Page 50 of Flirting with the Society Doctor

“Attacked him.”

Mouth agape, Faith asked, “Yoda attacked Vale?”

Mrs. Beasley nodded proudly. “Probably brought blood with the way he was attached to his leg. That’ll teach him to keep banging on your door and disturbing the peace.”

Vale had been banging on her apartment door?

Faith bit the inside of her lip.

; Maybe she should have answered one of his zillion calls to her cellphone, but she hadn’t. She’d erased his messages without listening to them. Talking to him would accomplish nothing. Not at this point. Maybe when time had passed and she was stronger, when he didn’t make her dream of things she knew better than to dream about. But not yet because her dreams were filled with him.

“That’s why Vale dognapped Yoda?” She tried to wrap her brain around how Vale had gone from beating on her apartment door to stealing her dog. “Because Yoda attacked him?”

“I’ve no idea why the scoundrel took Yoda.” Mrs. Beasley shuddered at what she obviously considered a harrowing experience. “He didn’t ask for a ransom, just said if you wanted your dog back, you knew where to find him.”

Faith fell back into a chair, her hand going to her temple.

Yoda dognapped by her former boss.

If she wanted her baby back, she had to go to him.

She had a good mind to do as Mrs. Beasley suggested and call the police and have Vale arrested. Watching his arrogant face plastered across the nine o’clock news would please her to no end. The great Dr. Vale Wakefield, talented neurosurgeon and playboy heir to a real estate empire, arrested for stealing a helpless dog. Oh, the press would have a field day.

But instead of picking up her phone, she glanced at a giggling Sharon.

“This really isn’t funny, you know,” she advised the woman who was quickly becoming a dear friend. “Your cousin has my dog.”

“You have to give him points for creativity. Dog-napping Yoda was quite ingenious in assuring you’d stop avoiding him.” Sharon smiled smugly. “We Wakefields are known for our resourcefulness when it comes to getting what we want.”

“You could go and get Yoda for me,” Faith suggested, knowing Sharon’s answer even before the woman said a word. Despite not being willing to budge an inch where Steve was concerned, Sharon seemed quite positive Faith should give Vale a chance to prove that he really had wanted to continue their relationship, that he’d wanted more than just a weekend fling with her, that she really was different from all the women he’d known.

But why give him a chance to prove that when doing so would only lead to pain down the road? Horrible pain because he wouldn’t stick around and then where would she be?

“No way.” Sharon shook her head. “Yoda is your dog. You know he has no taste and gnaws at my shoes. If you want the mangy mutt back, you’ll have to go and get him. Personally, I say good riddance.”

But the amused gleam in Sharon’s eyes told she was teasing. Mostly. Yoda had yet to be completely forgiven for destroying an Italian shoe he’d mistaken for an expensive chew toy.

Vale wanted to talk to her. They’d talk. But she didn’t have anything different to tell him from what she’d said two weeks ago. Not really.

Of course there were all the things she hadn’t said that last day. Like how much she missed the time they’d spent together. How much she missed consulting with him, laughing with him, just being with him. How much she missed how it had felt to lie in his arms and breathe in his masculine scent.

No, she hadn’t told him any of those things and being away from the office for two weeks hadn’t helped matters, had perhaps made things worse.

She missed Vale. Horribly. With all her heart.

Wherein lay the problem.

The truth was that Vale had stolen much more than her dog.

And as much as she’d like to think staying away from him would help prevent her from hurting, she wasn’t so sure anything could help her from the devastation of being without Vale. Which made her no better than her mother. Destined to move through life searching for an elusive feeling she’d known once and desperately strove to find again.

“Fine,” she told the two women anxiously waiting to hear her plans. “I’ll go and get my dog.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

FAITH hadn’t been inside Wakefield and Fishe since the day she’d quit her dream job. Marcus Fishe had come to her, tried to get her to tell him what had happened, had probably already figured out the truth.