, and she had chattered on and on about the particulars of the job while rushing back and forth with last-minute preparations for her trip. Lyn, more concerned with getting her sister out of the house before she changed her mind than with irrelevant details, had paid little attention. Pat was as compulsive about record keeping as she was about everything else, and whatever Lyn needed to know would be found in Casey Carmichael's file.

  The Carmichael file—actually a tabbed and indexed spiral notebook similar to the one Pat kept for all her regulars—was on top of the desk, squarely centered beneath the lamps so that Lyn couldn't possibly miss it. The red index card clipped to it was marked "Jan. 24—5:00 p.m.; Jan 25—7:00 a.m." The time referred to the feeding schedule, and Lyn was glad to see she need only make one trip today, although the 7:00 a.m. feeding tomorrow morning dismayed her.

  She had come here to rest, to do nothing, to forget, if she could, wh
at she had left behind in Philadelphia. Despite her cheerful reassurances to Pat, she didn't really want to work. She could only hope that Casey Carmichael would be the last of Pat's clients to make an impulsive out-of-town trip.

  It took half an hour to pet, comb and feed the Greshams' cats, and to walk Mr. Jolly's basset hound. Lyn was home by eight forty-five, and napping on the sofa by nine o'clock. She awoke in time for lunch, and took a magazine out onto the pool patio. She had barely read a page, however, before the soporific effects of sun and humidity took over, and she stretched out in the lounge chair and dozed.

  Lyn's long naps had been another matter of constant concern for Pat, who considered that kind of lethargy an unhealthy sign of deeper problems. Under other circumstances, Lyn would have been the first to agree with her. But her sister did not know about the nightmares that woke Lyn in the middle of the night and left her drenched in a cold sweat, afraid to close her eyes again yet just as afraid to lie awake in the dark with the memories. Nights left her exhausted, and the days of pretending to Pat that she was doing fine left her drained. Lyn was aware enough to know that sleep was an escape, not a solution, but escape was exactly what she had come to Florida to do.

  It was after five when she awoke, stretched out her cramped legs and, blinking in the setting sun, remembered the three sets of pets that were waiting to be fed and groomed. She groaned a little at the prospect. The first two she didn't mind, but she was not looking forward to the long drive into the country and the Carmichael menagerie.

  Lyn took care of the Greshams' cats and Mr. Jolly's fish first, since they were on her way out of town. She munched on a doughnut as she took the state road that led to Casey Carmichael’s place—her diet was another thing she had given up on since leaving Philadelphia— and arrived a little after six.

  White post fencing lined the road and the driveway, and she had to get out of the car to unfasten, then refasten, a horse gate. All of this Pat's notebook had dutifully recorded. The long gravel driveway was dotted with citrus trees, and several areas of the field on either side were fenced off into sections with chain link, for what purpose Lyn could not imagine. She passed three outbuildings before she ever reached the neat, yellow-and-white house and the gray barn that stood behind it. There were several vehicles in the yard, among them a good sized R.V., a van and a Jeep, so Lyn had to drive behind the barn to park. She got out of the car, looking around her in dismay

  Two collies and a large golden retriever came bounding up to meet her. Two roan horses grazed near the barn and three sheep pressed their dusty bodies against the rails of another fence, looking at her soulfully. She could hear the clatter and squawk of a nearby chicken coop, and a raucous clamor of barks and yips came from what could only be a kennel behind the house. A kennel! Obviously, she should have read Pat's notes more carefully.

  She opened the door to recover the notebook and the golden retriever promptly leaped into the front seat.

  "Okay, girl—boy," she corrected on second glance, "come on, get out! That's a good boy, come on!" The dog panted at her happily.

  She picked up the notebook and flipped through it until she found a page that described a "Golden Retriever, male." "Montana," she said, looking at the retriever. "And you guys," she glanced behind her at the two collies, who sat alertly at her heels, "must be Riff and Raff. Well, you all look like good dogs but I'm running behind schedule here. Come on, Montana, let's go! Out of the car, boy!"

  Montana snatched the notebook from her hand and shot past her in a flash.

  "Hey! "she cried.

  She took one step after him and promptly tripped over Riff or Raff, both of whom were now lying, as though on command, directly in her path. She picked herself up and dusted off her hands, searching for the errant retriever. The two collies watched her expectantly. "Montana!" she called in her sternest voice. "You come back here you bad dog!" And then, wheedling, "Here, Montana! Where'd you go, boy?"

  Then she saw him, peeking out from behind the corner of the house, her notebook still clenched in his teeth.

  She took off at a run. The collies circled her, barking noisily, obviously enjoying the opportunity to exercise their herding instincts. Lyn circled the house twice, with Montana always staying just out of reach and the collies leaping and barking with her every step. When she reached the back steps for the third time Montana was sitting there waiting for her, the notebook placed, like bait in a trap, on the top step.

  Lyn edged close to the dog until she was sure he wasn't going to snatch the book and run again, but he only watched her with an interested glint in his eye and what looked very much like a mischievous grin on his face. Lyn snatched up the notebook at the first opportunity and glared at the dog, breathing hard. "And to think," she muttered, "I used to be an animal lover."

  She wiped the notebook on the back of her jeans and pushed the damp tangle of pale red hair away from her forehead. She was hot and sweaty and had a stitch in her side, and she hadn't even begun to shovel hay and dish out kibble. She wondered whether or not it had ever occurred to Pat that there were easier ways to make a living.

  She decided to take it one step at a time, according to Pat's directions and in the order they were given. The care of the horses and the sheep, to Lyn's immense relief, did not require that she pick up a shovel; she measured out their feed carefully and freshened their water with a garden hose. Likewise, the chickens required no hands-on attention. She stood outside the coop and scattered their feed on the ground through the chicken wire.

  The kennel was actually a roomy fenced-off area containing half a dozen dogs of varying breeds and sizes, separate doghouses, and a central play area that was furnished with ramps for the dogs to climb on, old tires for them to chew on, and a multitude of mangled dog toys scattered around. Lyn entered carefully and was promptly mauled by dozens of muddy paws and wet tongues; she had to fight her way out again, slamming the gate and leaning against it hard.

  The truth was, Lynn was not very experienced with animals and had never been a passionate dog lover. She and Pat had had pets as children, of course, but as she grew up she had become far too involved with the problems of the human race to have much time left over for the furry kingdom. A nice quiet cat or a goldfish she could deal with, but in the midst of this menagerie Lyn was completely out of her depth. Why, she wondered, hadn't she considered that before she volunteered to take over the pet-sitting business?

  Her three canine escorts—the collies and the golden retriever—sat looking up at her curiously, and she returned their gaze with a dour twist of her lips. "So you could do better?" she challenged them.

  Then she was disgusted with herself. This wasn't brain surgery, after all. She took a deep breath, braced herself for the onslaught, and edged her way back into the run, singing softly under her breath. Her voice was husky and not very good, but she had heard somewhere that music had a calming effect on animals and in this case it seemed to work—at least for the first five or ten seconds, until the novelty wore off. At that point the dogs descended on her again and she didn't have the tune or the breath for singing. She filled the oversize washtub with fresh water as quickly as possible, managing to soak herself and three of the dogs in the process, and gathered up six food dishes, realizing only too late that it would have been easier to bring the dog food to the dishes than vice versa. It took three trips back and forth to the barn, where the food was stored, and by the time she finished she felt as though she had been through a war. She was covered with mud and dog hair, her face was streaked with grime, and if she spent the rest of the day in the shower she was sure she would never get the smell of dog out of her hair.

  And she had yet to enter the house where, according to Pat, there were three litter trays to empty and Grizabella, Captain Ahab, Mr. Spock and Sasparilla to meet, among others.

  "There ought to be a law," she grumbled, digging the house key out of her pocket.

  She filled extra dishes for the collies and the retriever, and while
they were eating she slipped inside the house. Despite the unfavorable impression she was beginning to form of the man who owned it, she did like his house. In contrast to the clean, uncluttered lines of Pat's home, this house looked as though it had been put together on a whim. None of the furniture matched, none of the floors was carpeted, none of the artwork was centered. The air was scented with a delicate, springtime fragrance that obviously came from an automatic air freshener—anyone who owned as many pets as this man would naturally find use for such a device—and Lyn gradually identified the perfume as that of fresh hyacinths. A delighted, slightly bemused grin spread over her face as she wondered what kind of man would choose to scent his home with hyacinths.

  The rich green foliage of living plants and trees occupied every available space, giving a jungle impression. There were several carpeted cat posts and platforms scattered throughout, and a huge red-and-green parrot sat on a perch in the center of the room.

  "Hello, bird," Lyn greeted him.

  The parrot returned politely, "Hello.”

  She chuckled, and set out to discover the kitchen, where rations for the indoor pets were stored. On her way she passed through what might have once been a dining room, but had now been converted into a menagerie of a different sort. There were three floor-to-ceiling wire cages, each complete with platform scratching posts, litter trays, beds, and cats. Lyn counted seven altogether, most of them in pairs—two chocolate point Siamese, two white shorthair, two black longhair... and Grizabella.

  Grizabella rated a cage all her own, and Lyn could easily see why. She was the most gorgeous cat Lyn had ever seen, a silky haired calico Persian with amber eyes and gold and black markings that were as unusual as they were somehow familiar to Lyn. Her name was inscribed in flowing script on a brass plate attached to the cage door, and purple velvet curtains were held back with gold tassels. Grizabella herself sat on a miniature velvet hassock, grooming herself and regarding Lyn with cool disdain.