“I’ve got a great choice, and one . . . not so great,” Dell admitted. “And the last one is oh-holy-fucking-shit we’re in trouble, but she’s better than nothing.” He paused, rubbed a hand over his head. “Maybe.”
Adam gave Wyatt a told-you-so look.
The front door opened and Emily walked in. Weeks ago now she’d wised up and ditched the business suits for more practical clothing. Today she was in khaki pants and a knit top that was one of those snug wraparound deals that tied beneath a breast with a bow. He watched her walk toward them while having some pretty damn explicit thoughts about that bow. Like untying it.
With his teeth.
She had a box under each arm. She set the smaller box down and read the note out loud:
Dear Dr. Dreamy Eyes,
Heard you love homemade mac and cheese, so for treating my dear Boo-Boo yesterday, I whipped some up. There’s plenty more where this came from, anytime.
Sue Mason
Dell and Adam started laughing.
“What’s so funny?” Wyatt demanded. “When you first opened up this place, every single woman in town suddenly had a dog or a cat that was sick.”
“Just happy to have passed the torch,” Dell said. “Dr. Dreamy Eyes.”
“Shit.” Wyatt snatched the note from Emily. It read exactly as she’d read, with one notable exception. “Hey. It does not say Dr. Dreamy Eyes.”
Dell wiped away tears of mirth. “I should give you a raise for that alone,” he told Emily.
“Feel free,” she said demurely.
Wyatt shook his head. “Payback’s a bitch, you know.”
“No hazing the new employees, especially the cute ones,” Dell said.
Emily grinned at him.
Dell grinned back at her.
Wyatt shook his head again and grabbed a stack of files to go to the back.
“Have a good day, Dr. Dreamy Eyes,” Dell said.
“Shit,” Wyatt said, turning back. “You are not going to call me that.”
“All day long.”
Wyatt realized he’d forgotten about the other box Emily had brought in. “What’s in there?”
“Our first patient,” she said.
Wyatt reached into the box and pulled out a painted turtle—indigenous to Idaho. “Ouch,” he said, checking out the little guy’s injured, puffy, bloody face.
The phone rang.
“Shit,” Dell said.
Another phone started ringing, and Dell swore again.
Adam quickly made his escape. Smart man. Dell looked over and Wyatt cracked up at the look on his face.
“Not funny,” Dell said.
“Yeah, it is.”
“It won’t be this afternoon. I’ve gotta be up north,” Dell said. “Brady’s flying me. So guess who’s going to be standing right here if no one shows up to help?”
Wyatt stopped laughing.
Five minutes later he was in the back with Emily and her turtle. “A new pet?” he asked.
“No, he was in my yard.”
He smiled. “So the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”
She stared at him. “Do you know my sister, Sara?”
“No.” He smiled. “Rescuing’s a good quality. Especially in a vet.”
“Maybe. But not so much in a father.”
He glanced at her, but she was bent over the turtle. “He didn’t take care of you?” he asked.
She shrugged. “He did his best.”
“But?”
She lifted her head. “But what?”
“There’s definitely a but at the end of that sentence,” he said.
She looked a little embarrassed to have been so transparent. “No. No but. Think this little guy is someone’s pet?”
Okay, so they weren’t going to chat about her dad. “I don’t know, your neighbors aren’t very close. This poor guy’s had it rough. And he’s been rudely rebuked by his mate.”
“How do you know?”
“The males use their claws to stroke their woman’s face, to woo her when he wants to mate.”
Emily’s gaze flew to his.
He smiled at her.
She dropped eye contact and looked at his hands, maybe remembering how he’d stroked the hair from her face when he’d been “wooing” her. “If she’s not in the mood,” he said, “she uses her claws to ward him off. I’m taking it she wasn’t in the mood.”
“Maybe she was just nervous.”
He looked at her over the turtle.
She bit her lower lip. “Or maybe she wasn’t ready, I don’t know.”
“Maybe she’s just prickly, and she has to be the initiator,” he said.
Her cheeks reddened, and he laughed softly. “Hold him for me,” he said.
Emily cradled the turtle between her two hands while Wyatt cleaned him up and put some antibiotic cream on the nasty cut. “You poor little man,” she whispered, stroking one of his legs. “Next time choose someone nicer.”
Wyatt smiled. “You’re not returning him to the wild.”
“Of course I am.”
He gestured to the way she’d picked the thing up and cradled it to her chest.
“Hey,” she said. “He’s hurt, that’s all.”
He nodded, but he had sisters. He knew exactly when a woman was in denial, and this was a woman deep in denial. “We have extra crates,” he said. “Take one of the small ones. It’ll make a nice little home for him.”
“I’m not keeping him!”
“Okay,” he said, watching her stroke the little guy across the head. “Whatever you say.”
She made a noise, grabbed a crate, and walked out of the room holding her turtle.
He was smirking when she stuck her head back in, looking quite pleased with herself. “What?” he asked.
“Dell says you’re backup to Mike at the front desk.”
“What about you?” he asked.
“He said I’m shadowing him on an out of office call. To one of the ranches he takes care of,” she said, smiling, her eyes flashing good humor, the little minx.
“I like that expression you’re wearing,” he said. “But there’s one I like better.”
“What?”
He strode over to her, wrapped his hand around the nape of her neck, slid his fingers into her hair to hold her where he wanted, and covered her mouth with his. When she gasped, he took full advantage, stroking his tongue to hers, kissing her until she’d plastered herself full front to him. Her arms had snaked around his waist and up under his shirt, where the touch of her fingers against his bare skin was sending currents of electricity out to every nerve ending he had, including the ones currently pressed against her pelvis.
She blinked up at him, dazed, her fingers still fisted in his shirt at his back.
“There.” He smiled down at her. “That expression. That’s my favorite.”
Seventeen
At the end of the day, Emily took Sammy home with her. Yes, she’d named the turtle. She couldn’t help it, he looked like a Sammy.
She and Sara sat on the bottom step outside their front door, staring at the box Emily had tipped on its side so that Sammy could walk away when he was ready.
He waited a good five minutes before walking cautiously out of the box and to the start of the grass.
“There he goes,” Sara said.
But Sammy stopped. Went still as stone.
“It’s all good,” Emily told him. “I’ll be here if you ever need me. Enjoy the rest of fall, eat a lot of good stuff. Have a great life, Sammy. But pick a nicer girl next time, okay?”
“Not a supermodel,” Sara said.
Sammy took a few steps and vanished into the grass.
Sara went inside to cook dinner.
Emily stayed outside until dusk, watching for Sammy. But he was gone.
* * *
The next morning, Emily once again woke up to Q-Tip on her chest, nose to nose with her. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
“Meo
w.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Emily slid out of bed and fed the bossy thing. Then she did her usual online thing.
And maybe placed a new bid on Wyatt.
Dammit. At this rate, she was going to need to take out a loan . . .
Shutting her laptop, she walked through the house, heading toward a hot shower. She took a quick detour to the front door and peeked out, not sure whether she hoped to see, or not see, Sammy.
He was at the bottom step, and Emily would’ve sworn he was smiling up at her. She whirled into the house, put some lettuce and a strawberry on a paper plate, and ran back outside, setting it before the turtle.
He went to work on the lettuce while she crouched at his side and looked over his injury. It was definitely getting better. “I have to go to work,” she told him as he gobbled up his breakfast. “But if you want to show up here again tonight, I’ll be back with more food.”
“Talking to yourself?” Sara asked from the doorway. She saw Sammy and shook her head. “Nope, you’re talking to your animals, just like Dad.”
“Sammy isn’t mine,” Emily said, rising. “He was just hungry and needed some TLC, is all.”
“Uh-huh,” Sara said wryly. “You’re halfway to a menagerie, you know that right?”
“Q-Tip belongs to the house, not me. And Sammy’s a wild animal.” And with that weak defense, Emily lifted her chin in the air and, in her Mickey Mouse pj’s, strode past her sister toward a shower.
When she got home that night, Sammy was there, waiting on her. So was Q-Tip, and Emily had to admit the truth.
She was halfway to a menagerie.
* * *
The next day promised to be as long and busy as all the others had been, but Emily was used to long days. At school she’d put in at least eight hours, and then study for several more before working part-time at whatever job she’d managed to hold onto that month. Waitressing, usually. So she was used to running ragged on little sleep in difficult, stressful conditions.
What she wasn’t used to was brushing elbows all day with the hottest vet she’d ever met. Today Wyatt had come in wearing sexy army green cargoes and a T-shirt that read: Will Work for Food.
“And you can’t figure out why women bring you food?” she asked.
He stopped at the front desk. They’d been rotating shifts there, all of them, and they all hated it equally. They grabbed their files and headed to the back, where they both slipped into white lab coats. They were unflattering on everyone but Wyatt. Somehow they always looked different on him. Cool different. His hair was finger combed at best and he hadn’t shaved that morning.
He was edible. “What?” he asked when he caught her staring at him.
“Nothing.” Thankfully, at least at the moment, his talents didn’t appear to extend to mind reading.
They worked together for four straight hours, practically on top of each other. At lunch, she sneaked out the back door for a breath of air that didn’t include the delicious scent of Wyatt.
The day was bright, the sun warm, and she texted Sara almost blindly: he’s got two-day scruff and is wearing army cargoes, and I want to eat him up with a spoon. Tell me no.
She waited a minute for a response, and didn’t get one. Instead, the back door opened behind her. When she turned her head, she nearly swallowed her tongue.
Wyatt stood there holding his phone, his eyes lit with a good amount of trouble and even more heat.
Oh God. She looked down at her phone, squinting past the bright sun.
Yep.
She’d texted him instead of Sara.
This wasn’t good. This was the opposite of good. This was bad, very, very bad. She strained for dignity, but fresh out, she had to settle for humility. Retreat, she decided, and tried to stride past him and back inside. But two things happened simultaneously. First, her body brushed against his and a shiver raced through her, the good kind that made her want to rub all over him. And second, he caught her arm, whirled her around and pressed her against the wall, covering her body with his.
“So,” he said, watching her intently. “My cell buzzed, and I got a very interesting message.”
“Oh yeah?” she asked as casually as she could.
Laughing softly, he ran the tip of his nose along her jaw.
Her legs wobbled.
“I realize that both Adam and I are wearing army cargos,” he said. “I’m trying not to make any assumptions about who you’d like to eat up with a spoon . . .” This time he used his teeth. On her earlobe.
Emily had to bite back her moan.
“So I have to ask,” he murmured, and sucked a patch of her skin into his warm mouth. “Me?”
“Yes! Okay? Yes, you, and you damn well know it.”
When he grinned like a cocky, confident alpha male who’d probably never once had to wonder if he was having a bad hair day, or if his jeans made him look fat, she shoved him.
The sexy bastard.
She didn’t budge him. Instead he dipped his head and nipped at her lower lip, then soothed the ache with a single and devastatingly arousing stroke of his tongue.
“We’re at work!” she hissed, trying to lock her knees.
“Mmm,” was his only response to her struggle against him. He liked it, damn him. “You started this.”
“I did not.” Okay, she totally had. “I didn’t mean to. You weren’t supposed to see that text.”
“So it was a Freudian slip?”
“Yes!”
His busy, clever mouth had made its way back to her ear, and when he let out a slow, long exhale, she shivered and realized she was clutching him to her with her hands fisted in his shirt. She let go and then tried to smooth the wrinkles she’d left. “You’re going to need to pretend you didn’t see that text.”
“Why?” he asked.