After all, virginity wasn’t something you could replace. When it was gone, it was gone for good. He wanted to make damn sure that when Amy decided to love someone, it would be the man she’d marry. And by thunder, it had better be him! he thought, thumping his fist on his desk.
Amy flinched in surprise.
Jake felt the flush rise from his shirt collar. “I got carried away.”
“What on earth were you thinking? For a minute there I thought you were going to kiss me again, and then I was afraid you were going to strangle me.”
“Pick one.”
“No way. Is there a ladies’ room here?”
Jake sighed. “Two doors around the corner. To the left.” He slouched in his chair and rubbed his forehead, wondering if everyone acted this stupid when they were in love.
The front door to the clinic opened and Jake heard the unmistakable shuffle of his colleague’s size-thirteen feet.
Allen Logan paused at Jake’s open door. “You look like you’ve just been hit by a bus.”
“That’s about how I feel.”
“The flu?”
Jake sighed. “The receptionist.”
“What receptionist?”
“Our receptionist. The one standing behind you.”
Logan turned around and grinned down at Amy. “Howdy.”
Jake ambled over. “This is Amy Klasse. Amy, this is Allen Logan, DVM… my happily married partner and resident bear.”
Amy smiled at Allen Logan. He did resemble a bear. A big, lumbering, gentle bear.
“Will you excuse us for a moment?” Allen said to Amy. Grabbing an arm, he pulled Jake into the lavatory and closed the door. “I like her. Nice legs, cute nose, great smile. What the hell are we going to do with a receptionist?”
“I’m going to marry her.”
“Oh.” Allen didn’t bother to keep the laughter from his voice. “Does she know this?”
“Not exactly.”
There was a knock on the door. “Jake? There’s a horse out here.”
The bathroom door opened and the two men stuck their heads out.
“That’s not a horse,” Jake explained. “That’s a Great Dane. Mrs. Newfarmer must be early for her one-thirty appointment.”
Amy flattened herself against the wall while the dog sniffed her shorts. “He’s drooling on my shoe.”
“Can’t blame him,” Allen Logan said wistfully.
A small, round woman appeared in the hallway. “I’m sorry, Dr. Elliott. Brutus was so anxious to see you, he pulled the leash out of my hand and took off.”
“Mrs. Newfarmer, I’d like you to meet my new receptionist, Amy Klasse.”
Mrs. Newfarmer shook Amy’s hand. “How nice. This office needs a receptionist,” she confided.
Jake and Allen looked at each other nonplussed.
“I didn’t think we needed a receptionist,” Allen whispered.
Jake looked at yesterday’s files spread across the front desk. The telephone rang once and then plugged into the answering machine. In the past year his client list had tripled. Maybe he really did need a receptionist. He looked at Allen and shrugged. “Life is strange.”
“Speaking of strange, Mr. Billings is due any minute with Daisy Mae.”
Jake’s eyes got round. “Did you tell him he had to have her confined?”
“I forgot.”
The front door opened and a whiskered old man strode in with an enormous gray cat perched on his shoulder. Jake dived for the Dane’s leash, but it was too late. The dog lunged at the cat, who catapulted itself onto Jake’s chest. Brutus changed direction in midair, striving for a hunk of gray fur from the cat’s tail. The cat turned around and made a quick swipe at the dog’s nose. The dog gave a loud yelp and retreated to a corner, where he had an accident.
“He’s just a puppy,” Mrs. Newfarmer apologized. “Do you have a mop?”
Amy almost fainted at the sight of tiny pinpricks of blood oozing through Jake’s shirt. “You’re wounded!”
“Nothing several hundred stitches couldn’t cure,” Jake said.
Allen saluted his injured partner. “Dr. Disaster strikes again.”
Jake began carefully unbuttoning his shirt. “I wasn’t overwhelmed by
“I was right behind you. I would have done something, but you were in my way.”
Amy winced at the scratches on Jake’s bare chest. This job is going to be a lot like teaching first grade, she thought. Wiping up puddles and administering first aid. Her experience in nursing had been mainly in the area of cut fingers and skinned knees, but she was sure she could transfer her knowledge to cat punctures.
“Poor Jake,” she soothed in her most sympathetic first-grade voice. “If you come back to the lavatory, I’ll clean up those mean scratches and you’ll be just fine.”
Jake gave Allen an eat-your-heart-out look and followed Amy into the hallway.
Amy almost fainted for the second time that day when Jake removed his shirt. He had a great body, with an enchanting thin line of hair traveling the length of his hard, flat stomach-pointing like an arrow to places she’d rather not think about right now.
She soaked a clean washcloth in warm water but stopped short of applying it to Jake’s chest, suddenly overwhelmed with embarrassment. There’s nothing wrong with touching a man’s bare chest to administer first aid! she told herself. Lord, she was such a ninny!
The problem was, this was no ordinary chest. It was warm and gorgeous and absolutely mesmerizing, and it belonged to Jake.
Jake removed the cloth from her hand and dabbed at his scratches. “Are you okay? You look all flushed.”
“It’s your chest. It’s, it’s… got holes in it.”
He poured antiseptic onto a cotton ball and applied it to the ragged red lines. “They really aren’t so bad.”
“Does this happen often?”
“Every time Daisy Mae enters this office. I keep extra shirts in my desk drawer just in case a dog shows up.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Bottom drawer on the left-hand side.”
Amy went to the office, opened the drawer and, sure enough, she found a whole stack of shirts fresh from the cleaners. She selected a blue button-down and helped him slide into it. “I suppose you have all your shots up to date… like tetanus and rabies and stuff.”
“Worried about me?”
“Of course. I don’t want to be out of a hunk… I mean a job.”
Amy cracked her knuckles. She wanted to drop right through the floor. She was acting like a blithering idiot. Jacob Elliott in unbuttoned splendor sent her blood pressure soaring. This was probably very healthy. She wouldn’t even have to jog tonight. Her heart rate couldn’t get any faster.
The front door opened and closed and opened and closed. The sounds of chattering people drifted in from the waiting room. “Boy” Amy said, “things get busy around here.”
“Maybe you could sit at the front desk and do receptionist things. And you could try to find some folders for me. We have a filing system, but things don’t always get put back immediately.”
“I could do that. I could put things back immediately,
She smiled at the roomful of people and swallowed hard at the mess in front of her. Don’t panic, she told herself. One thing at a time. There must be an appointment book… somewhere. She stacked the folders in alphabetical order and filed them in the cabinets behind her desk. She located the elusive appointment book, unplugged the recorder, and began taking phone messages.
