damage?”
“Pro bono for you as always, sweetness. He’s already feeling much better and is ready to go when you are. His meds are with him. Oh, and be careful, he’s a little skittish and anxious, especially with men. You should probably warn Cruz.”
Adam reruffled the hair she’d just fixed. “Meet me out front with him in five and I’ ll give you a ride back. We’ll go look at your Jeep.”
Sighing, she gave up on her hair and strode past both Dell and Adam. As she came up even with Brady, her eyes went a little guarded.
She’d showered and changed. Her long brown hair was wet and wavy past her shoulders, held off her face by the sunglasses she’d pushed to the top of her head. The work clothes were gone, and the body he’d only caught a hint of before was much more visible now in snug, hip-hugging jeans and a knit T-shirt that revealed a set of curves hot enough to sizzle.
Lilah Young cleaned up good.
Without a word, she walked by him as well, giving him a quick hint of the scent of her hair.
Coconut. She smelled like a pina colada, and it was making him thirsty.
And hungry.
Or maybe that was just her. Maybe she was making him hungry.
Hips swaying, she moved past the receptionist desk, exchanged a smile with the mid-twentysomething woman behind the counter, and then disappeared into the back without another glance. Which was okay, because Brady was probably doing enough looking for the both of them. But hell, she had a very fine ass. He met Adam’s dark gaze-a fairly clear tell-me-you-are-not-looking-at-her-ass kind of gaze.
“She get hurt today?” Adam asked. His voice was low, casual even, but Brady wasn’t fooled.
Adam wasn’t happy.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out who he was unhappy with, and it wasn’t the Easter Bunny. “No,” Brady said. “And I’m fine-thanks for asking. Look, it was just as she said, a fender bender. I wasn’t even in the truck at the time. It was out front of 7-Eleven.”
Dell shook his head at Adam. “She’s pushing it too hard again.”
Pushing it too hard? What did that mean?
“Adam,” the woman at the receptionist desk called out. “There’s a woman on line one who saw your picture in the
“So?” Adam asked.
“So she says you’re hot and wants to know if you’re single. She says she’s like one of your golden retrievers, cute and trainable.”
Dell grinned.
Adam’s left eye twitched.
“That’s Jade at the desk,” Dell told Brady. “She’s in charge of things, and when I say in charge, I mean In Charge.”
From behind her desk, the coolly beautiful Jade raised a brow, not amused.
Dell, looking amused enough for the both of them, went on. “You want to stay on her good side. She’s the sharpest of all of us, but she never learned how to chill.”
“Sitting right here, you know,” Jade said.
Dell grinned outright. “So I should just come right out and say you’re anal and uptight then?”
Jade turned her back on him, nose in the air. It went with the runway clothes and crazy-ass heels she had on.
Adam shook his head. “Man, you’re going to pay for that. You know you are. She’ll double-book you from now until hell freezes over, or switch the sugar and salt again, or something equally evil.”
Dell wasn’t looking too concerned as he turned to Brady. “So, what do you think of the place?”
“It’s a pretty sweet setup,” Brady said. “Between the animal care and the breeding and training, you’re meeting a lot of needs here.”
“And the helicopter,” Dell said. “Adam showed you the helicopter.”
“Yeah.” Adam had also told him that up until six months ago, there’d been a pet groomer here as well. The company had leased one of the smaller buildings, but they’d gone belly-up, breaking the lease without paying out. Apparently a month ago Dell and Adam had finally received back payment in the form of a Bell Soloy 47 helicopter. It had been delivered from Smitty’s, the small-craft airport directly across the meadow from the center, and was sitting in the yard like an eyesore.
Brady had taken a good long look at it, feeling a stir of interest he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. The Bell 47 was a legendary and pioneer flying adventure. The thing needed some serious work before it would be fly-worthy, but Adam and Dell had been looking for a way to further expand their business. They were fairly isolated out here in Sunshine, and Dell was sometimes spending entire days on the road to get to some of the patients that couldn’t come to him, so they’d thought that maybe the helicopter could actually be of use.
If it ran.
And if they had a pilot.
Which was where Brady came in. The Bell 47 was the bait, of course. Dell had used it ruthlessly, knowing damn well Brady wouldn’t be able to resist, that he’d want the challenge of fixing it up until it sang, that he’d want to fly it.
He’d been right. “It’s a beauty,” he admitted.
“Can you fix it?” Dell asked.
“Yes.” He could fix pretty much anything, but the Bell he could do in his sleep.
“Can you fly it?”
“Yes.” He could also fly anything and started to say so when a tingle of awareness raced down the back of his neck. He turned as Lilah came back through, holding a dark brown shaggy dog in her arms.
The dog was scrawny to the point of being painfully lean, with dull eyes and an expression that said he no longer cared what happened to him.
“How long do you think to get it running?” Dell asked, still talking about the helicopter.
Brady pretended to think about that while watching Lilah hug her rescue dog.
“Good boy,” she was murmuring softly, rubbing her jaw to the top of his head.
The dog hesitated, then gave her a hesitant little lick on the chin.
“Aw, that’s a really good boy,” she said again, nuzzling him close.
And once again Brady found himself jealous of a four-legged creature.
“I was hoping you’d stay a month,” Dell said.
“A month? Why?”
“I figured that would be enough time to decide if having a pilot and the helicopter on staff is worth the expense.”
Lilah lifted her face from the dog and leveled those mossy green eyes on Brady.
A month… He had several assignments within the next couple of weeks.
“Come on,” Dell said. “It’d be great to have you.”
A fucking month. In one place. He glanced at Lilah and felt something within him ache. Don’t do it… But the truth was he was due a break, and no one, least of all the company he flew for, would begrudge him taking one.
And he sure as hell could do worse than the Coeur d’Alene mountains in summer.
He made the mistake of looking at Lilah again. If he let the sexual tension shimmering between them choose, he knew exactly what his answer would be-but he never let his dick rule. He put what he needed ahead of what he wanted.
Always. “Look, thanks for the offer. But I’m going to get a room for the night. I have some calls to make before I can commit to anything.”
“Take the upstairs loft,” Dell said. “It’s Adam’s, but he’s not staying there right now.” He swiveled a look in his brother’s direction and smirked. “Not since he was stalked by one of his crazy-ass exes.”
Adam’s expression didn’t change, but he slid his eyes to Dell in a go-there-and-die look.
“Cameron,” Dell said. “Pretty little thing, too. Only there was a… misunderstanding. She thought they were
