My toe caught on the second to last step and, had I not been bequeathed with a fair amount of grace from years of dancing, I’m certain I would have face planted into the ancient, lord knows what’s hiding in between the cracks, plank floor.

Righting myself, ensuring shoes, purse, and pride were still intact, I forced myself to make a sacred vow that I would never allow myself to daydream, think of, ponder, wonder, or lust after Jude Ryder again.

I didn’t need a signed petition from the countless girls he’d seduced and left high and dry to know he was a one way ticket to an unwanted pregnancy at worst or a broken heart at best.

“See ya, Dad,” I called out, snatching an apple from the fruit bowl. “I’m off to dance practice and I’ll be home sometime before dinner.” Grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, I was out the door two heartbeats later.

It didn’t matter how long I hung around, there would be no response from my dad. Not even a nod of acknowledgement. He could have been a mannequin in his chair, staring absently out the window at nothing.

I could have been screwing half the world’s population on the kitchen counter and he wouldn’t have cared. Or even noticed.

Reminding myself that dwelling on the screwedupedness that was my family wouldn’t fix a thing, I turned my thoughts to something else, anything else, that wasn’t family related.

And where did my mind lead my thoughts to?

Jude Ryder.

I was on some sort of sick, self-destruction thought stream.

Heading towards the Mazda, something caught my eye. Something that stood out because of the way it caught the early morning sun. Something that had not been there yesterday.

Turning towards the beach, I saw what was responsible for stopping me in my tracks at seven oh two in the morning.

It was cyclone fencing, a rectangle of it, containing a miniature house, two plastic bowls, and a knotted rope inside of it. A dog kennel.

A solution to one of the endless problems that riddled my life.

An answer to a silent prayer.

Striding down the beach, biting my lip to keep the phantom tears from even thinking about forming, I noticed there was a red bow tied across the padlock door, a folded note hanging beneath it.

I suppose to ninety-nine point nine percent of teenage girls, a dog kennel as a present ranked just above a bad hair day on prom night, but to me—a girl who couldn’t have fit the mold of normal if she tried every day of forever—it was like finding the latest Hollywood heartthrob wrapped beneath the Christmas Tree with a tag that read, Enjoy.

Grinning like the schoolgirls I rolled my eyes at, I ripped the note from the bow, not even caring who had built the kennel. This meant mini Cujo could stay with me until I’d rehabbed him so he could be adopted into another family.

My smile that felt like it wouldn’t end did just that rather abruptly as soon as I read the words.

So. How about that date?

It was signed with nothing other than a J, but I didn’t need the perfect punctuation or the following three letters to know who’d left it. Just the man I needed to, yet couldn’t, stop thinking about.

Just the man I never needed to see again. Just the man I wanted to see right now.

If my history of failed relationships didn’t already prove it, this did. I was going to end up an old, malevolent shrew.

Taking a quick scan of the area, there was no sign of a man whose face, body, and smirk shunned the gods. I was irritated at myself for being disappointed.

Certain a guy like Jude knew exactly what he was doing and what his next play was going to be, I shot one more smile at the kennel before jogging to the Mazda. The mirror walls and wood floors were beckoning to me and, as I’d already admitted, dance came before boys.

With perhaps the exception of one.

Shaking my head and putting a heavy lid on my irresponsible, internal evil twin, I turned the key over in the ignition and blasted music until the speakers sounded like they were about to blow out.

I still couldn’t erase Jude Ryder from my mind.

I wiped out. Fell so hard on my ass it knocked the wind right out of me. The last time I’d taken a fall of any kind was when I was ten and on the second day on my pointes.

I was mad the fall had cut my practice short. I was madder Becky Sanderson, who’d been bragging she was a shoo-in for Julliard since we were in grade school, had had a front row seat to it. I was maddest I’d have a bruise the size of Cape Cod on my derriere until winter break because I’d been thinking of a certain someone I most certainly shouldn’t have been.

Whatever and why ever it was, Jude had set off a grenade in my life that was decimating even the most sacred pieces in less than a twenty-four hour period.

I wanted to curse the maker for not completing the female cast with a delete slash purge button when it came to men, but I was too superstitious. I was convinced swearing at the divine was followed by a one way ticket to hell. And not the otherworld, Satan and demon dwelling hell. Hell on earth.

Let’s face it, I was already so close I needed to be on my best behavior every second of the day.

Pulling into the driveway, I slammed my head down on the steering wheel, trying to conceive of a viable equation for time travel so I could fast forward my life one year.

Because dogs were the most sensitive creatures on this earth, a hot, wet tongue slid up my cheek.

“Why can’t you be a teenage boy, Rambo?” I asked, scratching him behind his ears.

A yap and a doggy smile was his answer. My newest pet project, pun intended, earned himself a name last night at the Darcys’. Apparently a Rambo marathon played all night long and whenever Mr. Darcy had attempted to turn off the TV, the pup had gone all nutso on him, so he left it on and, by dawn, neutered male, mixed breed, scheduled for euthanization the same day I adopted him, had a new name.

“All right, boy,” I said, frowning at the beach house. “Let’s get this over with.” Scooping up all of Rambo’s twenty pounds, I beelined for the kennel like it was safe territory. Like if I proved I could contain him, I could keep him.

“Here’s your new house, Rambo,” I whispered as I shooed him inside. “Be a good boy and don’t dig, bark, or tear your doggy house to shreds, okay?”

He began inspecting the kennel right away, growling in the corners where I guessed a certain set of hands had spent a lot of time fastening nuts and bolts together.

“You’re not a big fan of Jude’s, are you?” I said, kneeling outside the kennel door. “Why is that?”

“Probably because dogs have great intuition.”

I was so startled by the voice behind me and its proximity to my neck that I stumbled back, falling on my butt. For a grand total of two times that day. At this rate, I was going to become the first prima klutz ever.

“Dammit, Jude,” I said as Rambo broke into a tirade. “There were these great one syllable words referred to as greetings that were invented so one person”—I motioned at him—“could alert another person before they—”

“Fell smack on their ass?” he finished, offering me that same grin that had been my undoing yesterday and, as my twisting gut was proving, today as well.

“Startled them,” I finished, about to push myself off the ground when he reached for my hands and pulled me up. I told myself the warmth, the heat, that trickled into my veins at his touch had everything to do with the hot as Hades summer day.

Even in my most authoritative voice, I wasn’t very convincing.

His smile ticked higher. His eyes flickered. He knew exactly what his touch was doing to me. And I hated that he knew.

“Sorry I startled you,” he said, letting go of my hands.

“Sorry you knocked me on my ass, you mean?” I smirked at him, wishing he wouldn’t look at me like he could see and hear everything taking place below my skin.