Animal Attraction

But he’d included Jade in that pack… which she’d resisted.

The room was filling up and Keith hadn’t come back for the next patient to fill the other waiting room. With a sigh, Jade grabbed the file and stood. Typically, the morning brought in the clients and the animals that were the most sick or had become endangered overnight. These early appointments often began with Dell walking into the exam room to face worried and stressed-out people and animals.

He was good at assuaging fears.

He’d be good at assuaging yours…

“Sergio,” she called, and managed a smile for Sergio’s owner, Leanne Whitfield. Leanne could have been a Beverly Hills housewife, except she didn’t have a husband and she lived here in Sunshine. What she did have was a shortterm plan to rectify the lack of husband pronto. She wanted to marry the most eligible man in town, and she’d decided that man was Dell.

To that end, Leanne brought in her kitten every few weeks, manufacturing odd illnesses. Leanne had somehow concluded that Jade was the biggest threat to her marry-Dell goal, which could be construed as amusing given that Dell was a serial dater and Jade was a serial social hermit these days.

As for Dell’s opinion on the situation, he and Jade had an understanding. Jade’s job included making sure Leanne never trapped Dell alone in an exam room, where she’d “accidentally” grope him. “What’s the problem with Sergio this morning?” Jade asked, pen poised over the chart.

“I’d rather go over this just once,” Leanne said, and flashed a smile that said, Bite me. “I’ll just tell the doctor myself directly.”

Jade smiled a Bite me right back at Leanne. “Sure. I’ll just go tell him so. He’s running a few minutes behind.”

“Oh?” Leanne didn’t look happy. “He have a late night last night?”

“Here you go,” Jade said, ignoring the question as she showed her into exam room two.

“When we get married,” Leanne said, “your services won’t be necessary.”

“Married?”

“It’s only a matter of time before he realizes how perfect we are together,” Leanne said, eyeballing herself in the small mirror over the sink. She adjusted her boobs higher and her neckline lower. “We’ll honeymoon in Cabo.”

Okay, Jade wasn’t in the mood for this. “Listen, it’s not going to happen.”

“Why?”

Yeah, Jade, why? She thought about being brutally honest and telling Leanne that she managed to do what no one else could do-she terrified the big, bad Dell Connelly, but sometimes honesty just wasn’t the way to go. “Because we’re engaged.” The lie rolled right off her tongue so easily she couldn’t even believe she’d said it.

Leanne’s sharp gaze flashed immediately to Jade’s ringless engagement finger.

“Getting it sized.” Jade left the room, hung the chart for Dell, and practically ran down the hall, nearly plowing right into him.

He put his hands on her hips to steady her. “Oh no you don’t, you’re not deserting me with her. Let’s go.” He began to tug her back to the exam room.

“Um,” she said. “She won’t exactly be bothering you anymore.”

“What did you do?”

She patted his chest. His hard, warm chest. “A thing.”

“A thing? What thing?”

“Yeah, we don’t have to talk about the thing,” she said, relieved when the phone started to ring.

He caught her arm. “We’ll talk about the thing later.”

“Sure.” Or never. And because just his hand on her was stirring up sensations best not stirred up, she backed away and returned to her work.

Seven

Dell was in the main surgery area cleaning up sometime later when Adam came through after a training session. “I’ve got the Moorelands in room two,” Dell told him. “Want to come in with me?”

The Moorelands were clients of Adam’s. They’d brought in their seven-week-old Labrador puppies.

“First exam?”

“And vaccinations. Eight puppies. You can help.”

“Maybe you’d rather have someone else. Say, your fiancee.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, crack kills brain cells.”

Adam flashed a rare grin. “Didn’t you wonder why Leanne didn’t play grab-ass with you this morning? It was because your receptionist turned herself into your fiancee.” Adam slapped him on the back. “Congrats, by the way. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Shut up. You’re making this shit up.”

“Are you kidding?” Adam asked. “No one could make this up. It’s too good. The question is, though… why would Jade come up with such a story? Unless something’s happened between you…”

Dell didn’t respond to that. Didn’t know how to respond to that.

Adam gave a shocked Dell a push down the hall and into exam room one.

Eight puppies were crawling over everything, making soft, snuffling puppy noises. Their owners, Joey and Donna Mooreland, a couple in their midfifties were sitting, supervising the best that they could with four hands against thirty-two little paws.

Adam had sold the couple their first Labrador several years ago now and had helped them through their first breeding cycle. He scooped up a black pup attempting to eat his shoelace.

“I’m nervous,” Donna admitted, hand to her chest. “This is our first batch of babies.”

“No worries.” Adam slid Dell a look. “There’s a lot of firsts going around here today.”

Dell ignored him and bent over the puppies. There were four brown, two black, and two white Labs, all in various stages of mewling and climbing over each other, tails wagging, tongues out.

“It’s just that we’ve been so frazzled with our daughter’s engagement,” Donna said, stopping the biggest pup from climbing on top of his siblings like a circus performer.

“A lot of that going around,” Adam said.

Dell gave Adam a look that said quite clearly Shut up or die. But Donna smiled at Adam. “Someone you know just get engaged?”

“As a matter of fact,” Adam said. “Dr. Connelly here-”

Dell stepped on Adam’s foot and ground into it a little bit.

Adam drew a careful breath and stopped talking.

But it was too late. Donna had caught the scent of a possible engagement. “Doctor?” she asked Dell. “Are you engaged?”

“He is,” Joe said.

Everyone looked at him in shock. Joe shrugged. “One of your clients in the waiting room was talking about it as she left.”

Adam started to laugh, but Dell put more weight on his foot, and Adam turned it into a cough.

“Oh, this is so lovely!” Donna said, clapping her hands, then leaning in conspiratorially. “You probably don’t know this, Dr. Connelly, but just about all the single women in the country have their hearts set on you. You’re going to break them all with this news.”

Adam coughed again, and Dell took his weight off Adam’s foot because he felt a little woozy. And he was sweating. Christ, this was ridiculous. “The puppies,” he said. “Let’s concentrate on the puppies.”

Adam smirked. Dell ignored him and picked up the runt, a girl. The tiny brown Lab had eyes bigger than her nose and mouth and her head bobbed as she stared at him solemnly. He smiled at her and she licked his chin.