go.
Jake grabbed her by the ankle. “Wait! You shouldn’t run with your knee like that. It’s bleeding. It’ll swell. It’ll get infected.”
“Thanks, Jake, but it’ll be fine, really.”
He held his hand up. “I know about these things. I’m a veterinarian. There are germs in the dirt that are just waiting to jump into that cut. You need a disinfectant.”
He struggled to his feet. “You need to rest, elevate your leg. I’ll cut through these yards and call us a cab…”
Amy rolled her eyes and trotted away. One of Jake’s most endearing traits was his sense of humor. Picking up the pace a little so he wouldn’t get bored, Amy flushed with pleasure at the obvious concern she’d seen on Jake’s face. She had the feeling she had already taken a much bigger fall-for him.
Jake was glad for the encroaching darkness as he doggedly plodded beside Amy, down Gainsborough Drive to Wheatstone, thinking his appendectomy had been less painful than this run. There was little satisfaction in Amy’s declaration that she was tiring. He’d passed “tired” five miles back and was working on “near death.”
He forced himself to walk up her front steps in a normal fashion, dragged himself into the foyer, and sprawled onto the living room rug. “I have a cramp,” he mumbled.
Amy bent to help. “In your leg? Want me to massage it?”
Jake closed his eyes. “Mmmm.”
“Which leg? Right? Left?”
“Yeah.”
“You have a cramp in both legs?”
Jake flopped over onto his back. “I have a cramp in my body.”
“Um, could you be more specific?”
He opened one eye. Tell me this isn’t happening, he said to himself. She’s asking me where I want to be massaged, and I’m too tired to tell her. “It sort of moves around.”
“You need a nice hot shower.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll go home and take one.”
Amy tried to keep the disappointment from her voice. She didn’t want the evening to end so quickly. She didn’t want Jake to leave.
“You could stay for supper. I could put a couple steaks on the grill.”
Jake thought it sounded great, but he didn’t have the energy to chew steak. His only chance of avoiding total humiliation was to get home before rigor mortis set in.
“I’d like to stay for supper, Amy, but I have things to do. This is the night I work out at the gym. You know, Nautilus, and stuff. Then I go for a swim…”
He got up carefully and slowly walked to the door, thinking that his hamstring must have shrunk two inches in the past hour. If she had this kind of stamina on the jogging path, what would she be like in bed?
Maybe he didn’t want to know. He wasn’t sure he could keep up with her. And he definitely wouldn’t want her to find
Chapter Four
Jake Elliott was a puzzle, Amy thought. He spent all that time exercising his beautiful body, and then he ate doughnuts for breakfast, skipped lunch, and ate TV dinners and fast food for supper. Amy suspected his life was in the same sort of disorder as his office, and the homemaker in her instinctively wanted to change it.
She couldn’t persuade Jake to stay for steaks last night, but he couldn’t escape her culinary efforts today. While he’d been busy with all that Nautilus business, she’d been busy in her kitchen.
She turned into the clinic parking lot at 8:45 and smiled at the basket on the seat next to her. Homemade biscuits and soup for lunch, heated in the office microwave.
Apple pie for dessert. But her motives weren’t entirely altruistic. She was taken with Jake, and the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, wasn’t it? Yessir, she had something better than cleavage. She had Fannie Farmer.
Amy slung the basket over her arm, locked the car, and took one last assessment of her khaki slacks, cream- colored silk shirt, strappy bone sandals, and large gold-knot earrings. What the well-dressed veterinary receptionist wears when she wants to impress the veterinarian, she thought, giving only a cursory glance to the two police cars parked outside as she approached the open clinic door.
Jake’s voice carried into the parking lot. “He’s gone? I can’t believe it! Nothing like this has ever happened before.”
Amy peeked into the waiting room. “Who’s gone?”
Jake ran his hand through his hair. “Rhode Island Red. He’s disappeared. He’s been rooster-napped.”
“Oh my gosh. Are you sure?”
Jake made an exasperated gesture. “The bird is gone. I’ve gone over the whole office. He’s not here.”
Amy felt her skin crawl. What sort of monster would steal a sick rooster? It was hard to believe someone would do such a thing. Her attention was attracted by Spike, sitting complacently on the front desk, washing his face with his paw. “You don’t suppose…”
Jake followed her gaze to Spike. “That Spike picked the lock and ate the bird?”
“He does look a little plumper than usual.”
Jake shook his head. “No. Spike was in the parking lot when I drove up this morning. Whoever took the bird, accidentally let Spike out.”
Several local cameramen and reporters entered the small waiting room. Lens caps were removed, pads were snapped open. A man motioned to Jake. “Are you the guy that lost the TV bird?”
Two minicams appeared almost simultaneously. One was from the local news, the other from a small cable station. “Is it true you’ve received ransom notes?”
Jake looked around him in disbelief. “How’d you guys find out about this?”
“Police report.”
Suddenly all eyes were turned toward the curvaceous brunette in the doorway. “Excuse me,” she said softly. “Did you want to see me about something, Dr. Elliott?”
Jake grimaced as a battery of flashes went off. “I have some bad news for you. I’m afraid your rooster has been stolen.”
She blinked her thick lashes. “Stolen?”
“I can’t tell you how awful I feel about this,” Jake said. “As you can see, I’ve called the police…”
She looked shocked. “Police?”
A uniformed officer approached the brunette. “Has anyone contacted you about the bird? Is there anyone who might profit from his disappearance?”
Amy took a step backward and bumped into a young man with wire glasses and a narrow blade of a nose. Suddenly, astonishment registered on his face as a scarlet scald rose from his shirt collar. He stared openmouthed at Amy in silent accusation.
Jake saw the color drain from Amy’s face. Her lips compressed into a tight, thin line. He moved close to her, sliding his arm around her shoulder. “Something wrong?”
“This is Brian Turner,” Amy said. “The innovative station manager who purchases poultry.”
Turner adjusted his glasses and glowered at Jake. “What’s this woman doing here?”
Jake didn’t like Turner. He didn’t like the tone of his whiney voice, his shirt, or the part in his limp, dun-colored hair. Jake didn’t like him because he had fired Amy. And he sure didn’t like the way he had just referred to her as “this woman.” In fact, Jake disliked Turner so much, if there hadn’t been four police officers present, he’d have given him instant rhinoplasty.
“This woman works for me,” Jake said in a tone that implied a much longer sentence. The longer sentence would have gone something like: This woman works for me, you no-taste little twit, and if you say one more word I’m going to run you right out of here.
