She sighed. “You didn’t sleep with Melinda,” she explained.
Dell lifted his head and blinked once, slow as an owl. “So you were mad when you thought I slept with Melinda, and now you’re mad because… I didn’t?”
She hopped off the counter. “I have to go.” She adjusted her bra and panties and looked around for her clothes, remembering she’d left them in the basement.
Great.
“Jade.” He blocked her exit. “What the hell are we doing? Tell me what’s going on.”
Admit that she’d done the unforgettable and fallen for him? No thank you. “Move, please.”
“No.”
Fine. He wasn’t going to let this go so she searched her brain for a plausible lie. “I wanted to give you your messages.”
He looked at her. “Try that again, your left eye twitched.”
“So?”
“It always twitches when you lie.”
Dammit. She put her finger to her eye.
“Jade.”
She blew out a breath. “You already know.”
“Tell me, anyway.”
“Fine, but it’s not pretty. I thought you were having sex with Melinda. And… I turned a ridiculous, ugly shade of green.”
He went brows up.
She tossed up her hands. “And even though I told myself that was great, that you could do whoever you wanted, I kept picturing it…” She closed her eyes. “And I got… I don’t know.”
“Green.”
“Yeah.” She covered her face. “Maybe.”
He pulled her hands down. “Green looks good on you.”
A terrible confusing combination of annoyed and amused, Jade walked out of the bathroom, cursing herself for having to make the walk of shame through his entire house for her clothes. She couldn’t find her shirt fast enough, so she grabbed his.
“You don’t have to go,” he said as she shimmied back into her skirt.
“Yes, I do.”
Because it was getting harder and harder to hold her heart from him. In fact, if she kept this up, she knew she wouldn’t be able to do it at all.
“Jade.”
Throat tight, eyes burning, she turned back, then gasped softly as he cupped her face and kissed her. If he’d kissed her long and deep, she might have been able to resist, but he was far more devious than that. His mouth was devastatingly gentle. Tender. A sweet good-night kiss.
But not a good-bye kiss.
Oh, damn, she thought when he pulled away and walked her out to her car. Damn. She was in big trouble.
The next day Jade got out of bed before dawn. Actually, to be exact, it was four thirty A.M. It wasn’t a time she’d seen often and she yawned more than once on the drive.
She’d watched the calendar and told herself she was merely indulging her curiosity, but she knew it was more than that.
Much more.
She pulled back onto Dell’s street less than seven hours after she’d left and saw that his truck was still there. Finding it unlocked, she sighed in relief and climbed in to wait. Ten minutes later his front door opened. It was still dark, but she could see his outline as he headed for his truck carrying what looked like grocery bags and his medical bag.
He stopped short, presumably at the sight of her car. Then he turned to his truck. She gave him a little wave.
He walked through the dark, foggy, chilly morning, stowed his stuff behind his seat, and angled in behind the wheel. “You didn’t want to stay last night, so what’s this?”
“You said I could ask you anything, that you’re an open book.”
“Yes,” he said, with a great deal of wariness.
“Where are you going?”
He paused. “If you’re asking, you must already know.”
“All I know is that every Monday, you start about a half hour late. And until I got my hands on your laptop, I had no idea why. But you’re going somewhere and providing your services to someone, a bunch of someones, who clearly mean a lot to you. I figure it can’t be too close or you’d just have them come to Belle Haven. So I got here extra early just in case.”
“Jade, why does this matter to you?”
He studied her a long moment, then shook his head but started his truck.
They drove for an hour straight out into the middle of nowhere before Dell turned off at some invisible landmark, because Jade sure as hell didn’t see a sign. Or even a road. He switched into four-wheel drive and kept going.
“Getting nervous?” he asked when she white-knuckled the dash over a particular bad rut.
“It has occurred to me that out here would be a great dump site for my body.” The next rut nearly rattled her teeth right out of her head. “Probably I should stop watching
“I know something else you could do before bed…”
Yeah, yeah.
He flashed a grin in the rising dawn. “You know, you hopped into my truck. I didn’t coerce you.”
“My mistake.”
After another ten minutes, they began to pass some signs of civilization. Mobile homes and trailers, each more run down than the last. He parked in front of a double-wide with bars on the windows and turned to her, smile gone. “You can wait here if you want.”
“Are you going to tell me what this is about?”
“I told you. Pro bono work for people who can’t afford pet care.”
She knew there was more, it was in every line of his body, but he said nothing more, just grabbed his black medical bag and got out. He waited for her, and together they walked to the trailer.
It was that brief beat of time between dark and dawn. Purple and pink light hovered in the air, made evanescent by a low-lying fog.
The door to the trailer opened before Dell could knock, revealing a woman somewhere in her fifties. She had dark skin, dark eyes and dark hair streaked through with silver. She took a look at Dell, then Jade, and arched a brow.
The movement, the subtle, almost wry surprise, was so instantly recognizable to Jade that she almost gasped.
The woman was clearly related to Dell.
Stepping back, she allowed them access without a word.
Dell set his hand on the small of Jade’s back and urged her into the trailer. He didn’t introduce her to the woman. In fact, he pretty much dismissed both of them and walked through to the small living area.
There, lining a bench, sat a small crowd, each person with an animal.
Dell sat at a nearby table, opened his bag, and pulled out his laptop. This he thrust at Jade. Apparently, she was going to make herself useful.
The first patient was held by a ten-year-old girl with jet black hair and matching eyes. Clutched in her hands was a skinny, scrawny cat, both looking terrified.
