Chapter Three

There was no possible way Brett could have any real feelings for Jacie. A woman he’d known for less than a day.

That would be insane.

It took all his self-control not to touch his cheek where she’d kissed him.

“This is where your animals live?” Jacie almost sneered the question.

Oh, what almost? She definitely sneered.

The insult warmed his heart. This animal hospital was his pride and joy. He’d poured everything he had into it. Every cent he’d made, every speck of his intelligence, every ounce of his heart. But to give the animals the care they needed, made it all worth it.

He tried not to sound overeager. “You like it?”

She turned stiffly back toward his house and pointed. “And you live in that?”

He actually struggled to feel some resentment. “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with my house.”

Everything’s wrong with my house.

But he only slept there, slapped a couple of meals together everyday and precious little else. Alice even kept it tidy. He couldn’t see sinking a bunch of money into the dump. The animals were his passion, and he didn’t apologize to anyone for that.

“The animals live better than you do.” She turned back to the large brick and log hospital.

“You’re not the first person to point that out.” He’d worked hard to create harmony between the hospital and nature. He loved the wild setting and had made it a priority to enhance it rather than force civilization onto it.

“It’s in the dictionary,” Jacie said. “The definition is ‘When your pet has a nicer place to live than you do.’ The word being defined is moron.”

He really liked her sass. The truth was he was starting to look forward to whatever her sharp-witted brain would come up with next. “I’m in the hospital more than the house so I practically live there. So I live in a nice place, too. If one of the animals is really sick, I even sleep out here. C’mon, the inside is even better.”

He gave her a quick tour of the sterile, well-equipped examining rooms. Then he led her into the recovery room, with its clean, padded beds for the sicker animals and the spacious cages that opened up on well-fenced runs behind the hospital.

Several dogs barked a welcome and he talked to them, calling them by name. A long-haired Maine Coon cat arched its back elegantly and rubbed against the cage door.

“Why don’t you rest while I feed them and do a quick check, then we can get you home.” He was determined not to encourage her to hang around. The minute he started wheedling for her to spend the day, she’d demand to leave. Reverse psychology was wasted on animals, but Brett understood the concept. He’d already figured out that Jacie would always react against him, probably against everyone, so he kept offering to hurry and get her home. And every time he said it, the antagonistic light flashed in her eyes, and she deliberately chose to stay a little longer.

Brett settled Jacie onto a hay bale and started dishing up kibble.

Not for her.

She insisted on knowing what she really did the night before so he told her all about it. He worked and talked to her and tried to find the nerve to ask her for a date. But that wasn’t why he didn’t want her to leave. With a surge of righteous indignation he told himself he was worried about her injuries and he wanted her to stay for purely medicinal reasons.

He touched his cheek before he could stop himself and scratched his face in case she noticed and wondered. Maybe not purely medicinal. But the medical reasons were legit. Even if he wasn’t so fascinated by her, she still needed care. She wasn’t up to managing on her own. It didn’t sound like she had anyone to go home to. And he knew, despite her casual dismissal about the hospital, she hated them. The only way she would ever go to one was unconscious in the back of an ambulance. He wondered what had happened to make her so afraid. She was alone and injured. She needed him.

So, he pretended like he was in a hurry to get her home and kept working, inventing jobs, carefully checking his perfectly healthy patients and letting her rest on soft hay, in the cool Texas morning.

He started talking about each of his animals. She asked an occasional question so he kept talking. Since yesterday had been Ben’s wedding, he’d been careful not to have any seriously injured animals in the hospital. He’d referred everything to a nearby colleague. And Alice knew the place well enough to feed the animals he had left.

Now to pass the time, Brett checked the animals over and talked about deer ticks and lyme disease, he checked the sutures of a neutered cat that’d gotten an infection and discussed distemper and heartworm.

The hospital chores done, he gingerly helped Jacie up and they moved to the yard behind his animal hospital. Back there he had a modern steel barn to care for the big animals. He eased her down onto a dwindling haystack and went back to work, still talking. He told her about brucellosis and mastitis in cattle. He explained all about his single horse patient and its struggle with chronic bronchitis. Horses were his favorite and he was known near and far to be the man you took a horse too if it needed special attention. And he introduced Jacie to a bison that had needed a Cesarean.

The ten-year-old bison was the pride and joy of a small, private nature preserve. The mama stood lethargically, as all bison seemed to do right up until the moment they tried to kill you. Buffy, the mama, chewed her cud while the light brown calf nursed energetically, its stubby tail jerking wildly as it feasted.

He inspected Buffy’s incision through a sturdy fence, since he knew for a fact the bison could go from asleep to attack in a split second. She was ready to go home any time. He’d tried to ship her out Friday morning but the game preserve’s single stock trailer hadn’t been available.

He kept talking in the soothing voice he used on his patients. Considering he’d just had the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth for a sleepover, he wished he had something less prosaic to talk about, but he didn’t know much but animals these days, and what he knew from his old life, he didn’t mention.

“Notice the lack of redness or pus on the buffalo’s incision.” When he heard himself say those words, he almost tossed himself under the buff’s heels. Pus? Really? He was talking to Jacie about pus? He was a smooth talkin’ son-of-a-gun.

There was a reason he lived way out in the mountains surrounded by animals. He grimaced inwardly as he thought of all the women who had informed him he was dull. That he should stick to his animals and leave humans alone.

He’d pretty much done that lately. But he wished he could be interesting for Jacie. He turned to invite her to breakfast. She’d fallen asleep in the hay.

Dr. Sedative. At your service.

He quirked a smile and thought mockingly that this was already the best relationship of his life. He whispered, “God, could you please let me keep her?”
His only answer was the longing in his heart. He thought of the prayer he’d learned to pray, ‘The one who sent me is with me; He has not left me alone.’ Brett had grown up with five brothers and sisters, one of them his twin, Ben. He’d never expected to end up with such a lonely life, but it was how his life had worked out. He’d learned to accept it—no that wasn’t right, the truth was, he’d engineered it. He liked to be alone. And then he’d watched Ben marry Trudy. No woman could be more wrong for his brother—and yet somehow they’d fallen in love and brought out the best in each other.

He looked over at Jacie. She seemed really wrong for him. Maybe that was a good sign. And he was so drawn to her he wondered if maybe he wasn’t as resigned to being alone as he’d thought, or he wouldn’t be so interested in this woman who had fallen into his path.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. He had no chance with her. He’d learned a long time ago that women said they wanted sensitive guys. Men in touch with their feelings. Men who were in touch with their inner child or their—whatever the fad name for being a wimp was at the moment. But he’d been dumped too many times by a nice woman who found a crude, beer guzzling, misogynistic bad-boy. He could’ve acted like that. He’d learned every way there was to be crude in his old life.

But he wanted no part of that life and no part of a woman who thought that was desirable. Thanks mainly to Ben, he’d spent four years in a war zone and he’d found a real knack for all things macho. But he’d become someone he didn’t like or respect. His childhood, spent on Dad’s north Texas ranch, had called him home from the life of danger and violence. As a child he’d been a dog-loving, misty-eyed dreamer. He’d hunted with his father, two grandfathers, his three brothers and both sisters. That was how he’d learned to handle a gun, never knowing he’d end up being a sharpshooter hunting two-legged prey.

Now here he was with a family full of ranchers and lawmen. Tough guys. Brett could be tough but it didn’t suit him and, as a result, he was a misfit. An easy-going healer. And Jacie, an unemployed bodyguard, was going to get away from him the first minute she regained consciousness.

Then inspiration struck. He didn’t reach for the phone five feet away from him because he didn’t want Jacie to be disturbed. Also, he didn’t want to get caught arranging some free time for himself. He used the phone inside the hospital.

He was being devious, sneaky, manipulative. Worse yet, he was proud of himself.

He left the door open and positioned himself so he could keep an eye on her and started making calls.

 

 

 

He locked the door behind him, all five locks, double and triple checked. Then he pulled out his delicate instruments. Every time the building creaked he stopped, wondering if Chita had heard him come in. But she also knew not to bother him.

He rubbed the wires and computer chips he’d gathered. He caressed the long square of C4. He smoothed and perfected his child. He knew how much he needed. How big he needed the blast to be. What direction it should blow. How hot the fire should burn.

Handling the intricate mechanism always calmed him. He set aside the vengeance he was exacting for Chita to fight his own battle.

Garrison died first.

The Destroyer knew where. Oaken.

He knew how. He raised his beautiful creation.

He knew when. Tonight!