by Nina Croft
“Why?” She didn’t think Harry would follow them outside the house.
He just shrugged. “Why not?” They walked side by side but not touching. “So tell me about this thing.”
“I set it up a few years ago. Some of the homeless people have pets, and honestly, they feed them before they feed themselves, but there’s no way they can afford the services of a vet.”
“Maybe they shouldn’t have animals then.”
“Maybe. But sometimes these people have nothing and no one else. No home, no family, no friends. Maybe just a dog who gives them unconditional love. It’s so beautiful seeing the bond between them.” She shrugged. “Everyone needs someone to love.” She cast him a sideways glance. He didn’t look convinced. Did Josh have someone he loved? Who loved him unconditionally? She didn’t think so.
Based on his quest for no-strings-attached sex, she guessed he was alone by choice. But she couldn’t help but notice how lonely he was in his bubble. And she also couldn’t help but wish he had someone who could make him feel like he was finally home.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I went around all the local veterinary surgeries and badgered them. Some finally caved in. We started small, but when word got around, more vets joined and more people turned up. In the summer we work in the park, in the winter we rent a hall. It’s actually a registered charity now.”
The park was already teeming with people. Some were old friends, and she waved but led Josh through to where Sean Manning was setting up his station. Sean was on the charity board and had been in on the project from the start. He’d once told her the project had renewed his faith in what he was doing, made him remember why he had become a vet in the first place.
Sean was in his thirties, medium height, with warm brown eyes like a spaniel. He’d asked her out at the beginning, and she’d told him that she wasn’t…free. She liked him, though, a lot, and maybe if she had been free she might have considered him. But he didn’t make her palms clammy or her heart race. And she couldn’t begin to imagine him naked.
“Lexi.” His face lit up when he saw her, and Josh stiffened at her side.
“Hi, Sean, this is Josh, my…
She hesitated. What was she supposed to introduce him as? These people didn’t even know she was married.
“Husband,” Josh supplied for her.
Sean glanced from her to Josh and back again. “You got married without telling anyone?”
“We’ve been married for five years,” Josh said coolly.
“Really?” Poor Sean looked a little confused now. As well he might. They were friends.
“Josh hasn’t been around much,” she said. “He was in the army. Overseas. I couldn’t talk about it.”
“Like on secret missions?” Sean asked.
“Something like that.” It was sort of the truth. He had been in the army at one point.
“But I’m back now,” Josh put in. She glanced at him, and he raised a brow.
“Well, good. I think.” Sean didn’t sound sure. “Let’s get to work, then.”
A queue had formed in front of his station, and Lexi went around the back of the table. “First, please,” she called out.
A woman with a poodle in her arms came forward. Lexi smiled encouragingly, then turned to Josh who was standing at her side like some sort of bodyguard, making people nervous, including Sean. “Why don’t you go have a look around,” she suggested.
He glanced from her to Sean and back again, and for a second she thought he was going to insist on staying, but he gave a curt nod, shoved his hands in his pockets, and walked away.
“He’s a little intense,” Sean said.
“Hmm,” she replied as she watched his retreating figure. He really had a great ass.
“And, I’m guessing, the jealous type.”
She gave him a swift glance. No way would Josh be jealous. He didn’t see her like that. Maybe he was merely territorial. Or putting on an act. Which was nice of him.
Once he’d agreed to support her, he’d definitely given his all.
Above and beyond the call of duty.
…
As he walked away, Josh tried to analyze his reluctance to leave her. He hadn’t liked the way that Sean guy had looked at her. He was guessing Sean wanted to be more than just friends.
Never going to happen.
The thought brought him up short. Because really, once the next six months were over, they’d get a quiet divorce, and after that, what Lexi got up to, and with who, was none of his business.
The vet would make her a great partner. He could look after Prudence, the chicken, and all Lexi’s other furry and feathered friends. A match made in heaven. And Josh hated the idea. It made his teeth hurt. Like he said—never going to happen.
He stopped for a moment and looked around. The park had been divided into areas, where different vets had set up trestle tables. Some were doing specific things—one vaccinating, another worming, but there were others more general. He stood and watched as one vet cleaned and bandaged a cut on a mongrel’s leg, then gave it a shot.
The clientele were, as Lexi had said, mainly homeless people. They were easy to spot. His company donated to a charity that helped homeless veterans, not necessarily providing them with a home, but giving them somewhere they could go for help and access to food and doctors. He was quite aware that people who ended up on the streets usually had far bigger problems than having no home. That tended to be a symptom rather than the cause of the problem. Most of the veterans he’d worked with had some level of PTSD and were finding it hard to settle back into life over here, unable to hold down jobs or interact with family and friends. Those issues had to be addressed first.
He stood and watched as a lady vet filed the overgrown teeth on a black and white rat, which then promptly vanished inside a man’s jacket pocket, just its twitching nose showing.
The vet glanced across. “Hi. You’re Lexi’s husband. I recognize you from the description.”
“The description?”
“Well, depending on whether it’s male or female, ‘scary badass,’ or ‘simply stunning.’”
His lips twitched. “I’m Josh.”
“Jasmine.”
He helped her for a while, then moved on. News travelled fast, and his fame was spreading before him. Everyone seemed to know him as Lexi’s husband, and most chatted to him briefly. He could tell from the way they spoke about her that they all liked Lexi, and felt protective of her. He was issued more than one warning that he’d better be good to her.
Yet one more reason this had to end after six months. She deserved someone good for her. Someone great. Someone offering strings. Someone other than him.
Night was falling, the place was almost empty, and the vets were all packing up when a man approached. Tall, skinny, pale face, and gray hair—he had a black dog on a leash, which pressed itself against the man’s leg.
He looked around, then his gaze fixed on Josh, and he came over. “You’re Lexi’s husband?”
Hell, he was famous. He nodded.
“Could you hold my dog for a second?” Without waiting for an answer, he shoved the lead into Josh’s hand and walked quickly away.
What the fuck?
The dog started after the man, whining softly, and Josh crouched down and rubbed his head. He glanced up, searching for the owner, but he’d disappeared. He found Lexi, though. She looked tired but happy as she crossed the grass to where he stood with the dog.
“You got a new friend?” Lexi asked.
“Some guy handed him to me and ran away.”
Lexi crouched down, examined the dog. “Oh no.”
“What is it?”
“It’s Toby. His owner has cancer. I’m guessing for him to leave Toby here, he must be bad.” She stroked the dog’s head, and then took the lead from Josh. “I’ll see if I can get him a place to stay.” The animal whimpered as she led him away, looking back over his shoulder and down the road toward where his owner had van
ished.
Lexi came to a halt in front of a woman who was maybe in her fifties, with dark hair streaked with gray, a thin wiry body, and beautiful green eyes. “Can you take him, Martha? He’d better go into quarantine until we’ve checked him out.”
“Of course. Bobby’s new family picked him up today so there’s a kennel free.” She crouched down and petted the dog, who looked back at Josh with accusation in his eyes. What was he supposed to do?
As they left the park, they paused outside the gates. Josh didn’t want to go home yet. There were too many people at the house, all wanting her time. He liked having her to himself, and he didn’t want to think about that too closely. For many years, he hadn’t allowed himself to get close to anyone. He understood why. Despite his lack of education, he wasn’t stupid. He could sense himself drawn to Lexi, and part of him was scared. But still he couldn’t stay away.
He’d liked the way she looked at him back in the bedroom—like she was starving and he was something deliciously edible. His dick jerked in his pants. He shouldn’t have thought that. Now he couldn’t get rid of the image of Lexi on her knees in front of him. Had she ever given a blow job? Unlikely, if she’d been a virgin. He’d have to tell her what to do, how he liked it…if he could remember. Maybe they could learn together.
“Let’s go get a coffee,” he said.
“Okay. There’s a place just down the road.”
They settled into a booth by the window and both ordered coffee.
Watching her working with the animals had been a revelation. She was a goddamn millionaire, and she spent her evenings cleaning up dog puke. He’d seen the compassion she’d shown to all the animals and their owners. He didn’t want that for himself. He wasn’t an object of pity. What the hell would he need compassion for?
“You look a little…upset,” she said. “What’s the matter?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
She regarded him for what seemed like an age, head cocked to one side. “Will you tell me something?”
“I might.” Here we go…
“Why did you marry me?”
The question took him by surprise, and he said the first thing he could come up with. “For the money.”
“To start your business?”
For a minute, he was tempted to agree, let her think that was the case. But something deep inside him wanted to share the truth with her. He’d never told anyone his plan, not even his commanding officer, who’d approached him with the offer to marry Lexi.
He added sugar and stirred his coffee. “No, not to start the business.”
“Hey, you don’t have to tell me, if it makes you feel bad. I just wanted to understand.”
She was giving him a way out, and maybe he should take it, but now he found he wanted to tell her. Wanted her to understand a little of who he was and why he would never be the man she thought he could be. He sat back and thought about where to start. “I had a sister. She was ten years younger than me. When I was seventeen, she was taken into care and eventually adopted, and I could do fuck all to stop it.”
She reached out and rested a hand on his. “I’m sorry, Josh. Were you close?”
“I brought her up from the moment she was born.” He could still remember the feel of her tiny body in his arms as his mum had shoved the baby at him when she got home from the hospital. “Just stop it crying,” she’d said. And somehow he had. From then on, he’d done everything for her. “My mum was a total screw up. Men, alcohol, drugs. Name a vice and she was into it. She wasn’t interested in a baby, so it sort of fell to me. But from the moment I saw her… Evie was the sweetest, and I didn’t mind.”
“Evie? That’s the tattoo you have on your arm. Your sister?”
“Who did you think it was—another woman? Evie saved me. At ten, I was doing a great job of following in my mum’s footsteps. I thought I was a total badass. I’d have probably been in juvie before I was eleven. Evie straightened me out, made me see there were things worth working for.”
“I bet you were a cute little boy.”
He snorted. “I was a monster. But I changed. She made me take responsibility. I thought she was someone I could love unconditionally.” And look how well that had fucking turned out.
“What happened?”
“My mum met this guy. Apparently, he didn’t like kids, so she got rid of the problem. Handed her over to social services. I begged her not to, told her I’d look after Evie. She wouldn’t even know she was there. She laughed at me. I can still remember Evie’s face when they took her away.”
“I hate your mother.” She sounded so passionate.
“I went to see social services. They told me it was impossible. I was a seventeen-year-old-kid, with no money, no job, no education—I’d missed a lot of school—and a police record for shoplifting. It was often the only way I could get the stuff Evie needed. Anyway, Mum had already signed the papers. Evie was put up for adoption, and that was that.”
He risked a glance at her face, not wanting to see her pity. She blinked away a tear. She was such a softie.
“And I joined the army. It seemed as good a place as any and my options were limited. But I liked it. Loved the order, knowing what I was supposed to do and when. I was good, and I made sergeant.”
“And you didn’t see Evie?”
“Social services thought it was best. Give her a clean start. Maybe they were right.” He shrugged. One minute she’d been his whole life, the next she was gone completely. “Anyway, I took a sniper bullet in Afghanistan. Just over my heart.” He rubbed at the spot where he could still feel the raised scar. “I was about to be discharged, and I had no ties—my girlfriend at the time had just dumped me.”
“Why?”
“She wanted more, and I wasn’t ready to give it. She said I was a commitment-phobe, and she was right. Families fuck you up.”
“Tell me about it,” she said morosely. “So what happened next? How did you end up marrying me?”
“Jamie Frobisher was my commanding officer. He knew I was at a loose end. He approached me when I came out of the hospital. Said he had a friend who needed help, and that I could give it. He named a pretty impressive sum of money. And I had this idea. At seventeen, I’d had nothing. I couldn’t fight the system. But with that much money, I could get a private investigator to find Evie, and I could hire a lawyer and try to get custody or at least visiting rights.”
“Did he find her?”
“Yeah.”
“But you didn’t get custody. Oh Josh, I’m sorry.”
He swallowed, the regret still an ache in his chest. “I didn’t try. I saw her and she was so goddamned beautiful—blond-haired and blue-eyed like me.” And like his mum. “She must have been thirteen then. I went to the house—it was a great fucking mansion out in Surrey—and watched from a distance. She had a pony and a real family and she was so fucking happy. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t spoil that. I had nothing to offer her.”
He’d stood in the shadow of some trees and watched her for what seemed an age. It was a good thing no one had noticed him, but he hadn’t been able to drag himself away. Part of him had been happy for her, but it had been a bittersweet feeling, all mingled with loss and resentment that these people were everything he was not. It meant finally acknowledging the dream was really over, and feeling the emotions draining from him as he’d accepted that she was better off without him. She was so obviously happy, and no way could he jeopardize that. The truth was he’d needed her far more than she needed him, and he’d be selfish to impose himself on her now. He’d been so goddamned hopeful. That had been a mistake, and it had nearly broken him.
Never again.
“So I walked away—used the money to start the business, and forgot her.”
“Of course you didn’t forget her. She’s still there in your heart.” She thought for a moment. “That was five years ago. She must be nearly eighteen now.”
“Next week.”
“Well,
there you go. At eighteen, adopted children have the right to know the details of their birth families. You can contact her. Tell her you’d like to see her.”
“There’s no point.”
“Of course—”
“Change the subject, Lexi.” He’d said good-bye that day. He wasn’t laying himself open to that again. What could they possibly have in common after all these years? It was better left alone. “Tell me something about you.”
She clamped her lips closed. He could almost see the mental turmoil; she didn’t want to let it go. Then she sighed. “Okay—something about me. I’ve spent the last five years fantasizing about you.”
Chapter Ten
Shock punched him in the gut. “What?”
“Don’t panic.” Lexi shrugged. “I had to fantasize about someone. And you were my husband, after all. And Josh, you’re pretty hot. You were perfect fantasy material.” She grinned and drained the last of her coffee. “Of course, that was before I got to know you better.” She pushed her empty cup away. “Now, maybe we’d better head home.”
She thought he was hot?
He glanced out the window. The streetlights had come on, edging out the darkness. But he didn’t want to go home. He wanted to hear more about her fantasies. He was pretty sure she’d only said that to take his mind off Evie. And it had worked. What sort of things did she fantasize about?
He sat back, stretching his arms along the back of the bench seat, studying her. Her hair was trying to escape from the messy ponytail; her face was totally free of makeup, her lips pink and full. What were the chances she had ever fantasized about blow jobs? “Tell me one of your fantasies first.”
Her eyes widened, a flush staining her cheeks. “No way.”
“Come on, Lexi, I’ve opened up my heart to you. The least you can do is give me a hint of what we’ve been up to together all these years.”
She opened her mouth, closed it again, sat for a moment. “Honestly, I can’t.”
“Let me help.” He thought how to ease her into this, because he needed to know. “Have we done it in your four-poster bed?”
She gave a quick nod.