Chapter Eight

Tanner felt the dark cloud lift the minute he got out of the exam room, thankful that he’d dodged that bullet. Make that mortar fire. Ding, dong, the witch was dead; he’d gotten rid of the slugger chick. She’d never be the wiser about his identity and she’d be gone by morning. Adios, chica.

After the last patient had gone, he took Suki outside to do her business, sat down to sift through some paperwork on his desk, then checked in on a few of his patients who were staying overnight. He had a vet tech on duty to keep an eye on animals that were boarding for the night, so he knew they were in good hands. After giving Snowball the once-over one more time, he grabbed his laptop bag and left the clinic, locking the door behind him.

He was torn about what to do. He’d promised Sully he’d come hear him play, but damn, he was tired. A promise was a promise though. If he were playing somewhere, he’d want his friends to support him. He definitely wasn’t going home to change. He’d never make it out again if he did. Instead he gave a quick whistle to Suki, who came running toward him and hopped onto the passenger seat of his truck, where he seat belted her to her harness for the short drive. He drove the three blocks to Harry’s, found a space not too far away, and entered through the back door. As any good local worth their salt knew, you never, ever, ever entered through the front door, where there’d be a line halfway around the block. The front entrance was for newbies and tourists.

He gave a wave to the hostess, who scruffed Suki on the head, then he climbed the stairs two by two up to the rooftop terrace. He wouldn’t stay long—only long enough to grab a quick dinner, have a beer or two, listen to a set, and get back home. Maybe then he’d have enough time to relax in the hot tub.

When Tanner got to the top, he grimaced at the crowd. He was so not into dealing with a mob of people. Give him the solace of a hike where all you hear is the wind whispering through the trees, and he was a happy man. Waving at a few folks he knew, he noticed someone getting up from a cushioned seat not far from the makeshift stage. This would be perfect—Suki could curl up in his lap and they could snuggle and relax for a while. As he grabbed the chair, he gave Sully a nod of acknowledgment. Sully was a little more bohemian than Tanner, what with his scruffy hair, bare feet, faded T-shirt, and threadbare jeans. Even after being at work all day, Tanner made sure he looked presentable. Not that you’d find him in a business suit, mind you; he lived in the Wild West, so his “business suit” was a pair of Patagonia pants and a Mountain Hardwear shirt that would be as useful rock climbing as it would be canoeing and dry in minutes.

The waitress came by to take his order, bending down to pet Suki. Tanner was friends with the waitstaff here, so it was not like he’d deliberately ogle any of these ladies, but it was hard not to, with their tight, scoop-neck T-shirts. It only served to remind him how long it had been since he’d been with a woman. Too damned long, even though he’d done this to himself. His last breakup hit him a little hard. It was with a woman he’d thought he could marry. But when she broke up with him because she didn’t want to compete for his attention with, as she said verbatim, “a bunch of strangers’ pets for the rest of her life,” he was left questioning his good judgment. How could he, a vet, have ever chosen someone like that?

It was enough to give a man a crisis of confidence. The waitress delivered his beer and he took a big swig as Sully returned from a brief break. Usually it took the crowd a few minutes to settle into the music after the performers had walked away, but this time it was kind of annoying. Some guy nearby was loud and drunk and harassing a woman who was seated next to where he’d been standing. He wished the woman would take her damned boyfriend home so the rest of the customers wouldn’t have to listen to it.

But even when Sully started strumming hard on the guitar, the voices of those two were rising higher and higher, eclipsing the music. Tanner was ticked off. He came here to relax, not to listen to some damned lover’s quarrel.

“Hey, lady!” Tanner heard the man shout, and as he glanced to his left, he saw her stand up and draw her arm back and immediately knew who it was and what she was doing. He jumped out of his seat, popping Suki onto the ground, where, startled, she promptly squatted and peed. But it didn’t matter. He had to take two long strides over there to keep that obviously still-aggressive Zoey Richards from giving the man she was with a bloody nose. He grabbed her from behind and pulled her into him, securing her left arm, thinking that would be enough to stop her from attacking.

But he clearly didn’t know how tenacious she was. She merely twisted around and turned her other arm on him, her fist making contact with his cheekbone, whatever sharp ring she had on pressing hard against his flesh. Goddamn, she had a strong arm. And she was a hell of little wildcat, she was.

By then, another guy had come over and grabbed her arms. Tanner kept her tight to him, her back spooned up to his belly. And even though she’d slugged him again, he became instantly and acutely aware of that pert little ass he’d glanced at before leaving the exam room, and how it was pressed against his cock, which was showing its appreciation by growing hard and proud, right up against the cheeks of her ass. She’d have to be clueless not to notice what the proximity of her body was doing to his.

And he had to be acutely aware that he was sporting a hard-on courtesy of the one woman in the world he would never, ever, ever dream of having sex with.

He needed to turn her around, pronto, before he came right there in his pants. He reached for her other hand as if she were a dance partner and twisted her around so they were pressed chest to chest, which frankly didn’t help matters with him.

Her eyes grew large as she recognized who he was. “Dr. Eliasson!”

He grabbed both wrists to prevent any further injury and held onto them tightly. “Ms. Richards. I see you’ve made quite an impression on the place already.”

She squirmed, trying to get out of his grip, then used a self-defense maneuver to extricate her hands from his clutches. “Look, it’s not what you think. This man was harassing me. I was trying to eat my meal in peace and he kept demanding I give him his seat back, but it wasn’t his seat; it was an empty chair. And this has been the worst day of my life, which is saying something, considering my fiancé left me for four other women, I’ve been abandoned by my shitty parents, and some idiot rammed my car, injuring my cat and my transmission. And now I have no place to sleep unless I hide in a tent overnight in the Great Outdoors Wilderness Shop.”

They were so close he could see her eyes welling with tears. God, he was a sucker for a woman who cried. He wanted to make it all better. Even when the woman was someone who’d made him cry.

He did what came naturally, and pressed her head to his chest while she unleashed a chain of sobs that could have called forth the dead.

“There, there,” he said, stroking her sexy hair, wanting to keep that stroke going all the way down her back and along the contours of her heart-shaped ass. Make that he wanted to in a general sort of way, not in a “with her” kind of way. Because, well, no way! This woman was about as off-limits as off-limits could be.

The thing is, Tanner knew he was cursed with this unstoppable need to rescue damsels in distress. So much so that he’d worked hard to redirect his efforts toward saving animals because it never turned out well when he rescued girls. As evidenced by that time he tried to help Zoey Richards out when she was a girl. Look at what that got him? A bloody nose and a reputation as a weenie. He needed to come up with a new hobby.

Whether he was chivalrous or merely a complete sucker, he could not leave a weeping woman without trying to help solve her problem. And he could solve this one with ease: he had rooms to spare; he could easily offer her up a place to sleep for the night, so the poor thing wasn’t left sleeping on the hardwood floor of the outdoors shop. Even though he had to give her props for creativity with that notion.

“Look,” he said. “I feel somewhat responsible for your being stuck here in Bristol tonight. Why don’t you come back to my place? I’ve got plenty of room for you.” He couldn’t believe his mouth was betraying him. After he’d been so darned certain he’d dodged the mortar fire.

Zoey lifted her head off his chest and gazed into his eyes. “You have no idea how you’ve made my day, Dr. Eliasson. I owe you for this.”

Oh, yeah. She’d owe him and he’d make her pay up: by getting the hell out of Bristol the minute he freed up ole Snowball in the morning.