Chapter 4
In the teeny grooming room in the back of the Animal Instincts clinic, Zoe rinsed suds from a French poodle in the waist-high sink and eyed Rosa. Drake’s aunt and their former office manager had a wicked gleam in her eye as her thumbs flittered over her cell screen.
Cade liked to refer to his mom and two aunts as the Battleaxes, since their sole mission was to interject themselves into others’ lives and often play matchmaker. Or God. Zoe still had no clue why the woman was here, but she’d been at it for an hour. Texting. Smirking. Probably starting World War III via Twitter.
Zoe drained the sink basin and towel-dried the dog as her phone chimed on her desk. “Could you check that, Rosa?” It was probably nothing, but best to play it safe in case the call was about her mom.
She patted the stairs that led to the grooming table, encouraging Paris the poodle to jump down and move over. Thankfully, the dog had always been one of her best clients—calm and friendly. She hopped right up and planted her butt with a regal tilt to her head.
As Zoe brought out the hand dryer, Rosa checked Zoe’s cell. A frown marred the other woman’s brows before they lifted as if to say, oh really. She scrolled for a beat and set the phone aside. Zoe waited, but Rosa said nothing.
“Well?”
Rosa shrugged. “Not an emergency. See you later.” And with that, she sauntered out of the room, short red hair unmoving, zebra-printed butt swaying.
Zoe eyed Paris. “What was that about?”
With no forthcoming insight from the dog, she dried wet fur, brushed tight curls, and tied a pink bandana around the collar. Since she’d already trimmed the nails, Paris was all set to go home. Thankfully, this was Zoe’s last client of the day. If she timed things right, she’d have forty-five minutes before the adult daycare van brought Mama home.
Whatever would she do with herself?
Once she had Paris reunited with her owner in the lobby, Zoe made her way back to the grooming room and checked her phone. The text earlier had been from Drake.
I’ll bring the vaccination over tonight and do Cotton’s exam, if that’s okay?
She shot off a quick reply of confirmation, then frowned. Rosa had scrolled through the phone for a few moments. The text chats with Drake were very private and had been ongoing since the night Heather had died. No way Rosa had enough time to read more than a little, but Zoe’s stomach cramped with worry. The most recent note had been about redecorating and he’d mentioned he’d bought paint. Not exactly federal secrets, but still.
Sighing, she turned to grab cleaning supplies and got to work scrubbing the tub, wiping the counters, and soaking the brushes. When finished, she stared at the mural she’d designed on the far wall of dogs swimming in a pond with a few cats looking on from a tree branch. She’d painted it, along with the ones in the lobby and kennel room, about six years ago when the O’Grady boys had remodeled. Things had been so much easier back then. Happier. Heather had been alive and Zoe’s mama still had her mind.
Her small eight-by-ten workroom with the cheery walls and blue tile floor only served to remind her how little she’d been able to focus on her art the past couple years. Sad truth was, the clinic had been a reprieve from the craziness at home. What she’d give to have two hours with a real canvas and a paintbrush again.
Or an evening to herself to go on a date. She hadn’t exactly been promiscuous, but she’d had her share of lovers. A lifetime ago, she’d been known as the “good time.” She didn’t miss the guys, but she did miss the intimacy. These days, she was lucky to have five minutes to wash her hair.
Shaking her head, she made her way around a waiting chair and froze. Something skittered across her corner desk. A mouse? Maybe. It had moved too fast to make out. She hesitantly stepped closer. Whatever it was crawled off a stack of files and partly up the wall.
Not a mouse, but a…spider.
Her limbs locked and her lungs collapsed. Terror seized her chest. And that monster was no ordinary spider. Hell to the no. It was easily the size of her hand, furry, and…and…
Eyes glued to the nightmare, Zoe screamed bloody murder, then screamed some more. Shrieking wails that rattled her teeth and cracked her throat and could’ve landed her a starring role in a B horror movie. With a seizure dance and a burst of courage, she ran for the door. And plowed into Drake.
He grabbed her shoulders, blocking the exit. “Hey, what’s—”
Heart pounding, she launched at him, climbed his body like the rope in gym class, and did her best impersonation of a python by wrapping her limbs around him in a death grip. She fisted his black surgical scrubs, shaking. “Kill it, Drake. Kill it dead. Hurry.”
“Kill what? And I can’t breathe, Zoe. Loosen the choke hold.”
She tightened her hold on him, not caring one iota how weak and girly she must seem. “You don’t need to breathe. Look at the wall. Above my desk. Kill it, kill it, kill it…”
With a hearty sigh against her shoulder, he turned, cursed a wicked streak, and stumbled back into the wall. An uneven exhale ruffled her hair. “How in the hell did a tarantula get in here? They’re not even indigenous to the area.”
“Tell him that.” As if that was even the point. She chanced a peek over her shoulder just in time to see it crawl a few more inches up the wall. It could’ve been crawling over her the way her skin itched. This time she screamed loud enough to have Drake jerking and tensing against her.
His arms hugged her to him. “Maybe if we back out slowly, we can escape. Set the room on fire or something.”
Since she had her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, his words were mumbled against her collarbone and she couldn’t gauge whether he was being sarcastic or not.
The door banged against the wall and Cade strode in. He eyed the two of them, lifted his brows, and…smirked. The jerk.
Breath in her throat, she peered at him over Drake’s head of dark hair. “Cade, you have a gun in your office, don’t you? Shoot it. Now.”
He set his hands on his hips, frustration marring his forehead. “No, I don’t have a gun in my—” His gaze followed Drake’s and landed on the beast. “Holy shit.” He fell on his ass, crab-crawled over to her and Drake, and hastily got to his feet. “What the hell?”
“We’re trying to figure that out.” Drake nudged her arm down a fraction.
With a trembling hand, Cade scratched his head. “A gun couldn’t take out that thing. Perhaps a cannon, yeah? Do they make cannons anymore?”
Zoe was dangerously close to hyperventilating. Her lungs had shrunken to prunes and her throat was tighter than Spanx. “One of you grow a pair and do something.”
Shoving her hair out of his face, Drake grunted. “This from the woman who climbed me like a tree.”
“I’m about to become your new tattoo.” No way were her feet touching the floor until there was irrefutable proof the eight-legged freak was dead. “I’m not kidding. If you don’t do something—”
“What is all the yelling about?” Gabby strode in wearing pink scrubs and worry lines on her forehead. “You guys are scaring the patients.” She took in the scene with a confused twist of her mouth and adjusted her ponytail.
Cade pointed to the wall.
Gabby turned and patted her chest. “Oh, thank goodness. There you are.”
“Gabs, don’t go near it. It could eat you in one bite.” Cade shifted from foot to foot as if wanting to protect her and completely unable.
“Nonsense. He’s been de-sacced. His bite isn’t poisonous.” Then she…she…picked up the monster beast spider and held it in the palm of her hand, causing Zoe to emit a full-body shudder. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“Friend of yours, Gabby?” Drake asked, his chest rumbling Zoe’s. His arms banded tighter around her as if concerned she’d slip.
“This is Cupid. He’s boarding with us this week.” Gabby blew a strand of blonde hair away from her face. “I must not have put his aquarium lid back on tight enough after I fed him this morning.”
Cupid? What kind of twisted individual had a tarantula as a pet and then named it Cupid?
Cade’s jaw fell. “Did you feed it a cat? Small children?”
“Don’t you listen to him,” Gabby cooed, bringing her face so close to the thing, Zoe gagged. “You’re a perfectly nice wittle spidey, aren’t you?”
“Oh my God,” Zoe squeaked. “Make her stop, Drake. Make her stop.”
With a roll of her eyes, Gabby huffed. “Honestly, you guys are being such babies.”
Cade shoved his hands through his hair, eyes wide. “That’s right. Slap a diaper on my ass and shove a bottle in my mouth. I’m a damn baby. Just get that thing out of here.” His hands smacked his thighs. “And duct tape the lid shut this time.”
Gabby shook her head and looked at them pitifully.
After she’d left the room, Cade side-stepped to the door and peeked around the corner. “It’s gone.” He blew out a breath and disappeared from view. “Gabs, don’t think for one second I’m not telling Flynn about this. He should know his fiancée cuddles arachnids, yeah?”
Silence hung once she and Drake were alone, and he must’ve realized a 7.0 on the Richter scale had nothing on Zoe’s tremors because his hands gently skimmed her back in soothing circles. “You okay?”
“No.” She kept her face buried in his neck, partly due to the fact he smelled great, partly out of sheer relief, and mostly because she forgot how good it felt to be held.
“Are you going to be okay soon?”
“No.” Sometime in the next millennium, she’d quit shaking. “That thing is in the boarding room right next door. It’ll be in my nightmares for a month. It was in here. We should fumigate this room with toxic gas.”
“That can be arranged.”
“Twice.”
“Whatever you want.”
She shuddered. Again. “I want a tranquilizer the size of a Big Mac and a bleach bath. In that order.”
His chuckle sent a warm breath across her cheek. She was so unaccustomed to the sound that she eased back and whipped her gaze to his. Damn, she’d forgotten about the dimple on his left cheek. Humor lit his dark gaze, causing tiny fans of laugh lines to form around his eyes.
“Are you laughing at me?” God, it had been so long since she’d heard him laugh. Rusty, low, and deep, it wove through her chest and settled in her core.
“My apologies.” His grin slipped a fraction, but the warmth was still there. Gently, he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his gaze following the movement. “I forget sometimes that you’re human. Hard to believe you’re afraid of anything.”
That sounded like a compliment. “Well, I am. I’m afraid of spiders.” Embarrassed, she rolled her shoulders and eyed the floor, wanting to get down. Until visions of Cupid the Beast swam to mind.
“Let’s sit while you get your breath back.”
He moved to a corner chair and sank into it, her in his lap. His hands settled on her waist and she was reminded of how often they used to have incidental contact. All the O’Gradys were very hands-on. Touches of comfort. Hugs. But the longer they stayed as they were, the more she became aware of him. His direct gaze trained on her face. The light dusting of dark whiskers on his jaw. The purely male scent of him. His wide shoulders and the way he rocked a pair of scrubs. The muscles of his thighs under her and the corded tendon on his neck.
Desire coiled in her belly and spread. Guilt quickly chased the feeling and left conflicted uncertainty in its place. Unsure what to do, she stared at his chest.
He tensed beneath her like he’d hit rigor mortis. His lids fell closed in a flutter as he appeared to try to regulate his breathing. As if unaware of what he was doing, his thumbs stroked her ribs over her shirt and his fingers clenched. Little by little, his air exchange increased until he was all but panting. With his eyes still closed, a frown wrinkled his forehead and his jaw ticked.
“Guess I’m not the only one afraid of spiders,” she whispered.
“It’s not that.” His eyes popped open and landed on where he held her. Quickly, he dropped his hands to his sides and fisted them. He cleared his throat, but his voice remained tortured. “We’re in…very close proximity.”
The breath seeped from her lungs. Mortification fumed her cheeks.
God. Oh God. She’d made him severely uncomfortable. And why wouldn’t that be the case? His dead wife’s best friend had scaled his body, clung like a desperate hooker, and then forced him to play upon his caring tendencies when she’d refused to put on her big girl panties.
“I’m…” Stupid. So stupid. Scrambling off his lap, she stumbled and righted herself. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Heart twisting, skin cold, she darted a glance around the room, needing to look anywhere but at him. She rubbed her hands over her arms. “Lock up, would you?”
“Zoe—”
“I have to go.” Far, far away. Where she could crawl under a rock until one of them forgot this ever happened. Which would most likely be in the realm of never.
Tears burning her eyes, stomach like lead, she swiftly walked down the hall to the reception desk.
Gossip, their clinic cockatoo, ruffled his white feathers. Squawk. “Walk this way.”
Normally, she found the fact that the bird only spoke in song titles or lyrics endearing, but she was so over this day. Faking a smile, she filled out a billing sheet for her last client and dropped it in the proper basket.
Avery finished with a call and regarded Zoe. “You all right? I heard about the mammoth spider incident.”
“I’m good.” Zoe ran her fingers over She-rah, where the clinic cat sat on her perch atop the printer. The cat allowed the petting with a queen-like narrowing of her yellow eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Avery nodded just as Zoe’s grooming room door slammed closed. Heavy footsteps headed their way. Since she couldn’t handle Drake after what had happened, not without some Smirnoff, Zoe back-pedaled to shift around the desk.
Except she didn’t watch where she was going and stepped on Thor’s tail. One-hundred and twenty pounds of skittish Great Dane leapt to its feet and scrambled out from under Avery’s desk. Before Zoe could react, the chickenshit dog lunged and she went down. Her ankle rolled as her back hit the floor. Thor cowered over her and licked her face.
Zoe stared at the ceiling. Sighed. And here she thought she wasn’t getting any action. She might have a heart attack if the dog ever stopped being afraid of its own shadow. “Hi, Thor. I’m sorry about your tail.”
Woof.
“You’re heavy.”
Woof.
“My face is properly clean now.”
Woof.
Brent’s shoes stopped by Zoe’s head. “For the love of Cher. You can’t be this hard up for a man.”
She eyed Cade’s tech. “You know, I used to appreciate our friendship so much that if we ever got in a cat fight, I would’ve totally avoided your face. I’m changing my mind.”
Avery’s worried expression blocked Zoe’s view of the florescent lights. “Crap on a cracker. Are you all right?”
“Yep. A little help here.”
“Thor, come.” Drake’s command shattered what little confidence Zoe had left. What was a miniscule thing like self-esteem anyway?
The dog climbed off her, and she groaned. Rolling to her side, she got to her feet. A fiery lick of pain infused her left ankle, not allowing her to bear much weight. Lovely. Just what she didn’t need. And it didn’t escape Drake’s attention she’d hurt herself.
“Come into the x-ray room. We’ll take a look and make sure nothing’s broken.”
Like her ego? That was pretty fractured.
He wrapped his large hand around her upper arm, and she had to bite her tongue not to lose her shit.
“I’m fine.” Swiping her purse from the desk, she hobbled to the door. And damn, did it hurt. Two steps from freedom, he called her name. “I said I’m fine.”
Humidity, laced with the scent of salt and pine, hit her face. The sweltering heat had faded to something more comfortable. Sunlight filtered through the canopy of cypress and spruce trees as she climbed behind the wheel. She shoved her keys in the ignition and sank into the hot leather seat.
So much for forty-five minutes to herself. Due to the circus of activity, she’d be lucky to get home in time to head off Mama’s transportation van.