Animal Attraction

Her eyes met his and something happened. The air condensed and a fierce hunger gutted him.

Her expression mirrored what he felt and it was staggering. “I won’t be here tomorrow,” he reminded her. “I’m flying up north for the next few days to cover the ranches I’m under contract with.”

“That’s right.” She nodded. “Monday, then.” She started to leave the room, but paused and moved toward him instead. “Dell, I-”

He had no idea what she meant to say. He didn’t care. His circuits had crossed and rather than go back to his desk, he reached for her.

She met him halfway and slid her hands into his hair as he hauled her up against him. Their mouths collided in a hard, deep kiss. No tenderness, not an ounce. In its place was a boatload of frustration and aggression, which was working for him until she abruptly pulled away and, with one last look, left him. Dell told himself to get used to it.

But he was starting to think that wasn’t going to happen.

Seventeen

Jade cooked Sam dinner that night. She waited until her second glass of wine kicked in to ask. “Why are you really here?”

He smiled at her, as always utterly at ease in his skin. Which, given how handsome he was, couldn’t have been too difficult. “Thought maybe you missed me,” he said.

“Hard to, when you call me every day.”

“Every two days, tops.”

She shook her head, having to admit it was good to see him. “You know I’m coming back. You didn’t have to show up.”

“Sandy crashed the computer system.”

“You flew here to tell me that? Aren’t you busy? Don’t you have any patients to see? Who’s in charge?”

“See? We need you.” He smiled. “Had frequent-flier mileage and a day off.”

“We both know that Sandy’s actually more qualified than me,” Jade said. “She’s a CPA.” Sandy had been promoted from accounts manager, where she’d worked only part-time because she liked being home with her kids.

Everyone was happy with her work performance, though Jade’s family complained that she had the personality of a pencil. “There’s no way she crashed the computer system.”

“Okay, she didn’t,” Sam admitted. “But she did leave coffee rings on your desk. Your pencils are homeless. And she doesn’t use spreadsheets. She scribbles her notes on sticky pads and slaps them everywhere. It’s raining yellow sticky notes.”

Jade opened her mouth, then shut it again. “Some people don’t find spreadsheets all that effective.”

There was a beat of disbelieving silence from Sam on this. “Okay, who are you and what have you done with my favorite cousin?”

“Your only cousin.”

“Jade.”

“Sam.”

“I mean you didn’t even comment about the pencils. The pencils, Jade, are all over your desk every night. There’s no organization. And she’s not filing daily either, she’s-”

Jade tried to ignore the pencils, but it took an embarrassing amount of effort. “I am coming back, Sam. By the first, as I promised you.”

He was quiet a minute, his gaze reflective as he looked around at her loft. “But you’re happy here.”

She paused. “I am.”

“You look it. You look good, Jade. Not like your old-self good but different good. Maybe even better good.”

She didn’t know what to do with that so she picked up the wine bottle and refilled both their glasses.

“You going to ever tell me about him?” Sam asked quietly.

“Who?”

Sam gave her an impressive eye roll. “The guy who had his hands all over you who.”

“He… I…” She blew out a breath and shook her head. “No.” Dell was hers, and maybe she’d blown it with him in more ways than one, but if nothing else she’d forever have the memory of how he’d given her life back to her.

“He means something to you,” Sam said.

He meant everything to her. “How do you know he’s not just a wild fling?”

“You don’t do wild flings. You don’t do anything without your entire heart and soul.”

“Yeah, well,” she said, “do me a favor and don’t let that secret out of the bag.”

Sympathy and worry filled his eyes now, and he opened his mouth, but she jabbed a finger in his direction. “Don’t do that. Don’t suddenly start feeling bad for badgering me to come back.”

“If I badgered-”

“If?”

“Okay, when I badgered, it was because I thought you were alone. I didn’t want you to be alone.”

She sighed. “It’s a done deal. I’ve given notice to my landlord.”

“And your boss?”

“And my boss,” she said as evenly as she could, ignoring the little pang to her heart at the thought of leaving Dell. “But this was always a temp position. A service will fill it for him with no problem.”

“But-”

“No. No buts. And no second-guessing or regrets. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that neither of those things does anyone any good.”

On Sunday, Jade took Sam to the airport and went into work. She did that sometimes, went into the office to catch up on paperwork or clean up. She couldn’t help herself. She went straight to her desk, pulled up her to-do- atwork list and got to it.

One of the things she wanted to do before she left Sunshine was upgrade Dell’s computer system, so that things would run smoothly when she was gone. It was a perfect day for it, so she called Dell’s cell just to make sure he wasn’t going to be trying to access the system remotely.

When he answered, he sounded breathless and in a hurry, and then she remembered: he was still up north.

Melinda’s ranch was up north.

“Connelly,” he said again.

Clearly he hadn’t looked at the caller ID. Jade paused, thinking about all the reasons why he’d be breathless and too harried to look at the screen. The number-one item was because he was in Melinda’s bed.

In Melinda.

God. A root canal without drugs would be preferable to this, and her thumb hovered over the End button.

“Hello?” There was some rustling noise, then, “Jade?”

Great. Now he looks at the ID screen.

“Jade, you there?”

“Yes.” She winced. “Listen, sorry to interrupt. Forget I called.” She disconnected and tossed her phone into her purse. From the depths, it began to vibrate so she grabbed her entire purse and shoved it into a drawer where she couldn’t hear it anymore.

That night, Dell and Adam were sparring in Dell’s basement gym. They were going at each other street style, no rules, fighting dirty.