by Susan Arden
“I get it about family run businesses.” Carolina looked around. “I don’t see a freezer. Where are the samples?”
“In there. It’s a storage closet.” Matt pointed at the door to the side of the office. “And it’s locked.” He opened a desk drawer and removed a keyring.
“Rather trusting, aren’t you?”
“Not exactly. These keys are just part of the security we’ve developed and employed. Miller’s specialty. Not that it’s helping when it comes to battling more cattle deaths.”
The inside of the closet was small, no larger than ten feet by twelve, complete with a locked freezer that yes, did require a thumb print. “Strictly used to store medicine, samples, and sperm inside. No cross contamination.”
“Smart thinking. It was my next question.”
He lifted the freezer door, spreading out the chilled air inside, and saw her inadvertently shiver. “In back of the door, there’s a jacket.”
Carolina touched his arm. “I’m fine. Are you always so detail-minded of everything around you?”
Matt didn’t answer, opting to take out a large industrial Ziploc bag. On top of the freezer, he laid out the smaller bags held inside. All were neatly labeled with specimen number and type.
She stood right next to him and didn’t hesitate to pick up each bag. Caro read the label and seemed to study each sample. “This is all so organized. How many other samples do you have?”
“Plenty. Fourteen more cows died since we first spoke.”
“From different animals? Distinct sample types?”
“Affirmative. Seventy-five individual samples.”
“I’ve already contacted the lab I use. We’ll need to download the chain of custody. Each sample will need to be listed and then we’ll dry ice them overnight to the lab. You should have DNA analysis next week, unless you’d like to expedite the results. They can do other types of pathological reports. How extensive do you want me to go?”
“All the way.”
“That’s thousands of dollars. Are you sure? How about we do some preliminary tests and then decide once the results come back?”
“You’re the professional. I don’t mean that lightly. Whatever you decide is the way we’ll play it.”
“If it were me, I’d go with full panel sampling.”
“Sounds good.”
“I’ll need access to a computer, a printer, then we can begin with the samples you’ve got. Tomorrow, we’ll need to gather specimens from the herd. We’ll get comparison samples from cattle, off the same sperm donor. Then we’ll collect others from cattle that you’ve got off of herds that haven’t succumbed to this respiratory condition.”
“Okay. I never asked, but do you ride?” Matt sobered. “A horse?”
“I do.” She laughed, laying the samples on top of the freezer. “It’s not something I could make a living out of, but I get around.”
“We’ll ride out early.” One moment they were talking about sampling and riding and the next they were staring into each other’s eyes.
Carolina’s pupils dilated. “Matt…” She parted her lips as if she were going to say more.
Her inviting pink mouth made his cock harden. He didn’t give her a chance to speak. Capturing Carolina’s sweet mouth, he hungrily devoured her soft lips. She moaned seductively against his mouth.
Primal need drove him on. He cupped the back of Carolina’s head, giving him the means to thrust his tongue into her mouth. Her hands journeyed up his arms and clung to his shoulders. The front door banged shut. The thud-thud-thud of footsteps grew louder, coming closer.
Matt pinned her to the wall. Carolina had him going as she kissed him back. She pushed every male button he owned with those incredible lips and how her body felt in between his hands. His heartbeat crashed in his ears. Fire coursed in his veins. How he managed to pull away, hell it had to be a miracle. They stopped kissing. Barely.
Chapter Nine
Matt’s gaze riveted her to the spot. Carolina sucked in a sharp breath. It was like her insides were replaced by molten desire. Not even the footsteps tramping down the hall prompted her to back away.
“McLemore, you make me feel undone,” she whispered.
“That’s probably a tenth of what you’ve got me going through,” Matt returned. “Ever since Saturday. I should never have walked away.”
“Then why did you?”
“Plain stupidity and pride. Never a good combination. Take it from me, regret ain’t no picnic. Darlin’ you’ve got me between a rock and a hard place.”
She swallowed, forcing down a dozen reactions. They couldn’t continue on this explosive path, yet every atom in her craved one tall, dark, and kissable cowboy. Carolina’s heart pounded in her chest. Unable to see a solution, she replied, “What did you expect?”
Matt’s chest rose and fell as a muscle clenched at his square jaw. He picked up the sample bag off the freezer. “Take this,” he growled.
Carolina clutched the bag to her chest. The cold felt good, felt polar to the volatile heat consuming her body. Matt pressed his fingers to the small of her back, propelling her from the closet, all the way across the floor of his office, to his desk.
Talk about getting kissed but good. The footsteps halted down the hall and they stopped.
“Hold your horses!” The order was loud, harsh, and came from the hall along with retreating footsteps.
Matt slammed his mouth back against hers in an explosive kiss. His hands gripped her upper arms, locking her in place. He parted her lips, thrusting his tongue across hers. When she tried to kiss him back, he nipped her lip. This was his kiss to her, hard, rough, and very masculine. Pleasure swirled in her belly from his overt sexuality. She dug her fingers into the roped muscle on his forearms, pressing into his rock-hard wall of a body.
“That’s it,” he murmured, tugging up the hem of her skirt. His fingers brushed up her inner thigh, inches from her panties.
Carolina jerked from the skitter of pleasure up her leg. She felt scorched by desire, not to mention his heated gaze. The footsteps started up again and she hissed, “We have to stop.”
Matt’s eyes darkened to the color of midnight blue. “We aren’t done. Not by a long shot.” As abruptly as they’d begun kissing, he let her go.
Carolina’s knees gave out and she sank down onto the padded leather chair. Stunned, she sat there, gripping the armrests unable to catch her breath. What was becoming of her? Her ability to hyper focus had taken a vacation. Carolina prayed that she’d get her sanity back. Plus, this heavy thumping in her chest had to simmer down as well. Things were happening way too fast.
Matt squeezed her shoulders. “Why don’t you review the lab sheets? I’ll check-in down the hall. If you need something, text me. If I don’t answer, it’s probably the reception, or lack thereof. Then you can do what everyone else does.”
“What’s that?” she mumbled.
Matt frowned. “Just holler.”
In four strides, he was out the doorway of his office. The door closed behind him with a slam. It ricocheted in her skull. She was tipsy from one sexy-as-sin cowboy. On her skin lingered the scent of Aramis. It was a heady mixture of leather, wood, and Matt.
For the next few minutes, it was a battle to get into her zone. After bringing up the lab on Matt’s computer, she hit print for the chain of custody forms. Since she already had an account with this lab, they’d begin sample analysis day after tomorrow. For now, she concentrated on setting up her workspace on Matt’s glass top desk. His office was a combination of glass, steel, and gun gray leather chairs.
Inside his desk drawer, she found Post-it notes, clips, and pens. She removed a handful of supplies that she placed off to the side. From the freezer pack, she pulled out the samples. Reviewing them one by one, Carolina was still conscious of the sting along her lips that Matt had unequivocally kissed swollen.
Back in Miami, when she hadn’t heard from him, she’d im
agined the worse after that scene in the hotel. She’d chalked up that their contract was null and void, then she’d gotten Matt’s email, offering to pick her up. Given their chemistry, this had to be a work relationship. Nothing more.
Except twice in one day, they’d kissed. This up and down nature of Matt’s was like riding on a roller coaster without the lapbar. It was exciting, exhilarating really, and very, very scary. A loss of control Carolina had never experienced. It took minutes for her heartbeat to return to normal. But her imagination—good God—it would never let her forget.
The string of digits printed on the sample receded if she didn’t keep reminding herself to read the white label and write the identification number on the chain of custody—COC—for the lab.
Matt’s voice was muffled in the hall, just feet from the door. She didn’t recognize the voice of the other man. But she heard Matt say a name. Miller? What his family would do if they found out about these samples? If someone came in, what could she say she was doing. Holding a blood sample, Carolina froze. They needed a backup, backup plan.
She dropped the sample back into the bag then opened the larger of the desk drawers. It was filled with file folders. She gathered handfuls and stacked them on the floor under the desk. Afterwards, she shoved the samples into the drawer. If anyone came in, she’d shut the drawer and they’d be none the wiser.
Hopefully, Matt wouldn’t mind that she’d dumped the file folders on the floor. Considering he’d kept the samples locked in a closet, in a thumb print freezer, he’d probably congratulate her. From what he’d implied about his family, they weren’t aware of his intent or suspicions, and it wasn’t up to her to spill the beans.
Male voices suddenly rose out in the hall. A deep rumble of a laugh was followed by a loud goodbye, then silence.
Carolina plodded on. Sample by sample, she quietly cataloged each on the COC. It seemed to take forever. Each time she checked the lab form against the same ID, she had typed it wrong. At this rate, it would take her a week to prepare the samples. Her neck and shoulders tightened.
Damn it. She wanted to bang on the keyboard in frustration. She exhaled hard enough to scatter a neat stack of papers along the desktop.
Matt quietly opened the door. He put a finger to his lips as he approached the desk. “How’s it going?”
“Not so good,” she said.
“What can I do?”
Carolina didn’t focus on his handsome face, but kept her eyes glued to the samples. “It would really help if you read out the ID numbers. This going back and forth isn’t foolproof. There can’t be any mistakes when it comes to lab analysis.”
“Sure.” Matt paused abruptly. “What happened to my desk?”
He was at the back of the tall office chair that Carolina sat in. Keeping her focus straight ahead, she whispered, “I heard you talking and thought I’d better stow the samples. It isn’t my best demo on redecorating but there wasn’t much time.” She opened the desk drawer and showed him the stash.
“Miller stopped by. I told him we were in here,” Matt replied.
She stiffened. “Doing what?” Matt didn’t answer. Carolina heard a click and swung around just as he snapped a photograph. Exasperated, she grabbed his hand. “What did you tell him?”
Matt shrugged, but she couldn’t let it go. Staring up into his dark blue eyes, she pinched his wrist.
He arched a brow. “I don’t kiss and tell, if that’s what you think.”
“I’m not thinking anything, but neither are you answering my question. You’ve become enthralled with that camera on your phone.”
He frowned, lowering his cell. “I told Miller that we were talking. He filled me in on a repair. Nothing more, Carolina. One day, you’re going to tell me why you think that I’d ever disrespect you.”
“It isn’t personal. It’s just…” Her stomach knotted. Unable to let down her guard, she whirled back around. What was she afraid of? This was nothing but the aftermath of letting Jeff screw with her head for far too long. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be. I’m on your team.”
After a beat, she said, “This process will go faster if you read the ID numbers. We’re losing time if I have to read, type, and recheck each number.”
That’s all she had to say. Matt scooped up the large industrial-sized ziplock bag from his desk drawer. She showed him where to begin and explained her system of processing the samples. Their arms brushed and she pressed the balls of her feet into the carpet. The heat from his skin was searing. It was a struggle to concentrate on the computer screen.
“These are starting to thaw,” he said.
“They can’t. They’ve got to stay frozen.”
He rose and went into the closet. In no time, he returned, holding a cold storage box to keep the samples frozen. They sat next to each other. Matt called out the ID number on each label as she typed. She glanced up when she was ready for the next sample.
Their fingers touched as he took the samples and put them into the cold storage box. The jittery electrical tingle pierced Carolina’s focus each time it happened.
“Why did you become a vet for large animals?” His breath caressed her neck, upsetting her willy-nilly attention span.
Carolina’s focus splintered as she typed and tried to assemble her thoughts. “Uh, I volunteered at the zoo in high school. Like any kid, I was impressionable.”
“But you stuck to it,” he said.
“Seeing sick animals in captivity, sometimes injured, unable to do much for themselves made me want to help. I assisted some very caring vets.”
Without warning, Matt twirled some of her hair between his fingers. “Tell me more.”
“I also observed some very uncaring vets and that bothered me. I guess I fell in love with the idea of helping animals.”
“In the abstract only? You’ve got a reputation for diagnosing disease.”
“In the beginning, I wasn’t interested in pathology or being in a lab. I was excited by the hands-on stuff.”
“And now?” he asked.
“I have the best of both worlds. My van gives me the ability to work in the field and travel. It wasn’t what I planned. It sorta evolved.”
“Meaning?” Matt gazed at her. His piercing blue eyes were hard to resist but she wasn’t prepared to tell him every detail.
Hedging, she supplied, “I worked as a subcontractor to a vet. Dr. Haverty. He’s in my references. A pathologist and university professor. When it was time to renew the contract, I opted out. Now, I’m a free agent.”
“That’s gutsy,” he replied with a glint of appreciation in his eyes.
Heat washed over Carolina’s face. “Not really. Haverty sorta took advantage of the situation insofar as taking a lion’s share of the credit. Not that I’m complaining even though technically I kinda am. It was a situation where I had to earn my stripes.”
Matt laughed. “We all do.”
Carolina felt so at ease telling him about her past and added, “As a kid, we don’t know much except what a career looks like. I mean, I wasn’t practicing medicine just helping. Same thing with any decision. You never know for sure what it is you’re agreeing to, just what you imagine, or hope or fear.”
“Yeah, the idea of having the ability to pick up and leave…” Matt didn’t finish his thought. He picked up the last five samples that they’d worked on and strode away from the desk. He was silent as if contemplating her words. After placing the samples in the box, he stopped before a set of windows that overlooked the pasture. “We weren’t given much choice around here. Going to college meant coming back with a skillset for the purposes of ranching. Back then, I didn’t imagine another life. Do you?” Matt turned to face her.
“Unfortunately, that’s all I do. It keeps me up at night. I don’t want to settle for the easy route. Easy life, easy decisions, do what my family expects. All they see is me getting married and pregnant. As if being a ve
t is what I do until then. Some days that seems so farfetched. Then other days, getting married seems like it could be a good idea. But not my whole story. What I want is to find a place that feels—” Carolina paused, then shook her head. “I’m not sure what it would feel like. But I’ll know, the second I find it. I admire your conviction and tenacity in realizing your life goal.”
His brow furrowed and without responding, he lifted a computer bag and took out a laptop, which he set up on the side of the desk.
She turned back to her screen. “I’m ready for the next sample.”
The rest of their work sped by. Neither of them talked much after they settled into a rhythm of documenting each sample. Matt added the type of testing for each sample into his spreadsheet by copying the information from the chain of custody forms onto a jump drive.
They finished in less than two hours, ending up with five printed laboratory forms of samples to be processed and two taped-up shipping boxes, complete with printed labels and shipping forms. “The samples will be at the lab by tomorrow and it’ll take a week for the initial report.”
“Good work,” Matt said, admiration in his voice.
“It was a team effort. Not as daunting as I first envisioned.”
“This should be a piece of cake. You’re an expert at what you do.”
Hearing him describe her as an expert sent a bullet of elation through Carolina. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Cut-and-dried, it’s the truth. I don’t gloss over or lie when it comes to my business.”
“Or play nice?”
“With you, I’d like to. But that isn’t up to me.”
Heat blossomed over her cheeks. Maybe because of their recent admissions, she just said the truth, “I’ve never been opposed but we agreed. Back in Miami.” She glanced up and her breath caught at the smolder in the dark blue eyes that greeted her.
“And now?” Matt looked absolutely feral and she tensed.
Her leg muscles twitched like a runner in the blocks. Carolina gave into a primal instinct. She rose from her seat and he moved like a panther on a hunt. They met at the other side of his desk. This time, it was her mouth that came crashing down on his. She hungrily kissed him, her tongue searching like a lost soul.