Second Act

by Herkness, Nancy

  “I was young and arrogant when I believed that. Now I understand how often fate intervenes.” He dropped onto the built-in sofa and stretched out his long legs, plucking at the fabric of his charcoal trousers. “They cut these things so tight I can barely move. And they expect me to run in them.”

  Jessica perched on the edge of the sofa three feet away from him, wondering if they were going to stick to superficial topics. “Have you ever split a seam while filming?”

  “Many times, but wardrobe just sews it up again.” He fixed his intense blue gaze on her. That focus had astonished her the first time she’d experienced it. She’d never before met a man who made her the entire center of his attention. He’d made her feel extraordinary for the first time in her life. He had truly seen her.

  “How are you, Jess?” He scanned her face. “You look beautiful. But tired.”

  She squelched a desire to snort. Hugh was surrounded by gorgeous, perfectly dressed and made-up women all the time. Here she sat in often-washed jeans, a long-sleeve gray T-shirt, and soggy boots. She was pretty sure her bun was a sloppy mess, too. “Beautiful, no. Tired, yes.”

  Hugh shifted to lean closer to her, his face tight with displeasure. “You are beautiful.” He locked eyes with her for a long moment before he sat back. “What’s making you so tired?”

  Irritation prickled through her. After years of ignoring her, he was suddenly concerned about her well-being? “Oh, I don’t know, maybe running a single-practice veterinary clinic here in South Harlem.” She grimaced. “It’s a constant balancing act.” Balancing the patients’ needs against their owners’ ability to pay; balancing her desire to help every animal brought through her door against the need to sleep; balancing the competence and compassion of her staff against the amount of money she could afford to compensate them. The one thing she had no balance between was her work life and her personal life. She had neither time nor energy for the latter.

  Hugh’s expression showed profound understanding. She reminded herself that he was a very talented actor. “And you won’t turn away a single animal,” he said.

  “How can I?” She asked herself that question almost daily as she stayed past regular office hours.

  “You’re going to burn out,” he said. “Can’t you hire another vet to help you?”

  “I had one for a year, but she wanted to pay off her school debt, so she went someplace that could offer her a higher salary.” Jessica shrugged. “Not that I blamed her, but it’s too frustrating and time-consuming to train someone, only to have them leave as soon as they have enough experience to get a better job.”

  “I can imagine.” Hugh stared at something across the room for a few moments before speaking again. “I’m sorry we lost touch.”

  Annoyance flared into anger. “We lost touch? I left half a dozen voice mails for you. You didn’t answer them.”

  “I—” He dragged his hand over his mouth. “It was too soon.”

  “And now it’s too late.” Jessica set the bottle on a side table and pushed off the couch. She didn’t want to get ensnared by Hugh’s dark magnetism again. “I should get going.”

  Hugh stood, too, towering over her in the space that suddenly seemed small. “I behaved like a jerk.” Then he did the thing that used to disarm her every time. All the hard lines of his face went soft, and his voice dropped to a smooth rumble. “Let me start to make things right by treating you to a meal.”

  He’s an actor. With an effort of pure will, she quashed the part of her that wanted to find out more about what had happened after she left or simply to bask in his still familiar, still tempting presence a little longer. “It’s been good to see you, Hugh. I wish you luck with your movie. This is the one it took Gavin Miller so long to write, isn’t it?”

  “You’ve paid attention to Julian’s progress, then?” He looked surprised.

  “Of course. It’s not hard when you’re on the cover of a magazine at least once a month.” She scanned the trailer to see where Margaret had put her coat. Spotting it draped over a kitchen stool, she edged around Hugh to grab it. “I really have to go.”

  He took the coat from her hands to hold it for her. “Give me your cell phone number. I’d really like to take you out to dinner while I’m in New York.”

  She gave him a tight smile. “Sure, I’ll break out my designer scrubs.” Their last big fight had been about what she wore on the red carpet.

  “I deserved that,” he said, his voice projecting genuine remorse. He gently tugged a stray strand of hair out from under her coat collar, the whisper of his fingers against the nape of her neck sending pleasure rippling through her. “Please. You can wear rags, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “We live in different worlds,” Jessica reminded him . . . and herself. “It’s better if we keep them from clashing.”

  And safer. After eight years, he could still make her feel things she thought she’d put behind her.

  He huffed out a breath of frustration. “You and I never agreed about that.”

  The door of his trailer vibrated as someone rapped loudly on it. “Hugh, can I come in?” a melodious woman’s voice called.

  Muttering something under his breath, he ran both hands through his hair in an uncharacteristic gesture of hesitation. Then he walked over to open the door.

  “Hello, sweetheart.” The woman kissed him on the cheek. “It’s frigid in my trailer, so I thought I’d review my lines in the warmth of yours. You don’t mind, do you?”

  She was stunning, of course, with auburn hair, green eyes, and a wide, generous mouth that undoubtedly incited all kinds of sexual fantasies in the male mind. And Jessica recognized her as the actress who’d been cast as Julian Best’s new love interest.

  The woman’s gaze found Jessica, and she started. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you had company. I’ll leave.”

  “No, I’m leaving,” Jessica said. She zipped her coat with a flourish.

  “Jess, this is Meryl Langdon, my costar,” Hugh said, his tone dry. “Meryl, meet Jessica Quillen, my ex-fiancée.”

  Meryl held out her hand with alacrity, but her face held curiosity. “A pleasure,” she said, her grip on Jessica’s hand friendly. “I didn’t know Hugh had an ex-fiancée.”

  “Ancient history,” Jessica said.

  “Neither you nor Hugh is old enough to call it ancient,” Meryl said with a thread of laughter in her tone.

  No wonder she’d gotten the part of Julian’s love interest. Even the timbre of her voice made you want to lean in to hear it better.

  “Sometimes I feel older than dirt,” Jessica said, pulling on her gloves. “Nice to meet you. Bye, Hugh!” She gave a breezy wave and slipped out the door before he could react.

  As she stepped down onto the gritty sidewalk, she hunched her shoulders against the slicing winter wind. Or was she trying to duck the image she had of Meryl and Hugh entwined on the big bed in the trailer? They would make a dazzling couple with clothes or without.

  As she slogged off in the direction where she’d last seen the stray dog, she muttered, “I should have taken the damned sandwich.”

  Chapter 2

  “Your last cat spay just face-planted!” Caleb, one of Jessica’s vet techs, yelled through the operating room door. “She was up and aware one second, then collapsed. Gums are white. Breathing slow and shallow. Heart rate down to ninety beats. She’s on oxygen, but she’s not waking up.” Then he was gone again.

  “Oh, hell!” Jessica muttered into her mask as she dropped the scalpel back on the tray. She’d been about to make the first incision for a neuter. “Keep him sleeping,” she said to Tiana, the vet tech handling the anesthesia. “I’ll be back.”

  She raced down the hall to the recovery room, where Caleb was massaging the limp cat wrapped in a towel. The cat’s small black-and-white face was covered with an oxygen mask, and she lay on top of a heating pad.

  “How long has she been on oxygen?” Jessica asked, removing the little mask so she co
uld press the cat’s gums to check the capillary refill time. Not good.

  “About three minutes. No response.”

  “Get a pulse ox on her.” Jessica unwrapped the towel and pressed her stethoscope to the cat’s chest while Caleb clipped the heart and oxygen monitor between the cat’s toes. “Heart rate is still depressed.” She felt the cat’s ears and paws. “Cold extremities.”

  The monitor began its monotonous beeping, but far too slowly.

  “Oxygen saturation is rising,” Caleb said, reading the monitor. “But nothing else is.”

  “It might be a bad reaction to the anesthesia,” Jessica said. “I’m going to administer atipamezole to try to reverse the effects. What’s the cat’s weight?”

  Caleb checked the chart. “Two point seven kilograms.”

  Jessica did a fast mental calculation as she unlocked the medicine cabinet and grabbed the bottle of atipamezole. Ripping a syringe out of its sterile packet and shoving a needle on it, she drew in the liquid and ran back to the recovery table. Caleb had already positioned the cat’s hind leg, so Jessica felt for the muscle and jabbed the needle into it.

  Caleb covered the cat with the towel again and resumed his massage to stimulate the cat’s system. Jessica replaced the oxygen mask over the little creature’s face.

  “What’s her name again?” Jessica asked. She’d done so many surgeries that day that they’d all blurred together.

  “Boots,” Caleb said. “Mrs. Lopez just adopted her.”

  “Come on, Boots,” Jessica said in an urgent voice as she checked the monitor. “Come back to us, baby.”

  Slowly but steadily, the beeping of the pulse ox sped up. A few minutes later, the cat blinked open her golden eyes.

  Jessica and Caleb grinned at each other over the cat’s swaddled body.

  “You did it, Doc,” the vet tech said. “You brought her back.”

  “We brought her back. You did a great job, Caleb,” Jessica said. She methodically checked all of Boots’s vital signs and breathed out a sigh of relief. The cat was stable.

  “I have to get back to surgery,” she said. “Keep a close watch on her until you’re sure she’s on solid ground.”

  “You got it, Doc.”

  Jessica scrubbed in again and bolted back to the OR, where the male cat still slept tranquilly on his back, his hind legs splayed out and anchored to the table.

  “Okay, time to give up the family jewels, buddy,” she said, picking up her scalpel. A few incisions and knots, and the job was finished. Her assistant gently wrapped the limp cat in a towel and carried him out of the operating room.

  Carla Watkins, the clinic’s receptionist and office manager, strolled into the surgery. “Honey, you got company in your office.”

  “And I’ve got six more surgeries to do. Who is it?” Jessica stripped off her surgical gloves and mask. Carla was usually a tigress about fending off drug reps without appointments, so it must be someone she felt Jessica would want to see. Which could only mean her brother.

  Aidan had arrived at her house unannounced yesterday, dropping his duffel bag in her front hall and giving her his trademark “forgive me because I’m your brother and you love me” smile. But she hadn’t felt forgiving, especially because he had a noticeable tan and his shoulder-length brown hair showed sun-bleached streaks of blond. Considering the gray, skin-numbing, postholiday dismalness outside her window, that meant Aidan had been traveling somewhere warm and tropical. She hadn’t had a vacation in three years, so the thought didn’t improve her reception of her brother.

  She’d forced herself to hug him, but then she’d had to leave before she said something she’d regret. That’s why she had been so focused on capturing the starving dog. The animal’s plight kept her mind off her sibling’s lack of responsibility.

  Her brother had been gone—although his clothes were still strewn around her sparsely furnished guest room—when she got home from her encounter with Hugh. Aidan’s absence had provoked a mixture of relief and annoyance, especially when his return had been heralded by the slam of the front door at one in the morning, waking her up. Admittedly, her sleep had been fitful. Seeing her ex-fiancé had set off a train of memories that had whipsawed her between nostalgic joy and soul-searing agony.

  “Is it Aidan?” Jessica asked as she washed her hands.

  Carla raised her eyebrows. “Is he back in town?” Her voice vibrated with disapproval.

  Jessica nodded, but her heartbeat sped up. The only other visitor she could imagine Carla allowing in was Hugh.

  Carla’s expression went from judgmental to admiring. “No, it’s someone a whole lot more interesting. Says you’re friends from way back.” She threw Jessica a quizzical glance before she bustled out the door.

  As Jessica dried her hands, she tried to calm the nerves fluttering through her now that she was sure who it was. She hated reacting to Hugh this way. She should be able to ignore him the way he’d ignored her for eight years.

  When she started down the cracked gray linoleum hallway, Geode, the office’s resident cat, bolted past her to skid into the supply closet. Her visitor must have awakened the stranger-averse kitty and sent him running for cover.

  She reached her office, a former storeroom into which she’d crammed a wooden desk she’d found on the curb and some assemble-it-yourself oak filing cabinets on top of which Geode usually slept. Her one indulgence was a high-end ergonomic chair on wheels, which was currently occupied by her ex-fiancé, his back turned to her so the width of his shoulders was evident above the chair’s back.

  “What on earth are you doing here?” She stopped on the threshold, her hands on her hips, and he swiveled to face her, his own hands lifted in a gesture of mock self-defense.

  “You didn’t give me your cell number, so I had to come find you.” He rose, his presence filling the cramped space with that mesmeric energy unique to him.

  “You could have just called the clinic.” He wore a perfectly fitted navy-blue suit, and she realized he must be in costume as Julian Best. He looked out of place amid the battered furniture and the snapshots of patients in cheap plastic frames hung on the walls.

  He smiled in a way that lit up his vivid eyes. “I find it’s more effective to appear in person.”

  She thought of her no-nonsense office manager’s reaction. “I’ll bet you do.”

  He came around the desk to stand in front of her. She forced herself not to close her eyes as the exotic scent of sandalwood wafted into her nostrils. “You promised me dinner,” he said.

  “I’m pretty sure I turned you down,” she said, veering past him to drop into her desk chair. That put one piece of furniture between them, but it was better than none. “Look, I appreciate the invitation, but I work until at least seven o’clock every night. I’m too exhausted to go out after that.”

  He scowled. “No wonder you look tired. You need a life outside work.”

  She just stared at him as he echoed the words she’d once said to him, when their engagement unraveled. Except it hadn’t been his actual work that was the problem. It had been the extracurricular activities: the parties, the awards ceremonies, the promotional appearances. He’d claimed he had to do them all to succeed, and he’d wanted her by his side.

  At first the chance to dress up and be glamorous had been fun. When she’d run through her limited wardrobe, she and Hugh had gone on a shopping spree, spending part of the advance his agent had given him. He’d bought a tuxedo that she made him put back on when they got home, just so she could peel it off him slowly and with great attention to each revealed inch of skin. She’d bought dresses and shoes and costume jewelry, most of which Hugh picked out. He could look at a piece of clothing and know it would look great on her. Because he paid attention.

  However, the tension kicked in when the invitations began to conflict with her work schedule. Being low vet on the totem pole, she often got scheduled for evening hours. She had found someone to trade assigned slots with three weeks in a ro
w to accommodate Hugh’s work-fueled social schedule. The fourth week, she balked. He’d first tried to guilt her into it, saying he needed her presence to give him confidence. She’d pointed out that not only was it unfair to her colleagues to keep asking them to rearrange their week, but it made her look unprofessional.

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” he had said. “Once my career takes off, you’ll never have to work again.”

  She’d stood speechless for a long moment, wondering how this could be the same man who had chosen the perfect outfit for her because he seemed to know her almost better than she knew herself.

  And they’d had a huge fight.

  That’s when she had begun to realize that their needs were veering in sharply different directions. He wanted someone who could smile with dazzling sincerity on the red carpet with a battery of cameras pointed at her, not someone who came home in blood-spattered scrubs with a hunger headache.

  The ugly memory fortified her decision to avoid Hugh in the present time. She took a deep breath. “Aidan just arrived for a visit, so I don’t want to leave him alone.”

  Carla happened to be passing by the doorway just then and made a loud, derisive noise.

  “I sense a false note in that statement,” Hugh said, an undercurrent of amusement in his voice as he nodded toward the now empty corridor. “How is your brother?”

  She didn’t want to talk about it. “He’s fine. Enjoying New York City.”

  “He always took advantage of the nightlife when he came to LA.”

  Hugh had been very generous about taking her younger brother along to the fancy Hollywood parties he’d wangled invitations to. Back then, she and Aidan had been wide-eyed innocents, not understanding what went on in the bathrooms, bedrooms, and pool houses at those events. Hugh, of course, was well aware—he’d had the innocence kicked out of him in his teens—but he’d shielded them from the seamier side of the industry he’d chosen. She had to give him credit for that.

  “He’s doing the same thing here,” Jessica said. Without a job to support it. But Aidan was good at getting other people to pay for his pleasures.