Adam’s smile faded.
Holly was the daughter of Donald Reid, an extremely wealthy businessman who’d bought up a bunch of failing ranches and had somehow turned them around in a bad economy. His daughter Holly had recently joined him from New York. She was some big financial wizard and the bane of Adam’s existence. Donald was rich, but also a big old softie, and often fostered young search-and-rescue puppies for Adam until they were old enough to be trained and adopted. The problem was, Donald had been spending a lot of time up north helping upgrade his sister’s ranch.
This left Holly handling the entire Reid empire, puppies included. She and Adam were oil and water, which was hugely amusing because it was nice to see the infallible Adam messed with for a change.
“I’m busy,” Adam said to Jade calmly, also amusing. The calmer Adam appeared, the more rattled he was.
“Already told her you were in,” Jade said. “Sorry.”
Adam’s left eye twitched.
Jade nodded. “And yeah, you should be afraid. Very afraid. That woman is one pissed-off client.”
Dell snorted, taking care to step out of the way before Adam could smack him upside the head.
“Why is she mad?” Adam asked Jade.
“Because you’re breathing,” Dell said. “She’s always mad at you. Question is, why? What did you do to piss her off this time?”
Adam’s expression was one hundred percent impassive. A battle-ready soldier. One who was staring at the phone like it was a spitting cobra. “I dropped off her father’s new puppy yesterday,” he said.
“Donald out of town again?”
“Yep.”
“Well, pick up the phone,” Jade said. “You can’t just leave her on hold.”
Dell leaned in and hit speaker on the phone.
Adam flipped him off, but with a resigned expression, he said, “Connelly.”
“
Jade looked at Dell but Dell shrugged. Hell, he had no idea. If Jade played things close to the vest, Adam was the master.
“Revenge?” Adam repeated as if discussing the weather. “For what?”
“You know damn well for what.”
“I’m in the middle of a meeting, Holly,” Adam said. “You’ll have to get to the point.”
“Okay, the point. The point is you’re an ass-”
Adam scooped up the phone, taking her off the speaker. “Calling me names isn’t going to encourage me to come rescue you. Again.” Adam paused, the picture of polite listening. “Is that even anatomically possible?” He listened some more. “Only if you ask me real nice-” He winced and set the phone back into its cradle. “She had to go.”
Jade shook her head. “It’s really such a surprise that you’re not married.”
When she was gone, Adam looked at Dell. “Pizza.”
“If you tell me what Holly said.”
“She said that if she ever got ahold of me, she was going to do to me what the puppy did to her Prada pumps.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. And she was pretty specific about where she planned on shoving the shoe remains.”
Dell winced. “So maybe we should go get the puppy and rescue Holly before we eat?”
“Hell, no. I’m going to bring her two more puppies later on tonight.”
Dell stared at him. “You’re insane.”
Unconcerned, Adam shrugged.
“She’s going to kill you.”
“She can try.”
Adam wasn’t playful much these days; in fact, he hadn’t been since he’d left the National Guard after a rescue had gone bad a few years back where half his team had been killed. In the time since, he’d been dancing around a boatload of guilt and a dash of PTSD for good measure.
But he was definitely showing signs of playfulness now. Or so Dell hoped. “Or you could stop baiting her and try something else.”
“Like?”
“Like sleeping with her.”
Adam slid him a look.
Now it was Dell who shrugged. “Or hey, go on living like a monk, driving the rest of us out of our fucking minds. Your choice, man.”
“Not all of us feel the need to sleep with anything in a skirt.”
“You used to,” Dell pointed out.
“Things change.”
Dell shook his head and left his office. Jade was standing at her desk pulling on a long, fuzzy angora sweater that Dell happened to know would cling to her every curve.
“Adam and I are getting dinner,” he said. “Come with us.”
She slapped a couple of disks into his hand.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“Your backups.”
“I like my clean office,” Dell said.
“You mean you like having furniture that’s furniture instead of crap collectors?”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“No, it was worse.”
Adam was grinning as he joined them. “Aw. Your first fight as an engaged couple.”
Jade ignored this. “I’ve laid out the payables that need attention and brought up all the outstanding receivables that I could find, though it’d be more accurate if you finished entering your accounting for this month.”
They’d all been running like crazy for most of the day. How had she managed to do all this as well?
“And with another few hours I could probably get your checking account reconciled.” She gave him a look of reproach. “You’re three months behind.”
“I’m getting to it.”
“If you do it in the first week of the new month, you can close that month out and your accounting system takes you all the way to the financial statements. Assuming you finish entering your receivables.”
Dell blinked. “For eighteen months you’ve been answering my phones and setting up my schedule and bringing my patients back to me like you were born to be a receptionist. You never once mentioned all these other talents.”
She grabbed Beans’s carrier and her purse and headed for the door. “My talents are on a need-to-know basis.”
Adam raised a brow.
Yeah. She was definitely feeling better. But then he saw it, her slight hesitation at the door.
She didn’t want to go to the parking lot.
“Adam,” Dell said. “I’ll meet you at Risolli’s.”
Adam never took his eyes off Jade, frozen in clear agonizing indecision. Nodding, he shifted around her, gently squeezing her arm before slipping out the door.
Jade mentally put on her big-girl panties and strode out the door the same way Adam had. Of course it was much easier to face her demons with one hundred and eighty pounds of solid muscle at her back, and Dell
