by Jill Shalvis
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.