White Picket Fences. Tara Taylor Quinn

told me she was interested in having a relationship with me and asked me if that was something I would consider.”

      “Friendship wasn’t relationship enough?” he muttered sarcastically. His world was out of control and he couldn’t seem to stop it from spinning faster and faster.

      “I know this is hard for you to understand—”

      “Damn straight it’s hard,” he interrupted. “Try impossible.”

      Dawn sank down onto their bed, and as much as he wanted to hate her, Zack had to admire the way she was sticking this out. Trying to do the decent thing by him. Some distant part of Zack even appreciated the attention she was giving him.

      “I’m in love with her,” she said, shaking her head helplessly.

      “We’re talking about a woman here!”

      “I know.” Her face lined with confusion, she sounded as though she was finding it as difficult to make sense of all this as he was. Except that she’d apparently had a lot longer to get used to the idea. Eight months, to be exact.

      Zack turned away. He couldn’t even look at the bed he’d shared with her during the past eight months. Couldn’t think of all the times he’d made love to her.

      Oh, God. He felt sicker than ever. Had she been thinking of another woman whenever he’d…

      “How does a woman suddenly decide she wants another woman?” he demanded, feeling frustrated. Hurt.

      “I suspected I might be a lesbian even before we got married.”

      “You had relationships with other women way back then?” He swung around to pin her with an accusing glare. How in hell could he not have known?

      “No.” She shook her head, withstood his look. “I could never quite acknowledge that there were just times when I’d feel something—or more importantly, wouldn’t feel something.”

      That punched him in the gut. “You were faking the whole time you were with me?”

      “No!” She stood, approached him, stopping only when he started to back away from her. “That’s just it. When I met you, when you touched me, I felt real desire for a man for the first time in my life. I can’t tell you how relieved I was.”

      Zack held out a hand to her. “Then…”

      She shook her head, forestalling his words. “It didn’t last,” she said. “Or at least, not strongly enough. I feel things when I’m with Barbara that I’ve never felt before. This is right for me, Zack. I’m one hundred percent sure of it.”

      There appeared to be nothing left to say. Hands in his slacks pockets, Zack wondered how best to extricate himself, pride intact.

      “I care very much for you, Zack,” she said beseechingly. He couldn’t figure out why she’d bothered to say that.

      “Not enough, apparently.”

      “Plenty,” she countered. “More than you’ll ever know. It’s killing me to do this.”

      “Then don’t do it.” So much for pride. “Let’s just forget this whole conversation ever took place.”

      But could he really? Every time he looked at her he’d have to picture her with—

      “I just don’t feel anything…sexually when I’m with you.”

      He felt the blood drain from his face.

      “I want more than anything to be your friend.”

      “I don’t think that’ll be possible.” The cold voice that said those words wasn’t one he even recognized.

      Dawn bowed her head. “I understand.”

      “Do you?” the stranger’s voice continued.

      “Yes,” she whispered, fresh tears pooling in her soft blue eyes as she looked up at him. “Please, please don’t blame yourself for this,” she begged him, touching his arm.

      Zack jerked away. “Who else am I to blame when my wife tells me that I’m not only unable to keep her happy in our bed, I can’t manage to keep her at all? That she doesn’t want to be married to me because…because I’m the wrong sex. If that makes any sense.”

      “I had the…tendencies before I ever met you, Zack.”

      “But I was able to change that. To turn you on.”

      “For a brief time, yes.” She nodded.

      “Maybe if I’d been man enough, the time wouldn’t have been so brief.” His own voice was back—sort of. It was thick with emotion. Saying things he couldn’t stomach.

      “If you hadn’t been such an incredible man, I would never have felt anything to begin with.”

      “Perhaps that would have been better.”

      “Perhaps. For you, at least.”

      He glanced over at her, wondering what she meant by that.

      “I’ll never be sorry that I knew you Zack. You’ve added dimensions to my life that I’ll cherish forever.”

      He didn’t need any of her sap for his battered pride. He didn’t need anything from her.

      He knew what she was saying. Understood that he wasn’t to blame for Dawn’s choices. But deep down in his gut, he still felt responsible. Somehow.

      “I’ll be gone tonight,” he told her, striding for the door.

      “You’ll need time to arrange for movers and—”

      “I don’t want a damn thing from this house,” he said, “except Sammie and Bear. They’re mine.” That was the only thing he was sure of. “You can have it all—sell it all—I don’t give a damn what you do with it….”

      A wet nose nudged Zack’s palm, brought him back to the present. He ignored it. He still didn’t give a damn. It was the only way to get from one day to the next. Because you couldn’t take anything for granted. Not even something as basic as love and marriage. One minute it was there, and the very next minute, reality could completely change.

      The only given was himself.

      The nose nudged him again. Harder.

      Looking into Sammie’s big dark eyes, Zack sighed, setting down the bottle he still clutched in one hand. Hell.

      He’d gone and done it, anyway—he’d thought of Dawn. Relived that whole last horrible scene—for the first time in weeks.

      He’d wallowed.

      And he hated that.

      “Okay, Sammie, my girl, from now on, we play catch in the evenings, got it?” he asked.

      She wagged her tail, turned in a circle and barked.

      Now there was one female he could count on.

      IN DEFERENCE TO the cooler sixty-degree temperature, Randi pulled a sweatshirt over the usual bike shorts and cropped T-shirt she wore to work. And added the finishing touch, the sports socks and tennis shoes that were also standard attire for the youngest women’s athletic director Montford University had ever had. Classes didn’t start for another week—the fifteenth of January—but Randi, along with the rest of the Montford faculty, was due back the Monday before.

      Not a minute too soon, as far as she was concerned.

      Running her fingers through her short blond hair, she dashed for her Jeep. She had a meeting later that morning with her head basketball coach—recruitment possibilities to discuss—but Randi had something else to accomplish first. Something to knock off her list—she hoped.

      The Shelter Valley Veterinary Clinic was just around the corner from downtown, not even a block from