SEATTLE CINDERELLA: FOUR-IN-ONE COLLECTION Page 19

  “That’s right. All of the above. I made a big mistake and didn’t tell her everything about myself because I wanted her to get to know me first, just as the man from the book club.”

  “Didn’t you trust her? Did you think it would make a difference?”

  “At first, yes. I was afraid. I also didn’t know Zella enough at that point. I know now it wouldn’t have made any difference to her. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but most often ineffective. I need to tell her how sorry I am.” He paused, which made Melissa look up, right into his eyes. With eye contact locked, he continued. “It all happened pretty fast, but I love your daughter and I need to tell her that. I only hope that she’ll forgive me for my poor judgment.” He held out the special copy of his latest book that he’d brought. “I know she hasn’t finished reading this one yet, and I want her to have this as a gift. When I give it to her, I would like it if you could give us some time alone to talk.”

  Melissa blinked. “Are you really T. J. Zereth?”

  Trevor smiled. “Sometimes. But for now, I’m just plain old Trevor Jones. That’s the T. J. part.”

  “I guess that makes sense.” Melissa checked her watch. “She should be home any minute.”

  “I know.” He squirmed and felt his cheeks heat up. He hadn’t slept well, and then he’d gone into work early in order to take a long lunch break, and he’d fueled himself with far too much coffee, which was catching up with him. “Before she gets here, may I use the washroom?”

  Melissa pointed. “Down the hall and to the right.”

  Just his luck, Zella came in while he was still washing his hands.

  Her voice echoed down the hall loud and clear. “What’s this? I thought I burned it.”

  He cringed as Melissa’s voice came back even louder; he could picture her doing it on purpose so he would hear. “He brought it here for you, as a gift.”

  “Trevor was here? When?”

  Trevor cringed. He’d parked down the street so she wouldn’t see his car and know he was there. Now he wasn’t sure he’d made the right decision.

  He strode down the hall, stopping at the entrance to the living room.

  Zella stood facing Melissa, her back to him, his book in her hand, her posture ramrod stiff.

  He cleared his throat. “I got here about ten minutes ago, and I’m still here.”

  She spun around so fast her hair smacked Melissa in the face.

  “I have something to do in the kitchen,” Melissa muttered then turned and left the room.

  Zella held the book out toward him at full arm’s length. “I don’t want this. Take it back and go home.”

  He approached her, standing close enough so she wouldn’t throw the book at him, literally. “You have every right to be angry. I know I should have told you sooner. At first I was just feeding my ego, thinking that you’d treat me as if I were some big star or something, when I wanted you to get to know just the real me.” He lowered his head and ran his hands down the sides of his pants. “I wasn’t trying to deceive you. Or maybe I was, but not for the reason you think. As I got to know you better, things changed. I got scared that I wouldn’t be able to live up to your expectations. Then you would have been disappointed that when you got to know me, you’d find out I’m just an ordinary guy with a day job.” He swallowed. Hard. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh.” Zella lowered her head and stared at the book in her hands.

  Suddenly doubts roared through him. He’d had two days of agony to sort his thoughts and make his plans, but now that it was happening, he realized that he was moving too fast. Just like him, Zella needed time to think, and he hadn’t allowed her that.

  Slowly she ran her fingers over the embossed lettering of his name on the cover. “I hate to say this, but you were right. I would have thought about you differently. I would have put you in a place that wasn’t right, put you on a pedestal you didn’t want to be on. But I’ll always have the highest respect and even awe for what you’ve done. You’ve been blessed with a rare and special talent.” She slid a couple of fingers inside the front cover in preparation to open the book. “I’m so sorry I destroyed all your books. Since you’ve brought this one, I was wondering if you can still fulfill one of my dreams and sign it for me. That would be really special.”

  Trevor’s heart pounded in his chest. This wasn’t going as planned. She was opening the book too soon. “No. Wait. I—”

  As she flipped the cover, a sparkle of light flashed in her eyes.

  Zella gasped.

  “I love you, Zella, will you marry me?” he blurted as she stared at the engagement ring he’d put in the hollowed-out center of the book.

  With shaking fingers, she pulled the ring out of its nest in the book.

  And handed it to him.

  Trevor gulped. He’d blown it again. But he would be a man about this. He would summon all his pride and dignity and walk out with his head held high. Then when he got home, if he didn’t first run his car off the road, he would find something and break it into a million pieces, like his heart.

  “Yes,” Zella said, her voice trembling. “I love you, too, and I will marry you. But I can tell you don’t do happily-ever-after endings. If that’s what you want, I shouldn’t put this on my own finger. You should be the one to do that.”

  Trevor didn’t know how he did it without dropping it, but he managed to hold the ring in his hammy fingers, and despite his shaking hands, he slid the ring onto her finger.

  “It’s a little big, but they can fix that.”

  “Yes, they can. But you can’t fix this book. You’ll have to buy me another one. I never did get to finish it.”

  “It’s got a happy ending,” he said, grinning as he looked at the ring, his ring, on the finger of the woman he loved. “And now we’ve got one, too.”

  He started to close his eyes to kiss her, when he heard Melissa squeal and come running into the room.

  “Mother…” Zella groaned as she turned around to face her mother. “We’re getting married.”

  Melissa clasped her hands together. “Now I get to plan your wedding. The wedding of someone famous.”

  “No,” Trevor said. “No media, no announcements. I want something quiet and simple. No one really knows who I am, and I want to keep it that way. I want a small wedding at either my church or Zella’s church. Close friends and family only.”

  Zella’s eyes lit up. “Or maybe you can pretend we never had this conversation, and then we can elope.”

  Her mother stepped back, her eyes wide. “Elope? But what about the party? You need a big send-off.”

  Zella crossed her arms. “Let them party without us.”

  “Yeah,” Trevor said. “I don’t do parties. In fact, eloping sounds like a great idea.” He turned to Zella then whispered in her ear so her mother wouldn’t hear. “Let’s do that. How about next Saturday?”

  Melissa sighed. “I heard you, but if that’s what you want, fine.” She shuffled out, and the room fell silent.

  Zella giggled. “If this were one of your books, I’d call this a happily-ever-after ending.”

  “No,” Trevor said, wrapping his arms around his bride-to-be. “This isn’t the ending. This is the beginning of a new story. Ours. One that we’re going to cowrite. Right?”

  Zella smiled and snuggled into his chest. “Write. Er, right. Whatever.”

  NEVER TOO LATE

  Dedication

  Dedicated to all the wonderful staff and volunteers at Homeward Pet Adoption Center in Woodinville, Washington (www.homewardpet.org). Thank you for your help, and most of all thank you for giving so many homeless pets another chance to share their love.

  Chapter 1

  Farrah Tobias waited as Cindy checked her watch. “Thanks again for housesitting for us,” Cindy said. “And Kat-sitting. You don’t know how much it means to us. It feels like I’ve been working ten hours a day, six days a week for months.”

  Farrah glanced at Kat, who very impatiently stood waiti
ng at the door. “That’s because you have. You need this weekend getaway. Especially on your anniversary. You and Luke go have fun. Hurry up or you’ll miss your flight. We’ll see you Sunday night.”

  Cindy glanced toward the bedroom, where Luke was still packing. “Still, I would think you have something better to do on a Friday night than making another trip to the animal shelter.”

  Farrah didn’t, but she didn’t want to tell Cindy that. In her grandmother’s era, fifty was considered nearly over the hill, but in today’s world, fifty-year-old women didn’t spend all their time sitting in a circle sipping tea in their rocking chairs. Farrah had a rocking chair, but she wasn’t ready to retire to it quite yet. Tonight a bunch of her friends had planned to get together to prepare for a shopping trip up to Canada on the next long weekend, but Susan had come down with the flu, so their planning party had been canceled at the last minute.

  “Don’t worry about it. Just think, when Kat gets her driver’s license, she’ll drive herself to the shelter.”

  Cindy’s face paled. “That’s something I don’t really want to think about yet,” she muttered.

  “I remember when you got your license. The days your father took you out driving were some of the best, and worst, of his life.”

  Cindy raised one finger in the air. “It wasn’t my fault when I hit that tree. Or wrecked that truck.”

  In the blink of an eye, Kat joined them. “You hit a tree when you were learning to drive? And you wrecked a truck? Maybe you shouldn’t be teaching me. Maybe I’ll go to that driving school after all.”

  Farrah burst out laughing. “It really wasn’t her fault. Cindy and her father were driving beside a landscaping truck, and a tree fell out of the back of the pickup. It bounced, landed in front of her, and she hit it.”

  Kat stared at Cindy. Her eyes widened. “That must have been scary.”

  “Not as scary as the truck behind me,” Cindy said as she shuddered. “When I slammed into the tree, I thought the truck behind me was going to squash us. It swerved at the last second and went into the ditch. Then it tipped. Watching it go over was like in the movies when all the bad things happen in slow motion. Except in real life it was terrifying. He couldn’t stop because he’d been following too close. You know how traffic is around here. He wasn’t badly hurt, but he blamed me for wrecking his truck.”

  “What about the guy who lost the tree? Did he come back?”

  “No, but the car beside me chased him and had almost caught up to him when a police car caught him in his radar. Then the cop chased him while he chased the landscaper.”

  Luke joined them. “You never told me about that. It sounds like something that would happen in one of Trevor’s books.”

  Kat grinned ear to ear. “Trevor gave me his autograph. I showed it to all my friends at school, and they want to know where I saw T. J. Zereth. I wish I could tell them that we’re related.” Kat turned to Cindy. “Am I related to T. J. Zereth? I mean Trevor?”

  Cindy started counting the relationship jumps on her fingers. “Let’s see. Luke is your uncle, and he’s married to me, and I’m Zella’s stepsister, only related by marriage, and Zella’s married to Trevor. That wouldn’t count as being related. Sorry.”

  Farrah shook her head. She couldn’t believe that Zella had married so fast. Or Annie, for that matter.

  Actually Cindy had married quickly, too. She barely had the engagement ring on her finger before the matching wedding ring joined it. Of course because of her job, she seldom wore either on her finger; instead, the rings hung around her neck on her mother’s gold chain.

  Farrah sighed. She’d been in love like that once, and she’d thought she would have one of the happily-ever-after relationships that Cindy, Annie, and Zella were all embarking on. But it hadn’t worked out that way, and time kept marching forward. She’d turned thirty then forty, and a month ago she’d turned fifty, without ever having fallen in love like that again. She had come to accept that after what she’d been through, she no longer had it in her.

  Of course she was happy that love had happened for her goddaughter, as well as Cindy’s stepsisters, especially now that the three girls had become almost as close as real sisters. With Cindy married to Luke, Farrah spent so much time with Kat that it was like having a god-granddaughter, if there were such a thing.

  “Come on, Kat. Let’s let Cindy and Uncle Luke finish packing. I’ll let you drive.”

  Matt Robinson double-checked the catch on the gate to the cage. Fortunately this dog hadn’t been abused, only neglected.

  He paused and lowered his head to rest against the cold metal fencing. Only neglected. Every time he saw what some of these animals had endured, it tore at his heart, and that was why he was there. He and his partner at the clinic, both veterinarians, each volunteered several days a month at the Homeward Pet Adoption Center animal shelter. As well, when a volunteer or the staff veterinarian called in sick or needed a day off, he frequently gave them extra time, as long as his appointments at his clinic were covered.

  It was Friday night, and a small group of teens would be arriving soon—a kindhearted bunch who gave up part of their weekend to walk and bathe the animals at the shelter and clean and disinfect the cages. All of them would spend time petting and comforting the animals waiting to be adopted.

  He sighed as he looked at the dogs, many with their noses at the front of their enclosures, waiting, watching him. Probably hoping that he would take them home.

  This same sight, replayed with each visit, broke his heart. He wished he could take them all home, but he already had enough animals. He could only suggest that when someone lost a beloved pet, he or she might think about paying a visit to the shelter.

  Matt straightened as he saw one of the teen volunteers approaching with her mother. He recognized this girl because she’d been part of the adoption of a dog he’d saved after a car accident. Not long after she adopted the dog, she began volunteering at the center.

  Matt found it very amusing that a girl named Kat helped her uncle adopt a dog. It was outright funny that she’d named a three-legged dog Tippy. He hadn’t seen Tippy since the pooch had left the shelter, but he knew she was in a good home. In fact, from what he’d heard, it sounded like the dog was in Kat’s home most of the time.

  “Hi, Kat,” he called out and waved. He liked to meet the younger volunteers’ parents, to compliment the work that their kids did as a way of showing his appreciation.

  When the two reached him, he extended his hand to Kat’s mother. “I’m Matt. I’m covering for the staff vet today. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Usually Kat’s uncle drops her off.”

  Kat and her mother exchanged a strange look before the woman reciprocated the handshake. “My name is Farrah. It’s nice to meet you, too.”

  Matt smiled. “I wanted to say how great it is to have Kat volunteering here. She’s wonderful with the cats, and she does a great job helping in the cat rooms. How’s Tippy been doing lately? On my last schedule, I heard that she was burying socks in the backyard.”

  Farrah turned to Kat. “She is?” Farrah started to laugh. “I hope she buried those ugly socks of yours with the toes.”

  Kat’s eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened. “Those are my favorite socks.” She turned back to Matt and smiled. “Where do you want me to start?”

  “Since you’re the first one here, how about you start at number one. I see Jeff and his dad coming into the lot. He can start at the other end, and you can meet in the middle.”

  Kat grinned. “Sure, but first I want to see Muffy’s kittens.”

  Before he could tell her that one of them had already been adopted, Kat grabbed her mother’s hand and dragged her off to the cats’ building.

  As they walked away, Kat glanced over her shoulder at him and grinned then turned back to her mother, lowering her voice as they walked away.

  “See? I told you Dr. Matt was a hottie.”

  Matt choked then thumped himself in the chest
. He’d never been called a hottie in his life and certainly not since he was nearing forty years old.

  He watched the two of them disappear around the corner, and when they were gone, he pressed one hand over his stomach, which wasn’t bulging, but wasn’t as flat as it used to be.

  He couldn’t help but be charmed by Kat’s mother’s smile. He knew Kat was seventeen, which made him guess her mother to be about the same age as he was, give or take a few years.

  Not that he was interested in married women, but maybe there was still hope for him, after all.

  Chapter 2

  Farrah followed Kat to the cat room and stood to the side as Kat got ready to start cleaning the cages.

  “What do you think of Dr. Matt?” Kat asked as she hung up her sweater in the closet.

  “I really didn’t have much of a chance to talk to him, but he seems nice.”

  “He’s Tyler’s uncle. That’s how I found out about this place.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Tyler first started volunteering here because of his uncle Matt.”

  “It’s really good of Tyler to do that.”

  Kat giggled. “My friends think he’s so hot because he’s doing this.”

  Farrah lost her smile. “Tyler should be volunteering here because he wants to help the animals, not to impress the girls.”

  “He does help the animals.” Kat nodded her head so fast her hair bounced. “He wants a dog and a cat but his mom won’t let him. That’s why he likes doing this. We get to hold and cuddle all the cats. It’s really important to keep their cages clean, and we have to update the logs for food and meds if the cats need them. But the best part is holding them. The staff calls it socializing.”

  “Ah. Socializing. So that’s what’s going on here.” Farrah smiled, but Kat just kept going.

  “Tyler is going to be eighteen in a few months. After he goes through some training, he’s going to change and be a volunteer to help the dogs. He says he wants to be a vet, just like his uncle. He’ll make a really good vet.”