The True Love Quilting Club Read Online Free PDF

Street, that the enormity of what she’d done hit her.
    She’d just clocked renowned Broadway producer Scott Miller squarely in the gonads.
    It was official. Her long-cherished dream of stardom was over.

C HAPTER T WO
    Friends are like quilts, you can never have too many.
    —Lieutenant Valerie Martin Cheek, R.N., late member of the True Love Quilting Club
    The Rottweiler was a licker.
    Every time Dr. Sam Cheek bent to place the stethoscope on Satan’s chest, the drooly black dog lavishly bathed his face with a thick pink tongue.
    “He’s giving you kisses,” explained Satan’s owner, a woman in her mid-forties who was dressed like an escapee from Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” video. She wore her hair—streaked with various colors, the primary one being pink—pulled up into a high ponytail on the side of her head and pink leggings underneath a pink and black polka dot miniskirt. If Sam’s older sister Jenny were here, she’d whisper, “What not to wear” into his ear.
    But Sam didn’t care about things like that. Clothes were clothes. Sam cared about three things—his family, his town, and animals, and not necessarily inthat order. “Could you lean over here and let him kiss you so I can listen to his heart?”
    “Oh sure, sure.” The Cyndi Lauper wannabe puckered up and cooed, “How’s my little Satan? Who’s my good boy? Is it you? Is it you?”
    The Rottweiler transferred his sloppy kisses to his owner’s face, leaving Sam free to finish his examination. Ten minutes later, he straightened, shook his head. “Tell me about Satan’s symptoms again,” he said. “I’m not finding anything out of the ordinary and all his lab work is negative. I could do a CAT scan, but that’s expensive and I don’t like putting animals through unnecessary procedures.”
    The woman cocked a hand on her hip and her cheeks tinged pink. “Okay, I guess this is where I come clean.”
    Sam took a step backward, twisted up the stethoscope, and tucked it into the pocket of his lab jacket. A sheaf of hair fell over the right side of his face, but he didn’t brush it aside. He let it hide the scar that made him feel self-conscious. He didn’t say anything, just waited for her to confess whatever secret was making her blush.
    “There’s nothing wrong with Satan,” she admitted.
    Other than that hellacious name you gave him. Still, Sam did not speak. He was the fourth child out of six and he’d learned a long time ago that the best way to get to the truth was by keeping your mouth shut. Ninety percent of the time the other person would trip himself up if you just gave him a chance.
    “I’m new in town.” She batted her eyelashes. “And newly single.”
    Aw crap, not another one. Satan flicked out his tongue and licked Sam’s hand. He scratched the dogbehind the ears. It wasn’t the pooch’s fault he had a lovelorn owner.
    “I heard you liked older women and—”
    “Who told you that?”
    She looked shamefaced. “Belinda Murphey.”
    Sam’s mother’s younger sister, Belinda, ran a local matchmaking service called the Sweetest Match. She’d been trying for months to get Sam to sign up, but he wasn’t the least bit interested in dating again. It was too soon. Valerie had been gone just over a year, and between being the only small animal vet in Twilight and raising his son, Charlie, he had no time for distraction. His aunt Belinda had been surreptitiously sending women his way, and if it wasn’t for keeping peace in the family, he’d have confronted her before now.
    “I don’t appreciate you using your dog as a matchmaking tool,” he admonished.
    “So you don’t like older women? Belinda said your late wife was six years older than you and I—”
    “I’m not ready to date again,” he said curtly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have patients to see.”
    “Yes, okay, sure. I didn’t mean to offend you, Dr. Cheek.”
    He wasn’t offended. He was just irritated. “No harm