Love Gone to the Dogs — Margaret Daley

Love Gone to the Dogs, Book 1 Second Chances Series, by Margaret Daley, sweet contemporary romantic comedic

Single mom, Leah Taylor, has her hands full with a grandfather, an inventor, who lives a bit risky when it comes to his job and two sons, one a rambunctious genius. But it is her free spirited beagle who gets her into trouble with her new neighbor, Dr. Shane O'Grady, when her dog makes a move on his champion bichon that he wants to breed.

Leah and Shane clash over their dogs that clearly like each other. Leah is determined to ignore her neighbor, but when her youngest son who tries to defy gravity and fly ends up hurt, it is her neighbor, the doctor, who takes care of her son. Can Leah and Shane find love or has love gone to the dogs?

Excerpt from Love Gone to the Dogs


When Leah Taylor heard the pounding on her front door at seven o'clock in the morning, she jumped, nearly sloshing her coffee all over her hand. Did burglars now announce themselves before stealing a person blind? No one else in his right mind would be out visiting at this time. Carefully, so as not to spill the hot brew, she placed the mug on the kitchen counter and made her way toward the insistent pounding that she was sure was waking up the whole neighborhood.

She peered out a narrow slit in her mini blind and saw an enraged, huge man standing on her front porch with a shredded newspaper in one hand. The other was clenched at his side. He wore practically nothing except a pair of jean shorts. He stepped back and glanced around, clearly not happy that no one had answered his summons.

Backing away from the window next to her door, Leah nervously chewed the end of one of her acrylic nails. The man looked familiar. She was sure she had seen him in the yard across the street. He had to be a neighbor. But why was he welcoming her to the neighborhood at such an early hour, and with an angry expression on his face? She had been here only a few days, and her family hadn't done anything yet to upset the delicate balance of this small town. Or had they? She thought back over the past few days of almost nonstop unpacking. She had been too tired to even venture from the house much, and the same went for the rest of her family -- she hoped.

When the pounding started again, she was so surprised by the sound that she bit through the end of her new acrylic nail. Well, now he was making her mad. Without thinking, she yanked open the front door and prepared to confront the man who had the nerve to pay her a call at seven o'clock in the morning.

"Look what you made me do!" Leah held up her hand. "I've tried everything to grow my own nails long, and nothing's worked. I finally decide to get fake ones -- that I might, by the way, tell you cost me forty dollars -- and look what your pounding has done. They haven't even lasted one week." She blew out a deep breath, then brushed her bangs away from her face in frustration.

His dark eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open. He started to say something, but decided instead to allow his gaze to trek downward slowly -- way too slowly for Leah's peace of mind. A blush leaped into her cheeks as she remembered her skimpy attire. She controlled the strong urge to try to stretch her large, white T-shirt until it covered more than the tops of her thighs. When his survey stopped at her bare feet, her toes wiggled as if they had a will of their own.

She felt practically naked under his intense look. While he was staring at her, she began at his bare feet, which were braced apart in a stance that conveyed his anger, not one toe wiggling. Her gaze traveled upward over long legs that probably belonged to a runner, to narrow hips that the jean material hugged nicely. She paused ever so slightly at the washboard ripples in his flat stomach and came to the decision that the man worked out religiously, something she religiously tried to avoid. Her impression of his being an exercise freak was confirmed when he