Текст книги "Then Came You"

Автор книги: Jill Shalvis

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

“She didn’t want anyone to see her, or how bad it’d gotten.”

Sara reached out for Emily’s hand. “You were both good at convincing me all was well.”

Emily blew out a breath. “We were fine.” Until they weren’t.

“It’s funny, because I hate philosophy now,” Sara said quietly. “I’ve got this piece of paper, a very lovely gold-lined, framed piece of paper that says people should call me Dr. Stevens.” She snorted. “Really comes in handy on the job site.”

Sara squeezed her fingers, her expression unusually solemn. “You did great with her, Em. I know it was a lot, but you did it, you took care of her when neither me nor Dad could. But ever since then, you’ve had this plan, and you’re so . . . clenched. And I get it, I’m betting that for you, knowing what’s coming every day is a comfort.” She smiled. “Maybe you should put ‘hot sex with Dr. Sexy’ on your plan.”

Emily choked out a laugh. “Not going to happen. I know you don’t get it but I don’t want to end up like Dad. I don’t want to have half my patients be pro bono. I want to pay off debts and actually earn a living. I want to keep my eyes on the prize. And L.A.’s the prize. Plus, Dad needs someone to take care of him.”

“Since when?”

“Since always. And you’re not exactly earning a ton of money with those fancy degrees,” Emily said. “The starting salary of that L.A. job is double what the Belle Haven position pays. I’m going to be able to take care of us.”

“We can take care of ourselves,” Sara said.

“Yeah?” Emily asked. “How?”

Sara’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t respond. Couldn’t, Emily knew. Emily paid the rent on this place. “It’s the way it is,” she said. “And if saying so out loud makes me shallow and cruel, well, then, that’s what I am.”

“You’re not shallow or cruel,” Sara said. “If you were shallow, you’d get a haircut that cost more than twenty bucks and you’d wear more than just a swipe of mascara and the occasional lip gloss. You’d tell me I was an idiot for dumping Rayna.”

“You’re an idiot for dumping Rayna.”

Sara let out a mirthless laugh. “You’re wrong, you know. Your family, what you have left of it anyway, me and Dad, we’re fine. We’re all fine.”

“Yeah,” Emily said. “Until someone gets MS.”

They both stared at the ceiling like it was their job.

“I don’t want to fight about this,” Emily finally said.

“Good. Let’s go back to you and Dr. Sexy instead. You know he’s not my type, but if he was a chick I’d totally be into him. You need to go for it.”

“I can’t go for it,” Emily said.

“Why?”

“I just can’t. Drop it.”

“Not until you tell me why.”

“Because . . .” Emily hugged herself. “Because I’m not sure I can keep it casual.”

Sara’s eyes sharpened. “You falling for him?”

“No.” God. She winced. Yes. “Maybe.”

Sara stared at her as if she’d just broken out into a song and tap dance.

“I can’t help it!” Emily said. “He offered to squish spiders for me!”

“Huh?”

“Never mind! Never mind all of it, it’s stupid. I’ve lost my mind.”

“Honey.” Sara shook her head. “I didn’t know this. If I’d have known this, I wouldn’t have teased you about him. You’re supposed to just sleep with him, not fall for him.”

“Did you hear the stupid part?” Emily asked. “I know I can’t fall for him—” She broke off and stared at Sara. “Wait. I know why I can’t fall for him, why do you think I can’t fall for him?”

“First rule of one-night stands,” Sara said. “No falling. It negates the whole one-night stand thing. And . . .” She winced. “Okay, listen, don’t hate me. But I’m here to tell you that a five can’t fall for a ten. It won’t work out.”

Emily just stared at her. “Was that English?”

“I’m a five and Rayna is a ten. It didn’t work out.”

“Because you bailed,” Emily said. She blinked. “Wait a minute. You think I’m a five and Wyatt’s a ten?”

“Honey—”

“Oh my God,” Emily breathed, staring at the guilt flashing on Sara’s face. “You do. You think I’m a five and Wyatt’s a ten.” She shook her head. “Ouch.”

“I think five’s are real,” Sara said. “Five’s are the best kind of people, and that’s what we are. Trust me, Emily, you don’t want to fall for anyone over a five. They’ve been pretty all their lives. They’ve never had to struggle. They’ve never had to fight for a single thing or person, nothing. They’ve never been disappointed, or hurt. I’m just looking out for you, sister to sister.” Sara scooted in and hugged her. “Let’s find you a new one-night stand, okay? He can be a five. That way if it turns into more, you’re ready.”

“You’re a nut,” Emily said. “A certifiable nut.”

“Yes, and luckily, it runs in the family.”

Fifteen

One week later, Wyatt walked by the staff kitchen and caught sight of Emily sitting at the common table in front of her opened laptop, on the phone.

“Uh-huh,” she said into the receiver. “Yeah . . .” She was still leaning into her laptop, clearly avidly reading whatever was on the screen.

Wyatt stepped into the room as she spoke again. “I’m on a lunch break,” she said. “And absolutely not obsessively checking the auction bidding.”

Except she totally was. Wyatt could see it. He scanned the list over her shoulder and grinned wide when he realized she had her mouse hovered over . . .

Him.

“I’ve been outbid by no less than five other people,” she said. “Yeah, and now he’s up to . . . five hundred dollars—” She broke off to listen to whoever was speaking on the other end of the line—he was betting Sara.

“Damn that Cassandra. No, I’m not going to bid five hundred bucks,” she said. “Are you kidding me? With that much money, I could fly us home to visit Dad for the weekend. I could get that new transmission for my car. I could take us to a spa day and get the works– Yes, I realize we’ve never been to a spa, Sara, the point is that we could go to one if we wanted– I’m not being ridiculous!” She sighed. “Look, I’ve gotta go.”

Wyatt watched as she ended the call without taking her gaze off the screen. He was still watching when she blew out a breath and hovered her mouse over the bidding block.

And then clicked.

“Dammit,” she muttered to herself, typing in a new bid. “You have no will power.”

“Sounds promising,” he said.

She jumped about five feet in the air at the sound of his voice and whipped around. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“I think the question is what are you doing?”

“Nothing.” Her gaze skittered away. “Just . . . making a shopping list. You know, cat food, cookies, Mace for people who read over my shoulder . . .” She hit a key on the keyboard, clearly intending to put the screen to sleep.

Instead, it brightened again, revealing the auction site.

Wyatt smiled and leaned over her shoulder. “I thought you said you let the bid go.”

“I . . . meant to.”

“Uh-huh. Let’s see how much I’m worth to you . . .” He felt his brows raise. “Five hundred and one dollars?”

“That’s a typo,” she said, and hit another button. This time the screen went black. “And it’s for charity.”

“So I’m a . . . pity bid?” he asked.

“Yes.” She sucked in a breath. “Exactly.”

He burst out laughing, and she frowned. “It’s true,” she said. “Brady and Dell and Adam are all getting up there in the bidding. I didn’t want you to feel bad.”

He was still grinning. “Look at you, digging yourself deeper.”

She flushed, but lifted her chin. Heaven forbid she cave on anything. “Hey,” she said. “I’ll have you know that your Casserole Brigade has divided into factions. Some of them are now pooling their funds to take the bid on you up to one thousand bucks so that Cassandra can’t get you. I’m just helping them get there, is all.”

He bent low so that his jaw pressed against the side of hers as together they looked at the screen. “Such a pretty liar,” he chided, and turned his head, letting his lips graze the sweet spot just beneath her ear.

She sucked in a breath and shuddered, and when he touched the spot with his tongue, a soft moan escaped her.

“So it has nothing to do with missing me in your bed?” he asked in her ear.

“N-no, of course not. I don’t miss you in my bed.”

“How about my truck? You miss me in the driver’s seat of my truck?” he asked, sucking her skin into his mouth. Christ, he wanted to eat her up.

She moaned again, and he set his hands on the arm of her chair to spin her around to face him. He was just able to haul her out of the chair and show her exactly what she was missing when they heard footsteps coming down the hall.

Emily shoved free of him and was doing her best to look casual as Dell strode in. He snatched a bottle of water from the refrigerator and smiled at her.

She smiled back.

“You got some sun out there today taking care of those geese that were brought in,” he said. “You’re all flushed. Wear sunscreen tomorrow.”

Emily’s gaze slid to Wyatt’s. “Will do.”

“Did I tell you?” Dell asked her. “The head vet from the Beverly Hills center called me. Their intern isn’t enamored with L.A. Her family lives in Coeur d’Alene, and she misses them.”

Emily blinked. “No,” she said a little faintly. “You didn’t mention that.”

Her smile had slipped so briefly, Wyatt would have said he’d imagined it if he didn’t know her.

“I told him we were damned lucky to have you,” Dell said. “Since you’re so happy here.”

Yeah, her smile was definitely a little short of her usual wattage, but Dell was oblivious as he turned to go. As he did, he slid Wyatt a brief glance.

Not oblivious at all, Wyatt realized. Just respecting her privacy.

When they were alone, Emily also turned to leave.

Wyatt caught her hand and pulled her back around, giving her a long, searching look.

“What?” she said.

“You tell me.”

She pulled free. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So I just imagined that quick flash of horror as you realized you could have switched places with that other intern and gone back to L.A. early?”

Again she tried to go.

And again he held her to him. “How many days left?”

“Three hundred and thirty-six,” she said without hesitation.

Shit. He took a deep breath. “You’re still not happy here,” he stated flatly.

She closed her eyes.

He didn’t know what he expected. That she’d have miraculously given up on her plan just because they’d slept together a few times?

But that wasn’t what pissed him off. It was that he’d been hoping for more.

And she’d been hoping to be sent home.

“You should have told him,” Wyatt said.

“He’d just said how much he valued me as a vet,” Emily said. “Do you know what he’s given me? Everything. I’m not going to tell him I’d rather be in L.A.”

Wyatt drew a careful breath, trying to leave his personal feelings out of the mix. He was good at that. Hell, he fucking rocked at that. “He would’ve understood.”

She turned back to him, with heartbreaking sincerity. “You think so?”

Christ. “Yeah,” he said. “I think so.”

And then, because what he really wanted to do was push her up against the wall and kiss the living shit out of her, until she was panting his name and tearing at his clothes to get him inside her, he shoved his hands in his pockets to keep them off her.

He walked out.

Lilah came by after work and dragged Emily off for “some fun.” Turned out Lilah’s husband, Brady, was on a team with—among others—Dell, Adam, Adam’s BFF Griffin, AJ, and a player who ran onto the field at the very last minute.

Wyatt.

The guys were all in athletic shorts, T-shirts, and cleats, and since it had rained until about five minutes ago, they were also drenched. And muddy.

Nobody wore drenched and muddy better than Wyatt, a fact Emily did her best to take in while pretending not to . . .

Sitting in the stands around her were other wives and girlfriends. She also figured out, when one pretty twentysomething struggled to the stands using a walker and stopped to yell at Wyatt through the fence, “You need to kick ass, Wyatt Stone, to make up for last week’s suckage!” that sisters were welcome as well.

Lilah waved her over to sit with them.

“Aw,” Darcy said, sizing Emily up. “The new vet.”

“You’re one of Wyatt’s two sisters,” Emily said.

“How did you know?” Darcy asked.

Emily smiled. “I recognize the hostility and intolerance and deeply seated resentment.” She held out a hand to Darcy. “I’m Emily, the intern vet.”

“The one bidding on my brother.”

“He didn’t have as many bids as Dell and Adam, and I felt sorry for him,” Emily said in automatic self-defense.

Darcy’s smile went real as she shook Emily’s hand. “I like you already.”

“I’m really quite likeable,” Emily said, and for the next hour watched Dell, Adam, Grif, and Wyatt, not to mention a whole host of other hot guys, run through a muddy, grass field tackling each other.

The guys all had red tags hanging off their hips, which were supposed to be pulled by their opponents instead of anyone getting tackled. But, though the flags were yanked and thrust triumphantly into the air, there was still enough body contact—and bone crunching and taunting and heckling—that Emily found herself both holding her breath in terror, and shaking her head in bafflement.

When Wyatt was grabbed and taken down from behind by not one or two, but three men, she clasped a hand to her heart until he spit out some dirt and grass and pushed up to his feet.

“I thought it was flag football,” she said, “not tackle the shit out of each other football.”

Lilah shrugged. “It’s a guy thing.”

Emily didn’t take her eyes off Wyatt. He looked okay, but she didn’t breathe until Brady came over and high-fived him, and Wyatt flashed a triumphant grin.

And then, while she was sucking in a lungful of relief, he turned his head and laid his gaze right on her. The relief swimming through her veins turned to something else entirely, something she wasn’t even close to ready to accept.

At the half, Wyatt took shit for being late to the game from all the guys

“We almost forfeited,” Dell said.

“Hey,” Wyatt said in his defense, “I had an emergency.”

His entire team gave him the stink eye.

“What emergency?” AJ wanted to know. “Because if anyone has an excuse to be late, it’s me, since my last patient was your sister, and I’m not sure who got more worked over, her or me.”

“You slept with one of your patients?” Adam asked.

“Forget that,” Brady said. “You slept with your best friend’s sister?”

“What?” AJ looked at both of them in horror and then turned to Wyatt. “No! God. I wouldn’t—”

“You don’t think she’s hot enough?” Grif asked.

“She is hot,” AJ said, and then grimaced at Wyatt. “No, I mean– She’s my patient, and—” He broke off when Dell, Adam, Brady, and Grif started laughing. Narrowing his eyes, he crossed his arms over his beefy chest. “You think that’s funny?”

“Yeah,” Dell said, straightening, still grinning. “You should see the look on your face, man.”

“Jesus, I’m sweating,” AJ said, and swiped his forearm over his brow. “You made me sweat.” He looked at Wyatt. “I’m not.”

“I know,” Wyatt said as they moved together to the side of the spectator stands for the huge water jug placed there just for them. Wyatt knew Darcy wasn’t sleeping with anyone right now, she was far too pissed off at the world to have been getting any. “But it got the attention off me being late, so thanks,” he said, and downed a cup of water.

“No it didn’t,” Dell said. “All the patients were gone when I left. Who came in?”

“Skylar Houghton.”

“With her hamster?” Dell asked. “I treated the abscess yesterday, all was well.”

“Yeah.” Wyatt ran a hand through his hair. “She brought by a lasagna dish.”

“Score,” Dell said. “Since it’s my night to cook.”

“She made it for me,” Wyatt said.

Dell stared at him. “You suck.”

“Hey, I earned that lasagna the hard way, trust me.”

Dell grinned.

“Not like that!” Wyatt said. “Jesus. You guys all need a life.”

“Sucks, doesn’t it?” AJ muttered.

“I’m confused,” Dell said. “Skylar’s got a normal job at the post office, and she’s not crazy. You could do worse.”

Wyatt was saved having to answer by his nosy older sister who interfered from the front row. “Hey, so where’s this lasagna?” Zoe wanted to know. He should have known the women could hear their converstation.

Beside her was Darcy. She looked at AJ, and his expression went blank.

Darcy’s did the same.

Wyatt would have to wonder later what the hell had happened during physical therapy, because he locked eyes with Emily and like he was some stupid high school kid, he forgot everything else.

Next to Emily, Lilah waved at her husband, and blew him kisses. Brady grinned at her, the badass ex-special ops soldier looking soft as mush.

“Yeah, yeah,” Zoe said, nudging Lilah. “Save it for later. I want to hear more about the lasagna. What kind? Her usual meat and cheese?”

“Next time tell her whatshername brought you lobster ravioli,” Darcy said. “Tell her that’s our fave.”

“Or homemade mac and cheese,” Zoe said. “I wouldn’t mind some more of that. Who made it? Kathy Anderson, right? We need her cat to get sick again.”

Wyatt looked at Emily. I’m not cooking you homemade mac and cheese, her gaze said.

He didn’t want or need her to cook him a damn thing. Yeah, Skylar was sweet and gentle and kind, and she could really cook.

But he wasn’t attracted.

Not like he was to the not-so-sweet, not-so-gentle, curvy brunette watching him right now . . .

Zoe stared at Wyatt, then followed his gaze to Emily. She blinked, then looked back at Wyatt. “Or maybe we could just get takeout,” she said.

Sixteen

As always, Emily woke up to Q-Tip sitting on her chest demanding food. One look at the bedside clock had Emily groaning. “It’s only five. I’ve got another half hour.”

“Meow”

“Fine. I get it. You’re starving to death slowly.” She staggered out of bed and tripped over the cat.

Q-Tip yowled at her in reproach, and ran ahead to the kitchen, her belly doing its usual swing back and forth.

Emily filled her bowl and had to smile at the rumbling purr of thanks. She sat at the table and opened her laptop. As a matter of habit, she went to her calendar.

Another week had gone by. Three hundred thirty days . . .

Could’ve been less if you’d spoken up to Dell . . . She closed the calendar and checked Lilah’s charity auction page. Shockingly, there were bids for dinner out with “Sunshine’s newest, cutest, prettiest vet.”

People wanted to have dinner with her. She tried to process her thoughts on that and decided she was flattered.

There were also bids for Dell, Brady, Adam . . .

But topping the list was Wyatt himself. Seemed that just about everyone in town wanted to “shadow” him for a day. His top bid was for two hundred bucks over what she’d last bid.

She opened a new screen and checked her account balance. She’d been socking away every spare penny she had, which wasn’t all that many pennies.

But she had enough.

You’re crazy, a little voice said. Certifiable.

Which is the only explanation for why she upped her bid on one Dr. Wyatt Stone and became his highest bidder.

Two minutes later her cell phone rang. It was Lilah.

“Funny thing happened,” Lilah said. “I get an alarm when someone bids on the auction site. And someone just bid on Wyatt.”

“Huh,” Emily said casually. “I imagine that’s happening quite a bit.”

“Yes,” Lilah said. “Actually, this person has bid four times for Wyatt so far.”

“Five,” Emily said, and clapped a hand over her mouth.

Too late. Lilah snorted with mirth. “Honey,” she said, “you do realize you don’t have to pay to shadow him, you do that every single day. They pay you.”

“I just wanted to contribute to the cause,” Emily said, and grimaced.

“That’s your story?”

“Yep,” she said with much more confidence than she felt.

Lilah laughed at her.

Emily sighed. “You’re not going to make a big deal about this, are you?”

“Oh hell yes,” Lilah said. She laughed again and disconnected.

Great. Shaking her head, Emily got showered and dressed, and stepped off their porch to head to work, cutting across the wild grass growing in her yard to her car. They’d had rain several nights in a row now, and the grass had grown halfway up to her knees. She made a mental note to ask the landlord if she was responsible for cutting it.

She hoped not.

At the odd rustling sound, Emily went still, and then slowly turned around.

There, just behind her, was something moving in the grass. Hopefully not a snake, the only animal she wasn’t crazy about.

When the rustle came again, she almost acted like a complete girl by turning tail and running, but something had her taking a step forward instead.

Parting the long strands of grass, she smiled. A turtle was on the move. He—or she—was about nine inches long, olive and black, and had a nasty-looking gouge on one side of its face from jaw to left eye. It was so puffy he couldn’t possibly see out of it. “Oh,” Emily breathed, and crouched low. “Oh you poor baby.” She scooped the thing up in her hands to get a better look, and it retreated into its shell.

“It’s okay,” she said, moving back to the garage to grab a box leftover from when she and Sara had moved in. Gently, she set the turtle in the box and then set the box on the front passenger’s seat of her car. “I’ll fix you right up at work.”

The turtle remained in its shell, but she could feel its misgivings.

“Really,” she promised. “I actually know what I’m doing. At least when it comes to animals. Life, not so much, but we’re not going to go there.”

Her patient was polite enough not to respond.

Wyatt walked into the center to find Dell had beat him in. Jade had flown back to Chicago for two weeks to help her mom recover from knee replacement surgery, and she’d gotten someone to fill in for her.

Either that person hadn’t shown yet, or her substitute was Dell, which was highly doubtful. Dell and Jade had a solid relationship, but Jade had a rule—her husband wasn’t allowed in her domain. She called it the how-to-stay-married rule.

No one was more respectful of that rule than Dell himself. He had a caller on speaker phone as he tried to retrieve a pencil from Peanut, who didn’t want to give it up.

“How’s it going?” the female caller asked.

Jade.

“Great,” Dell said, still playing tug-of-war with Peanut.

“Boner,” Peanut yelled.

“Great, huh?” Jade asked doubtfully.

“Fantastic,” Dell said, giving up on his pencil.

Peanut cackled in triumph.

“I’ll be available if you need anything,” Jade said. “Don’t let Peanut eat any more pencils.”

Dell looked at Wyatt and grimaced.

“I almost forgot,” Jade said. “I saw you’d ruined your favorite shoes.”

“Yeah,” Dell said. “Gertie ate the laces and threw up on them.”

“I bought you new ones,” Jade said. “They’re in your office closet. Keep her out of there.”

Dell’s face softened. “Thanks, babe.”

“Anytime.” Jade’s voice was soft now, too, and filled with affection. “Love you, babe. Don’t mess up my front desk or we’ll have problems. Oh, and Wyatt’s kicking your ass in the auction. Don’t worry, I’ve put in a bid for you that’ll top it. You can thank me in person.” And then she disconnected.

Dell stared at the phone for a long beat, that warm, affectionate look still on his face, and Wyatt felt an odd pang.

Envy.

He was happy for Dell, even as he envied the hell out of what he’d found with Jade.

Wyatt had had that once, however briefly, with Caitlin. She’d worked in town at the local medical clinic, and they’d had about six months of bliss.

Until an opportunity had come up for her to go work for Doctors Without Borders. She’d promised to be gone only a year, two tops.

How the hell did a guy resent that? Easy answer– he shouldn’t. He couldn’t. Just because he wanted to settle down and grow roots and a family, and she wanted to save the world . . .

No, he couldn’t have asked her to stay. For years he never had a say in where the wind took him. He’d refused to do that to Caitlin, to anyone. He wanted to settle down in one place without having to ask someone to want the same.

So he hadn’t asked, not that Caitlin had given him any sign that she’d wanted him to ask. It had sucked, making the break with her, but he wanted to believe that there was someone else out there for him. A woman who would belong to him the way Jade belonged to Dell. A woman he could belong to the way Dell belonged to Jade.

“If I screw anything up,” Dell muttered, hands on hips, looking uncharacteristically flustered, “she’s going to kill me.”

The chances of this happening was high. Dell was famous for screwing up the scheduling, the billing, whatever he got his fingers on.

So Wyatt understood the concern.

Adam walked in the front door wearing S&R gear, two yellow Labs at his side. He took one look at his brother behind the counter and shook his head. “Jade’s gonna kill you, man.”

“Whatever,” Dell said, scowling. “I’ve done this before. I did this before Jade.”

“And you sucked,” Adam reminded him.

“Then you do it.”

“And risk the wrath of your gorgeous wife?” Adam asked with a rare laugh. “Hell no.”

Dell’s shoulders sagged a little. “Who am I kidding, I totally can’t do this. I promised I wouldn’t, but the woman she hired to cover us got sick. I’ve called in some favors from everyone I know. I’m waiting to hear back.”

“You’re fucked,” Adam said under his breath.

Yeah, Wyatt was getting that. “What are our choices?” he asked Dell.

“I’ve got a great choice, and one . . . not so great,” Dell admitted. “And the last one is oh-holy-fucking-shit we’re in trouble, but she’s better than nothing.” He paused, rubbed a hand over his head. “Maybe.”

Adam gave Wyatt a told-you-so look.

The front door opened and Emily walked in. Weeks ago now she’d wised up and ditched the business suits for more practical clothing. Today she was in khaki pants and a knit top that was one of those snug wraparound deals that tied beneath a breast with a bow. He watched her walk toward them while having some pretty damn explicit thoughts about that bow. Like untying it.

With his teeth.

She had a box under each arm. She set the smaller box down and read the note out loud:

Dear Dr. Dreamy Eyes,

Heard you love homemade mac and cheese, so for treating my dear Boo-Boo yesterday, I whipped some up. There’s plenty more where this came from,

any

time

.

Sue Mason

Dell and Adam started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Wyatt demanded. “When you first opened up this place, every single woman in town suddenly had a dog or a cat that was sick.”

“Just happy to have passed the torch,” Dell said. “Dr. Dreamy Eyes.”

“Shit.” Wyatt snatched the note from Emily. It read exactly as she’d read, with one notable exception. “Hey. It does not say Dr. Dreamy Eyes.”

Dell wiped away tears of mirth. “I should give you a raise for that alone,” he told Emily.

“Feel free,” she said demurely.

Wyatt shook his head. “Payback’s a bitch, you know.”

“No hazing the new employees, especially the cute ones,” Dell said.

Emily grinned at him.

Dell grinned back at her.

Wyatt shook his head again and grabbed a stack of files to go to the back.

“Have a good day, Dr. Dreamy Eyes,” Dell said.

“Shit,” Wyatt said, turning back. “You are not going to call me that.”

“All day long.”

Wyatt realized he’d forgotten about the other box Emily had brought in. “What’s in there?”

“Our first patient,” she said.

Wyatt reached into the box and pulled out a painted turtle—indigenous to Idaho. “Ouch,” he said, checking out the little guy’s injured, puffy, bloody face.

The phone rang.

“Shit,” Dell said.

Another phone started ringing, and Dell swore again.

Adam quickly made his escape. Smart man. Dell looked over and Wyatt cracked up at the look on his face.

“Not funny,” Dell said.

“Yeah, it is.”

“It won’t be this afternoon. I’ve gotta be up north,” Dell said. “Brady’s flying me. So guess who’s going to be standing right here if no one shows up to help?”

Wyatt stopped laughing.

Five minutes later he was in the back with Emily and her turtle. “A new pet?” he asked.

“No, he was in my yard.”

He smiled. “So the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

She stared at him. “Do you know my sister, Sara?”

“No.” He smiled. “Rescuing’s a good quality. Especially in a vet.”

“Maybe. But not so much in a father.”

He glanced at her, but she was bent over the turtle. “He didn’t take care of you?” he asked.

She shrugged. “He did his best.”

“But?”

She lifted her head. “But what?”

“There’s definitely a but at the end of that sentence,” he said.

She looked a little embarrassed to have been so transparent. “No. No but. Think this little guy is someone’s pet?”

Okay, so they weren’t going to chat about her dad. “I don’t know, your neighbors aren’t very close. This poor guy’s had it rough. And he’s been rudely rebuked by his mate.”

“How do you know?”

“The males use their claws to stroke their woman’s face, to woo her when he wants to mate.”

Emily’s gaze flew to his.

He smiled at her.

She dropped eye contact and looked at his hands, maybe remembering how he’d stroked the hair from her face when he’d been “wooing” her. “If she’s not in the mood,” he said, “she uses her claws to ward him off. I’m taking it she wasn’t in the mood.”

“Maybe she was just nervous.”

He looked at her over the turtle.

She bit her lower lip. “Or maybe she wasn’t ready, I don’t know.”

“Maybe she’s just prickly, and she has to be the initiator,” he said.

Her cheeks reddened, and he laughed softly. “Hold him for me,” he said.

Emily cradled the turtle between her two hands while Wyatt cleaned him up and put some antibiotic cream on the nasty cut. “You poor little man,” she whispered, stroking one of his legs. “Next time choose someone nicer.”

Wyatt smiled. “You’re not returning him to the wild.”

“Of course I am.”

He gestured to the way she’d picked the thing up and cradled it to her chest.

“Hey,” she said. “He’s hurt, that’s all.”

He nodded, but he had sisters. He knew exactly when a woman was in denial, and this was a woman deep in denial. “We have extra crates,” he said. “Take one of the small ones. It’ll make a nice little home for him.”

“I’m not keeping him!”

“Okay,” he said, watching her stroke the little guy across the head. “Whatever you say.”

She made a noise, grabbed a crate, and walked out of the room holding her turtle.

He was smirking when she stuck her head back in, looking quite pleased with herself. “What?” he asked.

“Dell says you’re backup to Mike at the front desk.”

“What about you?” he asked.

“He said I’m shadowing him on an out of office call. To one of the ranches he takes care of,” she said, smiling, her eyes flashing good humor, the little minx.